Discipline

Sometimes in my life discipline is a huge struggle.
This not only has serious implications for my personal life, but can also affect my working life, as well. Last week, for example, I felt like I was running around in circles all week at work simply because I wasn't exercising the discipline necessary to go to bed at a reasonable hour. It's not so much that I wasn't able to accomplish all of my assigned tasks for the week, but at times I simply felt as though a hurricane was spinning around me and I was never able to get my feet on the ground.
In order to try to become more disciplined, I thought through and wrote down what I would like my daily 'routine' to look like, primarily to be a guide for me as I think about how to make my days - and particularly my days off - most productive. I'll invite you into the crooked inner workings of my mind, giving you an example of what my "routine" for a Monday looks like:

6:30AM - Wake up/Shower
7:05AM - Leave Home
8:00AM-6:00PM - Work at the Mish
6:00PM - Leave work
7:00PM - Arrive Home
7:00PM-9:30PM - Personal Time
7:00PM-7:30PM - Cooking Dinner
7:30PM-8:00PM - Eating Dinner
8:00PM-9:00PM - Personal Bible Study
9:00PM-9:30PM - Journal/Prayer/Reading
9:30PM-9:45PM - Pray with Tyler
10:00PM - Bedtime

Hopefully I'll be able to use this as a model for a daily routine and not feel bound by this model (the struggle will be to not get locked into this, but rather allow this to provide the freedom to rest well but also get the most out of every day). I also scheduled in "Activities" on certain days to ensure some fun. I think this schedule should help with some personal struggles I've been going through, as well.

4-SQUARE

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the popular playground game, 4-Square, but around Somerville, it's serious business.  We kicked off the springtime weather yesterday afternoon with a rousing game at the local playground, and played for more than 2 hours.  It was AWESOME!  I think at one point we had about 10 people playing:  Stephen and Rachel Thrasher, Amanda Wessel, Sara Oettinger, Nicole Vander Laan, Lindsey Baggett, Jenny Harris, Tyler, and myself.  It was a lot of fun, but also really funny to watch a bunch of mid-twenties guys and girls living it up on the playground.  Loads of fun - spring is here!

On busy-ness...

I'm not sure about other folks, but I find myself gravitating so often towards a tendency of busy-ness.  I'm not even sure if that's a word, or if that's how it's spelled, but I wanted to make a distinction between 'business' and the idea of being busy.  I am, of course, writing about the latter.  

Every two weeks, I spend 40 out of 96 hours at the Boston Rescue Mission.  Because we work 10-hour shifts, this means that I work 4 days in a row with a three-day weekend.  Of the remaining 56 hours, by tomorrow morning at 8:00am, I will have spent 30-32 hours sleeping.  That leaves 24 hours over the course of 4 days into which I tried to cram a truckload of things to do.  What did I do in those 24 hours?  I spent 3 hours cooking [gumbo with kielbasa, rice, tomatoes, onions and celery, and butterbeans for dinner on Monday night; fried biscuits for breakfast on Tuesday and Thursday mornings; some kind of upside down taco pizza that took a minute to heat up in the microwave for dinner on Wednesday night].  It took 2 hours for me to eat the things I had cooked.  I lost 6 hours to travel time, which seems like an unreasonable amount of time to be traveling to and from work, but I guess when I do the math and figure 40 minutes to work and 40 minutes back, you get about 6 hours over the course of 4 days.  In case you've lost count, that brings the hourly total to 11, which leaves 13 hours.  In the remaining 13 hours, I watched some television, studied the Bible, did Pilates, played basketball with an eight-year-old [a story for another time], visited a friend in the hospital, went to Bible study, took showers and got dressed.  

I am now waiting expectantly for the next 72 hours, into which I am already planning to pack even more events.  I already have something planned for Friday night, something for Saturday morning, something for Saturday night, and church on Sunday.  Something will probably happen on Sunday evening, although I'm not sure what it will be yet.

At this point, one might ask, "What the heck is this about?  Why is he writing about this anyway?"  Thanks for reading this far.  The point is this:  I think my tendency to gravitate towards being busy reflects something much deeper about myself.  First, I think it reveals an insecurity in being alone, wanting to find validation from people and wanting to stay busy in order to be comfortable.  Second, I think it reveals an inability to thrive in solitude, to really seek out the presence of the Lord in silence, and be rejuvenated by His presence.  Third, I think that in order to be successful, I must necessarily fill up every ounce of free time that I have so that you think I am either popular or independent or successful.  

