by kyle | Apr 12, 2017 | Journey
In early May I will embark on the next part of my journey. For the first time in 3 ½ years I’ll be returning to France for a visit. Just a visit this time.
My first trip to France took place in 1989, and it changed the course of my life. After that I knew that a missionary career in France was my calling for that period. Two years later I arrived in France. The next twenty-five years took me back and forth several times, and I finally returned to the US for good in 2013.
For me this is more than a tourist trip.
by kyle | Feb 7, 2017 | Encouragement
A few years back I had a life change. I was changing countries and changing professions. I’d been living in Europe for several years and out of the U.S. job market for many more. When I returned and needed to find a job, I didn’t feel very marketable. I figured if I were to find a job at all, I’d have to create it myself.
I had an idea, at least, to start. One of the things I did when I lived in France was teach English to retired people. I loved doing that, and really enjoyed working with that particular group of learners. As I returned I considered: What can I still do that could be turned into a job? The answer for me was French.
by kyle | Dec 22, 2016 | Inspiration
Here we are in the midst of the colorful, festive Christmas season. Each year I get as much enjoyment welcoming the New Year as I do in Yuletide caloric merriment, purchasing, giving, visiting, singing, and decorating. As the year nears its sunset, I begin casting some thoughts in the direction of what’s coming as I cross the threshold.
Really. No Christmas blues, no wistful sadness. I feel a shimmer of anticipation and my mind is already darting to things I want to improve or try or experience or master in the coming year. I have a whole year as a canvas to play with.
For years I have been a goal-setter. But rather than create a list of resolutions the length of the Appalachian Trail, I set quarterly objectives, based on my annual goals (which fall into a few basic areas, like health, spiritual, fiction, personal, etc.). I review these quarterly. For me, it’s just more bite-sized and I don’t get discouraged as easily. It keeps me on target, and there’s nothing to prevent my adding new goals that weren’t there at the outset. Or taking some away. Or adapting some.
by kyle | Nov 29, 2016 | Encouragement, Journey
Thanksgiving is barely over. The highway home was crowded with others like me who had visited family for a few days.
Aside from a couple extra pounds, one thing I brought back with me was actually, well, 8 things. My old photo albums from high school, college, and beyond. They’d been in my mom’s shed in a box for about 20 years, when I first left to live overseas. I had not looked at them since.
Flipping through the photo albums that chronicled my adult life was like rediscovering myself, like reassembling scattered, forgotten pieces of my identity. I needed that wash of memories to bring me back to the previous chapter and stitch it together. You see, when I left Europe three years ago to return permanently to the U.S, after nearly a quarter of my life spent there, I closed the door on a life, a career, a culture…and opened another one.
by kyle | Nov 16, 2016 | Encouragement
Monday morning I pulled out my notepad, as I do on most Mondays. I jotted a list of things I wanted to accomplish that week. Suddenly it hit me. If I do the same thing week after week, all I will have accomplished is my to-do list. I wonder if there is something bigger I am meant to accomplish.
I began consider my bigger goals, the ones that push out in the future. One of these is being a fiction writer. In that moment I knew that if I continued doing the same things I am doing now, I’ll be in roughly the same place this time next year.
That isn’t to say I haven’t accomplished some of my objectives in writing. I think my writing craft has improved in the last year. I was able to finish a novel in time to pitch it at a large writer’s conference in August. Though that is a milestone, believe me, the prize has not yet been won.
