GENDADS

So, I really don’t have time for this.  What’s new.  Just before heading out the door on today’s project, I got snagged by a friend’s FB post.  Here I am an hour later.   One thing lead to another.  Mostly pondering and typing as I toured my new micro-world in Hootsuite.

Good Morning, Lord. Where DO I head this morning?

This morning became archtypical of what’s right and wrong (but mostly right) of my mornings these days.  I commented on four posts, did a Tweet, and now this.  It’s about The Story.  Again.  I can sledom see a movie twice and never read a book twice.  But this Story I love, for it is Life itself.  Here is a mix of todays posts.  I asked a question I ask of you again here.  How does my “noble sunrise” and it’s quick disintegration look like yours?  Or not.

From a new friend’s comment about a dream of her dad.  It wasn’t a post, it was a vignette of a Story.  Life should be full of thrilling segments of His Story written for us.  Instead, well…. OK, a quick read should be enough to pass the pondering and writing baton to you:

“There’s a story here .  Two stories mingled.  After all, our life fully lived out of the heart is merely The Story God had written for us.  Best we live HIS Story in us one chapter (hey…one PAGE) at a time.  I too often write and follow my own script. More in the past than now.  Age drains the ambition, adreneline, miss-focused passions that too often  formed my own story because the Author was way too slow with His.”

Now this as I moved from pondering to practical in my morning postings,  “It don’t hardly matter…whether old or young, the first challenge of the day, recognized and spoken or not, is:  What are my priorities AND “What are the first three things I will actually DO?

Wanna know mine?  Am curious how much mine and yours are alike.

Coffee, news, update “To-Do,” wrote yet more stuff that won’t get done, settled to read today’s five Psalms and Proverbs 26,

Wait.  That’s Four things.  See, once again, my Father of fathers gets second best.  Actually, I walked the dog as number four…but at least prayed from my Walkabout list while she pranced, peed, and pooped.

Is God offended (no, not about me forcing you to imagine dog-pooping/man-praying) that He was number five?  Not likely.  He’s quite used to it.  So, maybe you, like me, will want to surprise Him.  Without fanfare (which is what I think Tweeting is all about), I’ll move Him up to the number two spot.  (Certainly He does not expect a fruitful, cogent meeting with my heart and my mind before at least one cup.  Right?)

Wanna move God up a notch or two?  Wanna “read” and walkabout from His script instead of yours?

There’s one last punchline because my priorities now include my all-out help to Deep Rivers Family Ranch, one of the most exciting God-Thing projects I’ve been connected to in years.   Like you, I have to let God govern my priorities.  I have to make the assumption that those coming from the heart, a heart given to Him, are His.  BUT, since I am prone to my ways over His, I need to constantly ask, “Father, is this wonderful project for You that I’m on, what I am to be doing NOW?”

My place-holding blog entry is waaay too old.  Good reason, though.  Interesting, but are you interested?  Maybe not, so here’s the nutshell version so’s I can get on with fortifying the bridge so I can cross back over.

I loved blogging.  I loved a whole bunch more in life, too.  Hard to balance.  So, with the major focus being the rite of passage for my olderst grandson behind me, I took the bridge across to “LayLoLand”.  Been helping soninlaw, Matt, get started in his new professional-business-as-ministry, Deep Rives Family Ranch.  MAN! is that exciting.  It’s like passing the baton from our years of ministry to the newer gen better able to handle the peculiarities and demands of current family status in our nation.  DRFR is a whole-family crisis intervention therapy ranch.  Did I get enough words in there to help you figure it out?  It’s finding wonderful response in the therapy community and in the lives of those families Matt is touching.

After a summer at their new ranch site in Colorado (in the mountains above and west of Grand Junction), Carolyn and I are back home in SoCal catching our breath AND setting out on the new stage of priorities: 1) enjoy each other and the remaining life God grants us (see next paragraph), 2) Re-start Generational Fathering (after five months idle) and start with notes for Carolyn’s and my life memior (“Our Extraor dinary Journey:  Stories of Following Jesus Up Mountain Peaks, Through Valleys, and Out of Quick Sand”) 3) continue prayer and marketing support for Deep Rivers Family Ranch, 4) increase our personal witness and serve our Chapel congregation well.

By the way, the above is in the context of my advance prostate cancer.

So, what’s the bridge analogy that require re-crossing?  Life is short (and shorter by each year I enjoy God’s grace), Life is Hard, Life is Unfair, and Its End is Uncertain.  That’s the Engineer’s label on the bridge abuttment.  The bridge has been named the “Finish Well” bridge.  I’m crossing it again with even more enthusisam than what characterizes my life to date.

And I remember daily two motto’s.  One took me into college with faith the my future was in His hands, “‘Tis one life, ’twill so be passed, only what’s done for Christ will last.”  Then the motto on the cornerstone of Wheaton College that sent me out from that wonderful, life-framing institution, “For Christ and His Kingdom”.

