If I am not mistaken, and judging by my inability to maintain consciousness while talking about accounting it would be no surprise if I was, my wife recently took a class called "Cost Accounting"; I have nothing to say about this other than the fact that I realize the existence of such a class, but one thing I am quite sure of this morning is that a teacher in the first century taught also about counting the cost, saying,
For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enought to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him...Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one with twenty thousand?My experience as a builder has been limited to a birdhouse that sits atop a bench in my mother's backyard, a survivor of multiple trees in mulitiple houses, towns, coats of paint, and storms of every variety, and a small, gray, three-tiered shelf that rumor has it still resides in the bedroom it was originally built for. My war experience is similar to my space travel experience, a smattering of books and backyard make-believe as a child; nevertheless, I am not ignorant to the idea of counting the cost, nor should any one of us be. Even small children experience this: "Junior, do you want to sit up and eat or maccaroni or do you want a spanking?" No one wants a spanking, but neither does Junior want the authority figure's will to win out against his, and so he counts the cost of his disobedience, choosing whether or not the pain of the spanking is greater than the small, ever so slight victory over mom, and it usually is.
I appreciate this concept more today than this time last week, and certainly to a greater degree now than on May 28, before my summer began. Julie and I took last week off together; in fairness, I suppose she took the week off, and I moved from one location to another and lived much the same as I did before we left. We spent Monday in Waco with family, the week in a cabin in the hills near Fredericksburg, and the weekend on the Riverwalk in San Antonio with even more family and some old friends. I need not bore you with the mundane details of a trip that you did not take, but I will tell you in on a secret: vacations are expensive!
That's right, you heard it here first, there is nothing cheap about taking a week long trip anywhere. We probably could have done nothing, eaten nothing, and had nothing to drink, thereby not spending much of anythinig, but what then would be the p0int of vacation? I speak not of finances alone, though, it costs greatly to leave town for a week. Since I am a poor example I will use Julie, Julie had to ask off from work, disposing of her entire vacation time for the year, ensuring that she cannot take another day of rest apart from the weekend for months and months. Leaving costs commitments that must be broken, insulation that needs to be installed, books that must be read, lesson plans that need work; it means the severing of what is normal and routine for the possibility of what might be fantastic or could just as easily be only costly. We did not approach last week with blinders on, we (okay....Julie) calculated pretty accurately the different costs of the trip, but it was not until we were driving away from our friends' place that we began taking true inventory of the week, and we came to a realization, one which I trust most have realized long before I: the rewards of time with family and friends far outweigh the costs incurred.
It is far too easy to settle into the rituals of life, rituals that create barriers to rest and enjoyment of those closest to you. Though Julie and I could easily set aside a portion of each day to sit out on the porch and sip a glass of wine, read together and talk, it took leaving the confines of our house to do so. I could call my mother and stepfather on the phone and talk for hours, but it is not quite the same as sitting under their tin-roofed porch, looking them in the eyes. Though I have seen Barbara countless times throughout my life, and spoke with her on more than one occasion in the last month, sitting in a cafe on the Riverwalk and sharing hours together catching up and relaxing was somehow different, more fulfilling.
I stand not on my proverbial soapbox and call for a shirking of responsibility and carelessness with one's resources, but I do advocate remorseless living. I shudder to think that I might miss these opportunities because I was too tightfisted with my cash, with my time, with my love; may I instead look ahead and count the cost of a life lived without the simple pleasures of leisure and relaxation, and choose to live otherwise.
I wholeheartedly agree!! What good is working so hard for money if we never let ourselves enjoy it!? It is meant to be spent, So I say Spend ON!!
Michael,
I have always enjoyed your blog, but your posts of late have been especially intriguing. Dustin and I still read faithfully, so keep posting! The Lord has blessed you with keen insight and ideas and the ability to articulate them well. How's Mindy? Tell Julie and Mindy that I miss them. We promise to forward my mail soon. Sorry we're losers.
Jamie Butts :)