It occurs to me that one reason it feels to me like progress is so slow is because I have forced myself to make daily reports. I finished my daily grind yesterday, and pretty much collapsed, heading to bed rather quickly. I awoke this morning (comfortably later than usual–thank the Lord for the New Jersey Education Association, a teachers union so powerful it shuts down schools two days a year for its annual Atlantic City convention) and dove into today’s daily work just as soon as I was awake enough to do it. Between those two points, little reportable was done. I listened to a copy of a new CD which came in the first issue of the new subscription to CCM (a magazine I read rather faithfully when I was on the radio and that stood for Contemporary Christian Music) while driving on what may have been a fool’s errand and then editing my Romans notes during a brief wait for a passenger. I also made a call about the heat, which amounted to learning that a company recommended does not serve our area. This hardly seems like I accomplished anything.

Yet as I look at some of the projects on my plate, I realize that it would be difficult to accomplish something on any one of them every day, and impossible to advance all of them in any given week. I need to accept that this is the way my job is, that I can get something done, but I cannot get everything done.

It is also the case that the sheer number of projects, and their demands upon my time, result in fewer milestones being reached. I need to think through how most effectively to reach the next milestone in each, but also how to prioritize the milestones. On the other hand, I cannot neglect anything entirely, so I need to work more efficiently on them all.

Well, such is life. I’ll continue to keep you posted.

–M. J. Young

Years ago, when I made my meager living as a radio announcer, I heard a bit of a commentary by someone who had long worked in radio. He said that as he saw it, regular hourly newscasts were an essential part of radio broadcasting. Whether it was the top or the bottom of the hour, or news five minutes sooner or five minutes later, or whenever it was scheduled, having the newsman come on the air and give the top story was important, even and possibly particularly when the top story was terribly unimportant. I have remembered this principle in the years since then. When the news comes on the radio and the announcer immediately starts talking about who won a sporting event, or what’s happening in the life of some Hollywood hero, or the President taking a few days at Camp David, it tells me that nothing is happening–there has not been an outbreak of war, no world leader has been assassinated, and a natural disaster is not killing thousands of people right now. When the non-story is the lead, it reassures the listeners that the non-story is the story, that is, nothing is happening.

I mention that because in the time since my last post I have done this and that, but have nothing really to tell for it. That in itself is news, information, if you will, because it announces that things have not happened. I won’t say that it indicates calm and stability around here, only a lack of significant progress on any front. I think I may have edited a few pages of my Romans notes, but otherwise I’ve barely kept on top of the ordinary.

Before I fall behind, I’d better move ahead.

–M. J. Young

The houseguest who was hospitalized a few days ago came home today, on his own birthday. His birthday gifts include a large pillow.

Let me say that I am pleased at his return quite apart from the fact that it should also mean that I do not have to get up quite as early–he can get his own son on the bus, and I can sleep an extra half an hour. I’m getting to the point that being able to get a bit of sleep is rather important. Last night I was wondering which of several projects should get a few minutes of my attention before I called it a night, when I was asked please to drive to Delaware to retrieve a son who having a few days off from work wanted to spend them with us. (We seem to be popular this week; the son at college is coming down this weekend, no reason given.) Then, as eleven o’clock passed and I was waiting to perform this errand, I was told that as long as we were over there we were also going to take two sons and a daughter-in-law out to dinner, somewhere around midnight.

Of course, I shot myself in the foot, too. I left the television on, and when I came in to go to bed one of my very favorite shows, Seven Days (yeah, I actually do like a time travel television series), was airing. That means that it was after three o’clock on the east coast, but since it was an episode I did not recognize I stayed awake to view the rest, sort of. That means it was about ninety minutes between when I stopped trying to pay attention to the television and when my alarm alerted me to the necessity of getting someone up and dressed.

For me, I could use that time machine scaled down. Make it seven hours, and I’ll be able to squeeze a night’s rest into the scrap of time I have. Oh, I forgot–the work I did in that time would be undone; or would it? No, I think not–but I’m too tired to work out the details at the moment.

My second awakening this morning was just late enough that I foresaw having trouble squeezing in my hour of study before I had to be dressed and moving; then a phone call from the hospital alerted me to the release of our guest. That would not have mattered, as he had his car there–but he also told me his mother was “just around the corner” from me, coming to see him, which meant I should anticipate being interrupted. I used the time to write a couple of scripts for the Quick Word radio show, about King David. So I did accomplish something besides e-mail and such today.

I’ve more ahead, though, so let’s see what else I can do.

–M. J. Young

The next book in my independently-published Christian book series is tentatively entitled Do You Trust Me?. I had started it in parallel with the current Quick Word radio show series on faith, but the two lines had diverged significantly–the episodic examination of examples of faith from Hebrews 11 is working extremely well for the radio series, but was starting to create a rather disjointed book text, which needed to cover some points in more detail and others not at all. I had reached the point at which I knew two conflicting facts: one, that there was no point in writing much more about examples of faith in the Old Testament, and two, that the book was not finished, but needed to say something more.

Over the past week, that something more started playing in my mind. It came to the fore in a discussion with my wife, and pushed itself a bit more solidly into shape in the days since. As of yesterday, the final chapter was drafted, a piece about the Big Picture, looking at creation not as a project derailed by man’s sin, but as a perfect plan unfolding perfectly, in which suffering is a needed tool toard the desired outcome, the perfection of eternal sons and daughters of God. Well, that’s the synopsis; whether that says too much or not enough I won’t guess.

What I did not do which I should perhaps have done is work on Multiverser projects, particularly the second edition of the rules. I am hoping that I can tackle this later tonight. I’ve been feeding draft sections to insiders via that private development forum previously mentioned, and I’ve just posted the last section of the last chapter I’d finished drafting, so I have to get the next chapter organized (it is partly written) so I can post pieces of it for comment. Not that I’m getting much in the way of comment, but we’ve started talking a bit about the artwork, which is a positive thing.

–M. J. Young