A Moment in Time

I don’t know about anyone else but I always have a point in the future fixed in my mind. Not things far off like retirement but something just around the corner - the next thing. It could be big or small. It could be something common like Thanksgiving or personal like a deadline at work.

My most recent point in time came Tuesday morning November 16, 2010 at 9:55 AM. That is the point I had fixed in my mind to call my boss from my first Architecture job out of college. I had called two weeks before looking for work and he had been on vacation. He had gotten back to the office on Monday and I was going to see if he had a position for me.

As the clock ticked ever closer to 9:55 I got everything in place for the call. Grayson was sleeping. The bag was packed for our errands that were going to follow the call. Mackenzie was placed in front of the television and sternly told daddy had to make a very important call.

I made the call. He wasn’t in. The moment passed. My brain reset to the next instant in time. He would be in the Dallas office Friday. I had my next point - Friday November 19, 2010 at 9:55 AM.

I don’t know what the point of this blog is. I just think it is interesting that I think like this and wonder if anyone else does.

A Moment of Cycling Bliss

Sunday morning I was out about fifteen miles on the bike at the bottom of Cuernavaca which is a decent climb off Bee Cave’s here in Austin.  Lush green trees filled my view and the air smelled wet from the small creek I had just rode over.  There was no sound other than the Nickel Creek song playing on my ipod and my own breathing.  I will remember this scene for the rest of my life.  It was a perfect moment.  All my scattered thoughts vanished and I was only pedaling.  Did I touch the divine?  Did the infinite now unfold before me?  Did I experience for a brief instant of time what heaven is like?  I don’t know, but it was nice.

Jealous of the Jones

Saying I’m not going to chase the modern American dream of wealth accumulation and conspicuous consumption sounds somewhat analogies to a scrawny pimply faced teenager saying he’s just too busy for a girlfriend. It is the choice I have made though. I just don’t think if Jesus was living my life he would be concerned about his stock portfolio.

That being said I’m still jealous of the Joneses. I coveted that orange and black Dodge Charger I passed the other day. I desperately want an iPhone. If I had the means I would fill my garage with bicycles. My mind rejects these things, but my heart still wants. I am absolutely positive I will fail in this area multiple times in the future - I’m planning on getting an iPhone in January.

Failing to live up to my expectations of what is good is not failure. Life in Christ is not a moral to do list. God’s grace is all I really need. I am already made perfect in my imperfection. I do not need to strive. This is a fine balance thought because obviously I could easily become lazy. But the goal is to live my life as Christ would. So it’s back to the first paragraph. Dizzying isn’t it.

Does the sword enjoy its forging? So it is with your formation in Christ.

My answer to the immortal question of why we are here is that God is making something out of us. My guess is sentient beings with free will that lives as love just as He does. Why God needs such beings I don’t know.

How do you create a being with freewill that lives as love? My short answer without getting into the freewill problem is the world. If we are paying attention and working with God through the Holy Spirit we will grow slowly toward this type of being. We will become more Christ-like.

It is a painful process. Life is hard and it is hard because through it we are building something beautiful. Without conflict, loss, pain, suffering, injustice and on and on we would not get anywhere. If every ride you took was just easy spinning you would never be able climb a mountain like the Col du Tourmalet. Yea I’m surprised I never made a cycling analogy in one of these blogs before either.

Thank You to All the Prayer Warriors

When I was eighteen years old I was an atheist. I was also dating a sweet young Christian girl. She told me she prayed that I would find God and she put me on the prayer list at her church. An entire Baptist Church in west Texas prayed for me.

I dated another Baptist a few years later. West Texas is ripe with them you know. She never said she prayed for me, but I’m sure she did.

Did my close friend from college that is a Seventh Day Adventist pray for me? I’m sure my cousins in Indiana prayed for me. Did my best friend from high school who came to the Lord before me pray for me?

My wife married me when I was through atheism and into my Buddhist phase. She prayed for me. Her church – the same one we are members of now - prayed for me. The pastor and his wife prayed for me.

In the face of my indifference and hostility they all kept praying. 
Thank you.

