The Jot Book

My parents loved to travel and they took us on family vacations every year.  This was in the late 1950's and 1960's so these were road trips - people didn't fly around back then like we do now.  For each road trip my mom would produce a little notebook we called a Jot Book.  This was basically a trip journal and I'm sure my parents dreamed up the idea at least partly as something to keep my brother and me busy and observant on the trip.  We recorded mundane things like where we stayed, how many miles we covered each day, where we stopped for breaks, what places we visited. That was the official part.  The real meat of the jot book, however, was not these dry facts but the notes we recorded about unexpected things we saw, things that made us laugh, unusual sights or signs, memorable meals or picnics, people we met, funny quips someone made.  It became a family joke that whenever anyone considered something noteworthy or funny they would call out, "Jot that down!" and the current scribe would have to pull out the notebook and make a new entry.  The experience of a "group-journal" was a fun one and added to the sense of sharing the experiences with each other.

When my parents visited us in Europe and took trips with us my mother always had a little jot book with her.  Once again, we took up the cry of "jot that down!"

After both my parents died and we were cleaning out their house we ran across some of these little books. They transported us to a time long past and brought back smiles and memories of things we had long forgotten.   I have often tried to keep Jot Books when we took trips with our own kids but I was never very successful at the follow-through.  We'd get a few sporadic jottings and then the rest of the trip faded into oblivion - perhaps we now rely too much on the ease of photographs instead of the effort of words to record our experiences and observations.

I pulled out a journal to use on this trip from California to Illinois, thinking a major life transition like this deserves some recorded thoughts.  So far, no jottings.  Emotional exhaustion, bad road conditions and pushing hard to make the day's mileage have so far dampened my efforts.  Perhaps a car racing down the interstate at 80 mph is not the ideal setting for recording much of anything.  But I haven't given up hope entirely!  Maybe tomorrow we'll slow down a little and start jotting...

Retirement, Day 1

from Pete...

What would (did) you do on your first day of retirement?

I think back to when Becky and I came back to the U.S. from Germany for 10 months of furlough back in 1984. Her parents had kindly offered to let us stay at their farm, which we gladly accepted. We were excited for our kids - just Joel and Anne at that time - because we thought of all the fun they were going to have on the farm. We imagined them having endless fun, playing in the barn (but hopefully not the hayloft!), playing in the creek, watching farmers taking the crops out of the field, etc. etc. The first day Becky shooed them out the back door, telling them to “go have fun”. Curious to see what they’d found to do, she looked out the back door a short time later and was shocked to see the two of them just sitting there on the steps. She opened the door and asked why they were just sitting there. “Mom, there’s nothing to do here!” Tell me these were city kids! But it didn’t take them long to catch on to life in the country.

So I wondered if I would be “sitting on the steps” Day 1 of retirement, kind of like Joel and Anne back then, because there was “nothing to do”.

Not!

It’s such a relief to be retired! I feel like I now will have the time and the freedom to do things for which there simply wasn’t time before. That expectation showed through when I woke a little before 6am this morning. Becky woke up about the same time. We talked for a few minutes and then decided we would get up and do our 4 mile walking circuit. After that there was breakfast and then we dove into the day’s primary activity: packing. Relating all of the packing details would be BORING - so I won’t do that. But the good news is, that we’re essentially packed and ready for the truck to come.

But what if we hadn’t been packing? What will I do when we’ve moved to the farm and all the “must do’s” are long done? When I was working it felt like there was no end to the “must do’s”. I’ve loved doing statistics, whether at Rush or at Google, but I almost always felt like I was being paid to do statistics, not learn statistics. So it was hard to allow myself the freedom to pursue new things. Being retired, I feel like I can allow myself the luxury of learning extravagantly. I don’t have to watch the clock or “give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”. I look forward to studying astronomy, statistics and the Bible more - and doing it extravagantly.

A few more hours and Day 1 will be in the books. Nice day. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings! Don’t bother looking for me “on the back steps” - there are all kinds of things to learn and do!

The Ugly Side of Moving

(from Becky)

A cross country move is no small thing to coordinate.  We started packing early because we knew it was going to be a monumental undertaking and we don't have the energy to do it all in the last week or two.  The downside, however, is that you are living with the chaos for a lot longer.  Sometime in the night I think I turned the corner from "things are going along smoothly" to "would someone please just GET ME OUT OF THIS SITUATION!?!"  I woke this morning with dread at facing another day of packing, decision-making, looking for something that is already packed and inaccessible, weariness at being surrounded by chaos with no escape.  Realistically, things are going well.  Emotionally, I'm starting to wear down and the thought of going through everything in reverse at the other end is no comfort.  It's kind of like having a baby - you just have to get through it.  Ironically, I was reading in Hebrews this morning about "entering into His rest".  I needed those words.  I think a prayer walk is in order for today - time to escape the mess and get my compass aligned with the eternal perspective.  God is still in control.

 

Working at the United Nations

“Working at the United Nations? I thought you said you worked at Google!”

