book planning

Musings about writing a book. Musings directed at the LORD, God Almighty, and the Son of God, and the Comforter.

The starting place: God, the Three, so loved the people of the world that the LORD gave His Son as a sacrifice to atone for the rebellion of the people, and whoever truly believes that this is a fact will not experience eternal death.

When choosing to spend time on writing, one must write what is uppermost in the mind's priority list. What is most important to spend time writing about? As I consider this choice now, because I must, I realize that by testing my thoughts for their relative importance, the fact of Jesus' sacrifice hits the top of the list. I must write about this first because in the constant human search for meaning, this fact is the one that all questions of meaning depend on. It is the only fact that contains unalterable and reliable meaning in this world.

As a fact by itself, unsupported by its context, the sacrifice of Jesus' life doesn't deliver meaning to human understanding. The context is a story, with a main plot and a myriad subplots. The life of every human being is a minor, but ever present, ever important subplot of the story of Jesus' sacrifice. The movements and developments of human groups, so difficult to define in history but remembered anyway, are the major subplots. The exposition of the story begins outside of this world and before its human history, and it ends outside of this world and after human history.

The story begins in "the heavens."

Howard's End

Sitting in the dark, watching Looney Tunes on YouTube, my fingernails need trimming. It's Howard Hughes all over again.

Lead, Follow, or Let Go of the Windshield Wipers!

I stole these bumper stickers

"Hokey Pokey Anonymous: a place to turn yourself around"

"Honk if you have poor impulse control"

"Guns don't kill people. Monkeys kill people."

My days -- just like the stock market's performance

You know what the graph of the daily ups and downs of the stock market looks like. It's a spiky line. In my Mac dashboard widget, I can look at the spiky line for the day, the week, the month, six months, a year, and two years. What I would like to track is the quality of my days in a spiky line.

Of course, one has to choose a factor or a group of factors to index every day, and I have contemplated what kind of data I am most interested in tracking. Is it the phenomenon of having great variations in sociability, or the variety of physical states of well-being (and absence thereof), or the sense of self-confidence going up and down? Is it the gross daily time management data, on a numerical scale? Perhaps the ratio of sleep hours to one or more of these factors? And then there may be an aggregate of all of these and more, melded into a mental well-being index. That would be exciting to follow.

What to call it? The Tim Lale domestic average? The Tim Lale Mental Health Exchange index? The Ooltewah Loonie count?

The long-term effect of collecting the data and graphing it will be similar to the historical data of the stock exchange. It might tell something important, but no one really knows what it is. But for some reason, I like looking at it. I look at where I've been and how the days have gone, and I think to myself, Yep.

daily 3

The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make His face shine upon you and give you peace forever.

If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault.

epic fail

I know that every day we get up out of bed and can't control how the day turns out, but most of the time, when I have to get to campus and teach a class, teaching class is exactly what happens. (These mashed potatoes and gravy and long green beans are really scrumpy, btw.) Last night I made myself go to bed at 10:30 after working on editing for a couple of hours, knowing I wasn't finished and would miss the deadline by a day, because I had to get up early and finish the handout I wanted to use and tweak the standard quiz so it would fit, before first class at 8:00 a.m. The second that pink alarm clock squeeped at 5:30 a.m, I was standing up and saying to myself firmly, Go. Cold floor cold floor cold floor cold floor. Near 7:00 I drove out of the snow-covered uphill driveway as fast as I could to see if it was slick. No slipping at all. At -10C the snow feels like Velcro, even to the tires on an Accord. So I go shooting off down the curvy mountain road toward Ooltewah with nary a centimeter of sliding. How boring, methinks. The road is mostly dry and definitely not icy.

At 7:05 I'm pulling into the parking lot and see a couple of cars. That's a good sign usually. Desperately cold breeze blowing as I run the key card through the slot. Up the stairs, down the dark hall, no human beings visible, open the office door and light things up. After Outlook spends 30 minutes, no, that was 30 seconds, saying hello to the server, I see an email from the communication director: Southern is closed! No school. No work. Stay home. Because of weather conditions. What? Really, Ingrid? Oh, please.

It's 7:08 a.m.

Many trains of thought ran their course through my mind. I made a forceful effort to not share them on Twitter or faculty-net or Facebook or the Chattanooga News-Free Press. From the vehicles on the road (with 4-wheel drive, for heaven's sake) tottering at 22mph on Ooltewah-Ringgold speedway, to the dark, empty building in the early morning, to the anticlimax of having class material ready at the tip of the tongue for nothing. I had forgotten how I feel when I'm in a bad mood, it's been such a long time. It really has. But everyone sitting on their duffs on a perfectly good work day, man, I just can't stand it. Where are those pansies who can't look at a frost warning without flinching?

So I made handouts. I planned plans. I wrote emails and filled out papers and read a book. I ate lunch in the faculty lounge and got back at it. Then the editing work came back to mind and I walked out at 2:00. What a crazy, crazy day, a major letdown. We got stuff to do, people. Don't we? And the weather looks fine to me.

Fursday

Tim: I have few moments of clear thinking anymore. Why is that?
Tim's Obedient Alter-ego Persona: Let's think for a minute.
Tim: We've been thinking for many many many minutes. It's not helping.
TOAP: The fog has several sources, like aging, job stress, clinical depression, living in someone else's house, thinking about stuff too much, feeling what we really feel, uncertainty about the future, short attention span, erratic biorhythm, too many steak sandwiches, three teenage daughters, the war on terror
Tim: Wull, yeah
TOAP: That feeling in our head, it comes after a few hours of engagement with life, and we just have to live with it
Tim: Nah. Let's have some more dinner.
TOAP: We've been wanting to look a bit more svelte for the opposite gender, though
Tim: Let's have some more dinner
TOAP: If that's the only way to get us doing the freelance editing that's due tomorrow
Tim: This is what I'm talking about
TOAP: I'm wondering about a cup of Pero
Tim: That's in the plan. But what to eat next? Hmmm. Hey, someone's coming in the front door. So they managed to drive up the hill through the snow.
TOAP: That talcum-thin layer
Tim: Looks like heavy dust, yeah
TOAP: We don't live in Michigan or Iowa or Minnesota
Tim: Can't begin to describe my gratitude. Another piece of bread with Marmite? Maybe not. What else is down there? Oh, wait, there's blueberry cheesecake ice cream in one of the freezers. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
TOAP: Not the way to svelte-dom
Tim: I can taste it now. I can smell it. I can feel it. Mmm, let's go.