Effortless Effort

The theme of some of my recent blogs has been effort, meeting my goals and focus. In blogs like My Mom Thinks I’m Lazy and A Slob with OCD I’ve talked about how I seem to be distracted easily and not able to stay on task. I set goals and deadlines and they slip through my fingers like water. One response to this could be to try harder. That doesn’t work for me and as a general rule I don’t think it works for most people.

I think deep ingrained patterns like I’m talking about can’t be changed by direct effort. You will succeed for awhile but eventually you will go back to your default setting. You have to change your habits by incremental steps so really you are trying without trying. If you want to be more patient you cannot will yourself to be patient. True fundamental change comes deeper down.

I picked up the idea of trying without trying in my Buddhist phase, but I’ve seen it in other places too. Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture talked about teaching people things they didn’t realize they were learning until well into the process. He called it head fake teaching. I think Christianity addresses this fundamental part of human nature. The ultimate try harder is to follow the Law of Moses, but human perfection is impossible. So God knowing this fact created another way to live life.

As I wrote this blog I decided the line between effortless effort, habit modification and pure effort is rather blurry. It takes pure effort to accomplish things like keeping the house clean; getting the garage organized and becoming an Architect. Pure effort and some habit modification. I think effortless effort applies to something like being a good husband and father. By talking about this I think the line is becoming just a little bit more distinct – at least for me.

Why, What & How

The future has been on my mind a lot. This may be because I’m about to start testing for my Architecture license, or because my career has stagnated in to a struggle to survive each month. There is a wealth of directions to go from the bottom. It’s a good place to set a course from.

I made a big list of what I wanted to accomplish in life. Learn to play piano and speak Spanish. Own part of an Architectural firm by the time I’m fifty. I stepped back from my list and noticed a glaring omission. Jesus. I didn’t mention Him at all. The spring point of my entire life and I didn’t even give Him a sentence. I can say with almost complete sincerity that the thing I want to accomplish in this life above all else is to become as much like Jesus as I can. How does that factor into my more worldly life goals? Does He inform Why I do things, What I do, How I do things or all three?

"Why"
Why get up in the morning? Why go to work? Why get married? Why learn Spanish? Why become an Architect? Does Jesus answer any of these whys? Certainly at some level He does, but that universal truth sounds hollow to my human ears. Besides why questions don’t move you forward. My counselor from back when I was dealing with depression/anxiety said it was better to ask how. How I got to the point of breakdown has more substance than why I broke down. If I know how I got to the bottom then I can work to circumvent the situation from happening again.

"What"
I struggled most of my life with what I was going to do in life. Is this question even important to God though? According my pastor Jesus wants us to have a relationship with Him. He isn’t concerned with whether were doctors or lawyers, married or single or whatever. I think there are exceptions to this. God will call people to do certain things, but He has not called me as of yet.

"How"
The answer to the question I posed above is Jesus informs How I go about life? When I own an Architectural Firm I do not run a sweat shop. I do not work my employees to death to turn a profit so I can have lots fabulous sports cars? I do not put my desire to be a Cat 3 bike racer above everything else and leave my children to raise themselves. I live my life as close as I can to how Jesus would live it.

My Dream Car?

Two car seats will not fit in the truck so I’ve been thinking about trading for something else when the baby comes in September. Probably won’t happen right away because of finances. When we do get to it though what car would I want?

Right now it would be a Mini Cooper. Not practical, but we have the Pacifica for that. I figure I could get two car seats in there and zip around town. It’d be cool. Maybe a Jetta or extended cab truck? Of course my eye is drawn to the high end cars as well: Audi, Lexus SUV, and BMW.

One of the smartest things I ever read about finances was in (I think) Rich Dad/ Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. He said if American’s just changed the way they bought cars they would all be rich. In other words if we didn’t buy too much car and finance it we’d be much better off

Something else I have to consider when making a car choice is my faith in Christ. He calls us to not conform to the pattern of this world. We are to be different. Saint Peter says we are aliens and strangers in the world. I think this should inform all of my decisions in life; from where to live, what to do, to what kind of car to drive.

