Queen Kitty

Let me introduce you to the 5th highest ranking official on the Wakayama Electric Railroad Co.

She's a Super-Station manager, and she's also the only female with a management position.

Sometimes other cultures are just...weird.

Read this article for the full story.

I'm Not Crying

It seems I'm falling behind in my posting.

I've been alternating between lots of work and avoiding my work, but I should be reaching a major milestone today! We're almost finished with an introductory sample that we've been working on, to give people a chance to explore the format. Once that is done some of the short term pressure should be off, and I'm planning to actually take a day or two off sometime this week, God willing.

Anyway, I haven't had a whole lot of quirky thoughts or deep reflections lately, but I'll try to do better. In the meantime, I'll let this video do my entertaining for me. Just wanted to re-assure everyone after my last, "super serious" post that, I'm really Not Crying....I've just been cutting onions.

I'm making a lasagna.....for one.

(p.s. if you didn't get that quote please watch the video so you don't think I'm crazy)

Donating to Earthquake Relief

Hey Everyone,

I'm sure most of you have been tracking the massive destruction in the wake of the recent earthquake in China. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost homes and families, and many are in danger of starvation and disease.

There are a lot of relief efforts underway, but I wanted to talk about Alpha Communities in particular. For those of you who are connected in GDI in some way, AC has been a member of our family network for more than a decade, working quietly in orphanages and hospitals throughout China and Tibet. God has been opening doors and giving them immense favor with the government in the aftermath of this disaster, and they've launched a large relief effort of their own. For me at least, it is especially meaningful to be able to not only do what I can to help the population there, but to do it by supporting a part of the GDI family that has been faithfully and sacrificially serving God on the ground in Asia for a very long time.

Here's a link to their website. Even $20 would provide real relief for someone in pain, and currently PayPal has waived all of their usual fees for any donations to relief efforts like Alpha Communities, so every cent goes straight to helping out.

Honestly this disaster has really impacted me. I can't really comprehend destruction and loss on this scale, it almost feels unreal to me, but I'm determined not to let it be just another thing that I say a silent prayer for and then get back to my own life. I'll confess I did exactly that when the Tsunami hit Thailand a few years ago, and it's always something I've regretted.

Events like this make me so painfully aware of how much I have to be grateful for. There are times when I'm tempted to even feel guilty for the safety and provision I take for granted every day, even though I know that's not really a right or helpful response.

This has been kind of a rambling post. I'm finding myself very emotional about this, and I'm struggling for words to express that without it coming across as a sanctimonious guilt trip. I trust that you all know my heart, and I trust your own ability to hear whatever God is saying to you personally about this.

Sobered and grateful,

-- J --

Writing Progress Report

Haven't had anything to report on this front in a while, but yesterday I completed a new scene I've been working on in snatches for the past few weeks! So far its only in my notebook, but when I read it to mom and dad they had a really solid reaction, and I'm quite pleased with it.

I've been discovering how helpful it can be to impose creative restrictions on myself. For this last round, I've forced myself not to touch a single page to make edits until I finished the scene I just completed. The manuscript is a little wacky now, since I haven't corrected some contradictions that have cropped up, but I made much better progress, and I'm more pleased with the result, than I have been on similar pieces where I've edited after I finished writing a draft.

Another good one that Zac gave me is to try and remove adjectives from my writing. A quick read after our conversations made it painfully obvious how much I rely on them without thinking about it, so it will be interesting to work that into the editing process.

So the new goal is to get this manuscript into a readable rough draft state, and the newly imposed restriction is to stick with the editing process until I get there, rather than poking at it haphazardly.

Little by little

Transition Blues

*Note* I actually wrote this yesterday, but the internet in our hotel ran out before I could post it. I'm feeling a lot more chipper today, but I figured I'd post it anyway. It's all real right?


I believe I've already talked about not handling the in-betweens of transition periods well.

Well, today is further proof of that. Everything about today has been good. Slept in a little, had a very productive work meeting with mom for several hours that is going to continue to ensure that I stay on track with Equus, and I'm in a city that I love.

