First 2019 blog and transitions

2019 First Blog and Changes

By the Panhandling Philosopher, Dan McDonald

 

            In this first blog for the year 2019, I am announcing my plans to transition from the work place of much of my past thirty years, to a retired life where one of my focuses will be on writing. I am hopeful that this is just as it was perhaps meant to be. I don’t like to speak of being where we were supposed to be in a flippant matter. Life unfolds in mystery. One day you look over your life and think about what life has prepared you for, what you enjoy, what brings joy from your life to others, and you realize, “I think life has prepared me for this.”

            Few of us get the sort of direct input from the heavens that says you should do this or this other thing. A story is told of one farmer who was convinced he saw a clear sign from heaven. He was working one of his fields. He looked up into sky and as clear as day he saw a cloud with the letters P and C able to be clearly seen. He told the story to his minister and believed God was telling him he was meant to preach Christ. The minister wanted to test if this was God’s leading. He arranged for him to preach. It wasn’t terrific but at least it was earnest. He arranged a second time, and some felt it was boring. A third time and some members were threatening to leave if he ever preached again. Finally the minister tried to figure a way to urge the farmer to think of his vision in a different way. The minister tried diplomatically to break the news to the farmer. The farmer, while disappointed, had to admit he felt it wasn’t going well. The minister then suggested to him, “Maybe God wanted you to know He appreciated your work when you plant corn."

            I think we all sometimes deal with that desire to be more than we are, rather than what we already are. We know there is wisdom in learning to do well where we have been planted rather than to toss all that ways of life we have learned to live to become something we have never been. We live in a world where are taught to chase dreams, but sometimes we are not told that the dream becomes reality through self-preparation, discipline, and training. Following our dreams should imply to us that our dreams are connected to a path of diligence to bring those dreams into the reality in which we live. I am persuaded that the most direct path to a wasted life is following a dream without that dream being joined to a method of diligence and a way of discipline.

            In my life, I have always had a desire to write. I have also had a job that took a lot of my time, and left me tired. I am not sure whether that tiredness was rooted in me, or in the work itself. Personally I have loved to write. Practically my job paid the bills. A friend’s sister in college had embroidered on one of his shirts the words, “Variety may be the spice of life, but monotony brings home the bread.” However much that spoke to his life I am not sure, but it has spoken to mine.

            Looking back at my life from the mirror of my memories, I am  mostly grateful that most of my writing didn't discover a large audience. I have passed through a number of temporary stages in my life that I am glad don't necessarily represent where I am now. I have passed through the shifting winds of socio-economic-political firestorms. I was convinced right wing firebrand, blooming individualistic libertarian, moderate, inquirer of a more progressive commons based progressivism. The one thing I have learned to lean upon at this stage in my life is that Solzhenitsyn expressed a great truth when he described good and evil as forming the dividing line crossing every human heart. This is true whether you or I am Conservative or Liberal, progressive or moderate, individualistic capitalist or collective socialist. Each of us struggles with that dividing line between good and evil running across every human heart. It is why the manna for life had to be gathered fresh each and every day in the Wilderness. It is why we pray in the Lord's Prayer that each day we be given our daily bread. Each day we wake up to the reality that angels labor on our behalf and demons seek to incite us to their ways of chaos and destruction. I have had years with a very small audience, that gave me time to realize that for every nugget of value I have written there has been a lot of dirt and dross needing removed.

            Gradually my writing has been refined having learned that my writing needed improvements, and my thinking needed to be guided by carefulness and moderation. I learned contentment with having a small audience. It is better to be mentored and corrected in our perspectives than being given a big audience for which we are ill suited.

            In the past year, my thinking has changed. A particular writing project has become part of my vision. It requires preparation, study, research, and time to develop its themes. I can see it passing those tests of questions like "Will this speak compassionately to others? Will this be interesting to readers? Will this encourage a fresh perspective that might move a reader from "Yeah this again" to "Ah ... this". I have hopefully moved forward from participation in the culture wars to bringing me along with others to approach that throne of grace where God asked us through the Prophet Isaiah to come. In the King James it is presented as a call to come and reason with God. In the more modern Catholic translation of the same verse the invitation comes to us, “Come now, let us set things right, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:19 New American Bible) My great desire is not to address the divisions of our culture wars, but to address the divisions of good and evil that do indeed run across every single human heart. That is the place where angels labor, and demons invade.

            I have long loved to write. But only in the last year has my vision for a writing project seemed to be something important enough that my writing move from pleasant hobby or happy privilege to being something I think worthwhile to make a priority. I am not expecting it to be a masterpiece, though I hope to give it my best labors. But I do hope that whatever I write be worthy of some pondering, and hopefully illuminating to some human aspect that is essential to our living our lives together whether in our churches, neighborhoods, or shared communities.