This is a place of longer reflection. A place where maybe a poem won’t quite do. A chance to provide more context and highlight a God who is patient enough to hear me out.

July 15, 2026

ADVISE TO THOSE STILL “AT IT”

I’ve always been an avid reader. I can easily have 3-4 books on the go at any given time and I’m here to confess that I don’t end up finishing many of them. I’ll get through 2/3s of most of my reads but then, like a fly to light, I’ll be drawn to a new title and my attention and interest will shift. My weighting is certainly on faith based topics and I’m not a big novel guy. Non-fiction and auto biographies are right up there too.

One author, in particular who has had an impact on me is Arthur Brooks. In his book From Strength to Strength, he made a distinction that stopped me cold when I first encountered it—- the difference between deal friends and real friends. Deal friends, he suggests, are the relationships that thrive as long as something is in motion. A project, a contract, a mutual benefit. They are often genuine in the moment. but when the deal goes away, so do they. Real friends, in contrast, are the ones who are there regardless. Likely longer term and the ones who don’t require a lot of effort to maintain because they don’t want anything from you.

I watched the “Deal Friend” scenario play out in real time. When my working chapter ended, the cadence of certain relationships changed almost immediately. Phone calls that had been weekly became monthly, then occasional, then silent. It wasn’t malicious — it was simply the nature of what those connections had been built on. What surprised me wasn’t that it happened. It was how much it happened, and how quickly. Brooks would say that coming to this realization earlier in a career is a gift, not a loss. I think he’s right. The resounding quiet that was associated with this is something that took some real getting used to. I’ll write more about this in subsequent posts.

Brooks also draws a useful contrast between two sets of pursuits. The first — fame, fortune, power, and recognition — are what most of us spend our working years chasing, often without admitting or knowing it. They are not without value, but they have a shelf life. They exhaust themselves, even in the midst of their pursuit, they will tend to run out of momentum and even meaning. Again, not something that is inherently apparent, just an increasing sense that the chase was losing its appeal. Contrast this with an alternative or second set of goals — faith, family, friends, service to others— and you may have something that is more lasting—- in large part because they are immune to what you do or what you make. They don’t care about a title. They don’t disappear when the deal does. Brooks suggests that the first is a natural allure that seems innocent enough in its pursuit but left unchecked can completely choke off the second set which is rich in value and much more lasting towards true fulfillment.

Looking back honestly, I would admit that invested faith and service had slipped toward the margins in my working years. Not absent — but not intentional either. They were periodic fill-ins, working the margins of my life and done out of duty or even guilt to compliment a carefully crafted self image.

For me, at the time, service meant volunteering at a food bank. It was something I genuinely believed in — I’d even rally staff and colleagues to participate. But in reality it was once, maybe twice a year, usually around Christmas when everyone feels a little more charitable. Now I go weekly. And the difference is not small. Weekly immersion puts you inside a community. You begin to recognize faces, learn stories, and see with new eyes the gaps that exist between the bounty most of us take for granted and the stark shortfalls of daily existence for others. I think that kind of regular exposure would have introduced a layering of perspective that is so easily lost when you’re chasing the rabbit in front of you — and so necessary for understanding what you’re actually chasing it for.

The other practice that has proven quietly transformative is working with a spiritual director. Spiritual directors are not therapists or counselors. Their focus is something far more specific — and for most of us, far more unfamiliar. They are trained to ask one fundamental question: where is God active in your life right now? It sounds simple. It isn’t. Especially when you’re consumed with yourself and your goals. Over months of monthly sessions, my questions slowly shifted. The “why’s” and “what now’s” and “where are you God” gradually gave way to something more honest and uncomfortable—- recognizing where God actually was. How could I not see the blessings that surrounded me?. The good fortune through no will of plan of my own. It invites gratitude into the equation and forces to you to grapple with who God actually is, rather than who you imagine Him to be—-news flash…. they aren’t the same. And to be clear, sharing all this at this point in no way suggests that I have figured it out but it did move the chess pieces around the board more deliberately and create an acceptance that this will be a life long endeavour.

Which brings me back to the proverbial “what if”? Could starting these practices earlier have made a difference? I have to think in retrospect they would have. Not because they would have made the transition from work to post-work painless. But because they would have built something underneath me before the ground shifted. They are, it turns out, the more durable investment. And with the benefit of hindsight I’d suggest perhaps the most honest thing I can offer anyone in the midst of their working careers is to not wait to find out—- start into this now.