Sorry I can’t fancy this up with the normal photo’s and graphics.  I’ve been too long away to remember how. For now, I just want my GenDads pals to know I’ll be back on the keyboards.  Soon grandson #2 will be entering his year of passage.  You’ll get some of those pieces and a bit of my Finish Well Journey.

My personal blog, Wild Gray Goose, has some personal refelction of life, cancer, and serving The One upon Whom all is centered.

[noto bono: Legacy Dad is a companion blog to GenDads which three of us author. Per previous post we thought it was time to actually meet. That event authenticated the very chapter I was writing for Generational Fathering . Fathering is not the trail and error solo parenting venture we have made into the default standard. It's a team sport, and victory is a long way down the trail. Best we NOT do this alone. Fathering is NOT a game. Too much at stake for the lives of our legacy, our children and grandchildren. Here is a Legacy Dad post after the bonding weekend]

WHAT BETTER THAN THREE HORSES, THREE CIGARS, AND THREE DAD DUDES PASSIONATE OVER THEIR LEGACY.
What an immense pleasure to actually meet up with and embrace my two partners of Legacy Dad. There is an uplifting irony in this. For all the questionable dynamics of the two-dimensional world as seen through the eyes of pre-Internet generations, our blog, Tweets, and FB did a very old fashioned thing; it brought us together. Three lives across a wide spectrum of age, geography, and professions would not have otherwise met. My life would be slightly less rich if we’d not made the original cyber connection. And, it would be a lot less rich if we’d not met on the beach cottage in SoCal.

I think our meeting breathes something important into the lives of fathers today; our own and our dad pals on GenDad and Legacy Dad. Fathering is best done NOT alone. It’s a team sport. Since it’s not about us but about our children, our legacy, pulling out all the stops is the right approach. That includes connecting with other dads. Not so much for the “How To’s” but for the encouragement, for the discussion of bedrock principles, for just not feeling alone and overwhelmed by marriage, work, and parenting.

I’m a grandfather, so my take-away is different. I see the value of elder fathers imprint on current child-raisers. That’s where Generational Fathering (my book in progress) is going. Then there is value of seeing and feeling the joys and conflicts of fully engaged young dads. Refreshing and instructional; I’ve gained insights I can pass along to my own and other young fathers who seek me out.

DAD, MOM(including single’s looking for a dad for their children) ARE YOU WILLING TO SEEK OUT A FATHERING CONNECTION TO MAKE THESE SHORT AND PRECARIOUS PARENTING YEARS GO BETTER?

…but it is what it is. 

My computer crashed, and I pretty much followed.   Four lost days trying to recover vital data lost to TWO backup systems, using wife’s laptop and old email data, waiting for the repair, getting a whole new computer from the warraty program…and transfering all that “stuff”. 

I actually survived that crash.  Not so sure I’ll survive this one.

I thought you’d like to know the silence wasn’t your fault.  Don’t worry, won’t last long.  Meantime, this generational father is struggling over the setback to the book.  Decided to keep a journal of the evolution of a book.  Might turn it into a book itself, but the title, “Love and War,” has already been taken. 

Thanks for bearing with me; and double thanks to Carolyn for bearing with Mr. Mopy. 

Very difficult days for the writer in me.  Daily posted in Christmas week.  Loved it.  Good response.  Then several days of travel from the kids to SoCal.  Distractions in reorganizing life back home; a holiday of sorts from writing.

Getting back to the writing cycle is hard.  Cycle?  Writing comes from the heart, filtered through the head and all that goes on in there.  If it’s a passion, good writing makes it way throught the guantlet.  Despite distractions, detours, roadblocks, and speedbumps the heart makes its way through the keyboad.

And did I forget to say the pc that supports that keyboard can be a detour?  Not like ink drying on the quill or the lead breaking, a dying laptop is an “overthe cliff” detour !  Three full days only partially recovering a crashed computer.  Took an hour just to get back up on GenDads this morning and the loss of my email address book means I’m drifting. 

PC-less just days before I finally launch my “Writing Getaway,” four days a week away writing “Generational Fatheirng” ’til it’s done.  Forced into wrestling with life and writing issues, I’m forced to inventory and re-assess.  Entering a new cancer protocol, missing my extraordinary grandchildren, and sharing extreme health conditions of my wife; this stuff makes you think.  Such is the winding road from heart through head through keyboad.

Why is this worth posting?  Some of you are readers, some are writers.  Whichever, I pose you the question.  Is there something down there worth pushing and pulling through those detours?   If you’re a writer do you just write head stuff ?  If a reader, do you have anything down there worth delivering if you did have the writing habit?  Why not write something to someone, even yourself, when you come up with an answer.