A Time of Change…

The last few weeks have been a time of change for me. As many of you may know that for the last year plus I have been working as the interpreter for the Brigade Commander here in Diyala Province. As there was a transfer of authority recently between the outgoing Brigade and the incoming Brigade I found myself without a job. The new Brigade Colonel brought his own interpreter with him from the U.S. This happens sometimes. Now I am in my new position as the Linguist for the Governance Advisory Team of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). While being a Brigade Commander’s Linguists I worked briefly with the PRT before and I know many of the people here. It was a very nice transition to come over to that side of the house and work with them on a regular basis. What we do here contributes to helping Iraqis establish a stable government and it expedites bringing our soldiers home sooner. I’m very glad to be part of this process now. Enough about work… I have begun taking online classes with the University of Phoenix in their Hospitality, Travel, and Tourism program. Kathy and I would like to own a Bed & Breakfast Inn or a small hotel in the future and I thought this would be a wonderful way to prepare myself and increase my knowledge base in this field. I’m looking forward to starting classes on Monday November 3rd. Enough about school… With all these changes occurring, I would like to take a few moments to reflect a little on this life altering process we call change. In my short 32 years of life I have come to realize that change is unavoidable. And in my life in particular, I have been through many major changes. My previous view was that life is this constant stream that is going along and then “change” comes and upsets the stream. I used to think that life is supposed to be the time of stability, and that the times of change that destabilizes life is a negative factor. Now I have come to realize that the one constancy we have in life is change. Life is a never-ending process of change and any stability that we experience in life is actually a time to prepare for the next change. Think about it. After we are born we engage in a process of change we call growth and development – a process that never ends. It has it’s major mile-stones: puberty, midlife, old age, marriage, children, college, career, etc; but even in between those major mile-stones change is constantly taking place. As a result, I have figured out that change is not an interruption; rather it is the basic element of life in which we live. Change is the constant (oxymoron) and stability is the exception to the rule. I’m learning I must not only embrace change as a normal part of my life, but that I should be proactive in pursuing change. If we sit idly by, waiting for change to just happen to us we find that life is always passing us by. We find ourselves not living our lives, but just watching it go by. If we actively keep an eye out for the changes around us we could see the signs of change ahead of time and then we could pursue the changes ourselves and engage in living our lives. Change is difficult for most of us and that’s because we aren’t waiting for it, expecting it, and then welcoming it when it does arrive. I am reminded of the constant warning of Jesus to his disciples that they must be vigilant and always ready for the return of the bridegroom. I’m realizing that in my life that vigilance, that preparedness Jesus was referring to is not necessarily for the end of the world and the second coming only. I’m beginning to understand that the second coming is perhaps the ultimate change that we are looking for, but we should be prepared and looking for every change that comes into our lives. When I’m proactive in pursuing the change and I’m ready for it, I will 1. Be actively living my life not passively seeing go by 2. I will have a say in shaping and molding the changes happening in my life so I’m not acting the victim of haphazard events 3. I will never miss the ultimate change that will happen in the end of life, whether that is the second coming or simply the end of my own physical life which we refer to as death. You see, I’m realizing that pursuing change and welcoming it even brings me to a point of being prepared for death itself. For most of my life it never occurred to me to be prepared for death, but being here in Iraq, I have found myself on several occasions face to face with death, including my own. That was one of the biggest eye openers for me about this topic of change. What’s wonderful, is that God has given us the gift of times of stability so we could prepare and build ourselves up emotionally and spiritually to take on the next change. In military terms, the times of stability are simply staging areas for the next round of battle. And pursuing and welcoming change is certainly a battle, and we have a choice in that battle. We could fight against the change, and we will always lose that battle and be miserable, or we fight to embrace the change and even have a say in it and find that life carries more meaning and more joy. The choice is ours, so let us prepare because change is on its way.

