Something New

Jean is second from the left, seated in the golf cart

My friend, Jean Bauer said goodbye to the house that she called home for the past 61 years. The large "white house" on Blairsferry Road was a recognizable and familiar landmark. But on Tuesday, July 19, it was leveled to the ground to make way for progress.

A lifetime of memories were wrapped up in that house. Jean, now 90, and her loving husband Leo, raised their family in this house. I get teary-eyed just looking at the photos. Here is what Jean has to say.

"I lived there 61 years. We bought it April 15, 1950 and I sold it April 22, 2011. We had no water (used an out house) windmill  and heated water in a boiler out in the pump house to do the washing. It was a great place to raise three young boys. We had a lot of family gatherings, dinners and picnics for family and friends. It took a lot of work to fix it up and that is where the boys learned to do so many things. They helped Leo rebuild it to a show place. Then it deteriorated because we knew that it would some day be torn down for something new." 

When I talked to Jean on Sunday and asked if it was hard seeing her home being razed, she replied, "Goodness no! It was time, it needed to go." Today Jean is enjoying her new condo!

I love Jean's attitude! Jean never complains and never feels sorry for herself. She is fully engaged in a life that is moving forward, serving others. Jean reflects on the past, anticipates the future while fully embracing the present. When I grow up and turn 90 years old I want to be like Jean!

As I looked at the photos of the old white house being torn down, I immediately thought about Carl Fredricksen from the movie Up! I wrote about Up! on this post called The Great Adventure.

Carl and Ellie wed and grow old together in the old house where they first met. Unable to have children, they also try to save up for the trip to Paradise Falls but other financial obligations arise. Just as they seem to finally be able to take their trip, Ellie dies of old age, leaving Carl living alone in their home as a sour recluse with nothing to live for and missing his wife terribly. As the years pass, the city grows around Carl’s house with construction as Carl refuses to move.

Desperate and alone, the 78 year old Carl Fredricksen concocts an ingenuous way to save his property. He ties thousands of balloons to his home with the hope of traveling to Paradise Falls to fulfill the dream of his late wife.

There is only one problem, Carl can't escape the person he has become. Carl is stuck in the past, unable to embrace the new adventure that is in front of him. It takes a Junior Wildnerness Explorer scout named Russell to help him move beyond his painful past and regrets. Enough said. Go watch the movie!

Carl lived with regret. Jean lives with gratitude. Carl was hostile to change. Jean embraces new challenges. Carl lived in the past. Jean lives for the future. Carl held on to the familiar. Jean longs for something new!

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 Corinthians 5:1

Where Do People Find The Time?

Excellent talk by Clay Shirky, author and graduate professor at NYU. I just finished his latest book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

I love his concept of excess time or "cognitive surplus."

"Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time. And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV."

And how much cognitive surplus do we have? More than you might think!

"So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in--that represents something like the accumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought."

"And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus."

So, how are you spending and investing your time? Are you learning and participating and conversing and sharing and collaborating and growing? What are your goals for personal and professional development this year? What are you contributing at work and to those who are closest to you? Are you leaving the world a better place by your presence?

Where do people find the time? I find that I always have time for what's important to me. The world is waiting for our contribution. We have one solitary life. Let's make the most of every day!

Halftime

We had our Halftime Summit this morning with about 25 in attendance. Wayne Smith and John Leffin from the Halftime organization were with us on Friday for a Collaborative Day and then the Summit on Saturday. Halftime is the season of life that offers the opportunity to look back on what you’ve accomplished, understand who you are and then redirect your time and talent for an even more purposeful second half.

The concept of halftime is a big issue. More than 12,000 people turn 50 every day in the US. These halftimers are looking for ways to live the second half of their lives with meaning and purpose. It's exiting to think how the ministry of New Covenant will be shaped in the years to come by halftimers who want more out of life than traditional "retirement" has to offer.

Today we worked on identifying our talents, passion and mission statement. I've worked on my mission statement before so I used the time for examination and refinement. I have concluded that the thing that I'm the most passionate about is servant leadership and leading with integrity. So here is what I came up with today. To mobilize and mentor teams of servant leaders who create healthy environments for growth.

I'm now 55 years old. Yikes, how did that happen! Age motives me to live with more intentionality. Every day is a gift and there are no promises for tomorrow. Pastor Ray was only 62 when he went home to be with the Lord. So I want to live each day with purpose and invest my life into what is eternal. And increasingly, for me this means that I want to be involved in mobilizing and mentoring servant leaders who lead with integrity.