No theme, no purpose. Just blogging. It was fun.

The beginning of the end of this for me was, I think, Twitter. In the old days (say, before 2008 or so), I would see a neat article or picture or video, post it to my blog and talk about it. Now, I just post it to Twitter and move on. No in-depth thought, no commentary (after all, I only have 140 characters), nothing but a link and maybe, a hash tag.

Then, I posted a few long-form blog pieces that went sorta viral, in a half-assed way, and I became half-assed semi-famous as a writer of Contrarian Christianity and engaged theism. And since I am good at that sort of writing, and I enjoy it, I started doing more of it, and less of the link blogging (where you post a link to something neat, with some commentary around it), especially if it wasn’t tied to my two main themes.

And then the possibility of my writing a book or three came up, and all the publishers want to know is what sort of platform you have, which means I post less cat pictures and more serious writing.

So, the net result was, I blogged less and posted the links to the cool things I saw to Facebook or Twitter. One problem with that is Facebook is a walled garden. The only people who see these things are the people I let into the garden. But, the bigger problem is that now, I feel like I am on Twitter and Facebook all the damned time. The other day, I spent two days off social media and felt almost guilty.

Guilty? Really? So, I am dialing it back a notch.

I started a link blog, where I shall post links to things I like. No theme, no platform building, nothing but links and commentary to things I like. I know I could do a tumbler or posterous or some other damned thing, but I don’t need more online social. So, I coded it by hand, on WordPress – like it was 2006 again.

Take that, Facebook.

I will still be doing long form work, primarily around my ideas of engaged theism, on this site. I now have a link blog over on my nameplate site, where I can post links to videos, or pictures of cats or articles about geriatric parkour or pretty much anything. And I will still be throwing links to all of it on Twitter and Facebook – but my primary online efforts will be directed at my sites.

I am taking my internet back.

It was the window seat I snagged that day, to the left of a sixty-something year old man who smelled vaguely of urine and cigarettes.

“If you stay on this road long enough”, my odiferous neighbor tells me, “you hit the Atlantic Ocean.” He then laughs, as if he has revealed previously hidden wisdom. As his laughter descends into his chest, creating a raspy cough, we pass to the right of the Pyramid, its shiny metal siding reflecting light into my eyes as the driver heads toward the ocean.

I won’t be going quite that far.

# # #

For 13 years, I lived in Memphis. Growing up, a dirt-poor kid in Marshall County Mississippi, I dreamed of moving to Memphis – of living in a gated community, of owning a red sports car, of the hot wife, the career spent in books and letters. Check, check, check and check.

But, as John the prophet said, life is what happened while we were making other plans. I spent the first decade of my adulthood climbing the ladder of success. I climbed, and I climbed and I climbed. One day, I stopped, and looked around. It was then I noticed that while I had done a good job of climbing – I am, in fact, a hell of a climber – my ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

What if you plan a life and nobody comes?

When I was 30, I had been married to a beautiful woman for six years, I was a successful (in a middling sort of way) financial advisor, I had a great apartment on a good street and a closet full of Ralph Lauren suits.

And I was throwing up blood about once a week from the stress. And I was drinking way too much. I hated my life.

So, I quit. Not just the job – I quit the whole life.

If at first you don’t succeed, to hell with it.

# # #

That was five years before the day I sat next to khaki-clad smelly man on an east bound bus, with what was left of my possessions in a duffle bag stuffed under the seat. Here I sat, two years older than Jesus ever got to be, with a head full of Transcendentalist poetry, a gut full of bad coffee from the bus station and tears running down my face, washing away the memory of the dreams of all my yesterdays.

I was headed to Raleigh, NC. I needed a fresh start – a new place where I had never sold books or insurance, where I had never broken anyone’s heart, lost anyone’s fortune, where I had never fallen in love with someone who wanted the me I used to be, where I had never broken a promise or a wedding vow.

It was time to be born again.

# # #

So, that day, I sat on that bus, my entire net worth boiled down to $800 cash, a few books and two pair of jeans. And I was starting a new life – I had spent the first 35 years or so of my life focusing on me. On that long bus trip, I made a list of all the things I did not like about me.

It was a long list.

But chief on it, right at the top, was that I was a people user. I was all about me, and what people could do for me.

I hated that.

It was not the “me” I liked to think I was. I thought of myself as loving. Generous. Caring. Jesus-like, even.

But, I wasn’t. Truth is, I was just a user.

