Reset button

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I have been retired, for the most part, for 15 months. I still do about 10 hours weekly of clerical work for the last day job. Actually, I never had a “day job”; pretty much every job I ever had required working nights and/or weekends. And come to think of it, I haven’t worked a regular 40-hour week in 10 years.

When my position was eliminated (“Nothing personal, it’s a financial decision”), it was my full intention to work for myself from that moment on. I declared myself a full-time author and started an online “newspaper” for the local news desert southeast of my home. After four months a paper on the other side of the bay decided to recruit me for their open editor’s job, and they were so eager to fill the position that they agreed to let me work 28 hours a week so that I could maintain my online newspaper on the side.

Truth be told, my side hustles never brought in enough revenue to pay the bills. Social Security and the 28-hour job kept the lights on. But I really enjoyed the four-ish years that the online news site survived. I was filling a void and making my own way.

I was also stalling. If I really wanted to be a full-time author when I grew up, taking on two news-gathering jobs was an excuse not to grow up. 

I retired 50 years to the day after I started my first full-time job. For these past 15 months, technically, I have been what I wanted to be when I grew up: A full-time author, with a part-time clerical job to help with groceries. Funny thing about growing up: It seems I don’t wanna.

Monday always has been a good day for a reset, and I write this Sunday evening with my finger poised over that button. Will this be the week that I finally start being a full-time author in practice as well as in theory? The fact that I wrote it as a question, not as a declaration, is telling.

I know me. And if you’ve followed this blog, you know me, too. I’ve made declarations before. The first time I declared I was going to become a full-time author, the goal was my birthday in March 1990. I’m currently two-thirds through a novel that I once declared I would publish by the end of 2021. And so I’m going to leave it as a question and not a declaration like, “Yes! From this day forward I am a full-time author!”

But keep an eye on me for me, please. Feel free to ask how my new book or next album is coming, as politely or as rudely as you wish. You don’t even have to be interested in reading or listening to them; just receiving the question will motivate me. At least I hope it does.

Being accountable to someone is a good motivation. I’m planning to have a spaghetti dinner at Mary’s house this afternoon, and my goal is to read her what I’ve written today. That seems to be a good way to reset my brain and motivate me; we’ll see how that works.

If pressing the reset button does work, and the good Lord willing, from this day forward I will be an actual full-time author. The thought both excites and frightens me.

By our love

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I couldn’t get back to sleep because of an earworm — “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” It’s actually a pleasant melody and thought to “haunt” a person at 3 o’clock in the morning.

I wasn’t feeling unusually haunted or troubled, other than my typical self-chastisement for not getting work done. I was lying awake for no other reason than “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love” kept playing in my head over and over — just the melody because all I know of the lyrics is the song title. It’s a simple and catchy tune with the simple, catchy and haunting theme that I keep returning to.

I thought about the “why” of what’s happening in the world, or perhaps the “why not.” Why do people who want to manipulate other people double down on fear and anger and outrage and hate — the mean campaign ads, and the nasty political accusations that border on falsehood or are outright falsehoods?

“Why not? It works.” Mean and nasty politicians keep getting elected and re-elected. But why does it work? Why are everyday folks so willing to succumb to fear and anger and outrage and hate and lies?

Why? Because they reject the message that we should love God — they treat God as if he doesn’t exist, or act as if — and love our neighbors, recognizing that everyone we meet is a neighbor.

“They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.”

Why reject the message of Christ? I suppose one could say that Christians can act out of fear and anger and outrage and hate as much as anyone else, so why do I point out the speck in a non-Christian’s eye while ignoring the logs in Christians’ eyes? Wait, I ought to notice that Jesus was focusing on the log in an individual’s eye — in my eye.

The only fear and anger and outrage and hate I can control is my own. I might feel the sting of your fear and anger and outrage and hate, but I can’t do anything about what’s in your heart and mind and soul. My own heart, mind and soul, however — those I can deal with.

I may never be able to explain why you fear or hate me — perhaps not me personally, but people who think and believe like me — but I can treat you with as much love as I can muster. They may be laws, to love God and love my neighbor, but I can’t (and don’t want to) force you to follow the law. When I finally yield to those two laws, there is no inclination to force at all — only love.

Why don’t others see the joy and peace that come from choosing to love? I suppose they see others who profess Christ who seem to live by the same principles of fear and anger and outrage and hate that pervade our world’s culture. I come back to the things that I can control, and I can’t even make my fellow Christians live by Christ.

“They’ll know I am a Christian by my love.”

That’s why I could not sleep, I think — because I know I am not loving with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul. It does me no good to lament a world where millions and billions seem to be living in fear and anger and outrage and hate, not if I don’t have love.

I write about the fruits of the Spirit all the time, but there’s a reason the first fruit on the list is love. I can preach joy and peace and kindness and all the rest until the cows come home, but if I don’t say it with love, I’m no better than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

When I say it with love, maybe others will see my joy and my gentleness and my kindness and think, “I could use some of that.” And as more of us begin to treat our neighbors with such love, we might change the world. It can’t happen by force, and it can’t happen quickly — only one heart, mind and soul at a time.

Another Players triumph

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I wish we had gone to see “Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash” a little earlier, so I could shout from the rooftops that you should see this show, because by the time this post appears there will only be two performances left, and at least one of them was already sold out when I bought our tickets for Thursday night’s performance. The good news is that means they didn’t need my help to spread the word about how excellent this show is.

I have always loved coming to Peninsula Players, the professional summer troupe that stages five shows every season along the shores of Green Bay just south of Fish Creek. I consider it the premier event in a county that is full of amazing productions every summer. This was the first time Mary and I went there together, and it just may be the best show I’ve ever seen at the Theatre in the Garden.

Five actor/musicians — Joe Casey, Aja Alcazar, Trevor Lindley Craft, James David Larson, and Paul Wyatt — tell the story of the Man in Black through his songs, seamlessly trading instruments and roles in a dazzling display of fivefold virtuosity. I wish I could see it again. In the future when we meet someone else who caught a performance, we will exchange a smile and a knowing glance that we experienced something special.

Highlights: In “Daddy Sang Bass” the performers took turns playing the instruments and singing parts, each showing their prowess on guitar, bass, mandolin and banjo without dropping a note anywhere.

I got goosebumps during “Delia’s Gone,” a solo performance with Larson alone in the spotlight wrenching every bit of pathos and humor from one of Cash’s creepiest songs, and with Alcazar’s mournful wail in “Sweet Bye and Bye,” the song that marked the death of Cash’s 14-year-old brother. As the only woman in the cast, she had to represent Cash’s mother, first wife, and second wife June Carter through the course of the evening, and she pulls it off admirably.

The players unveil “Moon Over Buffalo” on Wednesday, playing through Sept. 6, and then “Murder Girl” Sept. 9 through Oct. 18. Find the details at peninsulaplayers.com.