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| Must get back into blogging. Want to desperately. Need to. All I have is this right now, a revelation of sorts.
"I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living." (Ps. 27:13)
I am discovering many new things right now that need to be written about... but this also happens to be crunch week for me at work. Maybe I can start blogging in small posts to get back into it. The last few posts have been so big, the expectation has been so high... sigh.
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| Well, I've been reminded that I've apparently dropped off the planet as far as this blog is concerned, and since I haven't drifted off into outer space just yet, it's time for me to write. It's time for me to write in more ways than one. Writing is a healthy thing for me, kind of like exercising for my mind and heart, a chance to pour out what's inside of me and process things. You just get to listen. :)
If writing is exercising my mind and heart, then I've become the emotional equivalent of a Supersize Me commercial. I've withdrawn and gotten lazy, and my isolation has been hurting me. Sure, I'm involved with a lot of people in my community for work and play and church, but I'm pretty sure I'm an introvert, and I can only take so much of being sociable. This writing is important for me. It's also important that it's not just writing in my journal. There's something about the fact that this writing is public, that it might possibly be read by somebody, in particular by someone I know, that adds a different quality to the writing process, something that demands a higher quality, more of a refining process than otherwise.
In any case, hopefully I'm landing back on the planet now. And since I have been M.I.A., here's a bit of an update to cover the time since my last post.
- September was meant to be my last month at my current contract, but the project wasn't anywhere close to being done, and after a few conversations with the guy who recruited me for this contract, I agreed to finish out the project and come work for him directly afterwards, perhaps in the November time frame.
- At the end of September I got the chance to come home to Indiana for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday with my family. It was good to be home and to see some folks at Vecinos. Everybody's getting married or getting pregnant; it's crazy!
- After returning I began in earnest to raise support for a missions trip to Peru planned for the first week of November with e3 Partners Ministry. At the same time I was preparing spiritually, and I was blessed as I took extra time to draw near to God. It was a good process for me.
- Before I knew it we were leaving for Peru. One other person from my church went also; the rest were from other churches around the country. We met in person for the first time at the Miami airport, then flew to Lima and on to the city of Piura where we spent a week going door-to-door sharing the gospel and beginning discipleship through Bible study with those who accepted Christ. It was an exciting trip! I loved being there and developing relationships, for the most part through my translator (no habla espanol), with the families we met. I discovered I had a lot of fears about sharing the gospel in this direct a fashion; I was worried I would miss something, not emphasize the right things, not catch on to what they needed to hear, or not be sensitive to the Spirit's leading. But those things are up to God, and it was a blessing to see a number of families come alive with a new understanding of what Christ did and what it means for them.
- On our last day in Peru we were tourists in Lima, and I got to go paragliding! It was amazing. I will hopefully have pictures soon. We also visited some Incan ruins called Pachacamac and went shopping for gifts to bring home with us.
- Needless to say, the project at work was not done in November; rather, the powers that be agreed to keep us on until the end of January. This is all fine and good, but they might want to extend things further, and if the goal is to finish out the project, this makes it very difficult to plan for what's next. Fortunately, the intensity of the work has definitely tapered off, and I managed to negotiate a part-time schedule with my boss. Starting this week I'll have Thursdays off, and I'll finally get to start doing some real research into some of my own project ideas. My recruiter confirmed that I had a contract waiting for me when I'm done with this one, and it will be part-time as well, so I should be able to continue to explore my own ideas on the side. This is a big answer to prayer!
- I'm seriously considering leasing a cube (office-speak for cubicle) as my office space for my next contract and for my own work, since my next contract will be a "work from home" job. The rent for the cube is comparable to rent for a small apartment in Indy. Crazy.
- I may be moving to a new apartment soon. If you think about it, please pray that God will provide the right place, one that will be an uplifting environment as I step out into some new adventures.
So that's where things stand right now. Thanksgiving was good this past week. I celebrated with friends from church, spending time first with the family of one friend and then later with one of our pastors and his family. I told the pastor we would never have a twelve-pack of Pacificas at a pastor's house in Indiana. I like my church. :) I also got to go camping this weekend in the mountains about a half an hour north as the crow flies. We maneuvered a motor home into a campground right amidst the redwoods. It was gorgeous. Now I'm back and tired, but it was good to get away.
Even so, life is hard. I spent a good amount of time over the past week depressed, feeling hopeless and faithless, forgetting the truth about God and about who He says I am. I've been trying to keep believing that God has a plan for me, that he's prepared good works for me to walk in and that he's making me a blessing. When I'm isolated it's easy to turn-inward and forget the great work God has done. Hopefully this is a start at remembering.
