Should it be me?

As I approach a moment of truth with my denomination, the question that keeps repeating itself in my head is, "Should I do this?" Recently I made the decision to embrace every trial as it came, and not try to simplify my life to gain control.

In the past my method of dealing with problems has been very much like that of a chess player in an end game. Simplify. It's a conscious affectation, as well as a sensible one, a man can only do so many things well until the quality of his output begins to fail. It is eventually an enforced limitation. Whereas one might juggle two balls effortlessly, then with skill and learning three, I've never seen someone juggle twenty. There is a limit to a man's ability (hence the hint of two jugglers depicted above). Beyond that, you begin to have to attribute results to the miraculous, or juggling in low gravity.

The decision to keep as many balls in the air without laying one down was based on seeing what would happen. If a question or task merited attention on my part, I would simply attend to it on the basis of that merit.

Important things that deserve my attention are:

Household needs. That would be food, shelter and clothing.

Past needs unmet. I have a lot of debt. This comes from delaying the day of reckoning for unmet needs, and postponing them through debt. I could easily service the household needs I have, were it not for the burden of debt. That burden lightens a lot in July of next year, and again in April of 2011.

My various causes, the only one truly necessary being the confrontation of the Church which is now public, not private as it has been for the past year. This confrontation is primarily focused on polygyny. The church would forgive my other exceptions to general doctrine in the OPC.

Family issues. I have one natural son who has shown the burden of the effects of sinful divorce and destruction of family. I am able to do utterly nothing to help him, in human terms. I am now 2600 miles away from where he is likely to be imprisoned for some time. I have another daughter who could use my occasional help, she is not in the kind of trouble in her life that Cameron is, she is in fact pursuing a career as a physicians assistant, but must complete her education. I am able to offer her no help either, and she is even farther away, on the opposite coast.

My health. It is rapidly deteriorating. This is in large part due to not simplifying. I honestly don't care anymore. John Hughes, the film director, just took the dirt nap at 59. Heart attack. I'm 55. I could go anytime. That's the message of the parable Christ told as well. At 55 though with contemporaries dropping like flies, you kinda view it as a variable deadline for life's term paper. I should always have been about the masters business, he could come at any time. I should be found doing it, but it would be nice to say as Paul did that he had run the race.

Why all of this now? With the number of balls in the air increasing, and the amount of time I am being asked to sustain juggling them all, something will drop, perhaps everything will drop all at once. Do to what I do, as I have said before, I need a job. Either this is the job, or the job I have will eventually demand that they are the job. The Modern Pharisee continues to grow in viewership. Someone will notice, then someone else will notice, and then I will have a choice to make. If I were to appear on Larry King, Bill O'Reilly or in a Newspaper interview there are inevitable processes that get set in motion.

"Same Sex Marriage" approaches in Vermont. Next month. If someone tries to register to marry an additional person in Vermont, it's game on. That could come as soon as Tuesday, September 1st. I don't know these people as of yet, but someone will try, of this I am as certain as a non prophet can be. I've offered to be part of this effort, encouraged said someone's to come to me, but so far have heard nothing. I've been derided for not trying to do so myself, and believe me I would, but I'd have to want to marry someone that could marry me and would wish to marry me as well. I rather doubt that's happening in the next three weeks, but if there is any potential bride out there that's also possessed of a very large dowry, I guess we could discuss it. More likely though, three gals will show up with one guy and try it. Or three guys and a gal. Or four gals, two guys and perhaps a violin playing goat. After all, happiness isn't happiness without a violin playing goat. Depending on my level of involvement or non involvement, I could be written out of that picture altogether.

Decisions eventually make themselves. By NOT making them, but letting them happen as I stand where I believe I ought to stand they will eventually be made. Like I said before, ball or all of them will hit the ground over a period of time. You can contact me with suggestions. HughMcBryde (at) gmail (dot) "you-know-where." You can write me typed or longhand, but if you do, you need to email me for my snail mail address, or you can find it here on Vermont's lobbyist registration site. You do have to correctly type in my name. It has all my "snail mail" information. It also reveals that I am in fact an active lobbyist, but have made no expenditures of any note, which means there has been no support of any note.

As is periodically noted, you're out there. That would be supporters of the notion that polygyny should be legalized. Verbal support is dandy and if that is all you have to give, I am grateful for it. If you offer your prayers, this is even more effective and I am awed by it. Someone (or several someones over time) must be moved to commit dollars to the effort or it is not likely that I can continue as I am. An employer doesn't really want a high profile activist on his management team. I am part of the public face of an enterprise, and that enterprise does not belong to me. I've done this before as part of a more conventional constituency, and as a rank and file employee. It's vastly different when the subject is cutting edge controversial and you sport the name "Manager" for someone else and their business.

So it's up to you. I cannot go on this way forever. Signs say that it may not be much longer. At the very least, if the cut down comes, and I must simplify, it's job, my passion (and/or the blog) or maybe everything. God does not need me specifically to accomplish his purposes and his tools may not continue to include me. This is going to get expensive, hard and personally costly. At least that's the way I see it. For me to continue, I probably will have to go on doing this, and this alone.

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