So Audi it is right?

Between Safety and Adventure I Choose Safety

Several times in his autobiography Craig Ferguson said, “Between safety and adventure I choose adventure.” Isn’t that a great line? I think nothing could be less descriptive of my life than that.

That may be a little too harsh. After all I could make a fairly strong argument that I’ve lived an adventuresome life. I did college and Europe. I got drunk for the first time in the shadow of the tower in Pisa. I’ve flown all over the country by myself. Took a ten month sabbatical and cycled over 2,000 miles in the upstate New York county where I was born. More than once I rode a hundred miles in a day. Worked swing on fourth stack of Aggie Bonfire. Studied Soto Zen Buddhism, sat Zazen at the Austin Zen Center and done a weekend retreat at the Syracuse Zen Center. I got a tattoo on my 27th birthday. I’ve done stuff.

However, I still contend I choose safety over adventure. Take working stack for instance. I was about four stories in the air sitting on a swing made out of rope tied to the top of center pole and a 2x12. I was cautious about it though. I didn’t do anything risky while I was up there. I remember some random guy asking me if I was scared. He saw me double check each handhold before I moved. I was not scared. I’m not scared of much of anything. I was being cautious - choosing safety.

I’m not contending this is a bad thing, but it does explain my behavior and goes a long way toward predicting my future. When given a choice if you always take the safer of the two options you could have a good life, but it probably won’t be that successful. In life if you do not risk much you will not gain much. This can explain why even though I have brilliant ideas and I’m very good at whatever I put my mind too I am not wildly successful. I don’t know that this is something I need to change about myself. After all success by the world’s standards isn’t really success at all.

A Moment of Choice

There will come a moment in each of our lives when we must make a choice for God. Our whole life up to that point is training to bring our will into line with God’s will. A life with God equips us so that in that moment of choice we have the ability to make the “right” choice.

I believe sometimes we will know we made the choice and sometimes we will not. Certainly from our perspective knowing the choice is before us would be much preferable, but it probably is of little concern to God. If our will is truly aligned with His will we even notice? It will be just another “right” choice in a series of “right” choices.

                     - inspired by Genesis 45

God and the 10,000 lbs Gorilla

I just finished a book called Blink. It is about how a lot of our thinking is below the surface behind the locked door of our subconscious. It was a very interesting read. I highly recommend it.

It reminded me of a bit I did with Kay many years ago before we were married. I don’t remember how we got there, but I believe I was trying to explain that my love for her was a subconscious decision. I said my subconscious was like a 10,000-pound gorilla flinging bananas at me trying to get me to do the right thing, i.e. marry her. My point was that the deep part of my soul was telling me she was the one I, my conscious mind, just had to catch up.

Whether you believe in the spiritual or not you cannot deny that there is more too us than our conscious mind. So what is the subconscious really? Could it be that at the subconscious level we connect with our soul and it is behind that locked door that God talks to us?

A Great Idea That Didn’t Work

While writing some of my most recent blogs I got a brilliant idea. I would pick a date to start a project. Then give myself a limited but reasonable amount of time to finish. This would allow me to rest between projects thus acknowledging my limited, human, capacity (Infinitely Finite). It also works with the cyclical nature of life (That Old Cyclical Feeling).  If I could just tap into my obsessive compulsive tendencies for that brief period of time then I could make some progress (A Slob w/ OCD).


My first project was to complete my IDP for my second job. I gave myself two weeks to do it. The start date came and I was ready to succeed. I worked a couple days and then life got to hectic (24/7 World).  Next thing I knew the completion date was past and I wasn’t even close to done. I tried to break for awhile and then picked another start and finish date. Those dates came and went and I was still not done.

It was such a good idea. Why didn’t it work? First, I think it was not accepting my limits. I have a job, a child and a wife. I’m trying to get in cycling shape, learn the piano, and read one book a month. One answer may be to give up something, but I don’t know what. All of that is very important to me. Second, I think it’s the same old thing. I can’t focus for extended periods of time on one thing (My Mom Thinks I’m Lazy).

