Tonight I am up late piecing together a four minute highlight video of the two week mission trip to Haiti that I had the privilege of going on last month. Listening to the reflections of my teammates, watching the footage of orphans, and hearing the laughter of my friends, I am transported back to each place and filled with conflicting emotions.

On one hand, I long to be back there. I felt needed, significant. This feeling was shared by one team member in an interview, “The one thing that I crave, I think we all crave, is being significant in the world we live in to make a difference.”

On the other hand, I am wrecked by the experience: the joy in the lives of others who have nothing, the fear in the eyes of people living way outside their comfort zone, the numbing distance in the eyes of little kids without parents. The smells of waste and burning trash fill my nostrils. Echoing in my ears are the sounds of roosters crowing, kids playing, and giant dump trucks speeding down gravel roads. It’s all there. Staring at me from my computer monitor and my memories.

It’s taken me almost three weeks to realize the importance of expressing these emotions.

For two weeks, I could barely function. I found myself in the deepest depression of my life. I wanted to hide from the task of editing the footage. I didn’t want to relive the experience. I felt like a tremendous failure as I physically, emotionally, and spiritually just couldn’t process what was buried deep in my soul.

It wasn’t until I had lunch with four of the guys on the trip that I realized, I am not alone. My experience was validated by their encouraging words. I am not alone. These emotions are real and lead me to a place of acceptance.

I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.

I just got back from a two week mission trip to Haiti where a few teams worked on a two-story orphanage. While it was amazing to see what was accomplished in two weeks, it was equally amazing to see how easy it was to focus on the task at hand when nothing was competing for our attention.

Each day was simple:

1. Wake up.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Be on the truck at 6:30 am.
4. Work until 10:00 am.
5. Break for 15 minutes.
6. Work until 12:00 pm.
7. Break for two hours to eat lunch.
8. Work until 5:00 pm.
9. Clean up.
10. Eat dinner.
11. Clean dishes.
12. Group devotionals.
13. Collapse from exhaustion.

Not a whole lot of room for distractions. And given the unreliable nature of electricity in the evenings, there was an absence of distraction and lure to be captivated by the internet.

As I get acclimated back to my daily life, I find a desire to maintain the simplicity of focus that was prevalent in Haiti. My schedule is drastically different, but what I have learned is that focus and attention to tasks is easier when there is nothing competing for my attention.

There is nothing quite like describing an emotion or feeling with a metaphor, especially a well-constructed and timely metaphor.

Usually my metaphors are so complex that I spend more time explaining what I mean and less time sitting in awe of the connection between images and emotions.

But last night, I hit pay dirt with this simple metaphor for how I am feeling: I am the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, standing in the middle of the forest, with my axe in hand, unable to do my job because I am rusted in place, and the only way to be free is from the action of another person.

I am surrounded by possibility. I have the ability and the means, but I am frozen with fear and inertia.

I have rusted in place and all I can do is wait for people to oil my hinges while I ask this question over and over:

Why didn’t I leave when I saw the clouds rolling in?

While enjoying a cup of coffee and hearing a friend’s story about what has been happening in his life, he asked me the inevitable question:  ”How about you?”

How do I even start to answer that question?

I thought through all of the amazing meetings and serendipitous conversations I have been having lately:  Hearing stories of a famous guitar teacher and the spark which ignited a successful career in the make up industry, talking with the creator of a memorable candy because he did a Twitter search for his name and saw that I was talking about his documentary, meeting with someone I haven’t spoken with in years about some potential creative projects, and having coffee with a friend recently employed with a company mentioned in two meetings this week alone.

All I could say was the truth:  I’m connecting the dots.  All of these amazing things are happening and I’m simply trying to figure out what they mean for my life.  How do I take what appear to be random encounters, discover the appropriate context and meaning for my life, so that I can uncover unforeseen opportunities?

The only way I can answer this question is by looking at the difference between a food chain and a food web.  I want the experiences of my life to be like a food chain.  Clearly linear, with a concrete understanding of the relationship between the elements of a particular chain.

However, my life is more represented by the non-linear nature of a food web.  All of the elements of my life directly and concurrently impact each other, but it takes more determination and effort to connect the dots.  The relationships between elements exist, but aren’t as easy to articulate or contextualize.  Needless to say, these conversations and random encounters are important.  They mean something to my life.  I just need to find the relationships to one another.

