Somehow it seemed appropriate that my last day of 39 was the first day of Advent.

(I also had a real hard time fighting off sleep all day and ended up going to bed before ten.  Also appropriate, I suppose.)

Actually, I freely confess I’ve been dozing off a lot. And tearing up like a baby during the Anne of Green Gables marathon.

But I’ve also been reading something other than business books and fiction (actually, I need to warm up my fiction before it stalls on me and sits in my driveway all winter leaving me afraid to try to start it again because I’m worried that I’ll discover something seriously wrong with it).

Today I got a good start on Protestants by Steve Ozment and I am really liking it.

I would say more, but the above-mentioned dozing is getting in the way.

But, frankly, my taste for non-fiction reading has gone into a deep coma for quite awhile.  I sometimes felt like I had changed into a different person.  But not lately.  I’ve been much more like what I like to think about as my “true self.”

Is how happy I am. I’m not sure if that fact is ever reflected in this blog. But my blogging has always been something like scratching an itch and it may simply favor my less satisfied moments. Controversy also poisons the whole thing.

But I am.

I wouldn’t normally set out to write about this, but when you turn forty, or have a surprise birthday party, you find lots of people, who wouldn’t normally get that serious with you, ask you questions about how you’re feeling about life.

They want to know where you think you are now, as compared to where you thought you would be.

Well, let’s go back to the summer I graduated in 1989. I was alone. I had no wife. I had no children. This morning I sat in the pew with five others who are mine and to whom I belong. I get to do that every Sunday and eat bread and drink wine (well, exept for the one’s that insist on grape juice–I decided not to turn the Lord’s Supper into a weekly battle).

That long ago I had some aspirations to be a nonfiction writer, mainly in Christianity and politics. I had some success there but eventually decided I wanted to to more proper theology and Bible exposition. It took longer, but I got to do some of that too. I also have the chance every once in awhile to do some lecturing (in addition to pulpit supply).

Of course, I had always expected to be a solo/senior pastor and preach every Sunday. I did that for awhile but economically, it didn’t work out (as I find it is not working out for some of my pastoring friends). But right now, even though I am bi-vocational, I get to teach a Bible study. More recently a group in my church began a book study (yes, one by N. T. Wright). So, with pulpit supply and other church work, I have plenty of ways to serve in the teaching and preaching ministry. And I get all of this in addition to a Church I am glad to be in and to have my children in. That is something many pastors don’t get.

And while I never thought about wanting to start a new business in my thirty-ninth year, I’ve gotten past the panic stage and am actually enjoying the adventure.  I need to make a lot more progress, but the fact is that I had no idea how on earth I would make a living only a year ago.  Everything fell into place, except the place kept (and keeps) morphing to something better.

And now I realize I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve taken to doodling about life, scratching out numbers and stuff, to figure out where I am in it.  Yesterday it worked.  I wrote down the monthly income I’ve built up so far and looked at the number and wondered why I wasn’t happier.  It wasn’t enough but it was a lot better than, say, homelessness.  It was more than I imagined possible last year.  So what was the problem?

So I began adding up my weekly hours and subtracting from 40.  Duh.  No wonder I feel like I’m in a box.  New projects aren’t going to cut it unless I can find regular stuff and trade in my lowest paying hours for better ones.  Welcome to business-startup common sense.  So, to say the least, there can be nothing lower than a 50-hour work week, minimum.  That wouldn’t be hard except for the working at home part.  We’ll see what I can do about that.

I don’t want this to be a silent edit. Recent developments have changed my schedule beyond recognition and it will be awhile before I can figure out new goals to meet.

One thing that has been life changing forever is to refusing to rubberneck the pile-ups on the information superhighway (or misinformation, rather)–that is, simply ceasing to browse the ani-FV jihad as it is represented on the internet. For the first time in over two months I looked in on the cesspool and it was just as awful as before. The only difference was that this time I had two months or more of peace to remember and to want back.

So I’m back. Let the dead bury their dead. Move on.