One word: Reorganization

My top 5 priorities (aside from work. unfortunately that’s a given)

1. family time
2. organized household
3. permaculture/homesteading
4. church/youth group
5. education

Unfortunately, this will mean being a bit of a hermit and less accessible. I’m not sure how this will play out, but it has to be done. Anything that doesn’t fit with these priorities has got to go! (at least for now)

In my last post, I mentioned the emergence of a modified “Daniel” fast manifesting in my daily routine for a period of 10 days. In said post, I promised routine updates. As you may (have) notice(d), such updates did not occur. Any of you trying to be a good parent/spouse/Christ follower/friend/youth pastor/hacker (sorry, “Technology Enthusiast”)/employee/(social) human being can probably relate to the absolutely oppressive feeling of “Why Bother” when it comes to finding time for such things as blogging.

This month, BGE called in an outstanding balance allegedly DUE to them, backed by the threat of termination on my power service. Terminate! We don’t even keep the heat above 65 for more than a few hours a day - and even then, it doesn’t do a lick of good. Jess spent an hour on the phone trying to get someone to help us find a happy medium- a budget plan - something that will make it so we don’t lose our heat in the middle of winter while we have a 10 month old son! So far this winter, I’ve paid Constellation Energy what I can. Not in full- not by any means. We can’t afford it. When our rent hits on the 1st of March, it will bounce our account. Whatever. Times are hard and money is fleeting.

As the season of Lent approaches, I find meaning and and a sense of hope that by minimizing my desires, I might become more sensitive to the abundance that is freely available from our Heavenly Father - sensitive and receptive to the fact that He will continue to provide despite my yearnings for security and assurance in this earthly realm! I think that such an awareness is what I had in mind, what I was seeking, when entering into my (prematurely broken) Daniel fast. I want there to be less of me and more of Him. Less of me wanting and more of my needing wife and son.

Unfortunately, it seems that I’ve been missing the mark over and over again. In trying to be “all things to all people”, my immediate family has taken the shortest end of the stick. This is not what I have had in mind by taking on other responsibilities - by following things that I truly believe to be callings. Did the Lord not lead me back to Baltimore? Did He not deliver me into the positions of ministry and employment in which I currently operate? Why then, do these things seem to interrupt so rudely the ebb and flow of my family life? Would YHWH truly call me to do things that make my wife to feel miserable and lonely, and cause me to be a relative stranger to my own son?

So I’m considering my Daniel fast to have been a practice round. Despite my Protestant upbringing and subsequent knee-jerk distaste for so-called “pagan rituals”, such as following the Holy Calendar, I have chosen to observe Lent this year. Despite also my general discomfort with the decision made at the First Council of Nicea to separate Easter (Pascha in the East) from Jewish Passover, I will follow the Season of Lent in the manner and days adherent to that of the majority of Christians in the world (i.e. the Western way ^.^ ). In so doing, I aim to accomplish three goals: Finding time to dedicate to prayer twice daily, spending most or all of my free-time (heck, even just creating “free-time”) with my family, and cultivating an inner tranquility (which sounds trite for sure, but people I have next to none- believe me).

So that’s where things stand these days. I covet your prayers for my family and for the areas in which I / we minister (namely the youth group and the Faith Center).

(if you’re reading this on facebook, please drop your comments not here but on my blog at [shameless self-promo again] http://www.spklr246.com)

I’m on my third day of a sort-of fast. Inspired by/based on the Daniel Fast model, I’m avoiding the following for ten days:

• meat
• dairy
• sweets
• television
• secular music
• caffeine
• alcohol
• any beverage besides water or unsweetened herbal tea

My reasons for doing so are varied, but most notably to detoxify mind/body/spirit and spend more time in prayer and meditation. I’ve been reading some interesting things on the topic of over-stimulation and its relation to depression, lethargy, and spiritual stunting. More on that some other time, but be it known that I think I’m someone who suffers accordingly.

At any rate, the “fast” is going fairly well so far. I crave sweets more than anything, so it’s sweets that I’m avoiding with the utmost vigor. I did eat some fish last night, but it was a wonderful meal prepared for Jess and myself by some dear friends of ours - I’d have been a fool to turn it down =) Excuses, excuses, I’m sure. However, I truly don’t feel convicted on it - my purpose is to avoid the “Babylonian” pleasures, if you will - the likes of which this salmon dinner, prepared in a spirit of love and friendship, certainly was not.

I’ll keep you (whoever you are… if you even exist) posted on my progress here.