It saddens me to say I’ll have to throw the idea of a start/finish date out. No matter how good the idea if it doesn’t actually accomplish the goal it has to be discarded. It was a great idea though.

My Autobiography

I got Craig Ferguson’s autobiography American on Purpose for Christmas. I read it in three days. It was fast, fun and highly entertaining. While reading it I started to think what my own autobiography would be like. I would title mine “Bill Page: A Man without Intention.”
Looking back over my life my choices seem more of a reaction than a goal focused plan. I went to college because I was smart and that’s what smart people do. I had no idea what college entailed or why I needed to go. I chose Architecture because I couldn’t think of anything better to do. I took a job in Architecture and moved to Fort Worth because I was sick of working at Target. It was something to do while I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

The first time I can say I did anything on purpose was when I moved to Austin. I had been visiting Marc and Anna every few months there and just loved the City. I still do. Best thing I ever did. After that there wasn’t much intention either.

If I asked my eighteen year old self what I would want to be doing when I was thirty-six I’m pretty sure I’d say married with children and living in a big city. So, this blog leaves me with two questions. Am I any different than most other people, and does it matter. I’m happily married with a wonderful daughter and another baby on the way. It would seem I have gotten where I wanted to go.

That Old Cyclical Feeling

We are finite beings that cannot thrive in a 24/7 world. No matter how much we would like it to be otherwise it’s just the way it is. This is best illustrated in the fact that we live our lives in cycles. Spring follows winter. Then summer, fall and winter again. The moon waxes from full to nothingness and back again. On a personal level we sleep each night to wake refreshed, hopefully, each morning. Creative ideas are plucked out of the air like apples from a tree one day, and the next we only increase the depth of the divot in the couch.

Anyone that follows my blog will know I am completely at the mercy of these tidal forces. The creative energy flows in and I write. Out and I twitter away my time. I am learning though, if slowly. Rather than fight my inherit nature I am have accepted reality and am studying my patterns. In the hope that I can determine how to sustain the high times a bit longer so my life does not end as a hodgepodge of unfinished projects.

Wish me luck…

Infinitely Finite

It is astonishes me that almost everyone I know lives a harried out of control existence. I challenge you to find just a handful of people that when asked don’t say their life is crazy. Why?

I believe the main reason is that we do not accept our limits. We are not infinite beings. We are not God. We cannot work forever without stopping. We do not know all things and we never will. Neither can we say yes to every request made of us. We are finite and there is nothing we can do to change that.

This is not what the world sells us though. We are told we can do anything and everything. We can work full time jobs, be slender and fit and keep the house clean with a finely manicured lawn. We can have a career and raise a family all while reading the Oprah book of the month and exploring those ten things that drive our mate crazy in bed. Do more. Be more. Have more.

I do not think the point of life is to do. I think it is just to be and if we spend our finite amount of time each day and in this life always doing there will be no time to be.

What does this look like in real life? For me it means I can’t be a Cat 1 racer while working 50 hours a week and raising Mackenzie. It means I write a blog every other instead of every week. It means I put off that novel until Mack is in college. Or maybe I watch less TV so I can write the novel. I don’t know. I’m still working on it. I just know I cannot do it all and I’m tired of trying.

A Slob with OCD?

I don’t think I’ve touched on my so called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder before. I say so called because while I joke that I have OCD I don’t think I actually do. I can be extremely obsessive when the mood strikes me though. When the OCD is kicking things have to be done a certain way and in a certain order. As evidenced by the semi-permanent state of disorganized clutter I live in the mood does not strike too often.

I am tempted to say that I want to tap into this apparent OCD more. If I did my house, office, garage, etc would finally be organized. The problem is that with right place comes right order. I can’t say what that order is, but I know when I’m in the middle of one. It takes very conscious effort to short circuit this route I must take. It goes something like this. To wash the dishes I have to collect all the dishes to the right side of the sink. This includes all the random coffee mugs, plates, glasses, coke cans and Topo Chico bottles around the house. While I’m doing the collecting I have to clean the counter tops. Then if the recycling or trash is full I have to take that out. This is why I can be in the kitchen for an hour and it looks like I’ve done barely a handful of dishes. I think this combined with what I talked about in my blog “My Mom Thinks I’m Lazy” explains what drives me fairly well.

