Thursday, February 17, 2011

Life Mapping 1

In case you haven’t noticed (if there is still anyone still reading this, haha) this blog has shifted in focus pretty dramatically since it started in 2004. Back then, I wrote pieces on a lot of different things… some religious in nature… some hobbies and passions of mine… family updates… those types of things. It was a mish-mash for sure.

I feel like it’s shifted recently to almost an on-line journal. This is less what I should write that will entertain the people reading… and more about writing publically concerning the things that are going on inside of me. And over the past year and a half… I feel like there has been a deep heart transition taking place within me. It’s really quite difficult to explain. And because this is so… I really haven’t communicated it with a lot of people. I look at this blog as a bit of an outlet, I guess. I really haven’t disclosed much here in regard to what this transition is… mostly because I still feel that I’m in the midst of it… but it’s a good place to write and put down into words what I’m feeling, wrestling with and thinking about. Anyway, here’s another personal evaluation post: Take from it what you can

I recently had a breakfast meeting with a man who I’ve asked to mentor me. It’s been a joy to connect with him. He has a wealth of information to pass along in terms of psychology and learning to process certain types of life management type things. He showed me a model that he had picked up in his own journey. It was a funnel… with a wide top at the beginning which represented childhood, teen years and the 20’s. It symbolized how wide open the possibilities are in that phase of life… lots of choices and directions and things you could invest your life in. The funnel narrowed dramatically… and he said this represented the 30’s. It’s there where, traditionally, you’ve identified what career path you are firmly in… and in fact… this is the time where you really understand how you fit specifically within your own field.

The graph moves on to show a line in the funnel… which represents the 40’s and how there are times when our choices in our late 20’s and early 30’s end up not going quite the way we’d like it to go and so we need to refocus… or maybe we are in the field we are supposed to be in… but we’ve experienced some mission drift and need to figure out a way to leverage our gifts so that we are making the most of the time we have left working in this field.

The graph widens again at 60… I can’t remember what he said about this exactly… but it seems like this represents retirement from your chosen field… and a time when you could involve yourself in just about anything you want again… the possibilities widen to a certain point in retirement when you aren’t constrained by time of your full time occupation.

It was interesting to see it illustrated like it was… and obviously there are many exceptions to the rule… but I thought I’d throw this out into cyberspace as a two part post. The first is this one. My next one will be much more personal in how I see myself fitting into the various points of the graph. Be back soon.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Introverts In the Church 4.4

I’m finally going to finish processing chapter four. McHugh spends some time breaking down his personal ‘rule of life.’ These are the following questions that he has asked of himself to develop a rule of life that works for him:

• What are the times of the day when I feel the most energized?
• When do I feel the most tired?
• How much sleep do I need?
• What are the physical habits that energize me? Drain me?
• When do I most feel the need for solitude?
• How do I find soul rest?
• What are the spiritual disciplines where I feel most restored by God
• What are the relationships in which I feel the most refreshed? Most drained?

McHugh has developed a rule of life centered around rhythms that work for him. He finds that his relational stamina is drained as he proceeds through the day… so he takes that into consideration. He builds in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly activities to keep him at healthy levels of relational energy.

He recommends building in a few habits that have been helpful to him: Intercession, study and reflective reading, journaling and writing, silence and centering prayer, and Sabbath. Three of those five have been very helpful to me… and I’d like to get better at all of them.

The above ‘rule of life’ questions are helpful. I am most energized at the beginning of the day… by far. I am much like McHugh in that way… my best relational energy time is in the morning… early afternoon. I feel the most tired at night… right about 9PM. I usually need about 7 to 8 hours to feel normal. I can get by with 6 every now and again… but it will catch up with me eventually. I don’t take naps very often… so it’s important for me to stay disciplined with getting to bed at a decent time. The rest of the questions are even more important…

For instance, I’m going to start building in two monthly rhythms into my schedule… one which will help me be more intentional about doing future-tense ministry planning… and the other which is designed to help me recover from ‘meeting hangover’ without taking it out on my family. So each month, I plan on getting out of the office two work days a month. The first will be to hole up somewhere… like the public library… or somewhere else where I can work uninterrupted on future tense ministry planning.

The second will be scheduled after a particular monthly meeting which has the tendency to suck the life out of me. That day will be spent off-campus… but the focus will not be future tense… because that tends to be the last thing I want to think about after this particular meeting. The focus will be on relationship building with God; finding soul-rest; being with people who encourage me; and protecting myself from things, people, and conversations that will send me deeper into hangover mode. I can let this one meeting affect me for an entire week if I let it… so the goal is to minimize the ‘hangover’ time as much as possible… so that I can get back on stable emotional and relational footing quicker than I have in the past.

I’m sure more rhythms will come into focus as I continue to explore this book further.

The next chapter is one that I have great interest in reading: The title: ‘Introverted Community and Relationships.’