Mind your Zs and Qs?

What does it cost to save? I was playing an online word game with a friend this morning and was faced with a tray full of vowels and a lone Z. Normally, I'll wait to do something spectacular with a weighty letter such as this. This morning though, I opted to play it quickly. My strategy changed. And I thought I'd share just why.

There is space in the letter tray for seven letters. No more. Just seven. So while I'm waiting to be spectacular, there actually is space in the tray for only six letters. Imagine if I had the Q or the X as well as the Z. I would have cut my potential for change by 42 percent. And change equals opportunity.

Admittedly, the reward for saving and waiting can be significant. Using the game example, imagine aligning a Q or a Z, each worth at least 10 points in the games I most often play, with a Triple Letter Score or Triple Word Score space on the playing board. If the opportunity to apply that bonus in two directions presents itself, the benefit may be 60 points or more.

Here' the balance. How many 5-10-point words are you willing to play to set up the big score? How many plays that might exceed 20 points are you willing to forgo to be spectacular? Because while you're waiting, you're reducing the opportunity for new letters to flow through your tray. And large payoffs can have large costs. Ask anybody who has been left holding a Q at the end of a game.

The repercussions of misplaying a game are slight. I have not been invited to any high stakes word games and I'm not expecting such an invitation. You win a couple, lose a few, and keep on playing. It's a diversion.

When I pull my gaze away from the monitor, though, and look around the room, the principle still applies. I see a lot of items I've clung to for quite a while. Having moved a few times in the past few years, I know their cost in packing and labor. One does not heft a box full of vinyl records, for example, without questioning their value in enjoyment when compared to the effort required to carry them up and down flights of stairs. My home is full of such things. If I were to be asked to drop everything and move to a new place doing the work of my dreams, today I would say no because of the practical requirement to pack, load, ship, receive, unpack, and situate my belongings. My Zs and Qs--and truthfully, my Fs, Ms and Bs--anchor me here. And not in a good way.

What is the purpose of playing? Is it to be spectacular or to win the game? I think it is to win. Let's move a step further away from the computer monitor and cross the threshold of our front door. What does the game look like out here? What are the Zs and Qs in our professions or in our relationships? Do we hold things tightly because they are comfortable rather than valuable? Because they are known, despite their condition?

Recently, I was looking at a book filled with pictures of small living spaces. I've lived through a period when so many people embraced larger homes and I still enjoy looking at beautiful designs of estate homes. The thing that most impressed me about the small home designs, though, was the simplicity of lines, the lack of clutter, and the willingness to live with less. I confess, some of the photos left me unmoved. They were too stark for my taste and I didn't feel as if people were living in those spaces. At least not happy people. But I was curious what it would be like to successfully accommodate my belongings in a dramatically diminished footprint and still have all I need. My wife and I have made a huge step in that direction. Our home today is much smaller than our former home. We've been here a couple of years now and we're still facing the issues of clutter, proportion of items to the spaces they occupy, and getting the best use from the rooms we have. But we've begun.

I don't know where the balance is in this. I don't feel we have the agility to respond to a life-altering opportunity today. That's sad, really. On the other hand, we have quite a few belongings that bring us comfort. Are they Qs and Zs?

I'm tempted at times to empty the tray entirely. What if? What if we had no possessions and no ties to our current jobs? Would we stay here? Would we look for the same type of work? Would we make a difference in other people's lives? Would it be more or less than we do today?

I don't expect an answer to these questions, but I'd sure like to play at least some of the big letters and make room for change. How about you?

Beendorsedments

LinkedIn has turned self-promotion into an industry with its "endorsements." If you're a LinkedIn member, you've probably seen these. A message appears in your inbox telling you that one of the people in your network has endorsed you for a certain skill. That is pleasant and affirming, but potentially misleading as well. These endorsements have the same reputability as a certain online encyclopedia compiled and maintained by the community-at-large.

I enjoy recognition as much as the next person. The part of this process I dislike is that I have little control over the endorsements I receive, which of my skills is being endorsed, or the authority of the person doing the endorsing. I've not looked deeply into the LinkedIn mechanism for endorsements, but if what I saw over my wife's shoulder is anything to judge by, one is presented with several pictures, each a person from one's network, and a word or two. Does Jan know about Corporate Law? Does Samuel know about Botany? Does David know about Accounting?

