Variety is the spice of life
First, the mandatory confession: I suck at blogging. There, I said, it now I can continue with my post without having to promise I will do better this time. Lets face it, chances are this will be my only blog post for six months. Now on to the good stuff.
The last 2 months have by far been the most transitional of my life. Mikayla was born, I graduated from seminary, the distillery I work at had its grand opening, Kaleidoscope is undergoing a major transition… the list goes on. In reflecting on these months I have grown to appreciate the tension of my life (some would call it chaos). I love having my hands in a bunch of different pots (although I will admit I am not the best multi-tasker).
Right now, my primary job is that of stay-at-home dad. This is the first week Mikayla and I have been home together alone on a regular basis. I gotta say I love it. She is sleeping right next to me on the bed as I type this. I had someone urge me yesterday to apply for a full time job with great benefits and an excellent salary. I turned it down. I would not trade these hours with my daughter for any amount of money.
My primary source of income now comes from Corsair Distillery. We make top shelf craft spirits. Right now we are selling a gin, absinthe, spiced rum and vanilla bean vodka. We are also working on several varieties of whiskey. I love it because my job is different everyday: run the still, do tours and tastings, clean up, manage press releases, work with distributors, label, bottle, package…. I also enjoy the mix between science and craft. We basically use science to create a craft product. I guess you could say my artistic medium of choice is ethanol.
Speaking of Art, that brings me to my next job: Kaleidoscope. Things really have changed since I came on in 2007. Instead of a 250K budget, we now have about 5K in our account and no regular source of income. I used to work more with community development, now I work with development. Basically I am a (near) volunteer grant writer. Right now we have well over a million dollars in outstanding grants. It is crazy just waiting around to hear back on these. We could live the next 3 years in feast or famine.
Finally, I work as UMC local pastor. While my appointment is currently to Broadway UMC in Bowling Green, I have spent the last 6 months in Russelville at a small rural church. They have been awesome to us and it has been great to have a chance to shape my seminary education into messages relevant to the church. I am sure some of them are sick hearing about the Old Testament and importance of understanding the trajectory of redemptive history, but I am confident our time together has resulted in a better understanding of how we fit into the bigger picture.
Each of these four areas are so diverse, yet capture a small part of who I am. I am a husband/father/distiller/grant writter/community developer/pastor who doesn’t seek to reconcile his existence, but instead find comfort in the tension.