Last time, we talked about the hour per day to get you started in developing any new interest. Just as important is establishing a place dedicated for that venture.

It’s only reasonable: We live in time and space.

It doesn’t have to be any place special to start with. I mentioned how my painting started at a card table. I had no easel, no brush storage or paint drawer or anything like that. It was just a table and a chair, a source of light and a trash can.

That’s all I needed; but I needed that. I needed a place where I could leave it all out.

You can get started at the kitchen table, of course, but what happens when you need to clean it all up? Such a solution works against regularity.

Being able to leave the work out is part of the secret to success. To integrate the new interest naturally into your life, you need to be able to sit right down (or stand) in the midst of it all and immediately pick up right where you left off.

My kids would laugh at this. When they were young, they would often hear me telling them to put their toys away, or as they got older, their projects. BUT, if they were still playing with them (working on them) that was different. They could leave everything out as long as they were still in process.

When I determined to become a painter I found a place where I would never have to put it all away . . . because I would never be finished!

And that was key.

If you’re looking to integrate a new thing into your life, schedule the time, find the place, and never put it all away.

It’ll make all the difference.

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1/24th of your day, just small, but a significant beginning.

One of the challenges in our active, interest-filled lives is how to find time for the new pursuit.

That was my problem when the painting spirit zapped me. It was so strong I wanted to stop everything and do nothing else. But there was no time. My days were so full they overflowed into the evenings, and my weekdays were so full they overflowed into weekends.

Most of it I wanted to do, and enjoyed doing; but even if not, they were things I had to do. It’s all part of being responsible and dependable and following through with previous commitments.

But what to do with the new interest, the new idea, the worthwhile attraction? When will that happen?

It was after a season of despairing about ever really getting going on painting that the gift of the hour-a-day presented itself.

It came quite whimsically really, at Christmas-time when a couple of my then still young children wrapped up some paints and brushes for me as gifts. To them it was merely solution for what to get Dad for Christmas, but for me it was a beautiful thing. “They want me to paint,” I thought. The next day, having holiday time off, I found an abandoned card table, sat down, and painted.

It was very informal. I was playing, really, messing around with the paints . . . just for an hour.

The next day I did the same thing. And the next. Every day during that period I revisited the card table and the paints at the same time, after dinner. It was all just play, nothing at all serious, but I was painting!

By the time Christmas break was over I had the habit, or the beginnings of one. I found that I could do it. Even in my over-full schedule, I could find the one hour and reserve it. I could give myself the permission for that much time out, and I could do it every day!

I still didn’t know where all this was going, but that’s how it started. It’s possibly how anything starts, or can, even in a busy life.

Try it. Put the seed in the ground.  Water it every day.  One hour.

That seed can’t help but grow.

_________________
Next: the importance of the place.

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We get ideas. Sometimes they’re just crazy and will never go anywhere. Other times they could be worth the effort. All we need is someone to take us seriously. Or maybe all we need is to take ourselves seriously. You could hire yourself, full time or part time, depending on the kind of time you have, and how much you want the idea to happen. Here’s a check list of how.

Prepare Your Resume
Your life experience
Your training
Your accomplishments
Your references, contacts, resources
Most of all, your talents and deepest interests

Prepare a Proposal
What you’d like to do
The contribution you’d like to make
Why it’s needed
Why you’re the best person qualified to do it
And how your approach would be different than anyone else’s

As Employer 
Test all these assumptions; challenge each point of the proposal
Question commitment, time availability, endurance
Set parameters, schedules, benchmarks
Establish measures for success
Be willing to take a risk

As Employee
Write your job description
Set your hours
Appoint your committees for quality assurance, encouragement, etc.
Begin putting in your hours
Keep putting in your hours

Sometimes the hardest part in getting started is just getting started. That, and knowing how to start. Next time you get an idea worth pursuing, put in an hour with this list, or maybe a day.

And maybe that day is today.

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Young Hyatt (in white) equally matched with life, some time during his high school years.

