Problem Solving

So the night before last I woke up around 12:30 am.  Normally my wife is jealous of me for being able to go back to sleep at the drop of a hat.  For example, the night I dreamed a huge spider was hovering over our bed and woke up immediately, jumped over her, and turned on all of the lights in the bedroom.  Once I realized that I was just dreaming, I turned off the lights, told her everything was okay, climbed back in bed, and was asleep in a matter of moments.  (She, however, was awake for hours after that.)

Unfortunately, the night before last was not one of those for me.  I woke up and stayed awake for a while.  My mind was racing.  I was, in my own way, trying to solve all of the world’s problems.  What I most remember is thinking about what I would do with Iran, Israel, and Lebanon if I were a world leader with diplomatic leverage.  I do not know what I would do if I were actually a world leader – I’d never sleep!

It is popular in my little portion of the world to be in favor of Israel.  The biblical tribes of Israel are God’s chosen people, and we affirm that today’s Jews are descendants and heirs of the people and the promise.  It is fashionable to believe that God has a plan, that nothing humanity can imagine or do can thwart that plan, and that means that Israel must exist, must expand to its biblical borders, and must survive intact to the end of the world.

It is a popular belief.

But there is nothing in me that can believe that God is honored by Israel’s actions.  Tony Blair and George Bush stand firmly that Israel has a right to defend itself, and I agree that the Israeli government has a responsibility to insure that its citizens are safe.  And I recognize that Israel has been terrorized since its foundings, and that it is surrounded by people that are hostile to its very existence.  And I recognize that history as it has been recorded has a way of treating Hebrews and Jews that way.

But I ache for Lebanon.  For a people that seemed just last year to finally decide to take their destiny into their own hands and work toward their own goals and ambitions apart from autocratic leaders. For a people who have spent years recovering from a civil war, rebuilding, restarting, renewing. For the children and parents, teenagers and ambitious adults who had made great plans.

It has all been ripped away from them in a matter of days while the international community has sat back and watched it happen.  What will happen to them now?  What legacy have we started building in Lebanon?  If this is not World War III starting as early commentators suggested, is it not the seed of it?

I didn’t come to any answers before I went back to sleep.  And the problems linger.

Ready for launch

I was excited today to read online that the Shuttle Discovery made a safe and “flawless” landing in Florida.  Someone I listened to recently said that the only reason we watched the launch on July 4 was to find out if all the astronauts were going to be safe.  (Actually, he put it much more blunt than that – and I was and am so bothered by the bluntness, that I won’t repeat it.  It wasn’t wrong, obscene, or offensive really. Just blunt. And for me, uncomfortably so.)  He was right. I watched with my family in eager anticipation, not really sure what was going to happen on the screen, but riveted to it nonetheless.

But those astronauts are safely back on the ground, returning to their families. And NASA, at least from what I read, is assuming that the post-Columbia test flights are done, and full-fledged mission planning, ISS building, and Hubble repairing can now pick up where it left off.

These are interesting times in my life. I mentioned that my 300 resumes (give or take a few) finally matched me with a good place to work. But I’m not there yet. We’re still in process. I am still working out the rest of my notice at my old employer. Still packing boxes, not really sure whether we’re more or less than halfway done and amazed about how much stuff we crammed into a two bedroom apartment. Part of me feels like I’m outside of myself, watching my life on a tv screen, incredibly hopeful of the possibilities of what might be, yet utterly fearful of what might be. And completely riveted. It’s a new phase for our lives, a new start. A new launch, you might say. And we’re not really sure what will happen next.

But I’m ready. Ready for launch.

Maybe next time I’ll spend some time pondering why I feel like I have to have launched before I get started. Is my launch only future? Have I not experienced other launches?

Hmm….that’s quite enough for one blog posting, I think.

My point exactly

I just came across this blogged short story, and it is a must read.

Confused yet?

I have in the last few months started at least 30 blogs. Okay, not really, but I have tried a number. MSN Spaces, Yahoo! 360, and probably a few that I have forgotten. Still trying to find one that feels right for the audiences that I am trying to reach. This one seems to catch primarily my darker moods, which I’ve been hanging out a lot in the last few months. I plan to keep this one going, at least for now. Everyone needs a place to moan, groan, and bemoan. Or at least be moody.

Anyway, for anyone who reads this blog, you might find a new one that I have created to also be of interest to you: http://waitingtolive.wordpress.com Yes, the reference to a blog entry in this Daryl’s Thoughts blog is intentional. I’ve been thinking about that line a lot, and I have decided to explore it in its own blog. As I am also starting up as a minister again, I may also start one additional one. I’ll keep you posted.

I like WordPress because it makes it relatively easy to get a really nice looking blog up really quickly. BlogSpot/Blogger is more flexible (WordPress does not allow editing of the HTML), but WordPress is easier to work with (in my opinion, as one who is not fluent in HTML).

Anyway, let me know what you think of each.

Statistics never lie

Of course, gullible.info reports that 35 percent of all statistics in American newspapers are later found to be false or entirely unreliable.  Which leads me to today’s Waiting To Live pondering…

All through junior high and high school I was led to believe that the secret to a good job was a good college education.  Indeed, to be successful in a given career and earn the most money over a lifetime, one needed to earn a bachelor’s degree in that field.  Numbers were rattled off declaring the differences in salaries between the college educated and non-college educated.  So, dutifully, I went to college.  In fact, I took the next step and went to graduate school, because for my particular line of work a 90+ hour Masters degree beyond the initial bachelor’s degree is absolutely required to land a good job.  And really I anticipated going all the way through the Ph.D. level so that I could play my part to guarantee that the next generation would have the same kind of opportunities at college and masters level education that I have been granted.

Ahem.

300 resumes and 4 call backs later, I finally have a job that in my field, utlizing my degrees, expanding upon my interests, and furthering what I see as my purpose and contributions to the greater human race.  But for those first 299 resumes, I just wasn’t sure.

See, it’s not the degree.  I interviewed with on place where my would-be supervisor had skipped out on the typical educational track and went straight for the top position.  I know personally of a number of others who shifted completely in mid-life and are incredibly good at what they now do.  It’s not the degree.  Most of the places that passed me over wanted someone with experience.  One encounter I heard about from someone I know, the interviewer actually told them: “Experience is like credit: if you don’t have any, it’s almost impossible to get.  Good luck!”

Gee, thanks.

So today I talked to an old friend who is three years into trying to get herself into the career that she trained for.  Three years.  And still looking.  (So much for dreaming that my wife and I were the only ones who ever experienced this after completing what we thought were all the basic requirements.)  Before I accepted this offer, I was at the point where I was actually considering returning to school to get a degree that I was not at all interested in, but which I knew would allow me into a lucrative career.  Hopefully.  Not that degrees matter.

Anyway, I was moping around one week, drowning in my self-imposed pity party when someone asked me what I wanted to do.  I stopped and thought for a moment.  I knew what it was, so I told my friend.  It’s a pretty vague and broad topic.  And he just said, “What are you waiting for?  I don’t know what is stopping you.”  I wanted to blame all of those 299 places that passed over my resume, but I knew that wasn’t true.  At least not entirely.  I was simply waiting for someone else to tell me that it was time to live.

So I’ll tell you now.  There is nothing like the present.  You cannot wait to live.  There is no guarantee for tomorrow.  Now is all we have.  I spent two years of my life waiting for something to happen.  Fortunately, it finally did.  But I don’t get those two years back.