But I'm very much in turmoil inside.

More and more these days I just feel all of these disconnected things in my life. Experiences that I should be enjoying become reminders of something I hope for that isn't here yet, or something that I've only left behind very recently and still feel the absence of.

A large part of it is connected to other people and their responses, which adds another layer of both concern (because its important stuff) and frustration (because I'm just kind of waiting, either because the ball is in their court or because the only thing for it is more time passing).

It just feels like life has become a bit of a waiting game. I've got work to do, and some short term things to look forward to, but most of what I'm excited about these days is months or seasons away, if I'm even certain of it at all.

I'm realizing that its a little dual-minded of me to be writing about something like this after my last post sounding the praises of a life of freedom. I guess this is the hairy underside of freedom in a way. I still believe that someday I'll find a good balance. I don't think it will take much, a few solid and consistent things in my life, close relationships with people I see regularly, things like that.

For now, though, I'll keep doing what I need to do, trusting in God's timing on this as in other things.

Freedom!

I've been discovering how incredibly important freedom is to me.

I was talking with a friend of mine a few days ago about how people tend to either prefer security or freedom in their lifestyles. I have to work hard not to think of security as a dirty word sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, I want to have a consistent income and such, I just don't want to sacrifice the ability to travel and organize my life according to my own sense of significance to get it. That's the main thing that keeps me going through looooong work days right now, the dream of being able to work from anywhere so that I can follow the wind and my heart wherever I want.

So this next season of my life is going to be defined by two things: freedom and relationships. I'm going to simplify my life as much as possible, so that I can travel different places and stay with friends, building and deepening the important relationships in my life. When I think about that kind of lifestyle I honestly get a little giddy. Could life really be that good?

I know that someday (hopefully not like 10 years from now, either) I'm going to get married and start a family, but I also know that I want to find a life partner who can join me in a whole hearted pursuit of freedom and relationships. I'm discovering in these early days of the new season how much of a lifelong priority this is going to be. I can't wait to explore the world and have adventures with my wife, and someday my children.

So, here's to freedom. ::toasts::

Music and Life - Alan Watts

I've shamelessly stolen this from my friend Kim's blog.

This is so applicable to many of the things I've been thinking about and talking about. There have been so many times over the last year or so when I've had to remind myself that I really believe that life is more about the journey than the quick outcome of my current endeavors.

The Importance of Rest

It's so easy to forget to rest sometimes.

I've been working pretty hard lately. Starting your own company involves so many unexpected little things, and its all on your shoulders. I honestly couldn't really afford to take a whole day off yesterday, but I was starting to see those warning signs that my parents have taught me to look for. I was restless, irritable, and swimming in a sea of "how on earth am I going to get all of this done?"

So I took a break. I sat on the couch all day with the TV on in the background playing poker. The Indiana Jones trilogy was playing all day on Spike. I wrote some emails to friends that I've been wanting to write for weeks. I did some laundry and straightened up my tornado zone of a room. I even dozed off for 30 minutes or so at one point. It was perfect.

Now that I have more that I'm responsible for, I'm beginning to understand what an important and even spiritual thing rest is. Because every time I started to hear that little voice urging me to at least get something productive done, I reminded it that God is my own sufficiency, that He has provided incredible solutions and answers along the way, and that He will keep doing that as long as I keep the right perspective and don't try to take the burden of everything on my own shoulders.

Taking yesterday off was a very tangible expression of surrender, an acknowledgment that if left to myself I'll run myself into the ground and die without accomplishing anything of lasting importance anyway.

And on top of that, it just felt really really good.

Phil Keaggy Shades of Green

This man is amazing.

I find this kind of skill incredibly inspiring.

Just a quick post today: I am incredibly blessed.

Not everyone can say that they are best friends with someone that they've known since before they could talk. Even though life is crazy and we don't connect as often as I'd like, its always great to get together and pick up wherever we left off.

Provision

Today sucked.

I sat down this morning for a productive workday finishing and producing the first DDQ Module that I spent the last month working on, only to discover that the company that created the eBook compiling software I was using has disappeared from the planet. Their website is down, they don't answer their phones. It's just weird.