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So I’ve realized that I’m one of those people who’s in the
middle of reading five or more books at a time.
Right now I’m reading The Book of Bebb, by Frederick Buechner, The
Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri Nouwen, Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott,
and The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. I
kind of like this fact about me; I feel like it makes me some sort of
eccentric, although this is probably not the case. I guess it does mean that I like to read, and
I’m glad of that. For a while I thought
I’d forgotten how to enjoy reading, but I think that might have been because I
put pressure on myself to commit myself to a single book at a time, and that
wasn’t working. Now I’ve relaxed, and
picking up The Fountainhead on Sunday and diving right in didn’t bother me at
all. In fact, I’m quite happy and proud
of myself to be reading a classic.
I found out about this one from the guy sitting next to me
on the plane on the way back from Seattle
a few weeks ago. Looking over his
shoulder I couldn’t see who the author was, so I asked him about it and found
out he (the guy next to me) is an architect, which is what the book is
about. I was fascinated, having seen Ayn
Rand’s name often, but never having read any of her work. This past Sunday I stumbled upon a used book
sale at the San Jose
State University
book store, and I picked up The Fountainhead and another novel by Chaim Potok
for $1. Sweet. I had no idea Rand
was (is?) a WWII-era author—Fountainhead was published in 1943.
Lately I’m also realizing that I’m fascinated with
engineering in general, but with construction in particular. A while back I picked up a coffee table
volume called Industry, Architecture and Engineering: American Ingenuity from 1750 to 1950 from a book store in
Mountain View (on sale for $10, score again).
Modern bridge construction is mind-boggling; civil engineering of that
sort is beautiful (and Seattle
is full of wonderful specimens).
Indulging a family fascination with trains I also recently picked up a
volume on American railroads. In any
case, reading about architecture now is right up my alley. I’m definitely going to have to make Wikipedia
my friend for this read—for example, what on earth is a stringcourse? I think I have a good guess, but I need to
read up. FYI, no word from the venture capitalist folks... hmmm.
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| Today I received e-mails from two good friends about a huge opportunity
that just opened up in the tech world today. Many of you have heard of
or have joined the online community called Facebook, a quickly growing
social network that has made headlines for its growth and more recently
for opening up its platform for new online software development on top
of its existing social network. Facebook has created quite a stir with
this move because of the unprecedented support they are providing for
such development and because of their bid to become the first "social
operating system" on which countless other applications can be built.
I
have been watching these events closely for a few months now, even
before Facebook opened their platform so widely, inspired by the level
of awareness that Facebook allows its users to have of friends'
activities and personal news. I have been brainstorming about what
could be done, and some of you know that I've been talking about and
working on creating an application to allow users to share prayer
requests (and answers, and other related info) with their friends on
Facebook. I've also been thinking about ways that Facebook concepts or
now the Facebook platform itself could be used in business and generate
a revenue stream. Such entrepreneurial thoughts are a large part of my
coming to Silicon Valley in the first place. :)
Today's new announcement
presents an incredible opportunity for me to pursue these ideas and
take them to a whole new level. A venture capitalist firm called Bay
Partners has announced their intention to fund a significant number of
new startup companies that will be building their businesses around and
on top of Facebook. They are interested in funding good-sounding ideas
quickly, since the funding amounts are small (relatively) and they want
to take the lead in this new field. This has me giddy. I believe I
can put together an application for such funding in the next couple
days and have a really good chance not only to be funded, but also to
benefit from the support and guidance that the venture firm would
provide in the process. This is where I need prayer.
I
quit my job in Indiana last September to move out here, not knowing
what God had in store for me. He has provided for me in wonderful ways
since I moved, from the place that I live, to the church that I attend,
to places that I've worked. I have specifically taken jobs that are
non-long-term, knowing that I want to be free to explore new things
that come along. I have done my best to get connected in the area,
attending developer community events, meeting people, and paying
attention to startup news and trends. I have been trusting that God
will provide the right opportunity at the right time for me to explore
the interests I believe he has given me. This latest opportunity with
Facebook fits what I have been working towards, and I was wondering if
you would pray with me about this possibility.
I
am planning to take the day off tomorrow to put together my application
for funding. Would you please pray that God would lead me and give me
wisdom and words as I do so? Please pray that I might receive favor
with the venture firm, that they would take interest in my application
and my ideas and see my enthusiasm and willingness to commit myself to
such an endeavor. Please pray that God would orchestrate all of the
details, and that his will would be done (and that I would be able to
accept it, if things don't go the way I'd like) and that his purposes
would be accomplished in and through me. I believe I am called to be a
light here in my field and specifically in the startup world, to I have
consistently felt drawn. Please also pray that whether or not I get
funded, the prayer request-sharing application on which I've been
working would find success and be a blessing.
