the way to (t)here

Ok, I am entering the Twittersphere… reluctantly. I mean, it is a lot of pressure to be clever and articulate in 140 characters or less and to do it frequently enough without being tweet happy. The good news is I have approximately 3 followers at the moment, so I have time to get my tweet on and figure it all out. As a marketing pro by day, I need to be more fluent with Twitter anyway. I hear tweeting can be highly addictive. Luckily for me, I have an addictive personality. This should be just fine.

Here’s my handle, or whatever you might call it. @theway2there. Or I believe you can find me at www.twitter.com/theway2there. Or, you can click on the tweet tweet feature on the sidebar of the blog. Join me if you please.

On a separate note, I am aiming to post every day for the next 10 days, leading up to my weekend writing retreat. Trying to grease the wheels and build some momentum so that I can make the most of it. Wish me luck!

Only a week or so removed from Christmas, all you parents out there can empathize with me on one thing. Unclear instructions. I’m telling you, some of the toys for kiddos these days are impossible to put together, AND I suspect there are some people at the manufacturers having fun with us parental units by making the instructions really challenging to follow, just to see us sweat it out.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a toy fall to pieces upon final construction. Or for there to be several “extra” pieces just lying around. Or for some key feature not to work the way it is supposed to work. One time, my toddler just barely escaped being mauled by asphalt as the front wheel of his bicycle suddenly launched from the frame while he was in motion. I’m not good with instructions. And it’s not all my fault! At least I don’t think it is. Please tell me I’m not the only one. 

I also don’t think I’m alone in feeling like I NEED instructions. Want to see me panic? Hand me something semi-complicated to assemble and tell me there are no instructions for it. For the mighty and few out there who are super-duper handy men or women, maybe this doesn’t pertain to you. But us common people depend heavily on instructions. Simple tasks like operating a hotel coffee maker would suddenly become insurmountable obstacles without them. 

I say all that to reference a verse I read this week.

Malachi 3:6&7 – For I am the Lord, I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord. But you said, In what way shall we return?

I highlighted that last part because that’s where it got interesting. God basically says we should have been harshly punished years upon years ago for distancing ourselves from Him and not being obedient. He then says that because He is God, all we have to do is return to Him and He will return to us. It’s that easy to make amends. And what do we say back? We want instructions. We want it mapped out. Specifically and simply (sorry, now I am reading between the lines…probably why I’m not good with instructions anyway).

I’m convinced there is no one way. I’ve written about this before. Our path to God is highly personalized. I do believe we all start with some simple and common steps in that journey, but the instruction manual will quickly fail us if we’re trying to turn it into 6 easy steps for putting our relationship with God back together. We’ll be left with spare parts that don’t fit, or even worse, be completely non-functioning. Trust me, that is a dangerous place to be, whether you are a toddler on a defective bike or a Christian on a spiritual journey. 

Happy New Year! It’s resolution time I suppose.

Last year, I got serious and simple. One resolution, three words: Feed the Lake. Which was code for: Write. Every. Day.

That worked out better than any previous set of resolutions I’ve attempted. I wrote something you could actually consider writing on 120 days of the calendar in 2010. Not great with math, but that puts me just shy of 1/3 of the way to full completion of my resolution. Well, a .333 batting average in baseball is quite good, so I’ll take it. Given the current life situation I’m in right now with family, work, etc. I honestly didn’t anticipate getting to 50!

This year, I’m following suit and sticking to a single resolution, versus the 10 or 20 I usually take aim to complete. And this year, I can sum it up in one word. FINISH.

That’s short for FINISH THE BOOK. And that’s in reference to the book I’ve technically started. I am woefully stuck in the first 20 pages, and I need a spark to get me going again. So, a resolution is a good way of doing that. It’s not the only tactic I’m deploying. I’m also praying about it. Imagine that. Yep, finally got the whole prayer thing figured out. Just taking it to God. I’m also booking myself for a weekend writing retreat sometime in early February, where I will seclude myself from society and force myself to type until I self-induce carpal tunnel.  If anyone has recommendations for a cabin or other venue to rent for a weekend, I’m all ears.

In the meantime, I will continue to pray for what God would have me write. At this point I have a lot of raw content, but no real direction for it. I assume if I’m patient and attentive, it will all become clear in time. Meanwhile, I just keep stringing words together and jotting down random thoughts.

So, in 2011 I am finishing this book. And as a result, another chapter in my trek. And I’m not going to be satisfied with a .333 average this year either. I’m taking this resolution down. One way or another. God willing.

Surprise, surprise. Of all the fast-moving days where I don’t have time to hear myself think, much less write, here I am on Christmas day, with just such an opportunity to think and to write. After a crack of dawn Santa extravaganza, my entire family is sacked out in various corners of the house taking late-morning and well-deserved naps. I immediately seized the moment to do a little writing, specifically to reflect on today.

For me, Christmas is a great reminder that  the center of the Christian universe is the relationship between me and God. Nothing else. It’s so easy for me to get left of center and focused in the wrong direction, namely church. As I’ve mentioned before, church is not responsible for your complete and total spiritual walk. It’s an important part, a major contributor and supporter but NOT the center.

It’s interesting to me, because while organized religion will talk about the unmatched importance of your individual walk with God, most of your time spent in church is geared toward blanket doctrines and religious societal norms where there’s not much room for individual variance and interpretation. I believe firmly that relationship with God is indeed an individual practice, unbound by any single organization or denomination. The individual connection between myself and God trumps what is communicated to me generally and broadly in mass consumption.

That’s not terribly popular for me to say, because most of us have declared the church as the center of the universe and our relationships with God revolve around it.

We humans have always had trouble determining rotation. Copernicus was the first to clear up the misconception that the earth was the center of the universe and that everything revolved around our planet. As you might recall from your junior high history books, another well-known astronomer, Galileo, was publicly ridiculed and punished for defending the theory that the sun was actually at the center.

Much in the same way, we’ve again settled in on something earthly, the church, being the center when in reality it is the son. 

Today is Christmas, and there isn’t a better day to refocus and get back to orbiting the right center. To remember that organized religion plays an important role in fortifying us, but that the truly individual relationship we have with God is what should be our core. And sometimes, that might mean we carry beliefs that don’t align with the church or that we may act in ways that other Christians might not readily understand. I say that’s okay. Our journeys are not cookie-cutter  generic. They are highly individualized.

Why then would we expect God not to interact with us in an equally personal manner, instead of providing us all with a generic call and a generic path to grow closer to Him? Yes, there are common truths, characteristics, etc. that are foundational to our beliefs as Christians. But within that framework, I believe God has a highly specific, one-of-a-kind plan for each and every one of us. We’ll miss out on that if we rotate around doctrine and norms and organization instead of a relationship with Him.

With that, let say Merry Christmas to you and yours. And may we all refocus and revive our Godly pursuits.