Category: Uncategorized

Fame.

Untold wealth.

Close encounters with the paparazzi.

These types of results have been experienced by those generous enough to share their most-read post of the previous month here at the blog. Are you ready for how this is going to change your life?

For example, last month’s winner was Caleb Wilde. Since then he’s received a degree, landed a book deal and is adopting a child. Even better, he was asked to go on “Dancing With the Stars,” and I bought him lunch (only one of those is a total fabrication). All because he shared his blog here. There’s a chance that none of this would have taken place if he hadn’t given us a link to “Funerals: The Worst of Life.”

So head down to the comments section and give us the link to your own most-read blog post (or personal favorite) from the month of May. Continue reading “If Fame Scares You, Do Not Click This Link”

I wish, for the sake of the discussion, I could tell you that my daily schedule is as follows:

5:00am: Wake up. Hike to a neighboring mountain summit where I write by hand for seven hours with nothing but trees and lakes and triple rainbows in view.

Noon: Return to an empty house where I eat my lunch while reading Dickinson and Thoreau. I occasionally chuckle to myself, marveling at their ability to create in isolation.

1:00pm: Nap

3:00pm: Hike to a neighboring stream where I write until dinner, at which point I catch fish with a fishing pole made out of a beech tree branch, loose thread unraveling from the inseam of my jeans and a paperclip.

8:00pm: After contemplating the sunset and the numerous constellations for which I have made up names, I go to sleep and dream about the next great novel I will write.

But a wonderful wife, four fun kids with their baseball and their ballet, friends, and church keep me from becoming a recluse. Also to my disadvantage: the fact that I have no paperclips in the house.
Continue reading “Why I am a Hermit (When I’m not on Twitter, Facebook or the Blogosphere)”

This week, Jen Luitwieler, Kristin Tennant and I are each taking turns blogging about writing, community and solitude. Check out Kristin’s take today (link supplied at the bottom of the page). Tune in here tomorrow for my thoughts, mostly pertaining to the fact that I am a hermit.

Most of the decisions I make on a daily basis are of a self-centered nature.

There, I’ve said it.

Being self-employed, I decide where I’m going to work, how long I’m going to work, and what I’m going to work on each day. If I write at a café, I decide what drink I want and whether or not I’m going to blow $7 on lunch or go home to eat.

Living in America, I can decide where I want to live, what I want to do and how to spend my time. I choose where I want to go to church and whether or not to have cable and which phone service to sign up for.

I am free to agree or disagree with the president, my pastor and my dad (those last two are the same guy). I can spend all of my money on clothes or books or Taco Bell, if I want.

The amount of choices that confront me each day are astounding.

And how I answer them has a lot to do with whether or not I am an enemy of God.
Continue reading “How Bo Jackson Made Me an Enemy of God”

This week, Jen Luitwieler, Kristin Tennant and I are each taking turns blogging about writing, community and solitude. Check out Jen’s take today (link supplied at the bottom of the page).

A young boy (maybe four, maybe five) walks into the house of his great-grandparents. It is crowded with people he does not know – his family recently moved back home, from Texas, and his memory only goes back so far.

His great-grandmother has a kind face and the snow-whitest hair he’s ever seen. She is Amish, as are most of the people in the house, but the boy’s grandparents left the Amish church when his mother was a child, so he does not understand their ways, or their language. Or why they are dressed that way. He feels out of place.

The boy’s parents walk him into his great-grandparent’s bedroom. His great-grandfather is asleep in the bed, dead, dressed in all white. His Santa Claus beard spills down over his chest like so many years. His eyes are closed and his skin is gray, like flaking paper that’s been burned to ash. People cry quietly, the muffled sound that tears make when they are absorbed into a sleeve, or a handkerchief.
Continue reading “What Does God Want – “Love Wins” Book Discussion, Week Three”

“One of the most tragic things about the life that most of us live is that we have lost our sense of adventure.”

To read more about this idea, please head on over to the blog of my good friend/1st-and-a-half cousin Janelle, where I am guest posting today . It’s the story of my wife’s bravery and insistence that I follow my dream of writing full time.

And if you’re visiting here from Janelle’s blog and you haven’t read the whole story of my business failure, our brokenness (both financial and otherwise) and our move back to the place where I grew up, you can get that HERE.

Now I’m off to take a nap.

I wish everyone a wonderful Memorial Day weekend (the best of which normally include sunburns, water in the ear, and some sort of pulled muscle from overdoing it on the yard work).

Here are a few random, unnumbered thoughts for you:

– A huge thanks to all of you readers for making May the most-visited month in the history of this young blog’s life. I love the comments, the kind ways you guys speak to me and to each other and the fact that there are a few people out there willing to ask these questions along with me. Thanks!

– We are now the proud owners of 10 chickens, four of which will hopefully lay a lot of eggs for us, and six of which will be eaten. The kids are fully aware of the identities of the boilers and have already made a few impassioned pleas for leniency.
Continue reading “Ten Chickens and Impassioned Cries for Leniency”