DIY | Wayfarer

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”
Philippians 2:14-15 (NIV)

Wendy and I use an app that has become part of the fabric of our lives. The app was purchased by Microsoft a few years ago and is being incorporated into their suite of software. It’s call “To Do” and it’s an ingeniously simple way for having, organizing, assigning, and sharing tasks in multiple lists. We have lists for all of our major weekly supply stops. When we use the last of something, we immediately pull up the app and put it on the list. There are lists for specific stores, lists for personal projects, and lists for projects that need to get done around the house, the garage, the yard, and the lake.

In yesterday’s chapter, Paul began his letter to Jesus’ followers in Philippi by reminding them that we are all “works in progress” as we navigate this earthly journey in an effort to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and live as He prescribed and exemplified. As I opened up to today’s chapter in the quiet this morning, that word picture was still resonating within me. I have an app with a list of things I need to accomplish for our home maintenance and improvements. What about a list of things I need to do in my spiritual maintenance and improvements?

Paul once told the believers in Corinth that we are “temples of the Holy Spirit who is in us.” As I read and meditated on today’s chapter, I thought about the never ending, top-to-bottom, spiritual DIY renovation project of my life as a disciple of Jesus and a temple of God’s Spirit. I read the chapter as if Paul was acting as my spiritual renovation foreman informing me and instructing me on the spiritual improvements that need to be made to my life, my temple.

There were a number of tasks to go on my task list, chief among them was shoring up the foundation of my core motives. My foundation has cracks caused by my own selfish ambitions and self-focus. The remedy starts with applying a base coat of humility, then layer on top of it the valuing of others, their interests, and their needs before my own. Paul then refers me back to how Jesus did it as an example to follow. “If you don’t get the foundation of humility and an ‘others first’ focus laid down,” I heard Paul saying to me, “then everything you layer on top of it will be unstable. Eventually, you’re going to have to dig down and fix the foundation anyway, so do it right the first time. And, the longer you wait to deal with the foundation, the harder everything is going to be to dig down in there and get it corrected. Save yourself a lot of time, energy, and headaches. Get the foundational motivations right and everything else will be a lot easier and more stable in the long run.”

Speaking of the “others first” focus, Paul next went on to point out that my exterior lights weren’t working. These are the lights that shine in the darkness. They help others in my neighborhood find their way by helping them see, providing a reference-point as they are trying navigate, and also give them a destination if and when they need assistance.

Unscrewing one of the exterior lights, he showed me that the wiring had this dirty, greasy, corrosive smudge all over the connections. “This,” Paul informed me, “is the natural by-product of a critical spirit. This builds up on the exterior light system when the exhaust system of your conversations, blurts, phone calls, tweets, and Facebook posts is filled with excessive complaints, gripes, grumbling, criticism, negative rants, mean tweets, snarky replies, name calling, and the like. It short-circuits the exterior light system. The light can’t shine for others until you clean up the exhaust coming out of your mind, mouth, and social media. I guarantee that if you clean up all that smudge that’s coming out of you, your exterior lights will ‘shine like stars in the sky’ for everyone to see!”

So, in the quiet this morning, I’m entering my day with a couple of spiritual maintenance and renovation tasks on the personal “temple” To Do list.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Summer has begun! And, it’s been a busy couple of weeks for Wendy and me. After my last installment of “The Latest” back in early June, we afforded the opportunity to spend time with Wendy’s family while they were in town for Lucas and Brooke’s wedding.

Wendy, Taylor and I met Court, Becky, Lydia and Suzanna at Principal Park for an I-Cubs game. It was young Lydia’s first baseball game and we had a ball sitting in the sun, eating ball park food, and watching our boys of summer playing ball.

Wendy and I headed down to the lake the next day for our first real extended time of relaxation this summer. Wendy and I worked remotely during the day, but took the opportunity of getting out on the boat and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. Kevin and Becky joined us for what has become our annual kick-off to summer weekend (10th year in a row!). They arrived on Thursday evening and we enjoyed a long moonlight cruise in the boat. On Friday we slathered up and headed to Bear Bottom for sun in the pool and a late lunch on the deck. Beck wasn’t feeling great in the evening so she called it a night while the three of us watched Green Lantern. Saturday was another beautiful day and we headed back out in the sun to Bulldog’s. As always, we enjoyed great conversation and mourned having to depart.

