Diary 5/3 - 5/9

Daily thoughts that may or may not be helpful.

Saturday, May 3

Today I spent a few hours thinning out our land. In our woods, there are nice trees and there are mean trees (not their scientific names). The mean trees have thorns on their trunks and branches; they’re quite rude. They spring up next to nice trees and choke out the resources, inhibiting the growth of the nice trees. Their leaves are jagged and narrow, like evil teeth of a villain. It’s slow work because of the thorns and the trunks that are almost like stone. Plus I’m using a starter chainsaw, which was acquired to help me learn the craft of chain sawing. It does cut but it’s like using a butter knife with a steak. After I have a long enough streak with no safety incidents, perhaps I’ll graduate to a big boy chainsaw. But for now it does the trick. The mean trees have to go. This is fulfilling work!

Sunday, May 4

When you read the Bible or memorize Scripture at a point in time, then God can use it in the future. Yesterday’s tree removal reminded me of something I had read in 2 Timothy during men’s Bible study. In this book, the Apostle Paul instructs his protégée Timothy to avoid conversations, quarrels, and teachings that take away from the gospel. He says if you do become entangled in babble and conflicts and false teaching, it is possible to become untangled, but it takes effort. That was kind of like my experience with the trees. Mean trees had grown up among nice trees, and the only way to untangle the two was to get up close, distinguish one from the other, and remove the offensive strain, sometimes with great strain.

Monday, May 5

When you move someplace new, it takes time to find your places. In central PA, we had a place—a public lake with walking trails—that we went to often. It had no screens and no work and no bills, just raw nature. And it was less than ten minutes’ drive. We are two moves from that time—one to the townhouse in Charlottesville and the second to the house we built. Thankfully, we have found a place that is even less time than the drive before. There’s a lake and walking trails and sometimes after dinner, we go there. The thing about nature is that there’s nothing to fix—if something falls, you let it lay. If something fascinates you, you let it. If there’s nothing to say, it’s alright because nature is talking, beaming.

Tuesday, May 6

Tonight I hung out with three other guys. We talked about our lives, hearing pains and joys and doubts. There was no fixing, no try this or try that. There was no parading or flexing. There was just us, opening our lives to one another. We laughed, we cried, we sighed. It was beautiful—the four of us, in our 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s, in different fields of work—financial services, teaching, ministry, and human resources. There seemed to be a theme that was revealed in our various stories—the faithfulness of God that directed us in his grace. We closed the night in prayer, feeling connected, full, and free.

Wednesday, May 7

As I shared last week, I’ve decided to do a sprint triathlon. I grew up as a competitive swimmer, but my last swim meet was 30 years ago. I need to get back into swim shape so I don’t die. One of the keys to achieving your goal, says James Clear in Atomic Habits, is to make it easy to do the habits that take you to your goal. This means making it easy to practice swimming. So I went to the sporting goods store and bought goggles and a training suit. These would be essential. Another thing he says is to start thinking of your identity based on the habits you wish to adopt. I needed to get used to these goggles and wearing this suit. I went straight from the sporting goods store to pick up Asher from track. I decided to put my new identity to the test. I parked the car, slid on the goggles, and waited for him. He wasn’t impressed. When we got home, I decided to try on the suit, so I did, and then (James Clear would be so proud), I continued to press in on my new identity. I walked around the house in my new suit and showed it off to the grunts and eye rolls of my family members. The suit doesn’t look or fit like it did in high school. I went outside and picked up the Amazon package outside our door. Why? Because I am a swimmer. No one else may like my behavior, but I’m sure this is what swimmers do.

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