Some years ago I learned a life lesson from my son’s wrestling. I had just moved off from being a high level administrator of a large organization and my heart was newly set toward painting. He, some time earlier, had moved from being on his high school football team to wrestling.

He went out for football in his freshman year. He worked very hard, putting in extra hours; but when the games came, he sat on the bench.

Remember, he was a freshman. For good reason the best and most experienced were in the game. Still, the boy had put in a lot of work just to sit and watch his team . . . lose.

And that, Hyatt thought, was in part because the upperclassmen weren’t really all that disciplined, being too cool for that.

Not that wrestling was an immediate success. In his whole first year he didn’t win one match.

In wrestling, your opponent is in your same weight class. In Hyatt’s case, these were almost always older, meaning more experienced, another thing that matters.

But, unlike with football, he competed at every meet!

Besides that, he knew the outcome was up to him, how much he worked between meets, etc. Okay, the opponent might be stronger or better, but he could still give it his all.

I’m limited on space or I’d elaborate on how he went on to win medal after medal, ultimately being the first to represent his school at State Championships.

But that’s not my point, rather that he chose an endeavor that was one-on-one and where he could personally affect the outcome.

.  .  .

Back to my story and how it corresponds.

My tenure in organizational leadership was one of the great periods of my life. I loved it. It stretched me in areas I didn’t know I had to be stretched in. Not that I was always successful. Life’s more complicated than that. Nor, like with the high school football players, was it always easy to get everyone to give it their best.

How that ended and my new career began is another story, but in time I found myself living a whole other kind of life. Instead of big projections and planning and rallying and encouraging and holding many meetings and speaking everywhere, I was in my studio, painting, by myself.

And I began to see the comparison between football and wrestling, one a team sport, the other individual . . . both having their place, both to love, but different.

In painting the opponent is also equally matched. It’s called the blank canvas. It challenges me to conquer it, or be defeated.

It’s up to me, and only up to me. Experience matters. So does effort, discipline, perseverance, good mental attitude and all the rest.

Besides that, one is always moving into a new weight class. As I grow, so does the challenge.

In wrestling and in painting and probably everything else, we’re matched up with life equally in our weight class. It’s one-on-one. And we rarely sit on the bench.

What are you wrestling today?

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Here, a beautiful restoration of the Cordoba mosque. Below, a contrast of two approaches to religion in the same space.

We went to Cordoba. I’d wanted to see Mezquita, the grand mosque there. Once again, I was not disappointed.

The grandeur of the place in wondrous . . . its size (meant to hold 20-thousand), its beauty and symmetry  . . . with an element of earthen color that adds to it all. Though the digital photography shows it as light, in fact it’s rather dark and somehow intimate, and elegantly simple.

It’s a see-sawed history. First there was a Visigoth church . . . remnants of Roman empire turned Christian. Then the Muslims came and put their mosque on the same site. When the Muslims were evicted, the Catholic dynasty built their cathedral, within the same space.

But these builders apparently recognized the mosque’s uniqueness and left a lot of it. (Some say they should have left it all.) So now we have vestiges of history of both approaches to worship in the same place.

Both are majestic and meant to inspire, or at least impress.  The photos below show one of the Muslim walls and one of the Catholic, just to contrast and compare. I could say more about this, a lot more, but I must be brief.

Suffice to say what Jesus might say. In the account of his meeting with a woman on a water-errand from a different sect, he was invited to weigh in on the correct approach (place) for worship . . . hers or his. Jesus as much as said, They both miss it.

Here’s the quote: A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth.*

And those are pretty much my reflections as I look at all this grandeur. Very impressive monuments to human craft, but God’s requirement of us is simpler and more personal.

It’s also immediately available wherever we are . . . cathedral, mosque, or neither.

Traveling on.
_____________
* John 4:23

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Here’s one of my 300 photos, and would have been a discard, but for what it suggests (in light of my last blog). For a few others, see Facebook here.

We’ve been to La Alhambra. It’s another of the few very great places I’ve wanted to see while I still have eyes in my head.