So, I decided it was time to change. Time to be the person I wished I was, the person I dreamed of being, the person I would be proud to be. The person my wife, or my girlfriend or my grandkids would be proud I was.

I decided to change.

Change is hard. I have heard it said that we only change when it becomes harder to remain the same than it does to change. Maybe that’s true. All I know is, on that bus, with broken dreams and shattered relationships behind me, I decided to change.

So I did.

I started a ministry based entirely on relationships – relationships with people who often cannot return the favor, and who can’t advance my career or puff my ego. I learned from them, and then I began to speak to churches about what I learned. Then I took resources from those churches and used them to help my new friends.

It was not easy. It was not the simple path, or the easy path – but it was the right path. It was my authentic path – the path I was born to follow. It was the path I was fighting all those years I was climbing furiously a ladder leaning against the wrong wall.

For the last four and a half years, I have lived the life I wanted to live – an authentic life: A life where I am not a user, but a contributor. I am married to my best friend. I have a wide variety of friends around my dinner table all the time. My work makes a difference. People’s lives are changed because I live mine. I get to do stimulating work and exercise my creativity.

Life is good.

# # #

So, why am I telling you all of this?

Because it is January. This means a lot of you are thinking about change. You are looking around and you see your life staring back at you and you do not like what you see. You see the broken promises and scattered dreams in your history and you find you do not like the story of your life. You are not living out your authentic story.

And you want to change.

But you are scared.

Scared you will fail. Scared you will be laughed at. Scared you will lose friends. Scared you will struggle.

You should be scared. Deciding to live your authentic life is scary. Deciding to be the person you want to believe you are is scary.

But you know what is scarier?

Waking up one day and finding out you spent your life living someone else’s dreams, building someone else’s vision, creating someone else’s legacy – and being too scared to change.

You can change. You can wake up and live the life you were born to live. You can build great things, dream big dreams, watch them unfurl and drink in the victory of living a life well played.

You can be born again.

But first, you have to decide to change.

Suddenly, I feel thirsty. “No”, I tell myself. “You cannot get up to get a drink of water. You are just procrastinating.”

As long as I am distracted, I might as well check Facebook, just one last time.

I look at the clock and notice it is now 8:42AM.

Damn Facebook all to hell. I got caught up reading about the “Top 11 Pop Culture events of 2011“.

(Is it just me, or is it cold in here?)

The problem is the internet, obviously. It’s then I remember, earlier this year, Seth Godin had written about a program you could install on your computer that shut down the internet for a predetermined period of time, thus eliminating the distraction of the internet.

It has gotten critical. I must have this program, if any writing at all is to get done.

The next 10 minutes is spent searching Google for things like “Seth Godin Internet Distraction” and “Kill Internet”. Eventually, I find it: Freedom.

The premise is, it kills the networking aspect of your computer for a predetermined period of time, thus keeping your undisciplined ass off the internet. So, I decide to drop $10 of Christmas money on it. Money well spent, if it will get me back to writing.

Download. Pay. Register.

8:55AM.

I fire up trusty Microsoft Word 2007, get that drink of water I wanted 30 minutes ago, shuffle back to my spot in the hallway and put my fingers to the keys.

Dammit, it is cold in here.

I cannot write if I’m cold. I get the space heater and put it beside my desk, plug it in and bask in the warmth exuding from it.

9:10AM.

I have found when I write, it helps to set a timer for 20 minutes, so I can focus on that one thing. I generally use Egg Timer. I already have it bookmarked in my browser and everything. I open up my browser and…

Dammit, I have no internet. Oh yes, the program I just paid $10 for is keeping me off the internet for the next 45 minutes.

Maybe there is a countdown timer for my phone? I pick up my phone, hit the Market icon… NO! I must get to writing.

It was then, at 9:25AM, that the lights go out.

First thought: Did I pay the light bill? Then I hear the gurgle from the fish tank and notice the Christmas tree lights are still on, so I know that isn’t it.

Must be the circuit breaker.

In the six months we have lived in this apartment, I have had no need to go to the breaker box. I have no idea where it is. The next 10 minutes are spent finding out it is not in the pantry, any of the closets, the basement or in any of the kitchen cabinets. I find it in the entryway to the back porch – I have walked past it three to four times a day for the last six months and never noticed it was there.

Having flipped the circuit breaker, I come back in the house, sit back at my desk, now bathed once again in artificial light courtesy of the Sylvania Light Bulb Company and Progress Energy.

I write less than 20 words when the breaker flips off again.

Ahhh. It is the heater. I guess I will just have to write in the cold.