Thank you for reading and for your prayers! I am really excited about this and can hardly wait to see what will happen. | | |
| I had heard there was actually a book called Cat and Dog Theology, and it turns out there is. It looks at the behavior of cats and dogs toward their masters as analogous to the behavior of humans towards God. I don't know about the dog part, but I lately I've been learning some things from my cats. Tommy has taken to escaping of late, and the resulting episodes have made me think. At first these episodes were somewhat comical and endearing because Tommy would get himself outside the house, but then freak out and start yowling (remember my post a while back?) and I would have to fetch his cage and maybe some food to give him sights, smells and sounds that were familiar and that would enable him to overcome his fear enough to come to safety. That has worked fairly well the handful of times it has happened.
The most recent couple escapes, however, have been different because Tommy is getting a little more confident. Not too long ago the family I live with here was doing some cleaning around the house, and they left the office window open. This normally isn't a big deal because the windows have screens. But this time it was down, for repair I think, and when I came home from where ever I had been beforehand, I found my family scouting out where Tommy was and indicating that they'd already retrieved Pipeline. We got Tommy a few minutes later and I plopped him inside, but I hadn't discovered the open window yet. Wouldn't ya know it, Tommy went right back out the window.
Just yesterday I was coming in the front door, and Tommy must have heard me, because the second I opened it he bolted out. I groaned and got his cage and went back out. Only this time Tommy wasn't interested. He wasn't freaking out either. Every time I took a step toward him he moved away, until finally he crossed the driveway into the neighboring fenced-in yard. I decided I better not make any sudden movements, so I went the long way around (without the cage) and just waited for him. Fortunately, before too long he came close enough for me to grab him, and I headed back toward the house. Just then some motorcyclist on a joy ride drove by sounding like an accelerating jackhammer. I had to hang on to Tommy for dear life; I got a hold of him not a moment too soon.
Well, what this has me thinking about (other than how it's now imperative that I get their rabies tags engraved with my phone number) is how I behave when God comes after me. Has my life been a story of growing confidence in running away? I was on the phone with my little brother today, and I told him what had happened with Tommy last night, and he said, "Like owner, like cat, eh?" Wow, I hadn't said anything about these thoughts I've been having along those lines. Do other people see this in me too? Am I so dissatisfied with being safe with God that I have to dart into the darkness, ignoring his warnings? If so, why am I dissatisfied? And why don't I trust him when he comes after me and beckons me home?
I guess I'm asking these questions because lately I have felt like I'm running, and I'm not sure why. I have this constant need to keep moving, like I'm afraid of what will happen if I stop to take a breath. I seem to have become pretty superficial in my dialogue with God, not really connecting with him when I pray, just going through the motions so I can get to the next thing. Daniel! This is not good for you! But I hang on to doing, doing, doing, even though it stresses and wears me out. And God is taking steps toward me, but I keep moving. He's getting down to my level, holding out his hand and speaking my name, but I look at him a bit and then go back to smelling the bushes, knowing I'm ignoring him, disobeying him, running from his love because he might cramp my style or keep me from exploring what I want to do.
I know I have to be careful here because I'm always too critical of myself, and I end up getting myself in some pretty miserable spots as a result. But I feel convicted because I know I've been avoiding God, even when everything sucks (ok, a very small subset of everything, but you know how consumed we get with small things). The last thing I've wanted to do is come to the Word. I haven't been connecting with God as much and it seems like I more often come to scripture out of guilt as something I have to do. This isn't how it's supposed to be! If I were coming to God more readily, maybe I would learn I don't have to run or be afraid.
Thanks to Tommy, the picture that I have now of God is a little different, now that I've been in his shoes a bit. I know that if God is anything like me (and he's supposed to be a lot better), then he probably comes after me with a similar love and compassion, not so that he can beat me for my disobedience, but so that he can protect me and care for me. I need to accept--believe--that he loves me that way and more. He knows that I'll find my greatest joy in him, and the more I come to him, the more I'll be able to discover it. I long to let go, rest and enjoy him. I want that very much.
I found this verse today (yes, I did), and it seems like good encouragement for me:
"O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed."
Psalm 22:2-5
Oh God, I pray that I might let go of my pride and truly cry for help the way the Psalmist did!
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