{"id":8908,"date":"2019-07-19T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=8908"},"modified":"2019-07-19T12:50:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T17:50:23","slug":"finishing-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2019\/07\/19\/finishing-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Finishing Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think about heaven a lot.\u00a0 <\/span>(As first sentences go\u2026)<\/p>\n

No experience with perfection, so I reduce it to how-it-is-down-here\u2026 some angel bureaucracy in charge of admittance, couldn\u2019t let you just rush in, meet Jesus, hug your loved ones\u2026 nope, first you\u2019d have to go through Orientation\u2026<\/p>\n

Your last taste of guilt: they\u2019d put you in a big room, a nice chair, and play a movie for you, titled How Your Life Could Have Been.<\/p>\n

Uncle P Was A Jonah<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I compiled some Bedtime Stories into my first book I hinted a backstory in the Introduction.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cFreshman English, *college*, the professor puts a note on the bottom of my essay, \u201cCome see me in my office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That \u201cme\u201d in the featured image, he\u2019s 50. He put a new blade on his saw and wondered why it smoked. Had the blade backwards. This is 62 me. Age does what it does: it taketh away, but it also adds. I\u2019ve never felt more qualified to be alive. We never know our \u201cend\u201d, but I want to finish strong. I don\u2019t want to meet God and say, \u201cHey, I swam in the shallow end of the pool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYou could be dangerous,\u201d he told me\u2026.\u00a0 <\/span>It terrified me.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ran from writing like Jonah ran from Ninevah.\u00a0 <\/span>Decades later, when I got swallowed by my whale, I picked up a #2 pencil and a blank sheet of paper\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019d lost a lot of time.\u00a0 <\/span>But I was still living.\u00a0 <\/span>So I self-educated myself.\u00a0 <\/span>To be a writer, they said, read, read, read and write, write, write, so I did, did, did.<\/p>\n

I was awful at first, but I came to see that God\u2019s gifts are a lot like the very gift of life; we all start crawling, then walk, run, and for some, if it\u2019s in \u2018em, they run really fast\u2026 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That Pesky Make-A-Living Thing<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d done the chase-the-money thing.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019d done the catch-the-wave thing.\u00a0 <\/span>The everyone-thinks-it\u2019s-cool thing.\u00a0 <\/span>Once upon a time I taught myself to program, and made a living writing custom software.\u00a0 <\/span>Hour after hour, using the weak side of my brain, God as my witness, I was too dumb to know how miserable I was.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know I was creative, so I kept putting myself in standardized boxes.\u00a0 <\/span>That works well for Amazon and UPS, but there\u2019s a death to it, for people, because the part of us that doesn\u2019t fit is often our best part\u2026<\/p>\n

Just a small bounce north of rock bottom, me in my 40\u2019s, I did my Jesus Take The Wheel prayer.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cHey, it\u2019s me.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Like a little Hail Mary, I\u2019d walk, and pray, day after day, say the same thing over \u2018n over, \u201cLead me to the life You had in mind for me, and help me to become the person You had in mind for me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought it a fine prayer.\u00a0 <\/span>I was coming from my 30 days in the desert, and I expected him to part water and zap me with a map.\u00a0 <\/span>He answered His way; His fingerprints on all the open doors that opened into rooms where I\u2019d find healing, growth, fit, place, and a mirror, and there I was, the real me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll always second guess myself\u2026 what would\u2019ve-could\u2019ve if I\u2019d risked poverty to aim for Writer sooner, at the risk of all\u2026 but instead I began a two decade journey where I created a job\/income that led me to the business I\u2019m now closing.\u00a0 <\/span>When it began I didn\u2019t know: that I was creative; that I could work this hard; that I could grind; that I could figure it out on the fly; that all my past wrong turns and scars were now not only of use, but distinctly powerful tools.<\/p>\n

A farm kid, raised to go to college, get a suit \u2018n tie job, I tried all that, and found my sweet spot was a day with a lot of body labor and mind labor, in balance.<\/p>\n

