Note: This post is a reprint of this article I originally posted on the main EmmanuelPress blog over the weekend: Post Tsunami Message from Missionary in Japan I think you’ll find it worth the reprint.

A tsunami wave washes ashore in northern Japan.

If you have seen any of the video coming out of Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami this past Friday you cannot help but be moved at the incredible devastation that has been wreaked on the northeastern part of their country.

I know I’ve spent a bunch of time this weekend online watching videos and looking at photos of it all and I still can’t get my mind around how unimaginably horrific it must be to have entire cities washed away.

Of course it so happens that I have a good friend who lives in Japan as a missionary. And by good friend I mean that Kent was best man at my wedding. He has a site here on EmmanuelPress, the Muhlings in Japan, which I’ve been pestering encouraging him to use more.

Obviously he’s going to have his hands full in the next few months so I don’t expect him to be adding much to his website for a while yet.

Relief Training

Kent and his family were at the annual conference/retreat for their missionary organization in the mountains about 200 miles from the earthquake when it hit. The week before Kent attended an all day training on how to be prepared to respond and assist in the event of an earthquake.

Talk about Divine preparation.

Anyway I wanted to share with you in full the email Kent sent over the weekend to those of us who support their effort. I believe it speaks for itself.

Dear praying friends and family,

First, thank you for the over 80 replies to my last email!

I just finished reading them all, and I can’t tell you how encouraging it was to hear your love and concern in your words. Thank you. I am sorry that I won’t be able to answer them all individually (which I am normally committed to doing).

We continue to be amazed at the information coming in about what has happened. It is simply huge. Japan’s government takes great pains to plan for natural disasters, but this is on a magnitude that simply cannot be managed. It is chaotic — one only has to look at the news photos to see that.

CNN reported that the landmass of Japan appears to have shifted over about 8 feet. An agency in Italy reported that the earth actually shifted 4 inches on its axis. That is one whopper of an earthquake.

Last night there was a second earthquake, much closer to us, and big enough to wake us up. We have heard that because of the main earthquake on 3/11, the entire landmass of Japan is unstable and there will likely continue to be earthquakes until the shifting plates in the earth’s crust have re-stabilized. Japanese TV is reporting every earthquake or aftershock as soon as it is detected. There have been numerous smaller quakes or aftershocks, some merely minutes apart.

– Ooh, there was another one.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s email, our entire mission is gathered here in the mountains near Nagano (north of Tokyo) for our annual conference. Together we have a strong conviction that since we are here in Japan, we must respond in a direct, tangible way. Already we are in contact with an organization called C.R.A.S.H., which stands for Christian Relief Assistance, Support, and Hope. Their role is to coordinate Christian relief efforts in-country, and we have decided to take an active role. The church in Japan is small, but the love of Christ is big! We hope and pray the Christian community in Japan and worldwide will be able to demonstrate Christ’s love to the Japanese in a very visible, tangible way.

So, at this point, here is where we stand in terms of our own response:

1) Missionary personnel will return home at the end of our conference on Monday, as planned, assuming roads are reopened and train service has resumed.

Then, as soon as we get home, those of us who are planning to join the relief effort will begin planning and preparing. (First thing to buy is a good pair of work gloves and boots!)

2) We are waiting for C.R.A.S.H. to do their on-site evaluation, so we can understand the need better and know when and how we can get involved.

Some of the things that have to be figured out are: How will we get there? (The Sendai airport is currently under water, trains aren’t running, and some roads are damaged.) What areas are accessible and which aren’t? Where will we stay? Will we need to go fully self-sufficient, or will food and lodging be available? How can we best contribute to the effort — physical labor? Crisis counseling? Translation services for other agency personnel? Serving the local churches in their relief efforts? What other Christian organizations are sending teams and how can we coordinate our efforts for minimum confusion and maximum impact?

Then, as soon as we are able to, we’ll put a team together and go. That could be within a few weeks, but I really don’t know for sure.

3) We also plan to contact churches in our home town area of Sanda and invite them to participate in volunteer relief efforts, as we are planning to do. This is a potential opportunity to unite the churches in our community, and we are very interested in pursuing that.

4) Our mission, Asian Access, is setting up the “Japan Tsunami Relief Fund.” Our mission has relationships with several churches in the areas hardest hit, and we will send donated funds to those churches so they can contribute to relief efforts in their communities in the name of Christ, take care of their own members who have been affected, etc.

Also, some of the funds will be made available for our own folks who want to go and help in the relief efforts. At this point I and several others are planning to go, so those funds will help pay for our expenses (buying supplies, traveling to the site, etc.)

