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RyanKirby
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Name: Ryan
Gender: Male
Interests: My wife and kids, Emerging themes in Christianity, History, Books of all genres, Sports
Expertise: Management, Consulting, Software Development, Process Improvement
Occupation: Development Operations Manager
Industry: Public Safety Software
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/18/2006
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| Ok, so it was a month between previous posts and new it has been two months! Stay tuned for the next post in no more than three months!! (That's basic pattern recognition - nifty skill for taking the SAT!) Satire aside, I have missed pouring out ideas here and hope to do that with more regularity in the near future. So, as a means of catch-up, I want to update on what's been happening lately! Work has been increasingly busy, with hiring of several new people on my team and a few more yet to add. There have been some noted successes and some learning experiences in the last few months. Mainly, I try each day to learn from the position I find myself in and try to help others look beyond the micro to the macro. It astonishes me how easy it is (in business and otherwise) become so completely self-absorbed into your own little world, silo, etc. that you completely miss the big picture. As my company grows, I find this a phenomenon often repeated inside the organization that leads to the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing (that's bad in this context vs. as Paul described it, Biblical scholars).
At home... wow. Well, we finally sold our house after 9 months of my dear wife frantically cleaning the house on every exit and grabbing the kids and running on a moment's notice of a showing. Our favorite situation was to have an agent pull up with clients into the driveway and then calling the number on the sign WHILE UNLOCKING OUR DOOR! Amazing the complete disregard for privacy and normal courtesy they exhibited in their desire to make their buck. The good news is that we are slated to close on both the old and new house next Friday, 12/15. We are more than a bit excited about the new place!! I can't wait for the kids to have new places to play and explore and make memories in. For now, we are going to dedicate a room as their playroom to destroy as they well-please. One entire wall of that room is covered in mirrors (all 16 feet wide and 9 feet tall of it!!), so that has already been a big hit for them. As they grow, there are creeks and lakes to play in and apparently many other kids close by! Our pool is also a short bike ride away, so I am already nostalgic about them being able to grow up making their way to the pool in the summer just like I did when I was a kid. Personally: the Christmas Pageant at church was last weekend, with four performances in three days. Whew! We were wiped out once it was done, but it was great! Unfortunately, Grayson got sick on Thursday and was continuously until Saturday morning. Steph was a trooper taking care of him and participating in the program as well. She really took the brunt of the trouble because I had a solo/trio to participate in and could risk getting sick myself. Praise God, none of the rest of us got it!! Anyway, the song I sang was incredibly fun to sing (musically) and I counted myself very fortunate to get to do something that musical again... it had been a while since I really had an opportunity to sing! Well, thanks to my dear sister, Anna, for inspiring me to get back online here by starting her on blog at http://homegrownsunshine.blogspot.com !! Grace and Peace. | | |
| OK, so I'm a bad, bad man. I have not posted in a month! However, it has been a busy and introspective month. A month has passed that makes me wonder what my place is and what the place of a follower of Christ in today's world really IS, what they really DO. Sure, I'm certain that most could tell you what a Christian should BELIEVE, but I am increasing disenchanted with the notion that what I believe should be my focus. I suppose most would tell me to put the brakes on there and not go further, because what I believe is certainly important. I don't discount that. However, "what you focus on determines what you miss". I think many of us, myself included, are missing a great deal. On a similar note, a few months back I found a poem by Samuel Shoemaker that I so completely identified with. Now, for your reading pleasure, I have included Shoemaker's work: I Stand by the Door
by Sam Shoemaker | | I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world-
It is the door through which people walk when they find God.
There's no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind people,
With outstretched, groping hands.
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it ...
So I stand by the door. The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for people to find that door--the door to God.
The most important thing any person can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch--the latch that only clicks
And opens to the person's own touch.
People die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it--live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him ...
So I stand by the door. Go in, great saints, go all the way in--
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics--
It is a vast roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms.
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture in a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening ...
So I stand by the door. There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them
For God is so very great, and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia,
And want to get out. "Let me out!" they cry,
And the people way inside only terrify, them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too much:
Once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving--preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door. I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not, yet even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God,
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear them,
And remember they are there, too.
Where? Outside the door--
Thousands of them, millions of them.
But--more important for me--
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
"I had rather be a door-keeper ..."
So I stand by the door. |
Grace and Peace. ~Kirby | | |
| Whew! Busy week this week as it was our annual "Users Conference" at work where we host all of our employees and (this year) around 400 guests. We give them access to sessions and content as well as lots of fun activities. For us, that means almost every waking hour is devoted to the event for an entire work week. Sessions start bright and early and the evening entertainment events go well beyond hours that "work" should go.
