Discernment Leading to Change

"On the outside, it doesn’t appear that much has changed, but on the inside my entire paradigm has shifted."

I’m starting on a new phase of my life, and I hope you will join me on the journey.  The decision to start afresh wasn’t an easy one. 

Some have noticed that I haven’t written any posts since February.  The reason is that I was in a state of spiritual and emotional transition and didn’t want to write anything until I arrived at some clarity. 

What kicked off my dilemma was the decision to start collecting social security benefits in July of this year.  At first, I didn’t think this decision was a big deal.  It would provide a steady income stream and I could just keep on working with less worry about securing contracts and managing cash flow finances. 

But then something funny happened.  I needed to order new business cards and I became paralyzed in that thought.  It would have been simple enough to just email the company and order a new batch, but I felt that there was a deeper question brewing.

This decision about receiving social security grew into something unexpected.  It started me thinking about full retirement.  I could lay down my blogging and consulting work and just live life as a retiree.  I could become a professional volunteer.  I could audit classes at UWM.  I could spend more time sailing or hanging out with my granddaughter.  I could buy a boat and work on it.  I could visit museums and events during the day.  I could write a book.  In short – fully retiring would open a whole new world for me. 

As I watched myself deliberate over this decision, I came to realize that there was a lot of “me, me, me” in my thought process.  What could I do, where could I go, what would I gain.  When I recognized this, it rubbed up against my Quaker sensibilities.  I realized I wasn’t praying enough.  I wasn’t digging deeply enough into my soul to hear the voice of God guiding me.  Or – was God telling me to kick back and just enjoy life?  The fact is, I didn’t know.

I considered asking my Quaker friends to form a Clearness Committee to help me discern my path, but thought I’d dig a little deeper on my own before I went that route.  (note:  a clearness committee is a group of friends who will sit with you and ask open ended questions – helping you gain “clearness” in your thinking.  They are not there to advise, or fix, or suggest anything.  The basic premise is that God is guiding the person seeking clearness and perhaps they only need help defining the questions to ask of themselves.)

I realized that my prayer time had deteriorated significantly since my son and his family moved back from Portland and came to live with us.  We never had five people living in this house at one time and especially not with a sweet but very active two-year old toddler.  So, my first step was to get back to a daily prayer routine.

That turned out to be a good decision, because the answer came to me during prayer.  And the answer was as clear and practical as it could possibly be.  The answer was to just be me.  Just be myself and work on the issues I care about and work with the people whose values I respect.  If work comes my way – then do it with joy and do it well.  If work doesn’t come my way – then I will follow whatever way opens on this journey and pursue what is meaningful to me in this community and in my life. 

On the outside, it doesn’t appear that much has changed, but on the inside, my entire paradigm has shifted.  The retirement benefits will allow me to more completely surrender to the leadings of that inward voice of God.

I intend to stay focused on building community and creating change using the skills that are unique to me.  I will continue blogging.  I will continue working on issues I care about and helping communities build collective impact initiatives.  I will be doing all of this as me, Mike Soika; not Imua Grace and not as the Center for Learning Communities. I will be laying down the blog site of Imua Grace and I will eventually be laying down the Center for Learning Communities.

I realize that nothing has changed, yet everything has changed for me.  Its as if God has hired me to be his change agent.  And I’m ready to take on the job.
 
Please Check Out:
My New website
My New Facebook site (which I haven’t populated much yet)
My New email address:  [email protected].
 
Please note: I will eventually be retiring my Learning-communities email account – but that won’t be for a few more months.