It's nice to see you again, blog. It has been far, far too long. May I tell you a story to catch you up a bit?

Very late last night, lit by the last orange embers of a summer campfire, someone smarter than me told me of a book that has inspired him to consider his life as a story, and himself as a character in that story. He asked me if someone were to see my life written as a story or reenacted as a movie, would it be worth reading or watching? Would it be interesting enough to stick around for the ending? Memorable enough to talk about in the break room the next day? Meaningful enough to shed a little light on the reader/viewer's own life? He identified a few elements that make a compelling story: exterior tensions and risks, overcoming adversity, ultimate victory against all odds...but the one that stood out to me most was character arc; the idea that a great story needs its central characters to change to be interesting: Darth Vader goes from well-mannered rambunctious kid to dark lord, Jason Bourne goes from confused and wandering ass-kicking-robot to hero driven by love, Jenny comes back to Forrest to start a family with the only man who ever loved her.

He told me of many intentional choices he and his wife have made and continue to make to live a story worth telling; he did so with neither bravado nor pride, he did so in kind instruction. Then he asked me about my story. I sipped a dram of bourbon from a plastic cup and glanced into the wispy burn of the fire's final moments, and I felt a strange sort of melancholy. It wasn't regret, not exactly; but rather a familiar dull weight in my chest that reminds me that my story is not yet stunning, but that my character is in the middle of a remarkable character arc.

The last year and a half has been, without exaggeration or effect, the most rapidly changing and ultimately character-defining season I have experienced yet. I changed positions in my company twice, adopted a baby, got separated (on the way to divorced) from my wife of eight years and drained the bank account in the process, and have learned to be a half-time single parent of a one-year old. My character today is starting to look pretty different than my character of two years ago.

There are stories within each of these chapters, and these are probably stories worth telling. But I'm not going to, not right now. I am instead going to tell you several things I've learned in the process, in the hopes that in doing so, I might remind myself of my own character arc to date, and even begin to imagine how the outline for the next chapters might look. Here are a few belief changes that have defined and driven my own character arc in the last eighteen months:

• Great marriage is a partnership of self-realized individuals. A married person must love their spouse choicefully and work hard at that relationship, but must never forget that what his/her spouse truly needs is a whole person to be married to... the most important promise I can make to a future spouse, if there should ever be one, might not be "I will forever work on our relationship," but rather "I will forever work on becoming the man I was made to be."
  
  
• Boys are everywhere; men are hard to find. I could write for weeks about this, but many others have already done so, and have done well. A real man is both strong and sensitive, fully present to his life, and ceaseless in his work on himself and his world. He loves the woman and the world into beauty around him.
  
  
• Parenting Is Insanely Hard, and Impossibly Rewarding. Being a single parent with half-custody is not half as hard as being a full-time single parent. It is exactly as hard, just half of the time. I had no idea what parenting really felt like until I was the only person there to do it... and I am so grateful for that chance. I cannot ignore her, hand her off, or wait for someone else to fix her problems for me. When she is with me, I get 100% of the frustration, sadness, and exhaustion, and I get 100% of the reward, love, and sense of satisfaction of actually seeing a real human being grow and flourish in my care. I know this sounds nuts, but I feel really lucky for that.
  
  
• Humility Is the Only Sensible Reality. Humility is not a character trait or a personality bonus, it demonstrates a basic grip on reality. No one; no one who reflects in earnest on the magnificence of the world around him and the simultaneous sacred depth and chaotic absurdity of the human experience can live in arrogance or pride. Our world, our spirit, our experience is too deep and too profound and too ridiculous to merit it. As someone who frequently falls into the insecurity of arrogance, I'm praying that my character remembers this.
  
  
• Hard Work is How You Get Things. File this one under "duh," but somewhere along the line I got the impression that if I dabbled in enough interests for long enough, I would naturally pick them up and find myself a fully-realized man. It turns out I was wrong, and I was lazy. If I want to be fit, I must work hard for a long time. If I want to be informed, I must learn hard for a long time. If I want to be spiritually connected, I must work hard at connecting for a long time. If I wish to become a skilled writer, I must practice hard and for a long time.
  
  
• Self-Pity Is a Curse. I cannot choose actions for others, and I cannot choose what the world will offer me... but I have full control of my choices. Self-pity presumes otherwise on both accounts, and disallows both accountability and gratitude. I may be sad, confused, and lost at times, but I may not pity myself; it is a heresy against all I am given, and all I am able to choose.

I'm sure there are dozens more, but this will do for now. I want to live a life worth retelling; I've no aspiration that the story will actually be retold, but merely that it be worthy of being retold... that I have honored all that I have been given by living a life worthy of it.

It's nice to see you again, blog.

Cheers,
Justin

I am so proud of my country today.  In fact, for the first time in a long time, I am a very proud American.

Two days ago, our country elected Senator Barack Obama as our next president.  I don't need to retell his story here; anybody who has found this blog stepped here on a sea of news articles, biographies, and stories about who this extraordinary man is, where he came from, and what he wants to do.

But I will repeat our story.  We are a country which, for the last eight years, has lived under a sneaking suspicion that the end of the last great superpower was nigh, and that our great nation of freedom, opportunity, and personal liberty was being chipped away by a relentless pattern of human rights violations, wiretapping, misrepresentation and the war it was predicated upon, foolhardy executive power-grabbing, economic tumult, and the discouraging feeling that we, the American people, were having the wool pulled over our collective eyes.

I am tired of going to foreign nations and sheepishly admitting my country of origin, for fear of the string of foreign-language expletives and shameful curses that I would be forced to respond to.  I'm tired of defending the liberty that my grandfather fought, shot for and was shot for in light of a bumbling figurehead, a puppet executive, and an inexplicable drain of the very liberties and respect for humanity that our country was built on.  I'm tired of being embarrassed by our leader, and by the kind of myopic zealotry and undereducated fundamentalism that came to characterize our twice-elected leader.  (For which I am equally to blame...I voted for our current President in both elections...and I am sorry).

...and today, I am breathing with fresh lungs, and a heart beating heavily with hope.

This week, we elected America's first African-American president.  To be slightly more broad, we elected America's first non-white president.  And I can't imagine being any happier that this person is Barack Obama.

I cannot wait to tell my children that I was there when Barack Obama was elected.  I am so thrilled that my children will not grow up in a world where only white males can reach the highest office in the land.  I am so proud that the rows of pictures that make up the "wall of presidents" at every grade school, middle school, and high school in the country will now have a dark-skinned face...at least one dark-skinned face, and hopefully many more...for as long as this country is established.  My children will never know a world where black men and women have no President who looks like them to aspire to.  And the children of black men and women across this country will never know a world where the "white majority" did not trust someone who looked like them to serve as their chief executive and leader.

I truthfully wondered if I would ever see this day.  And it is one of the great honors of my life that I got to be a part of electing this man.

I don't know that I believe that God takes a hand, or even necessarily an interest, in the politics of our country.  But I will tell you that I thank Him for a race well run, for two candidates that made this country proud throughout...for many of us, proud for this first time in years...and for the gift that is this radical milestone in the development of our young nation.  And I hope He hears it.

John McCain is an, without dispute, an American hero, and would likely have made an outstanding leader...I have been proud to support his cause and character in my small social circles where I could throughout his campaign.  But this is Barack Obama's time, and this is America's time for Barack Obama.  I think maybe we are finally ready.  I hope we are.

May God's hand guide you and protect you as you take your first steps of executive leadership, President-Elect Obama.  I'm proud to follow.

Peace to you,

Justin