Note: this is rather lengthy and it is an
update about things that are happening in my life. If you are interested in that
sort of thing, read on.
Life doesn't change in gentle curves. What
usually happens is that you move along in one direction, thinking things are
going smoothly, then some event occurs that throws you off-course. Sometimes
these events are things we choose. Sometimes not. There is grief and stress as
you adjust, but soon things smooth out and it feels like your life is "on
track." again.
Jeanene and I have experienced a fair amount of
significant changes in our lives over the last half decade or so. And we're
about to experience another major change. This one is pretty big. It has to do
with that elusive but important thing which all adults must do. We call it,
"Making a living."
A brief history of how we have made our living
so far:
Jeanene and I came to San Antonio in the fall
of 1989, fresh out of seminary. We went to seminary together, both receiving the
standard seminary degree (Master of Divinity) in 1987. We spent about 18 months
doing Clinical Pastoral Education, she at one hospital and me at another. We
came to San Antonio because the Baptist Healthy Care System was hiring a woman
chaplain. They chose Jeanene. I, on the
other hand, had no job at all. Our only daughter was 7 months old, so I was a
stay-at-home daddy for a time. Jeanene worked and made the money. I stayed home,
vacuumed, changed diapers, and took care of Reiley.
It was the hardest job I've ever had. Hands
down, nothing else comes close. Perhaps I'll write about that someday.
After some months, I got a part-time job at
this new and very unusual (and in our minds very attractive) little church.
Covenant Baptist Church was what they were calling it. This was sometime in
1990. Jeanene went to work at 6am and came home at 3pm. I did my work mostly
after 3:00. We did a kind of tag-team thing with Reiley for a time. Another
child came in 1992, and then a third in 1996. We both worked at jobs and at
children. We got by - sometimes barely.
In the early 90s, having sold a G.I. Joe
collection to buy my first computer, I became something of a computer geek. In
1995 I began fooling around on the Internet, which led to designing websites. To
make a long story short, I ended up with a small web design business from 1996
until 2006. During those years I made half of my living from the church and half
doing web design and hosting websites.
Real Live Preacher caught us both by surprise.
I began my blog on a lark, as most of us bloggers do. I did not anticipate how
important writing was going to become to me. Nor could I have possibly
anticipated the popularity of this blog or that it would lead to other writing
opportunities. There was an awkward two or three years where I had three jobs -
minister, web designer, and writer. Of the three, writing did not pay. But I was
unable not to write. I can't explain it beyond that. Once I started writing,
there was no question of stopping.
I somehow managed a complex and difficult
transition away from web designing and into professional writing. That
transition would not have been possible without the help of dear friends. I'm
still working that out, as most of you know. It is VERY hard to make a living as
a writer. Indeed, I haven't yet figured out how to do that. But with a few
people subscribing to Real Live Preacher and with writing relationships with the
Christian Century and The High Calling, I manage.
And it was looking like that was going to be
our lives for some time. Jeanene a chaplain. I a pastor and writer. We were okay
with that life.
But some things have happened. Now everything
is going to change.
Jeanene's hospital was purchased by a for
profit corporation. I have nothing bad at all to say about them, but
administrative requirements began to pile up. Jeanene has been a chaplain for
many years, longer than any other chaplain in the system. She is an amazing
professional, competent, knowledgeable about many facets of health care, and
somehow she has retained a deep compassion for people. Truly, I'm in awe of the
way she continues to walk right into the lives of traumatized people without
fear. Even after 20 years, she cares deeply for them. But in recent years, her
life has begun to look more like the life of a corporate executive and less like
the life of a minister. She has stuck it out and tried heroically to find
meaning in this new world of health care, but doing so has taken a toll on her
soul. I've seen the light go out of her eyes over the last few years, and that
is a terribly sad thing to see.
Around the same time, I began to think about
the idea that a network of branded blogs could be of value to organizations,
particularly organizations that increasingly depend on Internet traffic. I spoke
about this concept to a number of organizations. Christian Century and The High
Calling were both interested and ended up hiring me to oversee this kind of blog
network for their organization.
This new possibility allows Jeanene to do
something that she needs to do. She needs to leave the hospital. She announced
her resignation on November 1st. Her last day is next week.
In the meantime, yours truly is now a
professional blogger. That's fine, but I've been trying to pastor, write, and
setup two networks of blogs. I was doing pretty well until the whole thing with
my book hit. So now I've been a pastor, a writer, a professional blogger, and a
shipping clerk. Did I mention that I'm the one who gets our kids off to school
and gets them home in the afternoon? Well, I do.
It's been an impossible situation, and my
writing has suffered terribly. You can't do everything. I ought to know because
I've tried many times. It doesn't work.
But next week everything changes. Jeanene will
be at home and have primary care responsibilities for the children. Our oldest
is now in college, but the other two are still in school and require all the
things that school children must have. Jeanene is going to resume making her
beautiful prayer beads and take some time to figure out what she will be doing
with the second half of her life. She has worked hard for many years. This
sabbatical time is needed, and she's going to take it slowly, I hope.
And what of me, dear readers? I will be set
free to work. I don't ask much of life - I want to work and I want to write. And
I want ample time to do a good job at both. With my schedule liberated (imagine
a day expanding from 6 productive hours to as many as 12 if needed) I will have
no problem being a pastor, running a couple of blog networks, and writing to my
heart's content.
I doubt I'll get much writing done until next
week. But after that, get out of my way, because rlp is going to explode!
One of the three who make it all worthwhile.
gordon