This past fall Wendy and I stepped down from the Board of Directors of our local community theatre, Union Street Players. As the past President I’m responsible to stay on as an ex-officio member of the Board for one year to help with the transition which I have done. Now Wendy has had her turn to extend her service. As past Treasurer, she had been asked to audit the books for the group, which resulted Wendy’s appointment back to her old position. So, much of the past two weeks has found every minute of Wendy’s free time getting a handle on things. I told her that I thought she missed her calling. She should have been a forensic accountant.

We headed to Des Moines a week ago Friday for a quarterly company staff lunch. Wendy and I took the opportunity of being in Des Moines to run a few errands. We connected with Kev and Beck in the late afternoon and, for the third year in a row, enjoyed an evening watching Kennedy’s dance recital.

The following morning I enjoyed a bit of a treat. I discovered on Memorial Day that our friend Rob K was a disc golf player. I also found out that Central College actually has an 18-hole disc golf course on campus (who knew?). Rob and Vandy are moving to the Carolinas but Rob wanted to show me the course before they left. I spent a lot of time in high school and college playing disc golf. When I was a youth pastor I taught it to a whole crew of youth because it afforded time to hang out talk, and it was FREE! But, I hadn’t actually played an actual course in over 12 years. So, I pulled out the discs and enjoyed the morning walking through the woods with Rob and Vandy. Don’t even ask about my score. It was awful.

Wendy's wreath project — Wendy’s wreath project

After 16 months being in our house, Wendy and I have been working hard on actually getting some things up on the walls, especially in our basement. We did a DIY project together making four 8 foot gallery shelves. I assembled the shelves using two 1x4s and one 1×2. Wendy then primed, sanded and painted them. We now have 32′ of shelf space in the V-Dub Pub for displaying our collection of posters and prints from all our shows. Wendy also did a little summer wreath project for our front door, which I think looks awesome.

It was a fairly normal work week for us this week. On Friday I had a business lunch in Des Moines. Wendy came along to run errands while I was in my extended lunch meeting. We then got together with Taylor for an early birthday celebration. Her birthday is on the 4th of July, but I’m traveling next week and then we’re headed to the lake. She’s heading to Scotland right after her birthday, so this was kind of the best chance we had to celebrate with her.

Wendy and I enjoyed getting a tour of the Catholic Worker Community in Des Moines where she lives. We saw her room and meet the eclectic mix of wonderful human beings at the worker who live there and serve the poor in Des Moines. The team at “The Worker” were just getting ready to serve the first of their two daily meals to the homeless that so we got to experience that, which was cool. I noticed on the bulletin board that there was a picture of Taylor and right above it a picture of Wendy’s cousin Kathryn, who has volunteered there. Small world.

Taylor introduced us to the laying hens

A little birthday smooch!

Fun in the sun at Art Fest!

On the bulletin board at “The Worker” there was a pic of cousin Kathryn right above a pic of Tay!

Checking out the art work at Des Moines Art Festival

Taylor and Wendy on the porch at Catholic Worker House where she lives.

A flight of Exile craftsmanship for Taylor’s Birthday party

We celebrated Taylor’s birthday by spending the rest of the afternoon at the Des Moines Art Festival. We had a blast looking at all the art, and we all agreed that our favorite part was the local children’s artwork. We then walked down to Exile Brewery for dinner. After dinner we went back to the Festival and listened to a bit of the Gin Blossom’s concert (from afar) while dipping our feet in the water of the fountain near the Des Moines Central Library.

Madison's picture from Myrtle Beach — Madison’s picture from Myrtle Beach

Madison continues to build a life in South Carolina. In the past few weeks she’s suffered the scariness of getting food poisoning and having to deal with health care alone in a new city. She survived with flying colors. She got to fly to Texas and experience her first big sales training in her job with Laura Geller Cosmetics. She FaceTimed us from Myrtle Beach yesterday where she had been working all day. She posted some gorgeous sunset pics she took after enjoying dinner on a patio overlooking the water.

As I mentioned, Taylor will head to Edinburgh, Scotland after the 4th and will participate in commencement at Queen Margaret University and officially receive her Master’s Degree. She will then stay in Edinburgh and work the Fringe Festival from late July through early September. For those who have never heard of “The Fringe,” it is among the largest and most prominent arts festivals in the world. It will be a great opportunity, will look great on a resume, and will afford Taylor the opportunity to network there. She has applied for some 60 jobs in the arts world since returning to the U.S. and finds herself in the no man’s land between “you’re over qualified” and “you don’t have enough experience.” Praying for something awesome to open up for her.

Full week ahead.