Revisiting Writing as a Career

What has gone on that you want to know about?  Well, I haven't blogged as you know.  I have participated in music a lot more this year than any other year of my life.  I am getting comfortable with singing into a microphone (it was weird the first dozen times, or so).  I made the decision to attend seminary.  Really, it was a decision 16 years in the making, but the plan is for the fall of 2019.  Trinity School for Ministry (TSM, aka "Trinity")(near Pittsburgh), here we come!  I have learned to type, finally!  I am getting up at 4 am, reading a bit of scripture, then reading a book on homiletics (in preparation for seminary).  How did we get here?

Singing
The volunteers for serving at the altar have increased in number.  The amount of times I am on the schedule for each quarter has dropped, freeing me up to join with the musicians in leading congregational worship.  Some days I fare better than others.  No, it's not a "performance."  Yes, the word "perform" still applies to how a person 'does' music.  In that way, my performance isn't always where I would like it to be.  I want to aid in the worship, not distract.  Enough on that.  Morning singing?  Yuck!  Who knew?  Not I.  I don't have enough time to warm up my voice and then give it time to recuperate following the inevitable over use/straining/whatever I am doing.  I am left on the horns of a dilemma.  Do I warm up or do I risk losing my voice (due to fatigue, yeah, I think that's what it is)?  Any morning singers out there who could help me on this one?!  (Maybe I should ask my voice coach.  I just stopped going after 5 sessions in 2017 partly due to time and partly due to money.  But if your'e ever in Seattle and want a good coach, check out Chris McCafferty, he really helped me on my journey of getting to the next level.)

Seminary
It started back when I was 18 years old.  I have never lost that desire to attend seminary and become a pastor.  Is it the INFP in me?  More on that later.  Anyways, I attended the Diocese of Cascadia 2018 Spring Men's Retreat and was confronted with many thoughts.  What is God trying to tell me?  Will I leave this weekend with answers?  If I get quiet enough, maybe.  My Bishop poked me about attending Trinity for something like the third time in as many years.  God, do you really want me to uproot my family and leave all of the connections we have been making here in the Pacific Northwest?!  I was brought up in Evangelical circles.  If there is anything that we want to hold onto more than God, let that be ANATHEMA!  I put my growing attachment to this area on the "altar" and it became abundantly clear to me that it was time to pack my bags.  Three years prior, when I was leaving active military service, we counted the cost and realized that we would not be able to afford going to seminary at that time (we are on track to be debt free as we embark on this journey, God willing).  Then I threw a proverbial dart at the dartboard, aiming for the Fall of 2019.  And here we are!  Time will tell if God is with us.  I have a sneaking suspicion, He is.

INFP
Speaking of typing, er, I mean type; I love my 'impossible' segues, sometimes they're all you've got.  I slowed down my typing a year ago.  I was henpecking with the best of them, but I wanted change.  Now I'm typing about as fast (maybe faster, at times) than when I was a full time 'chicken.'  That has no relation to this paragraph's title "INFP" to which, we will now turn!  I have always tested as an ISTJ when taking those fun, online MBTI tests.  I have never been fully satisfied with it however.  Or I cannot just leave well enough alone.  Unfortunately people (read: I) take these things in a predictive manner (think: astrology).  I didn't intend to, it just came too easy in self-analysis to use what I learned and in verbally presenting myself to others.  In 2014 I learned about cognitive functions and I realized that my earlier assignment may have been wrong and I could likely determine what my personality type really was and is.  After a bit of reading and analysis, I determined that I could not be a J type and was clearly a P type.  So, I did the second worst thing you can do with personality typing (my created list of worsts, of course; the first of which I mentioned above) and I changed one letter of the four in ISTJ.  I now identified myself as an ISTP.  This I have learned is totally NOT legit'.  My brother, in one of his prescient moments over the years, said that he thought I was more intuitive than I gave myself credit for (uh! ending with a preposition, I know; hence the parenthetical, oh yeah!).  Reading more about cognitive functions, I came across this website:  Type in Mind (that's a link to my type, BTW).  I knew enough to figure out my type, finally!  I knew my cognitive functions and I could only be one of two types:  ISTJ or INFP.  Well now, doesn't that give you pause for reflection?  Maybe I am an ISTJ.  Really drilling down on my personal history (all in my head, so you cannot validate this, you'll have to trust me, or not), bending my powers of thought to the task, and trying my best to be frank with myself, I have concluded that I have always been an INFP and that I will probably test as an ISTJ for the foreseeable future given my upbringing and the first 30 years of my life spent in a "Te grip."  Look it up.  It took talking to a psychologist to break me out of this grip (none of this was discussed then and there, BTW.  This is all hindsight analysis).  It is all kind of a "laugh."  I should not have put so much stock into this stuff and yet I could not ignore it either.  If you suffer from what I do, I'm sorry for your plight.  Talk to me, maybe I can help.  After all, I'm a "healer" type (INFP), at least I think I am ;)