What’s ironic/tragic about it all is that Harold would never have conducted himself in such a grumpy way as I did on the day of his funeral, and the surrounding weeks. This realization has prompted me to begin a personal “What Would Harold Do?” campaign (complete with trendy bracelets). My grandfather is the greatest role-model I’ve ever had. I’ve never met another human-being who so emulated Christ and carried himself with such character and kindness as Harold did.

As a first step towards Haroldness (and subsequently, Christlikeness - not to put the two on the same level by any means; remember, we’re talking about role-modeling here, not idolatry), I’ve given myself a challenge that I probably should have been adhering to for a long time now. Too bad it took a situation like this to prompt me further. At any rate the challenge is simple: to spend just 10 minutes a day in prayer and meditation. Sounds simplistic and trite, for sure, but it’s something I don’t do. Surely I pray and spend time in the Word now and then, but I haven’t yet mastered the discipline of daily devotion. My aim is to create a habit of it, in hopes of cultivating the soil in my heart for positive things to grow, and weeding out all of the bad attitudes and grumpiness that have taken root over so many years.

So now that I’ve stated my intentions publicly (to you, my non-existent audience), let me go make good on my promises.

A quick web search resulted in no conclusive determination as to the identity of this Bill Garrett.  Nevertheless, I am simultaneously in agreement with and in awe of this succinct observation.  More often than not, people (even relatively tech savvy people) will gawk in disbelief at the notion of preferring to operate in a command-line environment over its graphical counterpart.  “Isn’t that like the Stone Age of computing?!”, many will exclaim. Far from it, my friends. While the *nix (UNIX and clones: GNU/Linux, BSD, etc.) command line is most certainly minimal and not immediately user-friendly, I can assure you that (at least based on observations in my brief years of experience) there are scant few tools more robust and powerful in all of Computerdom - perhaps even the world.

Don’t get me wrong, GUI (graphical user interface - think windows, desktops, and mouse-pointers, for those of you who are less-than-savvy and unfortunate enough to be reading this post) has its place. Surfing the web, playing games, watching videos, image editing - these are just a few tasks which GUI computing has revolutionized.  I typically do operate in a GUI environment (albeit delightfully minimal - as close to CLI as possible: http://www.xmonad.org) However, as Mr. Garrett alludes here, there seems to be more limitation than agility when we rely on the pretty pictures to guide us through the mountains and valleys of Productivity. 

Last week I had the privilege of speaking to a wise and perceptive individual who shared with me an acute insight into my grandfather’s personality. He commented on the observation that many people become increasingly harsh and unyielding in their dealing with other humans as they age. “But not Harold,” he said. “Harold always had something encouraging to say, regardless.”

His words hit me like a ton of the proverbial bricks. How have I, in my relative-youth (by comparison to Grandpa who died 50 years my senior), become a sour ‘old man’? More importantly, how do I undo what’s been jaded? I don’t want my family to be forced to walk carefully around the fragile-eggshells of my poor attitude and loose tongue. I find myself empathizing with Elisha when pleading for a ‘double-helping’ of the spirit of his mentor.  Can I get a dose or two of whatever Harold had?  Can I ever be half the man that he was?  A quarter, even?  I want to mark this moment in my life as the time I gave up grouchiness and dove fully into the Ocean of Joyfulness and Tolerance!

Oh my, now you’re just getting a little too excited, Josh. Why don’t you grow up?

That being said, I should probably go do something useful.  I stayed home from work today under the pretenses of ‘working from home’, when in actuality I just meddled with my home network setup for most of the day (or at least what was left of it after sleeping until 11:30 am).

I don’t know if I’m actually reeling inside from this whole thing with Grandpa or what.  I’ve felt strangely calm since he passed-  maybe even relieved.  It didn’t even phase me one bit to arrive at his house last night after receiving the news and promptly assist in lifting him, lifeless, from the bed as the hospice care nurse was removing his personal clothing from his then-empty vessel.  Maybe I’m too accustomed to compartmentalizing and mentally removing myself from a situation.

Whatever the case, I do feel at peace with his passing.  I said my goodbyes a week ago.  The saddest thing for me in all of this is that my son will never know what a truly incredible person he was while on earth.  The stories, heartwarming as they are, will never do justice to the life he lived.

I’ve heard some folks say that if he were to die, it would be a triumph for evil;  that Death would have prevailed.  I disagreed with them then and I disagree with them now.  Harold Burkholder lived a life so humble, so reverent, and so compassionate that even in his death the Father is glorified.  Never before have I seen my family (church and otherwise) come together and offer love and support to each other in the way they did during the months and weeks leading up to his passing.

To God be the glory. Death, you have no victory here.

Now I should really go plan my lesson for youth group…

Thus begins my adventure in blogging…