At 9:50AM, the heater is put away, the circuit breaker flipped back on, bathrobe put on for warmth.

I think briefly about the things I am supposed to do today. Writing today isn’t going well, so maybe I should stop trying to write and start in on them now? Then I look at the clock and see I only have 10 more minutes of writing left to do and decide to gut it out. After all, I can do anything for ten minutes, right?

Right?

Just a note to let you know I will be largely offline (and 100% out of the blogging world) for the balance of 2011. A lot of incredible things (and a few that sucked) have hapened in 2011, and I want to be able to give them the introspection they deserve.

I hope you and your family have an incredible holiday season, and I wish for you every good thing in the coming year.

See you in 2012. 

Grace and Peace, 

Hugh

PS: If you need me, twitter or email are going to be the best way. But then again, they are always the best way. 

It was the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school. I was on my way to get my senior pictures taken, driving my 1972 Ford Torino, with the souped up engine and the amp driving the bass in the speaker box in the trunk. I was doing something like 45 or 50 miles an hour, which is not a bad thing, except the curve was rated at 15mph.

So, I crashed into the ditch, totaling the car.

Along the way, I totaled a guy’s culvert. Dad thought it would be an excellent idea for me to dig the guy’s culvert out and replace it with one I had bought and paid for, as penance for trashing it in the first place. In a fit of pity, Dad agreed to help me do it.

My location as I dug this culvert out is marked on the map by the red dot. That right angle? That was the curve that did me in.

In any event, I was in a ditch, digging a culvert out that I had destroyed with my car by going too fast. Meanwhile, many people were in cars, hurtling at my head, turning at the last possible moment. If any of them were driving the way I had been driving, I would have been dead.

It was then that it occurred to me for the first time how interconnected we all are. How much of our lives depend on our agreeing to do certain things a certain way. I can drive down the street because we have agreed that you will stop at a stop sign. I can walk on the sidewalk because you have agreed to drive on the pavement. I need not fence my front yard, because you have agreed to stay off of it.

Last Friday, I was driving around the block, testing our car after making a small repair to it, when a guy in a large SUV shot out of a side street directly in front of me, in reverse(!) and I hit him.

To clarify: I am driving along, a guy shoots out of a side street in reverse directly in front of me and I plow into him. It turns out, he had crested a hill, seen a police check point and threw it in reverse and hit the gas.  He then went backwards for a while, refusing to stop at the appropriate stop sign and jumped out in front of me, when I hit him.

As you might expect, his erratic behavior drew the attention of the police, who were on the scene almost immediately. They arrested him, of course, and called a tow truck for me. And 23 years later, I am struck once again by how much my life is dependent upon everyone else keeping up their end of the agreement.

So who helped me pay for the education that broke that cycle? Not the church – I could afford to go to no denominational affiliated schools – of any denomination. If there was one, somewhere, they surely were not recruiting me.

Instead, the reason I have career choices that do not involve being bent over a car all day or driving a garbage truck is thanks to the Unites States Marine Corps.

Do not mishear me – I am a pacifist (now), but when it came to getting an education, the church was silent, and the only option I had was the offer from the Marines: Let us teach you how to kill people, and we will pay for the schooling that allows you more choices in life – if you live, that is.

Which, when you think about it, is a pretty screwed up deal.  But, they kept up their end of the bargain, and I was faithful. And thankful.

I did not know many middle class or higher kids when I was in the service. We were victims of the economic draft – just poor boys, conscripted to fight a rich man’s war.

I woke up like I do most mornings, to the sound of my cell phone alarm going off. The contrast between the warm bedroom and the unheated kitchen was bracing – seeing my breath while making my coffee is going to take some getting used to. I retreat back to the heated bedroom, coffee in hand,  and fire up the laptop to see what new things have happened on the internet in my absence. After checking in with my virtual communities on Facebook and Twitter, I shut down and give some more thought to what I am going to say when I preach later this afternoon.

It is now 8:30 and I must get dressed for going to Moore Square, where there will be hot coffee and fruit and a hot breakfast sandwich for anyone who wants one. Most of the folks that will be eating there are chronically homeless, the visible living evidence that the American dream does not happen for everyone.

There I see my friends who sleep outside, whose cheer and tenacity shame me for bitching about the coldness of my kitchen. While it is true that I cannot afford to turn the gas on in my house and thus use the central heat, the truth is we sleep quite toasty with our space heaters and thick blankets, two things none of these people have access to.