The reality is this - I am insecure about being alone for long periods of time.  I do want to find validation from people.  I don't have to sit with my own insecurities or shortcomings if I'm not by myself.  Eighty percent of the time I do not thrive in solitude.  I am lazy, lethargic, and otherwise lustful.  I want you to think that I'm popular, that I'm successful, that I have all my ducks in a row, and that I know how to manage lots of different things.  And so I pile thing on top of thing until I'm balancing a wobbly Jenga tower by one tile, and wonder why life is unmanageable.  The idea of success that I have is a lie - it is the American Dream, the devil's scheme to make us forget our need and learn self-reliance.  And so I press on towards the three-day weekend, hoping to remember something about solitude, and finding the freedom to say no to something...anything.

No more BostonNOW!

The BostonNOW is no more.  Today marked the final day of the less-than-stellar "news"paper.  I, for one, am ecstatic.  However, it does mean that several of our residents have been laid off, and are now looking for new jobs.  Overall, though, I'm glad to see it go.

Safety

There are times in my life when the idea of safety really gets under my skin.  I hear people talk about 'being safe,' and want to shake them into taking risks and living lives that are 'dangerous.'  I want to walk out of my house without locking the doors, I want someone to mug me [so I can fulfill some sick macho desire in my heart to beat someone up], or I want to pack it all in and take my backpack 'into the wild.'  John Eldredge might speak about these things as good desires, desires that reflect God's nature to be adventurous or, worse, to be a 'risk-taker' [which, by the way, I do NOT endorse].  Others might call these things foolish, stating pertinent reasons why it is stupid to head out into the wild blue yonder without a plan or a friend [I endorse this; it is not wise to go out into the woods, particularly in unfamiliar territory, without a buddy], or why I should lock my doors because my roommate might not share my disregard for personal belongings.  

For more than a year, my ideas about safety have been challenged in a profound way.  We often speak about the safety of our community at the Mission, referring mostly to the healthy, thought-provoking, recovery-centric environment that we strive to create for our residents.  In this context, safety takes priority; it holds precedent in a profound way.  Unlike my personal desires to disregard my own safety, I am forced to consider the safety of the Mission's Community with the utmost regard.  This is a challenging thought for me, mostly because I often hear the word 'SAFETY' with a general degree of stigma.  

In concordance with the Mission's safety, a new thought arises: in order to ensure a positive recovery experience that gives our residents the best opportunities available to succeed and thrive in their recovery, safety has to be paramount.  No longer can safety hold a stigma, but it must be given the priority it deserves - our residents must have every opportunity to beat their alcoholism or addiction.  This happens, primarily, by providing residents with a chance to share openly and honestly in groups, by doing our best to remove the threats of drugs or alcohol being used in the house, and by ensuring that our residents feel cared for at every intersection of their lives.  

Do I still think about safety with a general disdain in terms of my personal life?  Absolutely.  However, the word safety has taken on a new importance when I think about it in the context of community.

Visitors

***  I apologize profusely for the enormous length of time between my last post and now.  ***

From the front, I just need to let everyone know that the community at the Boston Rescue Mission is the most stable it has been in more than two months.  Praise be, praise be.  

The months of February and March witnessed two different visiting groups to the Mission, one from Furman University in South Carolina, and the other from Northwestern University in Minnesota.  

The group from Furman came with wide eyes and bushy tails, extremely excited to learn about ministering to men and women struggling with addiction, but also excited to see what giving one's life away looks like in a context outside of the college campus.  It was great to have this group at the Mish, particularly because two of my best friends, Thomas and Sarah Camp, were leading the trip.  It was wonderful to reunite with them and fellowship with the group, as well, and recount how God was working amongst the community at the Mission through conversations these students were able to have on a daily basis.

The group from Northwestern also arrived psyched up and ready to go.  They were led by some other close friends, Charlie and Jennifer Brooks.  (I graduated a year ahead of Jennifer's sister, Laura, at PC, and Charlie was the Summer Beach Project Director when I was a Team Leader).  These students, too, were able to have a tremendous impact on our residents, and they left the Mission having impacted our men and women deeply with the beauty of the gospel.  

Hosting these groups is a special time, since it was through my exposure to the Mission on a trip like this that I decided to move to Boston and live at the Mission in the first place.  It is always very exciting for me to spend time with these students and share my vision for the poor and homeless of the Greater Boston area, and see the ways that God works on their hearts, revealing sin, increasing their compassion, and sends them back to their respective college campuses with deeper desire to see the gospel impact their communities.