Homiletics
I have a suggested reading list for seminary preparation.  On that list is a book on exegesis and hermeneutics.  But as I was reading that book, I was starting to get "that" feeling.  You know what I'm talking about.  "We are probably going to argue, a lot."  My ink started to spill into the margins of the page as I progressed through a book which promised to be as helpful as a bowl of warm soup to an empty stomach (my metaphor, not the publishers).  Alas, I was disheartened.  Am I such a contrarian that I can't get along?  Does this foreshadow my seminary experience?  But before I could succumb to the "just deal with it," I remembered that I had a book in my library which pertained (if you are serious, you have a library full of books which you have not read and may never read, yeah, that serious, now you know).  As I started reading it, my fears and anxieties transformed into an excruciating intellectual "suck."  By that, I mean that it feels like I'm having to vacuum my mind of cobwebs and other junk which may be clouding my ability to put what I am learning from this book into practice.  Backstory - I read Days of Vengeance when I was 17/18 years old and became hooked on the way of thinking presented in the pages of that volume.  Fifteen years later, I finally read the book outlining a thesis which helped that former book to take shape.  This book is titled That You May Prosper.  In the bibliography, a seminal book was identified Sola Scriptura.  It is this book, the author intimated, which should be read by everyone who desires to preach the Word of God.  It is here, in the pages of this doctoral thesis, where my mind has been of late.  It is here where I grieve through the process of purifying my thinking, blundering about, trying to understand the author.  If I have cracked out any meat from the husk thus far, it has left me sore grieved to think about how badly we have preached the Word of God to the people of God.  I'm not talking about a "we've all been doing it wrong until now" kind of mentality.  I'm talking about an open discussion/debate which took place in the 20's and 30's in reformed churches in the Netherlands and was never settled, to the detriment of the reformed theology preaching community.  I haven't finished the book, so I really cannot say more without (probably) misrepresenting the issues at play.  Suffice it to say that, if Sidney Greidanus is right, I have a lot of work to add to the "a lot of work" I already knew I had to do in getting into this particular vocation.

Writing
Now to be more definitive (in line with the title of this post).  If you google the careers for an INFP, I have done the ones that are "bad" for my type.  Don't I know it!  I am revisiting the old ideas which have never quite left me alone.  Writing is one of them.  In a writing career I can tap into my strengths as long as I develop my career along those lines:  independent, creative, and innovative (not the qualities that the military is looking for, despite recent initiatives to the contrary).  It is scary to say the least, to contemplate another career change.  But I know that I have the support of my family and that a happier me (not that happiness is everything, but it is something) will alter our family life for the better.  I don't know if the "pulpit" of writing is what I have been called to or a pulpit in a parish setting or neither.  All I know is that I have thoughts, healing thoughts and they are burning in my chest.  The time to share them with the world has come (prompts like this help too!).  Stay tuned for more.