A picture is forming, I am seeing something, but I still have more dots to connect.  Fortunately, I will continue having these experiences to look back on, because they will never go away.  Just like connect the dot images, you can either focus on the dots or the image as whole, but both are dependent upon one another for their existence.

Have you connected the dots of your life experiences?  What image has formed for your life?

I’m a sucker for impossible questions to answer.  Take the question that each of us ask at least once in our lifetime:  ”What is the meaning of life?”  What an impossible question to answer.  Yet, people continue to try telling others not only what their lives mean, but how they should live.

Last night, I dove into The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell.  During the discussion of “Myth and the Modern World,” Moyers begins talking about how we as human beings need to tell our stories, discovering who we are in the process.  How Campbell responds is not only beautiful, but also insightful about life being so much more than just meaning, it’s living fully alive:

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life.  I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking.  I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.  That’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves.

Two things stand out:  First, that we are seeking life experiences that echo within our “innermost being” or soul; and second, that we feel so alive, we are outside of ourselves.

Life Experiences Beyond The Mundane

Every morning, I wake up and start having life experiences.  I make coffee, I eat breakfast, I shower, I work, I talk with my friends and my wife, along with a myriad of other things that are fairly consistent day to day.  While these are life experiences, do they “resonate” in my innermost being?  Not even close.  In fact, most days I feel absolutely numb.

A soul-echoing life experience is about capturing the unexpected in your hands, recognizing it for what it is, and allowing it to push you into tomorrow, not being stuck in today.

It’s an unexpected phone call from someone I don’t know thanking me.  It’s a glimpse of happiness in the eyes of someone who has every right to be miserable.  It’s doing something you love, even if it isn’t perfect.  It’s breaking outside of your comfort zone.  It’s tearing down the walls of compartmentalization for a moment, allowing a momentary bombardment of life.

Fully Alive!

As Campbell said, “the rapture of being alive” is about being fully alive.  So alive that you are not only outside yourself, but so alive that you even transcend the physical aspects of life.  What a journey to go from simply experiencing day-to-day life to being fully alive.  It almost seems as impossible as defining what the meaning of life is.

Thankfully, we have a choice.  We can choose to succumb to the monotony, pain, and struggles of life, being the puppet of an angry god, throwing out lightning bolts of defeat.  Or we can choose to journey to be fully alive, learning how to be the puppet master of our own existence, experimenting, loving, and hoping that what is to come very well might be.

Last night was registration for the Warner Pacific College Master of Science in Management & Organizational Leadership program that I am embarking upon Monday evenings for the next 18 months. While I have multiple reasons for pursuing this degree, one of the main reasons has to do with the influence and wisdom of my dad—he happens to be one of the professors of the program and wrote a lot of the course material. Not only was he able to answer my questions that I had regarding the program, but I believe that he was able to guide me in the right direction, which was exactly the same experience that over half of the room had in their interactions with him as well.

When I was introducing myself to the group that I will be working with, I let them know about the influence that my dad had upon my decision and who he was. I was blown away by the response of the room. Over half knew who he was, had taken classes from him and in one way or another had been encouraged to pursue the program that we were enrolled in. Essentially, as person after person shared their insights and respect for my dad, I was receiving a missing piece of the portrait of a man that I have been trying to paint for over 20 years.

It’s amazing the bias that we can build up about our family members over the years. We see their failures, their shortcomings, and very rarely celebrate the greatness and impact that they have upon others.

My parents divorced about 25 years ago and that would create a huge divide between my dad and I physically and emotionally that would take years upon years to bridge. It hasn’t been easy, I haven’t been fair, and I haven’t seen what others see. Until now.

I am proud of my dad. He has worked hard to be successful. He has a lot of faults, but I am starting to see what others see:

• He is optimistic to a fault.
• He is knowledgeable and border-line wise.
• He wants to create a foundation of learning in the lives of his students so that they will be life-long learners.
• He believes in others, even when they don’t.
• He aspires to connect their education to their lives as well as their faith.

It is hard to read that list and not be cynical because of the inside knowledge that I possess of his character. But I only have part of the picture, so to be cynical is to not be fair.

