Greatness: Heart's Desire

There's a verse in the Psalms that took me by surprise, first time I read it.

"Delight yourself in the Lord; and he will give you the desires of your heart."

That's Psalm 37:4. It's in a familiar vein, "Ask and you shall receive," and the kid asking his father for a loaf of bread, and even the insistent widow. That's all Jesus, though, right? I mean, he was a generous guy. It struck me, though, reading the psalmist saying the same sort of thing....

Prayer is a serious thing, in the Bible. It's a powerful thing. We are encouraged and ordered to use it. And not just for meditation, not just as an opportunity to spread our lives before God, and hopefully gain a new perspective. We are directly instructed to ask for what we want, because God wants to be our provider. He makes that clear, again and again. Look what he was trying to do in Eden.

That Psalm caught my attention when I was a boy, back when I was about sixteen, and I put it to the test. I felt confident in that time, because I did delight in the Lord, I was certain of that, and more importantly, I knew without a doubt the desire of my heart. And I didn't have it.

So I prayed. I prayed, and in the night I had a dream, a glimpse of the life I wanted to have, years off, and that was enough for me. I took confidence from that moment, and I received what I asked for then.

That was a powerful experience for me.

A prayer isn't a birthday cake wish, y'know? I don't think it needs to be a secret. Sitting in church last Sunday, the man was saying this or that about relying on God, about letting him exercise his power within your life. That's something I believe in, as all of you know. I believe the world is a malleable thing, that reality can be bent for the purposes of God or man. I nodded, understanding and encouraged, even, and suddenly I remembered high school, and that desperate prayer....

I have a heart's desire, in my life today. I have lots of things to ask for (and hope that they will be given). We have a baby on the way, and I want her to be healthy. I want Trish to be healthy through it all, and I worry about that. I want lots of little things, the comforts that require wealth beyond what I already have. I pray a lot. I ask for a lot. But those are just things. Somehow, in my head at least, I've separated such prayers, such petitions, from the sort of desire the psalmist was talking about.

My heart's desire, today and now, is to be a best-selling writer. I want to publish a work, and have it read by the world. I want to write, stories and lessons and snapshots, to show readers what the world was and is and could be. I want my name to be remembered, for the words that I said. I have a message that I want heard, I have talents, gifts, that I want to use. I want the money. Not that -- I want the opportunity. I want my writing to be my life.

I was an A student in elementary school. I was good at everything except multiplication. I could teach myself, given the right books, and I usually managed to get them. I had a lot of plans for the future. For most of my childhood, they had nothing to do with writing.

A lot of you have known me for a long time, but if you haven't heard me tell this story, you don't know this story. That is to say, most of you know me as a writer, but none of you were there, at the crucial moment, when I discovered why I was a writer. Maybe Josh, but no one else.

I was maybe twelve. Probably eleven. We'd had a handful of writing projects over the last year, and I'd done well enough on them (but, then, I did well on all of my projects, as long as they weren't based on multiplication). One day I was thinking through the writing process, though. The actual job description, of the sort of person who writes stories, and I realized it would be a home job. Maybe a nice office, maybe just a pad of paper on the kitchen table, but it would be a home job.

I wanted that, because I wanted to be home for my kids. I wanted to be home with my family, even when I was working. That picture stuck in my head, and I've never shaken it. Even times when I was certain I didn't want kids, it was mostly because of some variation of the disappointment at realizing I wouldn't be able to realize that picture.

I was twelve. That's how I thought when I was twelve. Yeesh.

That's my heart's desire. I have a great job now, a fantastic one, that pays well and demands nothing of me but those things at which I excel, those things I can do easily and quickly and well. Given some of the things that have been discussed recently, it could get even better. And it's a better job than I deserve, considering the effort I've put into it. I chalk that up to a blessing, a gift. I'm in no position to complain, and I realize that.

But my heart's desire is to be a writer, just a writer, completely a writer, for my family. That last bit matters, too. I could have been a starving artist. I could have refused to take a job, and chased after every avenue available to me to get a book sold (in a market that is incredibly difficult to get a foot in the door), but it's about more than that to me. That's why I described my picture, my goal when I was twelve. I want it for my family, not in spite of my family. I want something better than I deserve to have, something I maybe had a shot at in the past, but I've squandered my opportunities. I want something that would completely change my life. I want it as a gift, served up on a silver platter.