I

THE WEIGHT OF WHAT REMAINS

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ll know that I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite a while. I’ve likely railed about the the struggle, the revelations and even joys associated with my observations. And you’ve likely encouraged me to stop talking about it and to put something together—- to give it a go and see what happens. So thats what this is… the first step to see what happens…. So here we go…

For more than three decades I knew exactly who I was. The clarity was tangible — a name, a title, a role, a track record. Entrepreneur. Executive. Provider. Problem solver. These were not just labels; they were load-bearing walls. They held everything up.

Then the commercial season ended. The walls didn’t come down dramatically — they just quietly stopped being necessary. Which, in some ways, is harder. Emails disappeared, meeting invites stopped and the slow creeping realization that “you aren’t needed” started to seep in. Relevance became a daily question. I had the good fortune of family, friends and the love of a wonderful wife but the hours and days became longer.

The past three years have been an exercise in what I can only call identity archaeology. Scraping back the layers of who I was professionally to find out who I actually am. And what I have found, more often than not, is someone who is not entirely comfortable with the quiet. Not all the time anyway. Someone who reaches instinctively for the familiar criteria — results, momentum, contribution, relevance — only to find they don’t quite apply anymore. I cringed at the word “retirement” and made up my own word of “repurpose”, defining it as the means of finding the “something left to do” in life. People smiled, even laughed at that one, but really it barely touched what I was working through.

The theological word for this, I think, is vulnerability— with thanks to Brene Brown. Thomas Merton wrote about the false self — the carefully constructed identity built on reputation, achievement, and the approval of others — and the true self that lies beneath it, waiting. He suggested that the stripping away of the false self, though deeply uncomfortable, is actually the work of grace, not effort. That what feels like loss is often preparation. Preparation for what is our true self— the self that God intended us to be, before the labels. Mystic and cosmic you may be thinking, and that may be true for many of you. But for some, like me, it’s the necessary plank walk to getting to where I am meant to be.

I want to believe that. Many days I do. Truth be told, too many days I don’t. And in those days the old instincts still work to claw their way back in. The silence is deafening and the invitation to this new place, feels cold and unkempt. Like the bad rental you walk into on an anticipated holiday. If you’ve experienced that you know what I mean… its a sinking feeling.

The tension I live with is this: a lifetime of trusting my own judgement, my own drive and my navigation system—- set up against a God who simply says, “Be still and know I am God (Psalm 46:10). These two perspectives do not reconcile easily. Ambition and submission make uneasy roommates.

So, I show up. Much like the disciples response to Jesus question of “will you also leave me?”, I can only say “but where will I go?”. I am too deep into this now to turn back and too curious to find out where it’s going to end up. That’s enough to keep me engaged. The poems, reflections and entries are the product of someone who’s still figuring it out. Still being led and learning to slowly trust the leading without exactly knowing the final destination. By any definition, it is the walk of faith.

So what can you expect from this section? Well, If I’m doing it right, a weekly entry with a shared piece of wisdom, learning or hope. You might read frustration in many of the entries but I don’t think that disturbs God at all. If I come to understand one thing in the midst of this journey, it is that God values relationship—- and relationship is not always easy. In the end this is a place where I’ll aim to compile things that have helped me in order to help those that might be in the midst of the same. I’m grateful for the chance to do it and thankful to a God who patiently waited me out to get me here.

July 3, 2026

July 20, 2026

IDENTITY- HOW DID WE GET HERE?

IDENTITY-THE STRUGGLE

We have a very loud American cultural story about winners and losers and people who lose, people who didn’t get back up, people who took more than they could give. They very quickly get a message that in a culture of self sufficiency and independence, they are the wrong kind of person.” ‍ ‍

“The script of American consciousness is tied to self-sufficiency and overcoming your own obstacles…five steps to “not feeling like a loser” books masked as “self help” are everywhere…this is a dense and punitive script that was invented in the 1900s and helps explain why we feel like we do…” Kate Bowler on The Spiritual Life with Father James Martin.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly” John 10:10

It’s a striking thing to admit — that I found myself more readily aligned with Kate Bowler’s description of cultural consciousness than with what Jesus promised in John 10:10. But honesty requires it.

The path of ambition and pursuit is not inherently wrong. For my generation, it was also simply the water we swam in. Unlike many of the employment challenges facing today’s graduates, finding work was not particularly difficult for those of us who came of age in the seventies and eighties. It may have taken a couple of tours to find your groove, but a career could become apparent within a reasonable span of time. And to Bowler’s point, finding your own way became a punctuation mark on your life. You set your goals, you laid out your plans, you made your mark. Independence and self-sufficiency became natural byproducts, quietly woven into the fabric of your personality — not as flaws, but as virtues.

