Comments on The News From Constantinople: On defense

Anon: Whoever you are, you have inspired me on a ...

2010-01-13T10:19:17.565-06:00

Anon: Whoever you are, you have inspired me on a morning when inspiration is exactly what I needed. Thank you!

The way you describe your feelings during your time of unemployment doesn't surprise me. I have a number of friends who are now enduring exactly what you have gone through for the last nine months, and I know how being unemployed has impacted them in every imaginable way, especially in the way they see themselves.

Congratulations on the new job and the new start. Once you've gained some distance from the bad times, I'll bet you will better appreciate your own worth--not as an employee, but as a person who loves and is loved by others. I suspect you will also realize that our greatest contributions to this world don't come in work we do to earn a paycheck

Our self-identities may be wrapped up in our work, but who we really are is revealed in the hours when we're not pulling a shift to earn a salary.

I started a new job yesterday. Before that, I was...

2010-01-12T21:15:31.433-06:00

I started a new job yesterday. Before that, I was unemployed for 9 months. I was not writing or anything else. I was unemployed. I felt useless, and I was. I was not creating anything but misery. I do not have a creative bone in my body. Although I believe that everyone has a good book within them, I have not yet found mine. Hank, I admire you so much for what you are doing. I hope I can get to that point some day. For now, I need to be a follower, and do as I am told. Wish me luck at my new job...I think I will need it. All the best to you...I KNOW you will SUCCEED!

Ah, sweet affirmation from two of my favorite ladi...

2010-01-12T19:03:43.861-06:00

Ah, sweet affirmation from two of my favorite ladies.

Hey I hear ya. I still after 10 years at my posit...

2010-01-12T14:40:42.502-06:00

Hey I hear ya. I still after 10 years at my position of single adult minister to Single Adults at First Baptist Church Montgomery still get the question....Where do you work? Uh....here I have an office WITH 2 WINDOWS AND A FRIDGE! What could you possibly do all week?? UH......walk around and chant with the Gregorians or just stare into heaven and go UMMMMMMMM or I have actually said..."answer dumb questions like that". Thank you for letting me vent and used lots of.......dots.
I am wishing you the best year ever having the best time ever. May your book be awesome and your cover picture be handsome and may you continue to have peace, contentment and blessings.
Love ya both,
Kathy

Let me add my observations. While Hank's alarm doe...

2010-01-12T14:24:33.362-06:00

Let me add my observations. While Hank's alarm doesn't go off at 4:15 a.m anymore (for which I am grateful--because my alarm at 6 a.m. is quite early enough for me) he isn't sleeping in either. He's up at a respectable hour, mainlining caffeine and sometimes making me breakfast. But on the days I am home or leave late, I can tell you he is at that computer and many days when I come home late (sometimes 9 p.m.) he is in a trance writing. It is sometimes an hour or more before he notices I am even home.

He is working and working hard. He's too young to be retired and I have moved way too high up the taste hierarchy to live on this instructor salary for too long. So it's like he is working on commission--the big commission hasn't come in yet--but it will. I know it will.