21040324 - A Busy Month, a Brief Sabbatical

You know that feeling when sometimes life and work just get away from you? I think it’s been that kind of a month for me. Redecorating a bathroom, publishing a white paper, plotting marketing strategy, shuffling blogs between web hosts…it seems like all have conspired to keep me from my commitment to writing at least one post each week on Tuesdays. And I miss it, the regular writing that is. I’ll see if I can get that straightened out in the not-too-distant future.

I’m reminded that writing is not only something I love to do, but indeed work, and I’m trying to keep four blogs going on a fairly regular basis; i.e., a lot of work. But it’s really a matter of balancing commitments and priorities between work and home life. There aren’t any easy answers to that challenge. But a lack of balance leads to a lot of distraction and then nothing good happens at work or at home.

Does that happen to you? I suspect most people deal with a lack of balance and motivation from time to time. I found that active participation in the sandwich generation before our recent shift to empty-nesting often brought on the feeling of things getting away from me and the subsequent lack of motivation and need for recharge time.

One of my favorite bloggers, Becky at Interstellar Orchard, recently posted about self renewal and her need for alone time to recharge. Cherie at Technomadia also mentioned the need she and Chris have for quiet and distance to recharge. I find I’m much the same in that I need that quiet separation to renew and recharge. Without that time my writing becomes labored and lacking in interesting or compelling messages. Enthusiasm wanes and it becomes hard to write anything at all. That’s the time to step back from the keyboard, turn the computer off for awhile and let the mind wander to places it hasn’t visited for a time.

I’ll be doing a little more of that over the next three weeks or so. At the same time D and I are tackling a new project which will remain rather hush-hush for now. Don’t worry; we’ll let you know how it works out when the time is right.

Meanwhile, fear not. The writing fire is not dead; I’ve banked it as the pioneers used to do, to keep the coals ready while I rest. Fresh thoughts will stoke the fire and purposeful pondering will return to these pages soon, so keep checking in.

Recharging and refocusing…Pops

20140305 – A Choir Devotion

Where and when do you hear God’s voice? When I was thinking about prayer time I thought, why not look at one of the many daily devotionals we have around the house. Going to Guideposts Daily Devotional for 1998, I checked out the entry for March 5 and this is what I found:

“There are days when I open my Bible to read and fall into the middle of a desert. This morning I was standing outside the walls of Jerusalem with the fiery prophet Jeremiah, lambasting the callous high priest. The biblical scene, set in an ancient world six hundred years before the birth of Christ, seemed foreign and irrelevant to my life and needs. I nearly stopped reading. I did not want to stroll through the arid dust of history.

“When I finished my Bible reading and began to write in my journal, I found these words flowing across the page: “Sometimes I read the Bible and there is nothing there. Only silence. Yet, even in that still silence I am strengthened; I am drawn to a holy presence. It’s like two good friends who sit quietly alone, content in each other’s company.”

“God is such a friend. He is often silent. He does not speak at my demand. But as I grow older, I find I need less of His voice and more of His presence. Just to know that he is with me is enough. Perhaps that’s why the ancient Psalmist wrote in his journal, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).” – Scott Walker

I thought about the many times that I relish the silence and I listen for God in it. But then I began thinking about the contrarian point of view, about the times when I most often hear God’s voice through the noise, through the cacophony of voices and static and busyness of life. And I realized that it’s through the music.

David Mayer, a former director of ours, once wrote a poem about how he views music as being magnified prayer – the one over on the wall that is often forgotten in the rush to get ready to sing and to move on when we’re done. Maybe music is not only magnified prayer but it is also God’s voice, answering prayer. And I thought that the time and place that I often hear God’s voice is here, through all of you, my friends and choir family; through the music we make together.

The music we make stirs powerful emotions in me. It stirs the joy I feel when we sing Fill-a-me-up and see Lynette dancing and laughing in the aisle, and the tears of gratefulness that rise when we sing Benedictus. It stirs deep seated memories of long departed friends when we sing It Is Well with My Soul. And it strengthens me when we sing old favorites like Rock of Ages, and new ones like a recent Sunday’s hymn: Behold the Lamb.

For me music is prayer, and God’s answer, all rolled into one. It’s God’s voice, speaking to me through all of the noise of life. And I am eternally grateful that the music we make together is a central part of my life and my faith. Right here and right now, through the music, is when I most often hear God’s voice.

Will you pray with me?

Dear heavenly Father, we stand in awe of your power and your grace, of your ability to communicate with us in so many unique and wonderful ways. We are blessed that you speak to us through the music and that you let us share your gift of music and your message with others every time we sing. And we are thankful for the ways in which music lifts our spirits and calms our troubled souls. We pray that your power to inspire and to heal reaches those we’ve lifted up to you tonight. And we ask your continued blessing on us, those you’ve called to sing your message, your undeserving children, through your precious son Jesus Christ, Amen.

20140304 – To Simplify…

As I review the list of blogs I read these days I find more and more of them have to do with full time RV living and thus with simplifying lives and lifestyles. Hmm…perhaps mentally I’m more retired than my work life would suggest!

Anyway, from one who chooses to live in a Volkswagen Vanagon full time, to those who live in a 17 foot travel trailer towed by a pickup truck, to those who live in a forty foot class A diesel pusher towing a car, to the few who have a sticks and bricks house and travel a lot for extended periods, the common theme seems to be living simple and uncluttered lives. Those that are successful accomplish exactly what they want, go where and see what they want, and even manage to earn a living in some cases, or live out their retirement dreams in others.

It prompts me to think about what would happen to a business if you applied the same effort to simplify things. First I think you would need to apply the idea of simplifying a business slightly differently than you would the idea of simplifying your lifestyle. Why? Well, some businesses are, by their very nature or purpose, extremely complex. Others could be relatively uncomplicated to begin with.

In reality though there are a lot of similarities between simplifying your life and simplifying your business. Both would involve a laser sharp focus on what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Both would involve getting rid of clutter. Both would involve streamlining processes and doing only the right things right. And for home-based businesses and sole proprietorships the line between home life and business life becomes pretty indistinct.

So simplifying a business might be thought of in the context of refining and zeroing in on the purpose of the business, streamlining the business activities to focus only on fulfilling that purpose, and de-cluttering the business of unnecessary, inefficient and duplicative processes. The desired result of all of this simplifying activity would be a high performance business that is fulfilling its declared purpose.

Where would one start the process of simplifying a business for better performance? Well, rather than risk boring all of my Tuesdays with Terry readers I think that question and this topic in general would better be explored at length on my business blog Better Business Basics. We’ll pick up the story over there.

Just for this week - shifting gears to business…Pops