As I listen to his influence that he has had upon the lives of other, I feel a sense of jealousy, I feel a sense of loss. Why didn’t I receive that influence growing up?

But then I remember the truth: The influence was there, my desire to accept and to let it shape my life was not. I wasn’t willing to accept that he had the answers, but here was a group of people that let his influence shape their lives.

I’m grateful for this chance to see a side of my dad that I wasn’t willing to see until now. It helps me to be a little more gracious when I see his flaws, it helps me to feel a little more prideful when I inadvertently act like him (smirk), and it raises him to a level of respect that he rightfully deserves in the life of his only son.

I remember the moment clearly: It is 2002, I’m in art school studying Media Arts & Animation, interning at Crossroads Community Church, and U2 released The Best of 1990-2000 along with a companion DVD featuring some amazing motion graphics. My friends and co-workers were very adamant, “We cannot show Chris this video, I think he’ll lose it.” Eventually, I watched it and they were right. I lost it. I was amazed at what I was seeing and the visuals would begin to shape me into what I would later become.

I was very much into computer graphics, animation and video. I was tireless, ready to absorb everything, eager to learn and push myself towards a standard that matched what I was witnessing in the U2 DVD as well as what my colleagues in art school were producing. It was an exciting time and I was very naive. I believed that other people valued the level of artistry in video and computer graphics. I believed that video and animation could change the world. I believed a lot of things that compelled me to continually create content. But the more I created, the more aware I became of the critics. The content became harder to produce because perfection was overshadowing excellence. Eventually, my naivete died in a glorious explosion of burnout and I stopped pursuing growth and telling stories. It was late 2005, I was unemployed, burnt out and completely unsure of who I was, what I believed, and where my life was headed.

Fast forward to today. It’s late 2011, six years later, and for the most part, I have been able to learn how to create content in the midst of a continuous state of burnout. Over the last few years, I have learned a few important lessons: First, burnout takes a long time to cure; second, once your innocence is lost, it takes a lot of time and energy to regain an intentionally-naive attitude that is necessary to endure in a creative career; and third, random acts of serendipity occur to hammer a metaphorical chisel into the years of accumulated ash upon my creative soul.

Today, I had a meeting at a really cool place. I could feel the excitement of all those years ago. I could feel my inner child screaming to be let out and revel in the visual joy that I was immersed in. I tried not to be too overtly excited, but deep down inside I could feel that battle happening. My naivete was coming out of its coma and ready to get back to work.

What gets you excited? So stoked that you transcend a task list and do what you love to do, regardless of how long it takes or how much you need to accomplish? In a recent Bloomberg Businessweek interview, inventor Dean Kamen said that, “Education is not filling a pail, but lighting a fire.”

Life, much like education, is about lighting a fire. It is also keeping the fire lit and burning bright. Excitement is fire. It spreads, it infects. It causes insomnia, positive anxiety, and gets your heart beating.

Excitement tells you that you’re still alive.

How much of your life feels dead? Is your job dead, lacking enthusiasm? Your pursuit of education? Your faith?

Last night, in a meeting about local and international missions for my church, a guy was talking about capitalizing on the passion and enthusiasm of people who are returning from short-term mission trips in order to generate more interest in the overall congregation. His phrase that he said twice stuck in my mind: “If we were able to let people share their stories, their passion would spread like wildfire on a windy day.”

This leads me to the question: Do you know your story?

We all have a story to tell and each is uniquely interesting. But many of us either don’t believe that our story is worth telling or don’t know how to tell it.

Something happens when you listen to a captivating storyteller. You get quiet, you lean forward, your heart beats and the hairs on your arm stand up.

A woman at the Clark County Mayors’ and Civic Leaders’ Prayer Breakfast this past Thursday shared three stories of her travels throughout the world providing medical care in the name of Jesus. She spoke of healing, transcending religious and gender barriers in order to provide medical care that was necessary for people in need. She spoke with quiet authority and simmering passion, slowly boiling over into a passionate story of God’s amazing work done through her. She was a captivating storyteller. A room of 800 got quiet, leaned forward, and could feel the collective heart beating a little quicker.

The fire is lit. Burning bright and warm.

It spreads.

People will never be the same.