Paul and Don have made it to the first night's camping site, called Phantom Ranch. Don was so tired and ache-y. It's funny to read his description of how stiff and tired he was. It's easy to empathize with his muscles and the desire to do nothing but lay still until the stiff muscles get rejuvinated. It's also funny to see the descriptions of other hikers and campers -- people better equipped for the task. You see all kinds of people in places like that.
I can related to Don's amusing thoughts, as I enjoy "people watching," too. Just sitting or standing somewhere and observing can bring several amusing sights to behold. Some people seem to tell a story by how they look, what they're wearing, what expressions they hold on their face.
While I am not a proponent of the "Christians must be happy and always smiling" philosophy, I do think it's important to be cognizant of how I'm feeling and how I look, behave, and talk might influence someone else. There's no reason to drag someone else into my bad mood. If someone asks, "How are you?" then I might tell them. Sometimes it's funny to be sarcastic and use cliches, like when someone says, "Good morning!" Answering back with "What's so good about it?" But only to start a laugh.
Don and Paul get up early to make a half-days hike down into the canyon, where they might arrive at noon. "This'll give us time to get a good hike in once we get there," Paul says. Don wasn't into the idea.
xxx NOVEL WATCH:
The Jan/Feb issue is now out of my hands and in my printer's. Today I'll actually start working on the March/April issue. This morning, after picking my wife up from the car dealer (for a warranty repair) and prior to my (Lord willing, last) visit to the chiropracter, I went to the local coffee shop in Hutto and sat down with the novel I'm writing. While I have been leary of letting this project get pushed aside forever, it's been since last December since I worked on it. I have been trying to pick it up and work on it "after the next deadline is over" for six or more deadlines. And there's always a reason not to or other work to be done. I told myself, 'I'll get going on it again this week, so it won't have been a full year since I touched it last.' I've had some issues with my notebook computer. Besides dropping it when my dog was a puppie (and he was running out of our room to possibly poop somewhere), which is how the disc drive tray was snapped in two; I have had an issue with my word processor on that computer. Because of a printer spool error/glitch that should've been under warranty with my freshly-purchased version of MicroSoft Office 2003, I was told that I'd need to run the Security Patch 2 on this computer. This is kinda hard for me, since it doesn't have a cd rom drive anymore, basically. What happens is MicroSoft Word will close on me ... unless I'm at home where the wireless network will be able to locate the printer. When I'm at another location and it can't find the printer, it shuts down with a fatal error. This makes it hard to write a novel -- especially in the comfort of a quiet coffee shop.
I also noticed that it was really last September that I actively wrote some lengthy chapters. I only put some anecdotes on there in December. It's kind of a mess with this notebook/Word situation, so my book is now saved in multiple versions, with a date part of the filename of the most recent/up-to-date version. With all this going on, I realized today that my dream of getting this novel published has been closer to dying than I ever thought. That kinda makes me mad. I really want to finish this thing and I have kind of a jealous mother relationship with it. I'm frustrated at my busy schedule that keeps getting in its way, and I refuse to be "wanna-be" or a "good intentioned failure" when it comes to this project and goal. In the big picture, it's in the Lord's hands and He can do anything He wants with it; but in the smaller perspective of my responsibility, I choose to fight for what's right. The issue of this being a God-given dream and activity has already been answered in my heart and mind, although God can certainly bring change into our lives in spite of previous precedents or goals. The prayer of Jesus -- "not my will, but thine be done" is an ongoing principle that will never leave our side.
But in this life, if we are building a house or coaching a team or leading a battalion in battle, there are times when you fight and press on through. You don't look at every little obstacle and say, "Oh, I guess it's not the Lord's will that we do this today." That's insane.
Hard work and pressing on is not easy, though. Lord willing, I'll get this done before six months go by...
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 20, 2006 03:36 PM