Dreaming, Planning ... Doing *sigh*

The advice to do anything well, heck to do anything at all, is to do it.  It is so obvious that it might even a tautology in the way I have constructed the concept.  Hmm, to do anything at all, you must do it.  Yep, sounds like a tautology.  But deciphering my cryptic writing is not my purpose here.  My purpose here is to write.  The advice was to write for at least an hour a day.  I have not done this.  But I haven't been trying to craft my career as a writer either.  Should I have?  Perhaps, but I needed to give up the poorer qualities that I have carried with me since I was young.  This will not be subject to excruciating edits and will be more raw than you have seen elsewhere on this blog.  Again, my purpose is simply to write.  I have not written much and may not write ever again after this.  But for now, my purpose ... Okay, got it.  Why?  It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything, supposedly.  Not doubting it.  I also watch a Ted Talk or TedX Talk on the concept that it takes 100 hours to basically master something.  How many things have I reached 99 hours on?  I don't know.  But there are some things that I want to reach 100 hours on this year.  Writing.  Music.  That might be all.  Other things that I'm hoping to hit higher numbers than even that would include study of the word of God, presenting of the truths so eloquently presented to us in the word of God (and sometimes crassly put as well), putting the principles into practice, living life to the fullest (in the confines of the way God would have me live, that is consistent with his character), growing as a Christian, maturing as a good husband, maturing as a good father, and so on.  I didn't think I had to go through all of that but I also didn't want to give the impression that writing and music were the only things I'm after for this upcoming year.  In any case, I hope you get the point that I will [try to] do stuff instead of just talk about it.  I will do stuff instead of just plan on doing stuff.  I am an inveterate dreamer.  The more I dream, the less I do.  The less I change.  I can be honest about it because there's no point in obscuring the facts.  There are few things that I passionately pursue in my life, but those few things I intend to do well.  A word of advice to you, if you are reading this, and really to myself divest [or continue to divest] the things that waste time.  Facebook.  Netflix.  I'm not saying cut off all the things, all at once, unless of course you really need to go cold turkey.  Life is freer when you unplug.  I love technology, but I am also at risk of worshiping it as well.  It is because I know this that I avoid it sometimes.  I tend to trail behind in the technology department.  I trail behind people who are not "tech savvy."  Sounds kind of pathetic doesn't it?  I dunno.  I have rearranged my mental space and seemingly created space and time that I didn't think was available.  I can't be a good dad because I work too much.  Well, instead of grabbing a beer on the way home from work, I can head straight home.  Poof!  I created time.  You can see what I'm talking about, can't you?  I have a house that's too small.  But I am getting rid of things I don't use, making better use of vertical space, and rearranging to eliminate wasted space and ... Poof!!  The house has loads of more room.  How is this even possible?  How can I have an entire room, actually two rooms freed up to be spaces for gatherings and children to play?  There is a little dreaming, a little planning, but all doing.  Without doing, it doesn't happen.  I'm back to my tautology!  Ha, but what I want to get to in this discussion is really, doing what needs to be done.  Doing what is possible.  Doing now instead of later.  I don't have time to go through another career transition.  I don't have time not to.  I don't have time to go back to college.  I don't have time not to.  Whatever you do, do it well.  Dream well.  Plan well.  Do.  And do it well.  I'm not sure if I'm going to transition my career or what that will look like, but if I do it, I will seek to do it well.  Commitment.  But also, not being afraid to simply try something.  Everything does not need to succeed.  I will probably fail, but I will fail well too!  That will be a good teacher.  Failure always is.  Failing to do, is not really failure, so that teacher doesn't count.  That lesson is regret.  It's not the same thing I'm talking about, so let's move on.  My primary motivation (dream, not plan) is to work from home.  Before I plan or do something to realize those plans, I will do somethings that I should have started doing a long time ago: write and make music.  Last year I got voice lessons after 14 years of remembering the old lessons and working through the things I needed to work through in order to grow in my abilities.  I had recently reached a plateau and a need for novice musicians opened up so I decided to answer the call.  I decided.  I never really did answer the call.  I dreamed, but planned in the very next instant.  Doing came with 5 lessons.  And then was followed by a jamming session with a band during their practice and an impromptu singing with the music team at church.  One or two or three more times singing in the music team and then others came who fit well in that space so the need for novice musicians is filled.  I am happy to be displaced.  There are other things that I do at church and cannot do everything nor do I desire to do everything so it's okay.  I still want to be a part of the music team and will figure out how to incorporate when I can and when someone else is holding onto my children (lol)!  But I have a bigger dream than even that one which is to develop religious music.  What's awesome (sarcasm) is that I don't know how to play any other instrument but my voice and I don't know music theory.  My experience with theory and other instruments is not non-existent, to be fair, but it's minimal.  I have a piano.  There is no reason that I cannot put in 100 hours this year.  That will give me a step towards my dreams.  It seems like a good plan.  But now comes the hard part, putting in the 100 hours, the doing.  We'll see.  Hopefully I will do it.  Hopefully I will do the same with writing.  You will know about the writing for sure because I have no better place to hold myself accountable than this long neglected blog.  And if, perchance I keep up with the writing, you will know if I keep up with the music because I need some kind of fodder to write on.  The rule is to write for an hour which sounds impossible and also sounds like it's not enough time all at once.  For now, I will write just to keep my thoughts leaving my mind and heading towards a medium that some writers use.  So that was to say that I will probably provide updates to my progress in general to keep the digital ink flowing.  Running out of steam here, I really need to shift gears and think about all of the things that I also need to be doing.  Repairing the washer machine.  My dream of being handy will come to fruition as mountains of clothes loom and clothes get washed because of the generosity of donated time sharing someone else' machine, water, and electricity.  So, it seems that doing will happen in this sphere out of sheer need.  Other projects include getting rid of useless junk.  I am tempted to hang on to it because of the advice to never give away what could be sold, but the virtue here is the greater need to de-clutter than to teach my family how to be entrepreneurs.  We will find another way to inculcate those themes, just not with the useless junk, for now.  House wiring needs updating.  Garage needs to be cleaned/cleaned out.  Debris/refuse needs to be delivered to the dump.  Also, mental breaks need to be taken from writing to smile at the children. :)  They are my pride and joy!  What wonders does this new year hold for me and those entrusted in my care?  I have dreams.  Dream with me.  I am hatching plans.  Hatch plans of your own.  Now, what will I do?  Hmm, what will you do?