But time has a way of convincing you that because you do something, you must be the one controlling it. Life asserts that your determination and goal-setting are the reasons for your success. So you commit more time, you ascend, and although you make room for faith, it is really only there to accompany your own plans — a kind of silent partner who gets credited at Christmas, Easter and times of crisis but otherwise stays out of the way. You share your successes with the like-minded, quietly compare your progress, plan your holidays, grow your family, buy your home. All around you, people are doing the same. It is a collective chase. There are hurdles, of course — but just as you were taught, just as you learned, you bear down and work through them, because in the end, what you strive for is what will be attained. Master of your destiny. Captain of your ship. When you witness people who fail, you feel that momentary terror — the reminder that anything can happen, even to you — and so you put even more effort into the plan. Months become years. Years become decades. You are too busy to think about it with any depth, but by this time it has already become part of you. How you act. How you think. How you see yourself and how you quietly judge others.

C.S. Lewis captures this with unsettling precision in The Screwtape Letters:

“Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it’, while really it is finding its place in him.”

It is worth noting that in Lewis’ book, this observation is made by one devil to another he is apprenticing — which gives it a particular edge. The innocence of an honest pursuit, lived independently of God, can have consequences that only become visible in retrospect. The world shapes you quietly, without announcement, until one day the shaping is complete and you barely recognize it happened.

Is it any wonder, then, that the struggle proves so real for so many once the pursuit is no longer in play? When the thing that organized your life — that gave it structure, meaning, and forward motion — simply stops, what remains is not just an empty calendar. It is a question that was always there, waiting: Who are you when you are not what you do?

That question, it turns out, is where the real work begins.

July 28th, 2026

“You have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: ‘These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace” Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being…” Romans 1:21-23

The work world operates on its own set of rules. You wake up, find a niche and leverage your effort and skill to make a name, carve a place or find your spot in the queue. Its a noble pursuit. Its a noble pursuit. It brings real fulfillment and genuine satisfaction. For a season, it is enough— more than enough.

But what happens when that pattern goes on for decades — and then stops?

An eight to ten hour block of time is suddenly freed up, and you’re left with not only the challenge of filling it, but the deeper challenge of replacing what it carried. Value. Affirmation. Social connection. Purpose. The emails stop. The carefully planned schedules are no longer required. The assistant is gone. The nameplate, the title, the business card that nobody really keeps anymore — all of it, gone. The meetings, the lunches, the quiet satisfaction at the end of a productive day. Gone. It’s emptying on more fronts than you expect.

 At first you embrace the freedom. You sleep a little later, work out a little more. Maybe you take up a hobby or a musical instrument. Maybe you jump straight into volunteering. And these things are good — genuinely good. But if you’re honest, none of them quite replace the particular feeling of having skin in the game. Of mattering in a way that is measured and visible and confirmed by others. Like at a social gathering. The ones you’d look forward to but now kind of dread. How do you answer the question “So what are you doing now?” The work answer was so easy—-even if you knew the person asking wasn’t really listening. Its all just small talk—- right? But now it’s more than that. Its your stake in the ground—- your identity. I fumbled this one for a good year. I even stretched the truth on the length of my non-compete, just so I didn’t have to elaborate on where I truly was. And where was I truly? I was struggling. Monday’s were the hardest. Recharged from a weekend of rest, I found myself stuck in the stall and the gates wouldn’t open. Everyone else was back to their routine and I was left to myself. Just me at 8:01am….

Now I’m not going to suggest that this held true for everyone. I have some good friends who have embraced this stage of life and are filling it admirably. However reams of current data will suggest that this is quiet storm for many people—- particularly men. Depression, anxiety and addictive behaviour are not uncommon in the 55+ age category and the reality is that men just don’t do a good job of talking about this. The brave face and “I’m doing ok” response is a default that’s built in. And why would this be the case? In large part because work taught us that. Aside from being the dominant currency of identity in the world we inhabit, it creates and embeds a sense of independence and control. What I do becomes a big part of how I live and who I am. Every social interaction typically begins the same way — “So what do you do?” — and everything flows from the answer. It is more than a moniker. It is a brand burned into your psyche over decades, and unpacking it is not a casual exercise. I lived it. The silence where the answer used to be is louder than you think it will be.

Which brings us back to Nouwen’s quote. Being told you are “beloved” can feel abstract at best. Words that echo hollow against the noise of a culture that still celebrates production and accumulation. Nouwen knew this. He wrestled with acceptance and identity his entire life which is precisely why his words carry the weight they do. They are not offered from a place of arrival. They were offered as an anthem- an intention and commitment that could beat back against a drum beat that said otherwise. And perhaps more candidly, words that continue to remind and reorient me. The old script still surfaces. But slowly and intentionally, a different voice is having the last word. And the persistence that is tied to the effort, I am beginning to believe, is well worth it.