I spend some time talking to Jim, who is wearing a leather biker’s jacket, a cowboy hat and tops off the outfit with a walking stick with a purple leopard print on it. I comment on his clothing diversity and he tells me that most folks don’t understand his fashion sense. To be Jim is to be misunderstood.

After checking in with dozens of folks, drinking coffee and laughing at bad jokes, I hug bunches of folks and climb back into the still cold car to drive the six blocks back home. I often walk or ride the bike, but today’s chill forces me to drive. Walking to the door, I see the pepper plants in my flower bed have bunches of bell peppers that really ought to sit another day or two, but with the frost last night probably won’t last that long. So, I pick six or seven peppers to be diced and frozen for omelets and the Southern mirepoix we call Trinity.

When I come in the door, my two cats Felix and Tony come from the warm bedroom and into the cold hallway and sit at the ready, staring at me as if I contain wisdom or, more likely, with the recognition that I am the dispenser of cat food.

I have been up for four hours and have felt joy, pain, exultation, sadness, love and devotion. I have received dozens of hugs, been told by several folks that they were praying for me, had my hands in the dirt and harvested the fruits of my labors, both metaphorically and literally.

It is on mornings like this that I remember that I love the life I have. It is all too easy to be frustrated about things like not being able to afford to run the central heat, or by the judgmental email I get or the online wars I get sucked into.

It seems to me that being happy or not is, fundamentally, a choice. And today, I choose to be happy.

• I would be gay affirming, but my denomination won’t let me.
• No one will publish me, so I cannot be a writer.
• No one will let me speak at their event.
• No denomination will ordain me, so I cannot be a minister.
• I don’t have a Master’s in Social Work, so I can’t help poor people.
• I don’t have an MBA, so I cannot start a business.
• ad infinitum, ad nauseum

Here is the thing no one will tell you:

You don’t need anyone’s permission.

You don’t need a piece of paper from anyone to minister to anyone. Yes, you may need it to marry someone, but you can start your own church with three other people who are not your family and ordain yourself. Perfectly legal. Or be a minister that does not do weddings. It is ok – you are allowed to not do weddings.

You don’t need a publisher to write or print a book. Just ask John Locke, who has sold millions of books on amazon while having no publisher.

You don’t need a degree to start a business – Just look at Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Michael Dell.

Start your own damn event, if no one will let you speak at theirs.

You don’t need anyone’s permission, so quit using that as an excuse, OK?

Note: There is nothing wrong with deciding you want that approval. I am just saying it is no longer necessary to get stuff done.

When I was a kid, I was poor. So when I grew up, I wanted to be anything that would make me not be poor. Eventually, this put me in sales, where, if you have a strong handshake and a decent line of gab, a person can make a good living. If you are willing to bend the truth just a bit, you can make a killing.

At my peak, I fell somewhere between the good living and killing points. I read books like Think and Grow Rich and How To Win Friends and Influence People. I studied every word Tony Robbins wrote like it was the Holy Bible. I recited affirmations to myself daily, saying things like “I attract money even as I sleep!” and “I am a money magnet. Money is attracted to me in an irresistible fashion”.

I once heard a minister say from the pulpit that the best thing I could do for the poor was to not be one of them. I liked that – by my being successful, I was helping the poor. I quoted that minister often.

Then about 10 years ago, I began to do the most dangerous thing a person desiring financial success can do: I read the Gospels. I came to realize that the message of Jesus was not about getting into heaven when I die but about personal and global transformation.

Or, as Jesus put it, “The Kingdom of God is at hand!”

It’s ten years later. A lot has changed. Rather than sell for a living, I now pastor homeless people in the inner city. I am no longer anyone’s definition of a success. My financial condition is always tenuous at best.

The rent is always behind and I am always just one step ahead of having my power turned off. Instead of a Red Camaro, I drive a blue motor scooter that has a large amount of Duct Tape on it. I have had the experience of knowing people were coming over that night and having your water turned off for nonpayment that morning. Awkward…

This is where following Jesus has led me – on a path of downward mobility. I don’t know of any way to raise money around pastoring a flock of drug addicts, sex offenders and homeless folks. Telling people that the way of Jesus leads to inclusion of the other has thus far not been financially lucrative, or, for that matter, even all that appreciated.

I am not telling you that following Jesus will lead you away from financial success. But I am saying that if it does, you probably should not be surprised.

If you are near Nashville, I hope you will go here and register to attend. The lineup is incredible, and so is the guest list.

Hope to see you there!

If you want to know more about inviting me to speak at your event, you can find out more information about that here.