I have to respect my limited human nature. I cannot do it all. The level of perfection my so called OCD requires is beyond my capacity to reach. It seems one slip though and soon things are spiraling out of control and I end up with a garage I cannot even walk through let alone park a car in. How do I find balance between doing everything and doing nothing?

Servant of God

Don’t be fooled by the delusions of this world.
Evidence of God’s favor most likely does not look like what we expect.
We are servants of God. Not vice versa.

Was That Smelly Guy Jesus?

God as a homeless man is Hollywood cliché. That may have been just what happened last Tuesday though. I’m going to set this up with my favorite joke about God.

As flood waters rise a family climbs out a window onto their roof. They begin to pray to God for rescue. A neighbor comes by in his fishing boat. They wave him on confident that God will save them. The water is running fast now and starts to lap over the eaves of the house. A helicopter flies over ready for them climb aboard, but again they wait on God. A giant wave washes them off the roof and they find themselves face to face with God.

“God,” the family’s father says, “Why did you let us die in the flood?”

“I sent you a boat and a helicopter. What else did you want?”

I was running late and really wanted to catch the very first bus I could. As I was coming up to the bus stop I saw the 101 take off. Traffic had it bogged down so I ran thinking I could make it to the next stop a block north. I was gaining fast, but was about to miss it when a nice guy waved at the driver to wait. I thanked him as I stumbled onto the bus heart pounding. Elated that I had shaved twenty minutes off my commute home I found a seat toward the back of the bus and pulled out the Austin Chronicle I’d picked up earlier in the day.

Half way through Lewis Black’s comprehensive article on the late 60’s band Moby Grape I looked up to discover we were passing my church. The church is not on my bus route home. Not one to panic I figured I just got on the 10 instead of the 101 and since my truck was at the North Lamar Transit Center I would be fine. All busses heading north go to the Transit Center right? No, they do not. This became clear to me shortly.

As the bus ambled north I went from confident I would end up at the Transit Center to thinking I would find myself deep in East Austin. Being that I ran to catch the wrong bus I was feeling shy about asking the bus driver any questions. I was in the middle of an upswing in confidence when a rather large man got on the bus. As he sat down to my left I noticed he was dressed in a suit that had seen better days and he had some of the worst body odor I’ve ever experienced.

A couple people sitting farther back in the bus got off at the next stop. Thinking a few seats distance might make a bit of difference - it didn’t - I jumped up and took an empty seat. While switching seats I put my paper under my arm. Seeing I was no longer reading the paper a man sitting across from me asked if he could have it. While I was looking forward to the other half of Black’s epic article I gave it to him anyway because I’m just too nice to say no. This act broke the ice and I asked him if this bus went to the North Lamar Transit Center. It did not, but I could get off at Rundberg, walk two blocks to Lamar and catch the 1 back to the Transit Center.

Walking toward Lamar I looked back to see the bus heading off toward east Austin. If that smelly man hadn’t gotten on when he did and that guy hadn’t asked for my paper I would have been even farther off track and a very long time from getting home. I’m tempted to write this story off as a little too mundane for the all powerful hand of God, but God is an everyday God. It’s not always about the burning bush.

A New Year A New You

The last part of 2009 slipped past me pretty quickly. The year was tough on many levels but it was a good year for me too. I averaged a blog every other week. That’s short of my original goal of one a week, but that probably wasn’t a realistic goal. I read eight books. Short of my one a month goal, but a lot better than just two each of the previous two years. Then there was the major victory of getting the truck in the garage. Can’t use the other half of the garage still, but the truck is in there. Looking over my little year in review here it seems I aimed to high, and I am going to try to set more realistic goals. Not to realistic though. You have to push yourself. There can be no growth otherwise.

In the coming weeks I’ll spend a few blogs continuing my thoughts on why I can’t get where I want to go and my inherent nature. Then I’m going to crank up the religiosity for awhile. It is my favorite subject after all.