A WORD ON CONVERSATION…

The question may come up, “Why a conversation?” Conversations, really good ones – ones that might last for hours, such as ones that I had with my friends Chris and Trevor when I was at home – are dynamic in nature. They tend to grow and evolve naturally from one topic to the next and, as time passes, you almost feel like you could lose yourself in those conversations. As if they have become a living entity outside of yourself and they are now leading you into areas hitherto unexplored. It is my desire to once again travel through unexplored areas, and that’s what brings me to conversation. I have been away from home for 18 months now. My Father-in-Law, Larry, was right when he said that I “need to reconnect to my roots” and that is another reason for conversation. But being disconnected has had at least one positive result – it provides an opportunity for inward reflection and contemplation. That experience has been very revealing to me. I don’t believe in Astrology, but I always thought it was fun that in the Chinese Zodiac, I was born in the year of the Dragon. Simply out of complete boredom and curiosity, I decided one day to Google my Chinese Zodiac sign. I found out that there is more to this than what you find on placemats in Chinese Restaurants. It turns out I was actually born in the year of the Yang Fire Dragon, according to one system, and there are several other systems as well. In any case, as I looked at the character traits (both good and bad) for the Dragon under each system, I found a theme was developing. Certain traits, particularly the bad ones, began to stand out to me. This was no revelation, of course, but an affirmation of what I was seeing more and more in my times of inward reflection. Some of those traits I was well aware of: Prideful, controlling, and stubborn. Other traits I simply have never considered when thinking about myself, but as I thought about them found them to be quite applicable: Militaristic, rigid, controlling, arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, prejudiced, dogmatic, over-bearing, violent, impetuous, and brash. The discovery I made in looking at those lists was eye opening. Some of those traits, I’m realizing, while not openly visible, are still there as influential undercurrents. I have also come to see that I am very good at disguising some of them so they are not readily noticeable, even to me. So as I attempt to “reconnect to my roots” through this conversation, I want to do so in a new way. This is one of the unexplored paths that I’d like to muddle through in this conversation, the path of changing certain assumptions and habits, certain ideas and thoughts. The path of finding ways to redirect the undercurrents currently in place and see if I myself could grow and evolve, even as the conversation does, to become a new living entity. That’s a good reason for conversation. A good reason for a new beginning.

A New Beginning...

Welcome and thank you for visiting this blog. I have wanted to jump on this blogging bandwagon for months now, and I have even started a few times, but I could never get myself to get it off the ground. It turns out I am a very complicated person. I wanted to write and share about my experiences and my life with my friends, but I just didn’t know where to start, or what to say. I came to realize that I’m not really all that interested in writing about myself after all – hence the writer’s block. What I want more than anything else is to have a way to converse with family and friends, new and old, about life experiences, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, developments, anything and everything. As most of you know, I am currently deployed in Iraq as an Army Linguist, and as such I will not be discussing many details of my daily life. This stems not so much out of secrecy as out of the repetitive nature of life with the military. Most days here are Groundhog’s Day! I will be sharing some stories and experiences of course when our conversation lends itself to that, but I want to talk about more than just what I do on a daily basis. Those of you who know me well, know that I’m a big picture thinker – which means my head is usually stuck in the clouds somewhere chasing significant thought-kites such as whether today is Monday or Thursday, and if it’s Thursday, is it Thursday of next week or This week – or was it last week? Like I said, the days begin to run together here. Usually, without a watch and a calendar I have no idea what’s going on, and even with those two wonderful inventions someone is still running around trying to find me. You have no idea how many times I came to my senses in some important meeting with officials or some conference, only to realize that someone has just said something and they are waiting for me to translate it but I have no idea what they said because my mind was off chasing this or that thought-kite that breezed by. The blank stares that I must have on my face sometimes, SHEESH! The stressful thing is figuring out what to do then. Do I pretend I heard what the speaker said and make something up (assuming I remember the conversation and the point the speaker was getting at to begin with) or do I ask the speaker to say it again (pretending to ask for clarification) and risk the possibility of my mind wandering again and not hearing the speaker for a second time. Well, I digress. The point is I would like this blog to be a conversation, not about me, but about life and about the experiences, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that touch us all, each in our own sphere of life. Here are some ideas for topics of discussion: Life experiences, faith & love, war & peace, justice & mercy, death, nation-building, Iraq, social justice, God, religion/spirituality, history, philosophy, politics, emergence, business, ethics, morals, travel, culture, family, friendship, or anything else you can think of. You are also free to ask me any question that you’d like - but I don't promise answers. I don’t want to set the topic of discussion, or direct the conversation, as I’m sure each of you may have a different topic to discuss. I took the first step, opened up the lines of communication and initiated this conversation. It is my sincerest desire that you accept this invitation and engage me in this conversation, cultivating it together until it grows and evolves into who knows what. I’ve never done anything like this before and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do hope that in a few months, a name change would be in order for this blog, from: “Cultivating A Conversation…” to “A Flourishing Conversation…” Please take a moment to share a few thoughts. Thank you.