“The great guide of this world is fashion and its god respectability—two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do? You watch the general current and then float upon it! You study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask, ‘Is it fashionable? If it is fashionable, it must be done.’ Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.”

— C. H. Spurgeon

Living for the moment vs. following Christ, storing up eternal treasures.

Following your heart vs. standing up for truth, especially when it’s unpopular.

Relying on rational and intellect vs. living by faith in God’s power, provision, and protection.

Contrasts and paradoxes. God has been giving me reminders of them lately—as a Christian, I’m called to be different than the world around me. I follow Christ, not them.

My family went bowling the other night. Bowling isn’t rocket surgery: you throw a ball and try to knock over as many pins as you can. That’s it. As long as you don’t throw the ball into the gutter, you’re on the right track.

It’s harder than it looks.

I don’t mind not being good at bowling; it’s a fun game, relaxing, mind-engaging. Judging by my scores nowadays, I’ve lost whatever I learned from league bowling as a kid. So when I had a first-game score of 79 (terrible in bowling terms), I wasn’t disappointed.

I’ve been told to pace my throw with walking up to the lane, releasing the ball on my last step. My Mama laughs when I do, because it looks like I’m goose-stepping, not bowling. But the other night, I discovered an approach to bowling that changed my game. I think it also applies to life.

It has to do with patience.

A couple lanes over, some teenage girls were throwing bowling balls at the pins. Literally. The first girl’s throw began around five feet behind the line, and landed at least five feet past the line before careening towards the pins. I have to admit, their acrobatics were interesting to watch… But left me wondering how they were knocking down several, let alone any, of the pins.

I was working on aim, power, etc., and scored a 79 my first game. Those girls were knocking down pins, and sometimes getting strikes, throwing the ball facing backwards. What was I doing wrong?

I tried something. Haste makes waste, they say, so I slowed down. Instead of hurrying, I took my time, aiming and pausing before sending the ball down the lane. It worked. I threw three or four strikes during the second game. I was still throwing gutterballs and struggling to aim correctly, but slowing down almost doubled my score. 149 isn’t a great bowling score, but it’s better than 79.

There’s a difference between haphazardly throwing balls down a lane — being satisfied with whatever happens — and being intentional. The girls two lanes over celebrated a couple pins down almost as much as they did a strike. In the moment, it appeared they were doing well, but by the time the tenth frame came, their highest scores were in the 60s.

Goals in life: there are two ways we can go about achieving them: haphazardly (with some acrobatic hoopla as a bonus), or intentionally with patience. The outcomes are starkly different.

Lots of energy, small (and sometimes unimportant) results. Intentional energy, the correct results.

Books don’t happen in a week. A garden doesn’t give fruit a month after planting. Deep relationships take years to develop. But it’s worth being patient, being intentional, getting things right. When I rush in life, I am prone to confusion and can’t live with full potential. Why? Because God’s perfect timetable is different than my want for “now.”

Aim for the pins. Deep breath. Walk, aim, throw.

“Wait upon the Lord.”

Patience.

Actually, my Mom chose life… (Thank you, Mama!)

Not sure why I haven’t posted about this yet.

Nearly two years ago, I participated in the 2008 National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel during November. Since then, I’ve been working off and on editing the novel I wrote, and also had some extremely useful help from Lydia Pillitiere (thanks to HSA). The novel wouldn’t have matured as much as it did without her help (it’s definitely not close to being the next Great American Classic… but it is much better than what it was at first draft). It’s always a good thing to have a fresh mind and a new pair of eyes offering critique for a work.

This past April, I utilized a round-trip drive from South Carolina to Arizona (4500+ miles) to finish the semi-final draft. Several weeks and proof copies later, the novel was completed, published, and made available on Amazon.com (through CreateSpace).

So go check it out on Amazon! If you’re inclined to buy it, I’ll be doubly-grateful to you if you decide to do so from my CreateSpace store. My royalties are better (over double, actually) from that outlet. Thanks!

It’s extremely hard to believe that two-thirds of 2010 is gone… And yet, it is.

Three-and-a-half weeks ago, my friends Geno and Dominic DiMaria were here, Geno to help with the production of a documentary the following week.

Dominic sends a bowling ball flying toward some pins

The documentary is about Sforzando String Camp in Chicago, which I’ve attended as a camper for the past five years. Going into the week, I had been expecting the schedule to be busy, but not nearly as hectic as it turned out to be… Having around twenty interviews to conduct, classes to cover for six groups on six different schedules, and concerts to shoot.