Why not? It's happened before.

I do delight in the Lord. Maybe not as loudly as I did back then. Certainly not as dogmatically. But I do. And I crave this, looking through the few short days between now and then, I want this very much. Please, let it be so. Amen.

Journal Entry: September 26, 2006

RAGING FURY!!!!!!

Trish just called. (No, that's not why!)

Right, well, as you all know, we lost our renters in Tulsa a long time ago (however long it's been since the last time I posted -- so, ages). Actually, we lost them a month before that, but it took a month for our rental manager to let us know.

Here's how rental managers work: They take the first month's rent to pay for their advertising, cleaning, repairs costs associated with getting the house rented in the first place. They do all that, tidy the house up, show it to people, and they track down people to rent the place.

Then, when they have renters, they handle any problems that come up. They generally have a few handymen on-call who can do small repairs, and anything beyond that the manager takes care of tracking down repair guys to fix. Now, mind, they don't pay for any of this. And the renters don't pay for any of this. It all comes out of the owner's check. Every month, the renter pays his rent to the manager, the manager takes out 10% to cover his answering phone calls and arranging for repairs, then he takes out any money that went to repairs or whatnot, and if there's anything left over, he sends that to the owner. Bear in mind that, no matter how much the manager sends, the owner has to pay the full mortgage.

When we were unable to sell our Tulsa house, after moving to OKC, we got a rental manager who came highly recommended. It took him about two months to get the house rented out (which is the same as saying we had to pay three months' mortgage (remember he gets the first rent check) with nothing coming back to us. That hurt us financially, but I was getting contract work from Lowrance that cushioned the blow. Around March, when we got our first rent check, I also stopped getting work from Lowrance.

So now here we are. As you know, our renters bugged out sometime in July. We never got an August rent check. We heard from our manager early-August, around the time we were expecting a check, that we wouldn't be getting one, then or for the foreseeable future. He did tell us that the renters had left the house in pretty good shape (thank goodness), and that he'd be getting to work finding us new renters.

Three weeks passed, and when Trish called he said that he'd had a few people interested, but that we would need to put carpet in two rooms to make the house more attractive to renters. He estimated $400. Bear in mind, we're already significantly negative, and he's asking for more money. Trish and I talked about it, came up with a couple workarounds. She knew she'd be going to Tulsa soon, so she decided she'd maybe pick up some carpet scraps (room-size) on the cheap, and we could just lay them in the rooms. Something like that.

Well, it took her longer to get to Tulsa than she expected. Finally happened today, and while she was there, she went by the house. Then she called me.

Apparently, the manager lied to us. The house is a wreck. There's crappy old furniture in some of the rooms, and in the garage. They'd asked permission to paint some of the walls (and we gave them a significant discount on one month's rent to do it themselves) -- Trish says that they only half-finished the painting. They stole the very nice fan from the living room. They left, just, trash all over the floor. Apparently there's old milk cartons in the middle of the living room floor. And, because of the trash, there's roaches all over the place.

Okay, all of that is kind of expected. That's how renters leave a house when they leave, really. But, well, it was expected to be that way when they left, two months ago! Our manager's job is to clean up exactly that sort of stuff. He lied to us, told us it was clean when they left, and then he did nothing for two months to fix it. In the meantime, he's supposed to be showing the house to potential renters, which means he's either failed to do that entirely, or he's been showing it in the state it's in.

That's infuriating.

And I mentioned the bugs, right? The ones that are there because of all the trash left out? That is entirely his fault. That's probably a $150-$200 fumigation bill, that is entirely his fault. And at least two months without rent because he failed to do his job.

Bah. I know, it's whining. I'm sorry for that. I try not to use my blog to complain, unless it's in a philosophical-sounding essay, but this one is just...argh. I'm angry at this guy. He has, personally, deliberately, caused a significant amount of grief to me and to Trish.

Bah! Beh. Angry. Furious. Anyway, we're firing him. That much, of course, that's obvious. Beyond that, I don't know what we can do. We're stuck, once again, in a position where it would be really hard to sell the house (we're already past the end of the season). We can go find another manager, but, y'know, this one came highly recommended. How do we find someone better? Even if we do, or if we try to manage it ourselves, we're still months away from seeing an actual rent check. And it's probably going to cost us (and some subsection of our friends and family, godblessem) a weekend between now and then, whatever "then" is, to get the place fixed up.

