2015 Goals

A new year, a new set of goals!  Last year I set a goal of getting into shape while working on my dissertation - I was not going to be "that overweight guy" defending my dissertation.  With a lot of exercise, discipline, and diet changes, I lost 35lbs and transformed from a tired, overweight, unhappy guy to a healthier and happier me.  In addition to the morning work-outs with Renew Fitness, I took on a challenge to run 5K - and participated in my first fun-run with Road2Hope in November...running the 5K in 29.16 min. 

The physical transformation is great and I've been buying new clothes to fit the new waist!  A completely unexpected part of the change has been psychological - I simply feel more resilient to the changes that swirl around me. I sleep better, snore less (!), and think that I am a better person to be around (there is always room for improvement...).

The dissertation has moved along steadily and there is light at the end of the tunnel - research finished up this summer and the analysis and writing of chapter 4 has stretched throughout the fall.  I'm wrapping up chapter 4 this week and will be moving on to chapter 5 and 6...the end is in sight!  60 more pages and lots of editing, rewriting, and polishing to go.  My goal is to submit a final copy by March 1 and defend in March for the July graduation (D.V.).  The timeline is particularly important as in May our first grandbaby is expected to arrive and I want to clear my schedule so I can be *that* grandpa with lots of photos. 

Goals for 2015: 1.  Integrate healthy spiritual practices into my daily routine (daily prayer and scripture reading).  2.  Finish the dissertation (March defense, July graduation).  3. Plan for financial health (debt free for 2020). 4. Continue the pursuit of healthy fitness (175lb and 5K in 25min).  5.  Post-dissertation, focus on strengthening my readiness for future career transition.

Why so many goals - well, thinking about turning 50 in 2015 has made me reflect more on what is ahead with only (!) 15 more years of employment.  What opportunities will there be for me - and how can I faithfully serve in God's Kingdom with the equipping that I have been granted?  I commit this year, these goals, and my life to God's service.  I pray for wisdom to discern his will, openness to receive his peace, and that his steadfast love surround me with mercy and grace.

God knows all...difficult questions in the midst of life

The past week my thoughts have not been focused on the dissertation.  Even as I (try to) write today, I'm thinking about a 32-year old man who was stolen from his family.  Tim Bosma, Susan's former 8th grade student, was trying to sell his truck, went on a test drive with two men and never came back.  Right now, an update from police is streaming into my ears - apparently an arrest has been made associated with this case.

Last week, I wrote about how it's impossible to know everything that God has made, and I was good with that.  Right now, I'm not good with knowing that Tim is missing...over the sale of a pick up truck.  I'm not okay with the brokenness that has crept into my community and world.  Why this event, why this person, why this family.  If God is good and in control of all things, why this pain?  And how does a dissertation on aspiration make sense when a person with a tattoo of the word "Ambition" has been involved in stealing a husband, father, son, brother, and a member of my extended Church community.  Ambition is an aspect of motivation and aspiration and now seems like a cruel word, loaded with a different set of meaning.

It is a test of faith for any believer to be patient and trust when grappling with the at times harsh realities of our world.  And so hard to not rush in and try to make meaning of the senseless and painful...I am struggling to hold back on making meaning and rest in Ecclesiastes reminder that God is in control and he is the source of meaning.   It is humbling in this moment too, to know that we cannot make sense of all things.  But I will try...

The police report is done.  An arrest has been made, but Tim has not yet been found.  There is renewed hope but no answers.  I don't think I can write today. 

Go to work in the morning

...and stick to it until evening without watching the clock.  (Ecc 11:6 The Message)

Ever notice how easy it is to let time float by when you're avoiding something?  And how slowly time can move when you're waiting for that 25 second computer update?

These two weeks have been a gift of time and yet I still have to learn the discipline of "going to work in the morning and stick to it until evening".  We are very time driven in North America - sometimes my work schedule is blocked out down to the minute and a necessary "trip down the hall" seems like an aggravation to my schedule.  Yet these past two weeks I can't say I have truly spent a straight 9 hours at writing.  I'm pleased with what I have accomplished, but wow.  One would think that I would have knocked out 30 pages over the two weeks, no problem.

"You never know from moment to moment how your work will turn out in the end" (Ecc 11: 6, The Message).  Comforting and sobering at the same time.  My writing, as with the rest of my life, is in God's hands.  I need to leave the mystery of time in his hands and work diligently.  Now to read and write....

Understanding at MUMC

Today I’m sitting in a quiet corner at the McMaster University Medical Centre with no internet signal.  An older friend of mine needed to go in for a variety of tests and since I am fairly “portable” at this moment, I decided to take her.  Yeah, don’t get too excited about me doing a good deed.  There is no internet connection.  This might be the most focused two hours of my week.

Ecclesiastes 11: 5 “As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”  It feels a bit odd to be drawn to this verse at this research hospital – renown for its pediatric care and research and neonatal centre.  This is a big-deal hospital in Canada!  They know stuff here – and can tell us all with great detail of how a body is formed.  There may be a few doctors for whom this verse might not make much sense.  Yet even at MUMC, we are surrounded by mystery – how disease functions in our bodies, disease that resists treatment or is untreatable, progressive degenerative disease, and the miracles of healing.

