As Ahnald once said, "I'm back"

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest (and neck). Christmas Day washed away a lot of stuff, and I guess that I will continue this old thing. I never meant to cause a stir, but then I guess Phil Robertson didn't either and we all know how that turned out.

This morning, back in the office running off bulletins, back in what passes for the flow (whatever that means upon reflection, I switched on Pandora and found some 60s folk music and there I was again, with words pouring out of pours.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again with relish. Writers must write. Apparently, for good or bad, I must. I must though I'll try to remember that there are things that I've written that hurt unintentionally, but hurt all the same. I've also been hurt, and that's just a sort of occupational (though this is not my occupation) hazard. Sharing emotions and heart comes with the implicit idea that there might be blow back.

I saw a young blogger's incredibly powerful work and saw that he had 1.2 million hits on that one piece, and suddenly it seemed to me that my work was worthless. I have no unique ideas or thought. I just pour, and things come out. They came out.

Lots of folks commented or sent texts or messages or carrier pigeons or such when I said I was heading toward the ends of these blogs. I appreciate the feedback. I really do. And it reminded me why I write. Perhaps it's not for you, but for me, one reminded me.

But one struck me immensely. A fine man I used to work with, er, for, I can't remember how all that went, back before we shut down a PM newspaper together, wrote this: (It's) hard to keep an inspired writer quiet for long and the passion for it will come again, in this blog, your column or your sermons. And you will.give people the words you've been given, and that's all you can do.

I would question only the inspired part of that, but that's just me.

Truth is we've had some difficult family stuff that I've taken way, way too personally and conflict I never saw coming and pray that I never experience again nipped me on the behind. That's all, but that's enough.

But yesterday, playing around with my gift (a Ukulele ... which would mean I now have four instruments I can't play well, but I digress), something dawned on me.

Thirty years ago I was, according to some, a hot inside management type for sports journalism. I had six offers from newspapers across the country including USA TODAY. I turned them all down but one, taking the executive sports editor position for two newspapers in Reno, Nev. I was sure I could turn them into a force the way my mentor Tom Patterson did for the two newspapers in Jackson, Miss., where I worked.

I couldn't. I didn't. I failed, and I knew it about six months in. But by then I was 3,000 miles from "home" and like the Life of Pi, there I was floating away with a tiger in my boat.

I was down, depressed and nearly out for a while, for I was certain I had made a horrendous decision and would never find myself or home again.

Then the Jackson newspapers allowed me to return, this time in news. I had given away a career to find happiness.

What I found was the dearest person in my life, my wife of the past nearly 29 years. And a couple years later, I became the Deputy Sports Editor of those papers. Then I got hot again and a New Orleans newspaper hired me, again as Deputy Sports Editor. Eventually I found out that there was much more to life than what I was living, and I found the dearest being in my life, my dear Jesus, and I gave up all the rest to go into ministry.

And here we are at this computer keyboard.

The point, if you didn't see it, is we have to but trust that all this is for a reason, or my goodness what reasons are there. This might be a rough patch for any of us, health or finance or personal or ministry or you name it.

But God is good...not just some of the time, but all the time. Whatever led to the past four months doesn't necessarily mean it will follow like a dog lost in the neighborhood for the next four months, or forty.

I don't know what the next year of ministry will bring, but after reflection I know this: He will be involved, so I must, must sit back and enjoy his presence.

That might not seem like much, but it wipes away the most difficult times of ours like monstrous bugs on the windshield.

Simon and Garfunkel are singing as I prepare to sign off, the last of many that have sung in the past few minutes.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Nah. It seems to me upon pondering that all of relationships, hence all of life, is about allowing the pain that flows from relationships. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. But the answer is always blowing in the wind, and it's our responsibility, nah, our hope, to experience it. Seems to me you're not alive if you're not experiencing the fear, the rush, the pain, the exhaustion, the sheer and pure joy that is living.

Or as I've said through 1,086 previous blogs, and 31,471 hits on those 1,086 blogs, and 1,270 hits in the past month...

That's Life.

I'm back. And I ain't goin' anywhere.