All in all, we shot almost forty-six hours of footage, contained on these tapes:

And which will soon be contained on a new 1.5 TB Buffalo drive I bought specifically for the project (third from left):

After Sforzando’s week was done, Geno stayed with us for a little over a week, during which we had some great front-porch conversations (ever had any of those?), unique memories made (eh, Geno?), and some exhilarating (or exhausting) bike rides. That Saturday, we drove back to Chicago — Tyler and I were recruited by some of our friends at Sforzando to perform Mendelssohn’s Elijah with them on Sunday. It was definitely spur-of-the-moment, and though we both wish we could have had quite a bit more practice time, it was a lot of fun.

Sadly, Geno had to begin making his way home (to South Carolina via Ohio) a week ago today.

Geno on the night before he left, enjoying one of his most favorite foods
(besides sour gummy worms).

Lately I’ve been studying the craft of piano tuning, with the intent of possibly attempting to earn some money with it. I now have some tools, have been doing tuning exercises, and am thinking about pitch-raising our 90 year old Lester upright, which is a little more than a half-step flat.

Last weekend (Friday & Saturday), I chauffeured my Mama to a dulcimer music festival near St. Louis, where she took eight workshop classes for her hammered dulcimer. I got quite a bit of reading done.

So that’s been my life the past few weeks… I’ve also been working on a new design for this site, which will hopefully be finished sometime soon.

Last week I was in West Virginia with my family, helping out at my uncle’s Christian camp. During the course of the week, I shot a couple thousand photos (including a roll of film… which, alas, I forgot to have developed last time I was in town). Below’s a slideshow of around 120 I edited; to see larger pictures check out the album itself.

Tyler had me shoot some photos of him doing parkour moves last Saturday (which, according to him, is National Parkour Day). The jump he’s doing in the photo below is the Saut de chat, the “Kong Vault.” It involves running and jumping higher than the level of an obstacle, then using one’s hands to vault one’s self over it and forward.

In film, there’s this thing we call depth of field. In a nutshell, it’s the range of focus — what’s in focus, what’s not. It’s used to lead an audience’s eyes to whatever’s important in the story at a particular moment. Sometimes the focus is shallow; that is, not much is in focus, drawing the eye to a very specific part of the screen. Sometimes the focus is deep; almost everything is in focus, allowing the eyes to see everything clearly.

I can’t help but see a parallel between film focus and life focus. In life, it’s called “vision.”

There’s a crew designation on film sets for a “focus puller.” A focus puller does one thing: pulls focus. Camera lenses on cinema-quality cameras normally have to be focused manually. Cinema cameras are too large for one person to simultaneously operate, perform camera movements, and keep track of focus in the shot.

I’ve been going through a lot of changes lately. Six months ago looking forward to now, I thought I would be living in South Carolina. I was dissolved from my business partnership there, though (a good thing with no hard feelings between my friends there — see this post for more details on that). Now I’m back at home in Illinois.

Vision is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Last December, I took stock of my life to see where I was. In January, I took some time to write down my vision for life. Both of these were very good to do, helpful in allowing me to look at my life from a bigger perspective. In my “Vision for Life” document, I wrote down my vision for my future marriage and family, how I live life, serve Christ, and what work I do.

I found out something interesting from writing that. Only an eighth or so of what I wrote had to do with work, that is, what I do to provide for my family. If you know me or have poked around my website, you probably know that I’ve described myself as an aspiring filmmaker.

I think life can be compared to running a camera. We can choose our own lens with which to view the world, choose which way to point, how to move (live), and the depth of focus (vision). But you know what? I’ve been finding out that it’s awful hard to be a camera operator and a focus puller at the same time. Basically, like every other human on this planet, by myself I am weak.

I used to think that my life was going to be about making movies, Christian films which tell a story to glorify God and point others to Him. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Being a filmmaker who is a light in our culture is certainly a noble calling. But after I wrote my vision document, I started realizing that I had a lot less vision concerning filmmaking than I originally thought. I started realizing that my main desire in life is to be a godly husband and father, a servant of Christ.

Over the past few months, God’s been teaching me in many ways. To name a few: my Dad; Financial Freedom video series from IBLP; talks by Dutch missionary Otto Koning; one of my best friend’s dad, Gene DiMaria. I’ve seen God’s hand in my life, orchestrating events which have been leading me through a learning process.

One example is my going to Arizona with my friends the DiMarias. We stayed with a family they had been friends with when they lived in Flagstaff. The dad used to work very closely with the film industry, obtaining funding for major pictures (one of which, I was told, was The Matrix). He left the industry when he realized that he was helping allow the filth of Hollywood to enter our culture. He took some time one evening and talked with Dominic DiMaria and I about filmmaking, and specifically, vision. That conversation confirmed some things I’d been thinking about, and challenged me to really examine my vision for filmmaking.

To summarize my vision for filmmaking, it was this: to make films that glorify God, to honor Him both in the stories I tell and in the way I tell them, with the highest quality possible. If you stop right there, that’s the same vision 90% of the young aspiring Christian filmmakers out there have. I couldn’t have that, so I tacked on a few more ideas: not using techniques just because they’re popular, and not focusing on promoting myself.