All well and good, but here's the trap. Suppose Accounting appears in my resume simply because I performed that function in a limited capacity several jobs ago and I dared not show a gap in employment? And now, my close personal friend whom I know only in passing because we ate in the same dining facility at yet another job, has endorsed  me for my capacity to work with numbers. I understand. They were simply trying to be helpful, but do they realize that they may have consigned me to a small, stifling corner of Hell? I begin receiving notifications of employment opportunities spending my day with numbers. Jobs where I would look wistfully across the office at the copywriters and editors, aching to describe something or even to document a process. But then, it is back to columns and rows, rows and columns.

The die is cast. Around the world, people are boredly staring at their monitors, bunching one cheek into a contorted caricature of themselves with an arm and a palm for support as their glazed eyes consider the rogue's gallery of contacts being paraded before them. And they are clicking. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. It's like a poor person's version of a slot machine, but the payout is an email informing the person behind the photograph that they have been honored by yet another endorsement with little or no basis.

I ask only this. If you're a LinkedIn member, resist. Don't go for the easy click and the illusion that you've thoughtfully considered their aptitude, and that you approve. Save your unreserved support of somebody's capability for that select group of people whom you've seen in action. Repeatedly. The people you'd not hesitate to tap if you were forming a team. The people that you know you'd be proud to stand behind at any time because they have not only talent, but character. Every endorsement carries a little bit of you, too. Make it count.

On Leaving Home

Today was the dreaded vote at our church. Circumstances have brought us to a point at which we as a community haven’t the will to continue. We close our doors at the end of the month.

As weary leaders stepped down, no new leaders stepped up, and organizations need leaders. Meetings surrounding this decision have been emotional. Some people have been a part of this faith community for 20 years. Dread has now moved to a sense of impending loss for many of my friends. Part of me wants to join them, but I can’t. I know there will be people who I won’t see for a while, but that’s okay. It won’t change my appreciation of them. I’ll miss the shared experiences, but that’s okay, too. There are new experiences to be had.

Seeing this decision as a mark of failure is too easy and ignores the effect we have had in surrounding communities.

Nearby, we have supported people in dire need. We have made medicines available to people who have no other health system than a volunteer group of physicians. We have opened our doors to homeless people each year during colder months and have spent time getting to know people who can be quickly dismissed if we’re not careful. We have supported one another, celebrated births, shared the experience of deaths, watched couples commit to one another for their lives together, eaten many pizzas and covered dish meals, gathered for study groups, consumed countless cups of coffee, and we've grown together.

Abroad, we've made dear friendships in the Caribbean, sharing teaching techniques, responding to hurricanes, worshiping together, training people to use tools for carpentry, helping to refit a commercial building into a health club—a fantastic place of outreach there, and rebuilding homes.

As a body, we've only just emerged from our teen years. Fittingly, that’s when many of us leave home and branch out. Beginning in March, that’s what we’ll do.

So what we are experiencing is not God saying “no,” but God saying “yes, but not here.” This was simply a local expression of the Church. Even churches called out as examples out in the bible have ceased. But the Church remains.

During a congregational prayer at a worship service yesterday, the leader made this point: God will never love you less, nor more, than today. That dramatic thought, that Somebody accepts us as we are and that we are so fully, constantly, unchangingly loved, gives me a sense of peace about the impending change at my church. I have had the privilege of worshiping alongside wonderful people. Despite misunderstandings we may have had with one another, each of them is loved beyond comprehension by their Creator. Each of us receives that same grace.

The remaining question is “what next?” I don’t know. I do know something that excites me, though. By existing at all, our church has equipped many people for service. Some left us quietly to serve elsewhere. Some left us dramatically. People, you know, can be like that. But now, or very soon, we’ll see people transplanting themselves into new houses of worship. They’ll be trying different places, studying new things, making new friends, and the legacy of my church will find its expression throughout our community. I hope we all give the best we have, now that we’re leaving home.