So, instead I've spent the day searching for a new compiling solution. In the end the one I found is a little more complicated to use and a little more expensive, but a lot more flexible from a design perspective. I'm going to be able to create much better looking stuff, so in the long run God has worked this thing out somehow. Also, because this tool is a lot more flexible, I'm going to be able to use a lot of the graphical resources from the DDQ Manual that I couldn't use the first time, so I'm going to be saving a lot of time in the future.

I've spent most of today discouraged and kind of freaking out, but as of now I'm starting to see how this is actually going to be something I'm grateful for. I'm going to have to work like crazy for the next few days to catch up, but I can handle that.

I guess this goes with the territory of starting something new on your own. This is one of those moments where I'm highly aware of God's grace and provision, and kind of amazed that He seems to have been waiting here in this mini-crisis, ready with a solution and even with a blessing once I shifted my focus off of freaking out and onto Him.

Gee, it's kind of like a life lesson I should be learning or something. Go figure.

Bulgarian Music Idol

I'm taking a shot at posting video directly to my blog. If you already watched this video from a few posts ago...watch it again, cause it's hilarious.

From now on if I call you Ken Lee you have no excuse for not knowing what I'm talking about. You have been warned.

Dreams

I feel like my blog has been getting into a bit of a rut lately, so today I'm doing something different. The first thing that popped into my head was to write about pizza, but I couldn't think about anything particularly interesting to say. I think I might just be hungry...

So you have been spared my classic essay, On Pizza Metaphysics. Instead, I'm going to write about dreams. Not the "last night I built a go-cart racer with my ex-landlord and a giant gopher" kind of dreams, more the "here are some crazy things I've always thought it would be amazing to do or learn before I die" kind.

What? Don't tell me you never dream about giant gophers every now and then...

Anyway, in no particular order, here are some of them. I'm only going to write down the more "out there" ones. I may never do any of these, but I think its important that we nurture the meaningful whispers in our hearts, especially when they're unreasonable:

- I've always wanted to learn to work with and forge metal. I would love to have a small forge, to know how to combine different kinds of metals to get different properties, and make all kinds of useful and artistic stuff. Ideally, some day I want to design and forge my own sword.

- Study martial arts in a remote mountain temple.

- I've always wanted to learn to start a fire without matches. I think I understand the technique pretty well, I just need to spend some time practicing. You just never know when that would come in handy...

- Sing lead vocals and write songs for a really fantastically amazing jazz/funk fusion band. I'd also love to learn to play jazz piano, but that's actually more within reach if I get my lazy ass in gear.

- Join a swing dancing team that travels and competes around the world, and also just hangs out and hosts really cool dances for fun.

- Buy and renovate an old caste in Spain or Scotland or somewhere along those lines. I'd love to keep as much of the grounds and stonework intact as possible, and bring in a landscaper to create gardens and peaceful sitting areas around the ruins. I'd renovate the inside of the main keep into a really comfortable home with lots of hardwood and some big fireplaces (with central heating and modern fixtures though). Oh, but no stupid antenna or satellite dish sticking up off the roof like a bad hair day, that's just lame.

- Star in a blockbuster fantasy/sci-fi action film.

- Spend some time sailing, diving, and fishing in the Indian Ocean. Just not in the monsoon season...

- Learn at least 3 languages other than English.

- Participate in the archeological excavation of an ancient ruins that changed the way we understand human history. It would be ok with me if we discovered fabulous treasure vaults too.

- Visit the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I'm so curious about what might be down there.

So those are the things I'm thinking of at the moment. I'm trying to get into the habit about talking about some of the crazy dreams and desires that surface from time to time. A lot of these things have been dreams of mine since I was a kid. What are some of the things you used to dream about? If you want to dust them off again, I'd love to hear about them. Who knows, maybe someday we can actually cross some of them off our lists.