Since we hired that rental manager last October, we've had to pay about $7,700 in mortgage. After subtracting his fees (and, remember, first month's rent), we received about $2,600 in rent. If you know us, you know that's not the sort of loss we can just absorb, y'know? And we're looking at it getting worse before it gets better.

Yeah, I'm praying about it. And I'm confident it will work out. God's never let us down, financially, but he doesn't mind letting it get scary, I guess. My parents have never let us down, either. Nor my friends. I've got a great support network, I just hate being a burden on them. On you, basically. Anyway, keep us in your prayers. That's the long and the short of it.

Once I Was a Child (A Poem)

Once I was a Child

Have you ever read The Little Prince?
Or Catcher in the Rye? Or just Jesus' admonition,
"Blessed are these little ones."
There's a purity in joy and hope that only children know.
Crave that peaceful chaos.

I grew older, though, and outgrew those things.
I've grown old enough already to yearn for those lost things.
I cast aside the unassailable might of childhood, but cling, day by day, to all its weaknesses.

I feel, still, like a little child,
Confused, scared, unprepared,
And dropped into a great big world.

Now I'm chasing, every day, after learning, after answers,
After all the things I'll need when I'm grown up....
Then I recall, my heart all gripped in terror, that the time has come and passed.

Oh, I am grown.
I've stepped into my life, put on adulthood like a costume.
It's a role I'm always playing, now.
I tremble, and worry someone will notice, will see through my disguise.

I'm just a child, guessing at my world.
I stumble and I fall, I burn my hand and scrape my knees, every single day.
I hide, from what I am, and from what I am not.

When does that end?
Will I outgrow this, too, or go on faking 'til that role is second-nature?
Will I die a fraud, or someday, old and grey, discover that it's true,
Now, at last, with no one left to listen, that I can truly say,
I am all grown up.

What truly makes me shudder, when I stop and think,
Is all the precious things that I have broken, in the course of this deceit.
Clumsy child, foolish acts, and Mom's fine vase in pieces on the floor.
I do that still, but this is my real life.
I am already there, surrounded by responsibilities my heart can't comprehend.

Though I pretend,
I play the part,
And I'm afraid.

The King, to the Poet (A Poem)

The King, to the Poet

Something happened, when no one was looking.
Quietly, politely, we tore it all down--
Ages old, majestic and mighty, we tore it down to build something new.

Shiny and new.

It was a tapestry once, that told a story around which we built our lives.
It was a mighty whole, a single fabric, built of myriad mysterious pieces.

With the blessing of all (or all but the fringe) we took it apart.

We took the shiny pieces and the pretty pieces and the useful pieces
And put them to work,
Doing our bidding (we once did its), and serving us in strength.

We marvel then at what our lives have become,
All built of artificial fibers and synthetic materials.
Appropriated. Misused.

And what of that old rag, that ancient tapestry?
It's tatters now, of course, torn to shreds and threadbare
All that's left behind.

And those same who plundered it now mock it for all the things it lacks.
For all the holes, for all the inconsistencies and flaws--
For gaps, that they had made.

There are gaps, and holes. Places where things once were,
Where things shiny and things pretty and things useful used to be.
It's not the rag that's torn, though.

The single piece is shattered, scattered, but its fragments still as strong.
Alas, they no longer grow as one.

You see, it was a living thing. It breathed the life of man.
We killed it, for our own ends -- butchered it, for our wealth.
We took its intellect, to make us wise.
We took its heart, to learn some sort of kindness.
We took its soul, to give us more than life.
We took its might, its powers, its strength to change the world, and we made the world we wanted.

We still have all the pieces, and look how much they change our lives.
We killed the thing to get them, though.

We could start anew, of course. Some have tried.
We could make a new fabric, and start the ages-long process of giving it life,
Weave in the first of many threads, and make a gift to our descendants.
We're a world of scavengers, though.
We've made our lives out of plundered parts now, and we're not about to stop.

Start another if you want. It can be done.
But I'll tell you this, my prophecy and sigh:
They'll watch,
And they'll point and laugh,
They'll criticize everything that is not what the old thing was.

Then they'll take everything that's good, and mock you all the more.