Sunday Walk

Today was one of those rare days when neither my bride nor I had specific responsibilities at church. We took advantage of that circumstance and slept a little longer. When I finally made it to the kitchen window, I saw no horizon save mystery. A foggy day. 

I stepped into the back yard with my camera and snapped the hardwoods, branches fanned against the grey. It was nice, but it wasn't enough. I needed a walk. Somehow stuffy horizons help us to see beauty in unexpected places.

We live near a very busy highway in a densely populated county of Maryland. Several years ago, the state erected a sound barrier between our community and the highway. It has a gated service road that does a commendable job of keeping vehicles out. The walkers, though, have neatly circumvented the obstacle at several points from within the community. This gravel road divides the wall and a line of trees that marks the back property lines of several neighbors. It's become a dog walk, the scene of illegal campfires, an impromptu dumping ground, a collection site of bottle caps, and a convenient place to thank God for unexpected beauty. So we'll begin at the end, turning around to see our final destination.

In the time the wall has existed, it has become the support for plants seeking light. So much so that there is now a disheveled fringe of growth at the top. At this writing, I have not visited the mirror yet today, so the wall and I may have much in common.

One aspect of a foggy day that pictures can't capture is the hush and the sense of expectancy. On my way down the street to this site, I was loudly and somewhat rudely berated by a bird hidden in a spruce tree. Its protests were magnified by the dampened sounds of nearly everything else around us. 

Another elusive aspect is the cool, damp feel of the day. Dampness seems to be a pervasive theme of days like this, a theme visibly expressed in the revelation of a web woven into the plants along the path. To my delight, the dampness attended nearly everything I saw, adding a sheen to every surface and gathering in a sparkle of potential at the ends of twigs and the low points of leaves and branches.

Foggy days draw us close. When our horizon is limited or taken away entirely, we've little choice but to attend to the now. Rather than mulling over the "to-be" we see the charm of the curve right before us. We notice the little things dangling at the periphery of our vision and we are charmed by them. We look up and see the artistry of evergreens softening our view of the sky.

When we are present now, we can delight in oddities, such as streaks of color that surprise us by being where we might least expect them, or a group of plants humbly bowing to all who pass by.

We can be caught unaware by a lone sentinel.

We can see fronds that seem to be unfurling in a breeze we can't feel.

Or cottony tufts of white lending dignity to withering stems.

When we admit that the future, at best, is vague and despite our best efforts, the path we follow may not be as straight as we expect, we can choose to pay more heed to those things in the foreground or to, perhaps, look up and see the larger composition.

In the bare treeline, this little holly gave me hope. A splash of green defying the gray day.

I also liked that it took the fog and made it a fashion accessory.

I was frustrated in my attempts to get a good picture of water droplets. Maybe I need to trade my auto-focus camera and go back to an ought-to-focus camera. Really though, I do appreciate the simplicity of point-and-shoot, if not the execution. So do those shy water droplets. 

At the end of the service road, there is a containment pond. I was intrigued by the reflection. It was at once organic and also linear with the line of the wall bisecting the rounded edges of the pond.

Taken from the other side of the pond, the reflection looks the way we'd expect it to. Sure would be nice if more folks could get a view from opposite sides, wouldn't it?

I don't even remember what this was. Doesn't matter. I like it.

H2O exhibitionist.

Despite the hue of the sky and the reduced contrast, there was color to be had. I looked down and saw these leaves, stones, and whatnot in the gravel road. The bright green moss is covering the crest of the hump. 

Next I saw this streak of crimson next to the, well, the white stuff. No reason to be too technical about the labeling, is there?

I saw this and thought, "Hmm. Facebook cover photo?"
Yeah. I know. I left the moment for a moment.

I didn't notice the grate on the front of the overflow basin until I saw it in the water.

 How much am I missing by spending too little time in reflection?

I like the patterns. Go ahead. Proudly show your age!

So we're back where we began. A gate, a post, and a gravel road. When I walked up to the gate, I saw this and I had to agree. It is way too easy to buy into a commercialized Master.

Last picture. The wall has a door, but somebody at the State did not get the memo on Americans with Disabilities Act laws.

Thanks for walking with me. Grab your camera and take a walk. Shoot what you see. Write what you feel. Send me a link. I'd love to spend that time with you.