“…so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”  I take a great deal of comfort from this statement.  Humans cannot know all things and we need to lean into and embrace this limitation with humility and grace.

Internet-less for the morning, a good cup of coffee at hand, and no other option for my procrastination but to write or sit and do nothing, I am hopeful for good progress.

Finishing is better than starting?

Solomon sometimes makes some pretty obvious statements - and Ecclesiastes 7 v 8 is one.  Of course it is better to finish than to start...right?  Well, as I am starting the final part of my PhD journey, I think back to the starting of the journey at the Serra Retreat centre in Malibu.  What a start that was!  Sure, there was anxiety about the newness, but meeting 19 classmates and 5 faculty was exciting - and many of these people have become good friends.  Eventually my roommate from the weekend, Levi, was able to laugh about the lack of sleep as a result of my snoring.  The location on a hill overlooking the pacific was amazing and a great place to start a program - academically, socially, and spiritually.

I've been focused on the finish, the degree, the celebration with my family, and an important roadtrip to California with my son as we both finish our degrees (him a BSc, me PhD) at the same time.  But there is much to do in the next 12 months...the reality of which is looming large.  The final product has to be 200+ pages and I know that I'll have to write much more than that to get through the editing process.

The second part of verse 8, "Patience is better than pride" is a good reminder to me to be patient with myself and the process of writing. I'll need extra doses of patience and determination to reach all my writing deadlines in the next 12 months.  It is too easy to look at the finish ahead and the anticipation of the sense of accomplishment...and a strong caution about pride.  In the end, I am only a kid - a son of immigrants and a child of God - who is trying to making meaning out of the world that God has created.

Yesterday, I needed to be a dad to my kids - one who celebrated a first full-time job and another who unexpectedly ended up in a conflict.  I'm a husband and father first...so first things first.  And as I turn to my writing this morning, I pray for sharp insight, focus, determination, and patience as I start the finish.

Listen...

"The more words you speak, the less they mean.  So why overdo it? " Ecclesiastes 6: 11 NLT

Solomon's words are ringing true to me today.   How many words do we use each day and what is there meaning? James also gives advice to be careful what you say and the challenge of controlling the tongue.  
Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly. Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way. We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. (James 3, NLT).

There are a couple of ways to understand this message.  One is to watch what one says - good, practical, advice.  So many times I have caught myself saying things I don't mean...but also not saying something that I should say.  It's easier to be silent in the face of conflict or not share how my beliefs are in conflict with the action of others...or my own actions.  Words and silence both speak.

Another way I hear Solomon is to listen carefully to others.  In conversations, it's too easy to fill the void with my own voice or to be thinking ahead of how I will respond.  As a qualitative researcher it will be particularly  important to set aside what I think and listen to my participants say - and let their voice speak. 

Finally, words have meaning.  Understanding that meaning takes wisdom, understanding, patience, and grace.  Knowing what the words mean in the speakers context requires listening and asking for enough information to ensure that I know how the person is using the word.  Just as I attach meaning to words based on  my experience and life, so do others.

I pray that as I write today that I will be provided with a rich measure of insight and wisdom so that I am able to understand.  

Nothing under the sun is truly new.

Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1 vrs 9 writes "History merely repeats itself.  It has all been done before.  Nothing under the sun is truly new." (NLT).  A sobering way to being day 4 of writing.  Nothing is new?  And yet the university expects me to do original research?  Really?  If Solomon in all his wisdom arrives at this conclusion, who am I to try to find something new?

Yet there is this sense of reassurance in it as well.  The struggle to write, to create a centre of focus in my world is not new.  Generations of writers, scholars, preachers, farmers, brick layers, parents, and bakers all have struggled with the task of making meaning of the world around them.  My effort to make meaning out of a changing world and attempt to understand God's direction for the world is limited by my own limitations but also by the human condition - it is impossible to know what is next as it is in God's hand.

If there is, according to Solomon, no end to work, to study, to finding pleasure and each in and of themselves, each are meaningless, what is there - in life that is true?  Something that is true for me as an immigrant kid as it was for grandparents in a small village in the Netherlands?  Solomon tells us to enjoy life as a gift from God.

At this point, I have many gifts from God to celebrate in life.  The delight of watching my children transition into young adults full of potential and energy.  The joy of work that allows me to lead a team of great colleagues who each make a difference in the lives of students.  The simple delight of turning dry beans into a pot of something delicious.  The comfort and peace of a 25 year marriage.  Friends who extend my world beyond my home.  A church family that nourishes my spiritual life through the act of putting painted hands on a piece of fabric.  The creativeness of an energetic group of 10-year olds in Sunday School.

On to writing and shaking some more thoughts out of my head so I can write a literature review.

"Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone's duty." (Ecclesiastes 12 v 13"