Right - I have worked at Google. But daily it seemed to me as if I were working at the United Nations.

Google is a company with a vision for the whole world: “Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” New products that are released are generally released in the world’s top 40 languages all at the same time. Those products that have been around longer are usually available in 100+ languages. And while there has generally been an economic divide between those who have access to the internet and those who do not, that divide has been shrinking through the ubiquitous presence of mobile devices, which one finds in both rich and poor households. And so Google thinks hard about how to make their services available to “the next billion users”.

But Google is not a white American company with international aspirations and reach. The people of Google are drawn from all over the world. For example, I’m part of an engineering team that serves Google’s advertising business around the world from our location in Venice, California. But our manager is originally from southern Europe. She has hired an ethnically diverse team of women and men who come from all over the world. Each brings not only a love for (and skill in) coding to our work but also their own ethnic background and personal flare to our ambiance. The people we work with make us rich, just by bringing themselves into our daily relationships.

I’ve had the chance to give unofficial “tours” of the office to friends, families and students of local universities. The essence of working at Google is simple: a bunch of smart people who love to work hard sitting in front what seem to be endless rows of computer screens. One group might be working on Chrome (the Google browser), another working on image search, still another on semantic classifiers that do their magic independent of a user’s input language - but those are things that aren’t apparent from a cursory glance. Instead what people see is: free food in the cafe, our own coffee bar and barista, micro-kitchens scattered around the campus, game rooms with musical instruments, ping-pong tables and electronic games, and on and on.

Where does cultural diversity come from? The Tower of Babel story in Genesis says that God thwarted the self aggrandizing efforts of people to build a tower that would reach into heaven by confusing their languages, resulting in the fragmentation of human society - which sounds like a bad thing. But the apostle Paul balances that theme as he speaks in Athens to those gathered at the Areopagus, a Greek center of philosophy and discussion:

“... and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;” (Acts 17:26-27)

The original intent of cultural diversity was to free us from our obsession with what we can accomplish in our own power and underscore our need to know the One who had the power to create not only nature but also human language and culture with such diversity. Cultural diversity is a good thing.

So I’ll miss not just working at Google - I’ll miss the people, the variety and diversity: the attractive accents of those for whom English is not their first language; having nearby native German speakers with whom I can share the occasional reminder of my own second language; hearing stories of what is was like to grow up in China or India. I’ll miss the men and women, each contributing their own unique experiences, sense of humor and sensibilities.

I’ll miss working at the United Nations.

The California season ...

Becky and I often talk of the “seasons of life”. These are usually tied to geography but sometimes we’ve stayed in one place through two or more life seasons. For us the last 8 years have been “the California season”.

God gives different seasons of life as well as seasons of the year. Though as a culture we’ve lost much of the natural context of the seasons, there is still some cultural residue of where these came from, if we take time to remember: planting (spring), growth (summer), harvest (fall) and land’s rest (winter). Our lives go through similar seasons. Some are for planting - as when we prepare for a career or begin having children. Some are for growth - those busy years in family and business, when we’re trying to take care of the present and build for the future at the same time. Others are harvest seasons - when we reap in our families or work lives what we’ve sown. And there are yet other seasons in which we appear to be more dormant - ones where we reflect on what’s happened and what is yet to come.

We like to take time at the end of a season to get away to a quiet place to reflect on the season that’s been. Last Sunday we went out to Joshua Tree National Park to do that. Joshua Tree has been a refuge for our souls during this California season. It has been a place where we could escape the congestion and the constant noise that surrounds us. Sometimes, if we stayed late enough, we could even see a clear dark sky and the depths of creation arrayed above us. It’s an amazing place.

We’ve used a variety of questions to help stimulate our musings in the past. Yesterday our reflections included these questions:

1. What was my primary expression of service?
2. What was my primary expression of faith?
3. What special helps or graces did God give during this time?
4. What new things did I discover about myself?
5. How have I changed?
6. What new relationships did God give?
7. What do I need to do to close out this season well?

I won’t try to convince you that these are the “right questions” to ask. They’re just questions that I find really useful. And as we reflect on these things we sometimes see things that are yet to be done so that we close out the season well.

This blog is already ‘beyond a comfortable length’, so let me mention just one of the insights from the California season that I reflected on yesterday: Isaac started well, but finished poorly. Isaac was the child of faith, raised by his father Abraham, the friend of God. God provided him a wife in answer to a servant’s prayer of faith and his wife Rebecca turned from the idols worshiped by her family to the God of Abraham and herself became a woman of faith to whom God spoke in answer to prayer.

But over time Isaac acquired a taste for good food, much like his older son, Esau. And so Isaac overlooked Esau’s lack of interest in spiritual things. And although Isaac lived to be 180 years old, by the time he was 100 he feared his “imminent death” and determined to pass on his father Abraham’s blessing to a son. And here Isaac makes a grave error in judgment. Isaac decides to bestow on his older son Esau the blessing of Abraham, a blessing that Esau has no interest in - a blessing which Isaac also knew God had promised to his younger son, Jacob, even before the brothers’ birth. You can read the whole sad story in Genesis 21 - 27. The nuances are easy to miss. If I hadn’t heard a message by the Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke explaining it all, I wouldn’t have seen it.