Ken Lee

I began this post as a simple link to a crazy awful video that Jackie Thain sent me, but Janelle and I have been poking around on Youtube and found so many others. Consider this your moment of Zen for the week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqHyiOpaCro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ZvzLaHPVU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3uTGpDFywk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95dJonNLu6U&feature=related

Where the heart is...

I'm sitting on the couch upstairs in our house at Three Hills. It's great to be back. Spending a quiet evening up here is one of the things I enjoy most. But strangely, it doesn't feel the same...

Usually when I've been out on the road for a while I'm always incredibly ready to be back again. I like having all my stuff on shelves, I like being able to scrounge for food whenever I want, and I like pulling my clothes out of a closet instead of a suitcase for a change. But is all of that what makes a place your home?

It just feels different somehow. Usually when I come home from a trip it feels right, like slipping on your favorite pair of sweatpants. This time it didn't feel like much of anything. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to be out of the car. It felt good to walk up the steps and drop my stuff in my room, and I knew where to go to get a cold drink, but it honestly didn't feel that different than any of the places I've stayed over the last two weeks.

As I'm writing this I'm thinking of the old cliche, "home is where the heart is". Over the last two weeks I feel like my heart ran on ahead of me, into the future. I can feel that sense of restlessness and excitement that signals that God is moving forward, that the season is changing and He has something over the horizon that He wants me to see.

I don't know what this next season is supposed to be about, but I'm looking forward to finding out. As long as my heart is in the future, that's where my home will be too.

Time to move

A Sad Cry For Help

I can't stand it anymore!

My blog looks like crap....

Don't try and make me feel better, I know its true. All of my friends have these cool looking, custom blogs. I'm not sure if there's some secret to setting up a really cool looking one, or if I'm just graphically challenged.

Either way, if any of you savvy bloggers out there want to give me a hand here, maybe point me in the right direction, that would be awesome.

Coming Home

I just got out of the car here in Charlottesville. It felt so good to stretch my legs and walk around the yard of Jonathan's house. The grass and the trees have crossed that spring threshold, shaking off their winter drowsiness and launching into full green. I still don't think I've ever seen a shade of green quite as fresh and joyful as the color of the young leaves in a Virginia spring.

I was walking around the yard and before I knew it I found myself heading into the woods. The sun was just beginning to set and about twenty yards past the edge of the forest this incredible golden sunlight was dripping from the bushes and the branches of the smaller trees. There really is something mystical about old forests. If you listen closely you can hear them breathing, feel their heartbeat pulse under your feet. I think the forest here was glad to see me.

It's really good to be home.

Time Out To Scoff

I caught some wireless at a coffee shop here in Ashville. Jonathan and I have been on the road since yesterday morning. I'll definitely write more about the trip, but I wanted to throw up the most hilariously bad sentence I've seen in a looooong time. It was on a sign hanging in the bathroom of the noodle place where we have lunch....these are the kinds of things I notice I guess.

And I quote:

"Each employee's hands must be washed thoroughly, using soap, warm water and sanitary towel or approved hand-drying device, before beginning to work and after each visit to the toilet."

Wow....

Death by tray it shall be!

I've decided that things have been too serious around here lately! And since I don't really have time to write a long post, here's a link to something that should make you laugh.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw

p.s. the views and language expressed in this clip are the sole property of its authors, and I only take responsibility for the ones that make you laugh =).

Texas, part 2

Its been a crazy couple of days, but the Vanguard conference is over. I was surprised by how much I have missed being with friends, being in worship again, talking about real and painful and mysterious things at late hours.

Deepening connections with people here has been the best surprise of the trip. It isn't often that I meet people that I really think I could be friends with well into the future, but there are so many of them here. I've been struck by the clear image of seeing some of these people at my wedding some day, of getting together for vacations and watching our children become friends. I want to do whatever I can to make that happen.

It amazes me sometimes how quickly you can connect with other believers. I've only known some of the people here for a few days, but already I feel incredibly connected with them. I know I'd go really far out of my way for them if they needed it, and I think they would do the same for me. More than ever, I'm convinced that relationships are the heart of the Kingdom.

Thanks to all of you amazing people who have been sharing your homes and families with me.