Not promoting myself. I get that from the verse in Proverbs which says that it’s better for another man to praise you, and not yourself. Problem is, that’s been hard to figure out how to do. It’s hard in the film industry. To get experience, you need work. To get work, you need experience. The usual way to get both is to promote yourself, working your way up from small-scale productions to the big ones.

So the principle of letting others praise your work and not praising it yourself has been a difficult one for me to figure out. For the past couple years, I think I’ve taken the false humility route. If pride were a shirt, false humility would be wearing the shirt inside out.

In the past few weeks, a lot’s happened. God’s finally getting through my thick skull to whatever bits of brains I have in there, showing me connections between things I’ve been learning, and moving me to action. One of the biggest catalysts for this process was the death of my Grandmama (Dad’s mom) on May 8th. There’s nothing like realizing that life is short to get a person to really start thinking on a deeper level. That’s why Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 7:2, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart.” I know that life is short, that I need to wisely use the life and time God’s given to me. Sometimes it takes a little splash of cold water on the face for a person to stop knowing and start acting, though.

I don’t have my whole life ahead of me to use — it’s not my life at all. My life is Christ’s, and has been since He saved me almost four years ago. Sometimes, it takes a while for Christians to realize that they don’t own their life, or their possessions. It can take a while to realize all these things are rightfully God’s… And that it’s actually freeing to give up our rights to them. It doesn’t make sense that by giving my life, possessions, and dreams to God, I’m becoming free. It doesn’t make sense that by giving God His rightful place of authority over me, I am gaining ultimate liberty. But it’s true.

Basically, I’m learning that it’s far easier to let a master cinematographer operate my camera, to pull my focus, to move me where He wants. And He’s been doing that.

Vision. Focus. I used to think my life needed to be about filmmaking, that whenever I finally become a father and husband, my family will be more important. Now, I realize that family is the most important thing, that being a father and husband who serves Christ and is a leader to his family is one of the highest calls to service God gives.

A main work or ministry identity cannot be in being a filmmaker. Filmmakers lose their families to the world. It can’t be in being a pastor. Pastors lose their families to the world. A father, though! I wonder what would happen in Christian families if the fathers decided to stop identifying with whatever profession they hold, and began identifying with and focusing on their families.

Here’s the thing: whatever I “do” with my life, whatever earns money, is merely to support my calling to be a family leader. It might be something which has seemingly little impact on the culture, or something which has great impact on culture (like filmmaking).

God has pulled my focus. My vision for life is to be a godly husband, father, and servant of Christ. Whatever work God brings to support that, I’m willing to do… Whether it be making a movie or shooting a wedding, tuning pianos or painting houses. Being a servant of Christ transforms whatever work I do into an opportunity to have an impact on culture by living my life in the Spirit.

It takes resources and skills to make films, resources I don’t have and skills I’m still developing. I don’t identify as a filmmaker anymore — I’ve given my dreams of making movies to God. That doesn’t mean I’ll never work on a movie again, because God is directing my life… If He wants me to make a movie, He’ll lead in that direction and provide. My vision for family, however, is much more important to me than fulfilling my dream of making films. It’s worth that much to me. It might sound harsh or cruel that God would want anyone to give up a dream to follow Him, but I don’t think it is. It’s freeing, it’s true happiness, to be in the center of His will.

It’s hard to truly give something up to God… I know, because I’ve done it before — I tend to take things back. But I’ve discovered that the mark of having truly surrendered something to God, especially a dream of doing something, is when I no longer think, “If I give this to God, He’ll bless me for it and give me my dream.” True surrender is giving it up to God and saying, “I don’t care if I ever see this dream come to pass — Your plans are more valuable.”

And that’s where I am. If God lets me make another movie, praise Him! If He takes me down a completely different road, praise Him! Do I hope to be able to make movies? I have ideas for stories which I believe could powerfully point people to God’s transforming power. My heart is not set that I have to make them, though… I’m content to wait for God’s leading. If He wants me to make a film, I believe He will clearly lead in it, it will be His timing, and it will be done because of His power and provision.

I know I’ve said this repetitively, but it’s so freeing to be following His plan instead of my own. You know that false humility stuff I mentioned earlier? Well, I’ve found out that when I’m focused on following Christ, I don’t have to worry about it. I can gratefully accept praise, and I can humbly accept criticism. I don’t have to worry about what people think of me. I don’t have to worry about competing against other people, or worrying about people thinking someone else is better than me. It doesn’t matter anymore — following Him is what matters!

I’m so thankful for my God’s and my parent’s patience with me, as I’ve been working through these things. I’m sure there’s much more change to come as God shapes my clay form to look more and more like His Son… My prayer is that He continues transforming me into the man He wants me to be.