I don’t want to be like Isaac: start well and end poorly. I’ll wait and let God judge how well I did in the spring and summer seasons. But for now, I want to focus on finishing fall and winter well. I’ll guard my heart from the despotism of pleasure and my soul from the fear of death. Instead I’ll look for opportunities to serve and express God’s trustworthiness through my words and actions.

Becky and I laugh about how apt the expression “the California season” of our lives is - because our part of California only has one season! And we’re definitely looking forward to going back to Illinois where there are clearly four seasons to the year. And yet we’ll always look back on these eight years with gratitude for all the good that God did for us and our children during our “California season”.

Signs of change and spring

A post from Becky

It's Pete's turn to post but he's been immersed in a morass of taxes, doctor appointments, retirement issues and difficult projects at work to finish up so I'll jump in with a few photos of life at Rancho Del Mar. 

Slowly, slowly we are boxing up our lives.  There's a little echo in the rooms now that the walls are bare and the soft goods removed.  I'm finding the job emotionally exhausting - I can pack about 6 boxes and then I have to rest.  I suppose it's all the decision-making that wears a body out.  Pete once read a study that said some high percentage of our lives needs to be routine or we begin to experience high levels of stress.  I don't feel stress but life is definitely more tiring when the routine is gone. 

 

We'll have the house packed in plenty of time before the move which has been our goal.  We don't have the energy to leave this mountain of work until the last minute!  At the same time it's so good for the soul to spend time with precious friends and keep our eyes and ears open for the beauty around us.  The orange trees and jasmine are blooming, making the backyard smell so sweet it could make you drunk.  The apple tree is blooming and the buds are an intense pink that one would think is fake if you didn't see it with your own eyes.  

Apple blossom time

Millions of orange blossoms 

Jasmine blossoms

We're holding on to the sweetness of life here while looking forward to the adventure of life on the farm again.

From vessel to vessel

A post from Becky...

Back in about 1980 when we were living in Bochum, we had a German student living with us who nearly drove me crazy.  During our years in Germany we had quite a number of students live in our home at different times and we loved ALL of them and learned so much from each of them.  Except this one.  He was Mr. Inflexible.  He criticized everything that wasn't done the way he, his parents and all his ancestors had done it and wouldn't eat anything they hadn't eaten.  After a few weeks of this I was ready to go around the bend.  I mentioned the situation to another missionary wife and she shared a verse with me that has come back to me soooo many times since then:  

Jeremiah 48:11 says:  Moab has been at ease since his youth; he has also been undisturbed on his lees, neither has he been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into exile.  Therefore he retains his flavor, and his aroma has not changed.

Nancy made the observation that oftentimes people who have never had to undergo major life changes or who have resisted them are like Moab in this verse - they haven't been poured from vessel to vessel and their aroma and flavor never change.  That was certainly true of this guy.

I was thinking of this verse again this morning because we have just entered Week 10 in the countdown to Pete's retirement and soon we'll be in the single digits!  My stomach gets full of butterflies at the thought of all the changes coming at us like an avalanche.  I have to remind myself that it's not really an avalanche - it's simply another experience of being "emptied from vessel to vessel", this time back into a vessel we're familiar with.  But the wine of our lives has changed in the meantime! 

Keil & Delitzsch's commentary on this verse says that "good wine improves on being undisturbed; inferior wine deteriorates".  Being undisturbed or being emptied from vessel to vessel doesn't necessarily guarantee any particular result, positive or negative, but it's interesting that Jeremiah uses the picture the way he does.  As I think about the times we've been emptied from vessel to vessel (US to Germany, Bochum to Aachen, Aachen to the farm, the farm to Baltimore and back, the farm to LA) I can say that the changes God has engineered or allowed in our lives have all produced great blessing to us.  This particular season has brought us an incredible harvest of wonderful relationships, experiences and growth.    

I had an appointment with a new doctor this morning and he asked me what my interests are.  I told him I do anything that has to do with fiber and I collect friends.  He asked me, "How many friends would you say you have?"  I didn't have to think very hard to say that I have at least 20 women that I consider good friends here in LA and many more across the country.  He said he'd just heard a program that was discussing friendship and in the past most people had 3 friends but now people have (on average) 1.5 friends.  Compared to the national average, we are richly blessed with friends!  I can't imagine my life without the blessing these women have brought me!

Each friend and opportunity and experience is a gift from our Father and if those were somehow made sensory as "aroma" or "flavor", I'm certain that the aroma and flavor of our lives have been greatly changed and enhanced by them.  As we go back to the farm, we will be very different people from those who left and we hope it is a difference that will make us a sweeter aroma of Christ to those around us.