Thursday, December 30, 2004

I am sitting here waiting on my wife to drive in from Cincinnati so we can go to a holiday dinner party together. I am not the party type. People that I am not familiar with make me a little nervous, and voluntarily going to a place with large crowds is rare. However, tonight's party is small and I will survive by appreciating the hospitality of my gracious hosts.

I have been thinking about the human ability to have and show empathy to our fellow man. Miriam-Webster defines empathy as: "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this."

It is amazing how full of empathy we get when we have been through something inconvenient. Trials and circumstances of life are oftentimes brought to us to knock our judgmental chip off of our shoulder. Several years ago I could never understand why people made such a big deal about funerals and death within the immediate family. Now mind you, I was NEVER judgmental with these people. I always prayed with them and sympathized with them, but I never felt passion or empathy towards them until after I suffered through the death of my mom.

Jesus made a statement that bares repeating here;
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matt 7:1-27:1 NIV

The Greek word for judge in the English transliteration means to condemn, judge, conclude or think. Ouch.

God help me to live a life of kindness. Not harsh. Not vile. Not judgmental of my fellow man. Let me be known by my kindness and gentle spirit.

posted by Todd @ 6:10 PM

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

I woke up with a headache that left me drained for the remainder of the day-and in a terrible mood. The office will be closed Thursday afternoon and Friday, that means harder work yesterday and today. But here and now I would like to declare that I am ready for the office (hands-over-hearts please) to be closed for the New Years holiday.

I am now the editor of our church organization's magazine for our state. With a monthly printing of over 1300, it is clearly the most ambituos publishing project that I have ever been a part of. I received word today that my first magazine has shipped. I re-vamped the design somewhat from the previous editors. In the past several weeks I have been really nervous about the magazine, but now I am just anxious.

It is interesting that some things are just "absolutes" in the creative process. I have written songs, performed music live on several different instruments, written stories, published advertising and been involved in different areas of the graphic design process and there is one thing that is the same across all mediums: the hardest part of the creative process is creating the art (or the project) and then releasing it. Letting it go is always tough. Especially if you are a perfectionist, because you can always find ways to improve it if you look long enough. There is something to be said about investing yourself to something and then letting it go to have its own life.

Just an observation.

posted by Todd @ 9:28 PM

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

I am back at my desk today.
My wife and I drove up from the Cincinnati area this morning. Smooth drive. Did you know that there are still some McDonald's that do not accept debit cards?
I picked up a copy of The New York Times at my local Starbucks. The photo on the front page is a woman in India kneeling on the floor of a hospital . She is weeping, surrounded by bodies of children. Some of them her own. The earthquake / Tsunami tragedy in the Indian Sea nations is astounding and heart wrenching. It is heart breaking because humanity knows no boundaries. It is astounding because the rotation of the earth was affected by the quake. That means that time itself was affected by the what happened in the Indian Ocean. That means every person on earth is affected scientifically by what happened there.
The ones who read about the quake feel sad for a moment, but that lady on the front cover of the New York Times, surrounded by the bodies of her children, she will never be the same.

posted by Todd @ 2:32 PM

Monday, December 27, 2004

Ahhh Christmastime. We left Columbus last Wednesday evening (Dec 22) in the middle of a winter storm that would end up putting several inches of ice on top of a foot of snow. We drove about 75 miles and it took us about 3 1/2 hours. Yikes. At my in-laws we had about 16 inches of snow. We did get some much needed family time. We were fortunate. Many of our friends back in Columbus spent their holidays without power (as of right now some of our friends are going on 5 days without power). We did have a good holiday with food, gifts and family.
I always treat New Years week as the calm before the storm. January is my least favorite month with a very hectic schedule and a severe holiday withdrawal. Many good things happen in January I just have a hard time seeing it as of right now.
My youngest daughter took her first real steps today. Extremely exciting. We were kinda worrying about her. She is almost 13 months old. It sets my melancholy personality into a pit when I realize that when a baby learns to crawl it is one step closer to independence from Mom and dad. When a baby learns to walk, every step is one more step closer to freedom for them and a step closer to heartache for a dad somewhere.

posted by Todd @ 1:56 AM