The Alhambra was built a thousand years ago by Muslims as they moved ever westward and northward. Spain, as you’ll remember, is just a large stepping stone* from Morocco where Mohammad’s minions settled without resistance. Here, however, there was a strong difference of opinion, with Ferdinand and Isabella having final say. But this was not to be a history lesson.

Anne (in God’s image)

It could be a lesson is architecture, however, and lovely landscaping, swirling calligraphy, and geometric pattern everywhere. Theirs was a pursuit of artforms not found in nature. But their aesthetic sense would be welcome in Eden, and, were it possible, add to it.

Nor does one even miss the absence of human form in the art. Their teaching prevents artfully representing humanity at all because that would be a blasphemy, man being created in God’s image.

Seems they got part of that right.

But here’s one not in the Koran: The body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body.**

That’s a deeper truth than the other, and once again we’re dealing here with things invisible. And more freeing.

As Scripture says in the same context: All things are permissible to me, which includes, by the way, painting a portrait if I want to. Or anything else.

I’m not saying it’s worth fighting a war over; enough of that has happened in the past and seems to continue. And I’m not saying the Islamic approach hasn’t created some extraordinary art. To the contrary.

I’m just saying I’m free, and so are you.

Let’s drink to that.

(Oops, Koran says can’t do that either. Sorry.)
___________________
*     Gibraltar
**  1 Cor. 10:12-20

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Out for a walk in Valdilecha, the small Spanish town we’re staying in between road trips beyond. Reminiscent of another trip, 43 years, five children, 15 grandchildren, and many trips ago. Still, all things are continually new.

Here’s another installment in the travelogue . . . not so much of Spain, but of life.

For whatever reason, the hours in the car driving across the countryside are reminiscent of that surprisingly significant trip into deep Mexico in 1970. That’s when, through circumstances I’d never seen leading to it, I discovered the reality and love of God, and turned myself in.

After that everything changed. Starting with Anne’s and my conversations in the car. I suddenly had a new set of eyes and reality had a whole new look. That was 43 years ago and one would think the new life is well seasoned by now, and maybe quieter.

Maybe.

On the other hand, we’re dealing with things of infinite measure . . . there’s no plumbing them, no reaching their apex, no finding their end. Conversely, it’s always only beginning, with me sobered again both by what there is to know and the grandeur of which I’ve not truly grasped, and never will.

What this has to do with driving across a countryside in a car with Anne, I can’t say. Reading is part of it, before and now.* And letting the mind just contemplate. And trying to articulate.

Gaudi saw it. Inscribed on one of his church walls are what he called the three large questions with which we all have to deal. Summarized, they are: Who are we? What are we here to do? What happens to us after?

Happily we are not left without answers. And as the answers are revealed, the wonder starts all over again.

Sorry, trying to describe these pearls of great price here in small space not only does them injustice, it is impossible. Suffice to say that the overall effect is that everything else pales in both interest and value.

Let me put that in caps so you won’t skim by it too fast: EVERYTHING ELSE PALES . . . IN BOTH INTEREST AND VALUE.

And these things, to which I’m comparing, are invisible!

So it is with this world traveler, whose traveling interests are as ever wonderfully appreciative of all things visible . . .  just all the more of things beneath the surface.

Without that, there’s nothing. With, everything.

I hope you can relate.

Back to traveling.

____________________
* Current authors include Vegh (recently published), Graham (1970’s), Stalker (1850’s), Matthew Henry (1700’s), Paul (1st century), Qoheleth (3rd century B.C.), all rich.

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One of the few photos I took (though everybody had their cameras in the air). The interior is as majestic as the exterior, full of organic forms, original engineering, attention to light, color, message, sound . . . and a presence that moves one toward awe.
Below, the more familiar exterior (artistically handled).

We traveled to Barcelona. I’d particularly wanted to see the work of the over-the-top creative architect, Antoni Gaudi. Though I’m not one to use the word “awe” lightly, I could happily make an exception here.

In the past I’ve wondered who this person was that seemed to do architecture without a straightedge. And how the society in which he lived allowed him to decorate their landscape with designs seemingly inspired by sandcastles. How little I knew. It’s one of the benefits of travel, and “being there.”