\u2026except it wasn\u2019t really balance.\u00a0 <\/span>For several years I\u2019ve had this discomfort, while making something, this whisper, \u201cThis isn\u2019t your best thing\u2026 you could\u2019ve written 4 stories in the time it took to make this one table\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Discomfort Can Be\u00a0The Whisper Of Angels<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, I didn\u2019t listen.\u00a0 <\/span>Years pass.\u00a0 <\/span>I earned more discomfort. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fork in the road was my upcoming lease renewal.\u00a0 <\/span>To sign meant three more years, of a sure, safe thing, socially approved, valued in the community, worthy of respect \u2013 all that good stuff \u2013 but to sign would have been to sell my better self\u2026 and the could-be that is out there waiting for me\u2026<\/p>\n

So I gave notice.\u00a0 <\/span>The co-worker\/friend who has been with me longest, I tell her, she listens, and says, \u201cI hope you finish strong.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve never been much for slogans.\u00a0 <\/span>It seems so \u201cherd\u201d and I\u2019ve never been much for herds\u2026 but the finish-strong thing became a flag I could daily salute.\u00a0 <\/span>Eighty-one, all it was, all it gave, it was a gift of God, for a season of my life, and was due an honorable end.\u00a0 <\/span>Even with a short time frame, I got, I made, I risked.\u00a0 <\/span>I met the standard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finish My Life Strong<\/strong><\/p>\n

Six decades in, I\u2019ve never felt more competent to be alive.\u00a0 <\/span>All my past feels preparatory, for some Finish Strong of my own life.\u00a0 <\/span>I have earned my foundation.\u00a0 <\/span>I have done the work.\u00a0 <\/span>I hear myself, clearly.\u00a0 <\/span>I feel God connected.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a guy who had no faith, for so long, here I am, faith unto peace, that life has purpose, that what God gives us as talents \u2018n tools, was given for a reason.\u00a0 <\/span>I am a journeyman of thoughts \u2018n words, praying a new prayer, \u201cHey, here I am, put me to work\u2026\u201d I\u2019m not inquiring about the pay.\u00a0 <\/span>I trust the Boss to do right.<\/p>\n

And if there is some How Your Life Could\u2019ve Been at the orientation into heaven, maybe mine- and yours – with all our mistakes, all the gone calendars of our invisible years\u2026 maybe if we Finish Strong it all comes together, and we realize that all along, God knew all the dumb stuff we\u2019d do, and He waited for us, on the main line, all ripe for making it count, and The All of our lives somehow all works altogether for good\u2026<\/p>\n

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This edition of Uncle P\u2019s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by the ghost of Eighty-one.\u00a0 <\/span>We thank all of you who enjoyed our little store, with all its big Want To.\u00a0 <\/span>If you\u2019re interested in the book of Bedtime Stories, email us at eightyonecreativity@gmail, with your phone number and we\u2019ll call, take your info, and mail next day.<\/i><\/p>\n

*The English professor who encouraged me was Dr. Cooper, at McNeese.\u00a0 <\/span>All these decades later, there I was, just a few red lights down the street from McNeese.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve been writing publicly, seriously, since 2013\u2026there\u2019s almost no excuse for someone \u201cin the business\u201d of writing to not have been aware of me.\u00a0 <\/span>Not once, in all these years, did a single member of the faculty stop by to say, \u201cHey, you\u2019re on your way to getting dangerous.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I guess they don\u2019t have any Dr. Coopers over there anymore.\u00a0 <\/span>The moral of this reprimand is this: whatever your talent, if it\u2019s in you, you\u2019ll find a way.\u00a0 <\/span>The sacred sweet spot of writing is to \u201cfind your voice.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I have.\u00a0 <\/span>Main reason: I did it by myself\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think about heaven a lot.\u00a0 (As first sentences go\u2026) No experience with perfection, so I reduce it to how-it-is-down-here\u2026 some angel bureaucracy in charge of admittance, couldn\u2019t let you just rush in, meet Jesus, hug your loved ones\u2026 nope, first you\u2019d have to go through Orientation\u2026 Your last taste of guilt: they\u2019d put you [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[59,894],"yoast_head":"\nFinishing Strong - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2019\/07\/19\/finishing-strong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finishing Strong - 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