This year's conference was an interesting one for me in that I got to take on some new responsibilities in being the MC for all of the combined events and "after hours" activities. I can honestly say that I never thought I would be standing in front of anyone, much less a banquet hall full of folks, calling out the next couple to come down the "Soul Train" line in the dance floor. There were many fun moments!
Despite the opportunity to do things like host a game show and wear absolutely horrible clothing (all for the sake of proper costuming, of course), I found the biggest "takeaway" for the week to be the fact that I love my family and my time with them. Monday, I got up from the table at our "President's Reception", where I was discussing the next day's events with the conference coordinators, to answer the phone. It was my little girl missing her Daddy and wanting to tell me good night. She was so pitiful and sad sounding that it really took me off guard. She is used to me being there when she goes down at night.
Even though that little thing of telling her good night may take all of fifteen seconds of my down time each night, it apparently means a great deal to that little girl's heart. I am humbled to think that my simple good night kiss could mean so much.
So, despite the fact that I spent the week making 400-500 people laugh and enjoy themselves, I came away with the knowledge that there are three special people in this world that need only simple things from me each day - not funny jokes, wacky outfits or impromptu comedy at the microphone - to make their day complete. Steph, Anna Kristin and Grayson - your husband and Daddy loves you! | | |
| OK, be forewarned that I am ticked at a situation that has always annoyed me and I have officially had enough. Apologies for not being a shiny-happy post today!
I have received email forward after email forward of "jokes" that target the only unprotected people group - Dads and men in general. Now, I am no way condoning emails or jokes or material of any kind that insults ANY people group - far from it. However, while Western society as a whole has moved into an era of at least supposed political correctness such that a joke about a race or class of people is considered offensive and in general bad taste, jokes made by women about men and even more pointedly dads, are seemingly encouraged!
This absolutely burns me up as a complete double standard. For example, I have received on multiple occasions the "Mommy test" email. Have you seen this one? Supposedly, this jokes that everyone who does not pass the mommy test has to be a daddy - doing more than inferring that to be a dad is to by default be an idiot or at least somehow lacking in critical skills. Continuing with my example, this email is sent to distribution lists where the woman who sends it KNOWS that men will be reading and is proud of her wit and candor in sending it.
Now think with me for a second about what happens to me and my poor email inbox were I to concoct a similar story that absolutely belittles women and the ordained job of motherhood. I would risk bodily harm if I sent that to certain women!! Am I alone in this sentiment? Are men supposed to think this is ok for some purpose of restitution of the oppression of women by my Grandfather's Father and his Father and his Father before him?
Maybe I am channeling other stresses into this issue, but can somebody help a brother out? The last I heard, we need to be encouraging men to be the fathers that their family needs them to be, the husbands that their wives so desperately need, not using them as a prop for a joke at every available moment as Hollywood so loves to do (name the last series on TV in which a father is cast in the role of being a truly wise and reliable member of the family). | | |
| Things have been tough lately. Really tough. I guess it all perspective, because some would say that life for me, even at this instant in the midst of several trials, is exactly the kind of life they would like to lead.
I struggle with that in-between of having a perspective that is "above" my current circumstances while still being fully present in the here and now. For example, I could act as if nothing is wrong and just be glad that I have a cool place to be in out of the heat, a good meal in my belly and another planned in a few hours, and to have people that love me. However, I'm not sure that's always a healthy attitude when things - big things- go wrong.
Healing is a funny thing that way. If your body has a deep cut and the outside skin heals together before the inner layers do, it will become infected and not heal properly. You actually have to re-open the wound from the outside and let it heal from the inside out. I wonder if the same goes for our hearts.
I have a wound that has been closed up for years - nearly twenty. All of the sudden it is open and bare to the harshness of reality. My instinct is to just sew it up on the outside. To thank God for my blessings and move on. On the other hand, I fear how bad the "infection" will grow if I do not properly treat the wound this time. I must be fully present, even in this pain, in the here and now.
Certainly, God is as good as he has always been, but platitudes and "it will be alrights" just don't cut it sometimes. Practitioners of self-righteous religion sometimes reduce the pain of others so much that their own faith does not seem grounded. God allows these realities to occur and does not sit back idly when we hurt, but he doesn't necessarily whisk us away either. Having a "Calgon" moment may seem like what the writers of some Psalms may support, but others completely wallow in their misery. Why is it that modern day Christianity only seems to promote the former? It makes for nicer cards?
So, I will live today with an open wound that hurts and at the same time experience that hurt as I should - not suppressed - and be joyful and thankful for all of the great things in life as well. Fully present. | | |
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