Wow! Has it really been almost two years since I have posted on this blog? Obviously I've had my attention, time, energy and efforts focused elsewhere. Which brings me to the subject of today's long overdue blog. I think I may not know who I am, again. And I seem to have misplaced my zeal.I'm not genuinely concerned, I'm sure it will all come back to me. Hopefully sooner rather than later. So what brings me to this place? How does a person move through life, accomplish many things, develop many good relationships, live responsibly, have actions motivated by good intent rather than selfish gain, and get to a point where they say "hey! I vaguely remember a time where I had a better sense of purpose, hope and zeal, how did I get here?" I'm there now.
The various photos you see here are from my days of car racing, car building, and motorcycle riding. The Pinto was one that I completely rebuilt and modified, it outran several V8 muscle cars and was reliable enough as a daily driver and a trip from Hampton Va, to Atlanta Ga, to Orlando Fla, to Richmond Va, then back to Hampton Va-with zero problems. The photo with it painted red was the completed project. The photo with it still yellow was me racing it at Langley Speedway before I finished the bodywork. I did every detail myself, with my own hands. Very rewarding, even if the results were not perfect.
In addition to building and racing cars I was married for 22 years, raised a family, obtained my P.E. license, wrote and produced two feature films and several short films, worked at several companies as an Engineer, worked an Engineering consultant, was chairman of the board for a nonprofit organization for homeless families, traveled the world applying my expertise to several specialized projects for oil and gas drilling and production, obtained two patents, and now am the Vice President of Engineering of a company that produces turnkey offshore oil drilling rigs. All that sounds pretty impressive, but I don't state it to impress anyone. If you know me personally, you know I put very little effort into impressing people.
Well, I'm not that impressed myself. I'm here now, single again, thinking again-what is it I'm here for? And I've lost that zeal to go out and be the adventurer, the entrepreneur. Is it my age? Am I having a mid-life crisis? (I hope not, living to 106 years old doesn't appeal to me ).Is it the results of job stress? Is it the fact that I have about 1,000 copies of movies I produced sitting in my spare room that I couldn't sell, Is it the result of my failures in marriage and parenting? Those are all pretty good reasons now that I think about it. But, I think it has to do with my focus, which has changed many times. My focus has moved from education, to career, to family man, to ministry (through film productions), and back to career. All those are noble pursuits, but except for short periods of time I have not been looking at God as my focal point. So, I poured my heart, soul, mind and strength into those pursuits, but that doesn't quite cut it.
In the service today at the church in Tomball, the topic was; what should we be "Zealous" about. It is in Mark 12:29-31: Know that the Lord our God is the ONE God, and love Him with all your:
1. Heart
2. Soul
3. Mind
4. Strength
And love your neighbor as yourself.
I've not done that so well. I let my focus shift.
So, I think I'm not going to get to any conclusion here at this time. No tidy little summary to wrap this all up into a great object lesson. Nope, I'm going to refocus, and then maybe the picture will become clear. And maybe I'll find time to blog again before 12 months pass. Oh, this last photo was just before the enduro race at Langley. I was happy and confident then. I'll get back to that soon (happy and confident, not enduro racing).