Since you’re not, I’ll not try to further describe it all.

Except this, besides being an obvious genius, he was about as God-dedicated as they come. Of all the monumental structures we’ve seen on this trip, each obviously built to impress, this one, the Church of the Holy Family, also impresses; but the focus is not as much to the architect but to the Grand Commissioner.

Not sure if the other thousand or so visitors that shared the space with us saw all this the same way. I know I am having some hours of renewed wonder about that Grand Commissioner myself, along with Anne, as we drive around on this trip. But more on that another day. (Maybe.)

For the moment, it’s a brief tribute to Antoni Gaudi, another example of one who gave himself to one thing, dedicated his particular gifts to the highest being, created a “life work,” and left a monument and inspiration for the rest of us.

Incidentally, though it consumed the greater part of his life, it’s not finished. Construction is still going on, and will yet for a long time. It’s a life work bigger than one life.

I’m awed.

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“Jet Lag Night”

We’re in Spain, and have been on the go-go-go . . . jet lag be dammed because, after all, we may not be here again. Just downloaded pictures from yesterday’s walking, driving, seeing, eating, drinking and finally sleeping (only to wake three hours later wide-eyed). I chose this one as it reflects the latter.

You’ll say it’s unusual, but you’ve seen the normal ones of these places.

The truth is it was taken right at the moment the guard said, “No photos,” and I put my hands in my pockets and said, “Que, mi?

No importa. Today is one of rest and we’re enjoying a wonderful introvertish time, moving slowly, like two spirits in the land of quiet. Funny how we have to get away to enjoy such simple pleasures.

New Book

Coming Soon.

Anne, however, is working . . . proofreading. As it happens, the book I talked about last year (was it last year already?) is finally about to come out in print form. That’s the gathering of meditations from Ecclesiastes originally blogged on this site. The first hard-copy proof was forwarded to us here in Spain, something that impressed me. Anne, I’m happy to say, was impressed just seeing the book!

It’s entitled, It’s About Life, which I felt fitting for such a wide range of topics. It occurred to number it, “Volume 1,” leaving the door open for any to follow by the same title. Isn’t everything about life?

And here we are traveling through it, us in Spain and you wherever. And we’re communicating . . . because that’s a part of life too, a very big part.

Enough for now. Maybe I’ll provide a more conventional “travelogue” another day. Or maybe not.

I’ll let you know when the book’s available. Should be soon.

For now, time for another nap.

__________

PS  Just in case the fuzzy photo didn’t satisfy, here’s one of us in Segovia.

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Do you ever look back to some event and try to recall when it happened and then realize it wasn’t a year ago, it was three years ago?

Or not three but ten!

In the book, Moonwalking with Einstein, The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, author Joshua Foer says the way to slow that phenomena down is to fill our lives with more variety.

I can’t say that I read the book but Anne did, and read passages to me as we were traveling on one of our trips last year. (Or was it the year before?)

According to Foer, it’s the routine of our lives that collapses our perception of passing time. Having a sprinkling of events that stand out makes the memory fuller and helps us to separate periods and “mini-epochs.”

(That’s my term, not his, but it works.)

I suppose it stands to reason that experiencing more variety would make our lives seem fuller, when in fact they are fuller. Still, it’s an interesting bit of nature to know about.

As it happens, though Anne and I just returned from Oregon two weeks ago, as of tomorrow we’re going to Spain! For three weeks!!

Our friends Louis and Lisa (frequent commenters on this blog) live there. But they sometimes travel here, and offered us their place while they’re gone. (We offered ours in return, but they didn’t need it.)

So, it’ll be a new adventure for us. Though we’ve been to many Spanish-speaking countries, some numerous times, we’ve never been to the motherland.

I’m not sure if all this will make life longer, but maybe it’ll help it from seeming to go by quite so fast.

Certainly it makes life fuller.

Before leaving, we visited my parents. It’s Dad’s birthday today. He’s 97.

They’ve had such a full life; for them time just keeps going and going.

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