So again, the relief funds will be used to support relief efforts through our partner churches in the disaster areas, and also by our own personnel participating in the relief effort personally (hopefully including myself).

If you’d like to contribute to this effort, you can send checks payable to Asian Access and mark them “Japan Tsunami Relief Fund.” Mail checks to Asian Access, P.O. BO 200, San Dimas, CA 91773.

I hope you will prayerfully consider doing this.

Finally, please pray:

• That God will have mercy on the victims of this disaster.
• That God will give wisdom to leaders in the Christian community and in government.
• For the love of Christ to be clearly displayed by the words and deeds of God’s people.
• That many Japanese hearts would be softened, and that the assistance given in Christ’s name would lead to many opportunities to share the gospel of Christ’s salvation.
• For clear guidance as to what our part should be!
• Oh, one last prayer request for my family: Our children were shaken up by the earthquake, and when I told Caleb I would probably be joining the relief effort, he said to me, “But what if something happens to you when you’re there, Daddy? I don’t want you to die!” And then he started to cry. Please pray that God would comfort them with His love, and bless them with faith to trust in Him in all things, including our very lives.

Thank you, thank you, for your love and concern, your encouragement, and your prayers.

Love in Christ,
Kent

If you are looking for a way to donate to the Japan tsunami relief effort I encourage you to consider donating through Asian Access, the organization Kent mentioned. And here is more information about their Japan Tsunami Relief Fund.

I will follow up with information from Kent as I am able to receive it.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

OK. Time for some guy fun.

It’s like I keep trying to explain to my wife. From a guy’s perspective, things that go Whoosh! or Booom! are cool. Period.

Past Job

It’s probably time for a little confession, for those of you who don’t know. The reason I have this airplane photo set as my Twitter background is because I flew in the things back in my Navy days. It turns out the plane in this particular photo is even painted in my old squadron colors, VS-30 Diamondcutters.

Of course we were probably the least cool guys flying jets off the aircraft carrier. Our plane was the slowest jet in the fleet. It was so slow we had windshield wipers. It was kinda embarrassing.

(“Ah, but you did fly jets off of aircraft carriers,” said Captain Jack Sparrow, ever the optimist.)

It’s true we did drop or “shoot” various exploding thingies that caused all kinds of havoc and destruction.

We just did it kinda slowly is all.

Anyway not every guy gets a chance to fire a harpoon missile or drop a 2,000 pound bomb (and then fly away so slowly that the plane gets bounced from the concussion. Sheesh!) But nearly every guy secretly wants to.

With that in mind I ask you, what could be cooler than having your very own micro cannon so you could shoot at things and wreak destruction right in your very own office?

I present to you…

The Micro Cannon

Enjoy!

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

In a rather ironic twist, Google now finds itself on the receiving end of a “neutrality” flap. It’s ironic because Google has long lobbied for something called “net neutrality.” If you look at Google’s Public Policy blog you’ll see they’ve published 22 posts on the topic to date.

Background

When you strip away all the emotion and hype, net neutrality is basically a fight about whether or not (and how much) the government should regulate how internet service providers (ISP’s) provide access to the internet.

When I first heard about net neutrality years ago it was presented from the perspective that ISP’s like Comcast & AT&T were on the verge of blocking any business that didn’t pay them a fee to get access to their customers. Now since I was (and still am) a small web entrepreneur and net neutrality was supposed to ensure that never happened, I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea.

But the more I see how thoroughly the government seems to mess up most everything it touches, the less inclined I am to see increased government regulation of the internet as a good thing, regardless of what it’s called.

Google and Neutrality

As I mentioned, Google has lobbied long and hard in favor of government regulation of the ISP’s via net neutrality. And it makes sense from their perspective.

Google is a web service provider. Anything that potentially hinders people from being able to access their services hurts their business. And Google’s business is entirely dependent on the ISP’s maintaining the status quo. If the government can guarantee things won’t change, all the better for Google.

I suspect that’s a big part of the reason Google, and Google’s top executives, were so active in support of the current presidential administration – basic good business sense.

Ah, the Irony

Now, however, there’s stirrings about “search neutrality.” The argument goes something like this.

Google has an effective monopoly on search. Therefore we need the government to regulate what they do because they sometimes do some seemingly arbitrary things that are unfair to some folks.

Well Google recently explained why search neutrality is a bad idea on their public policy blog. You know, the that’s the blog with all those articles in favor of net neutrality.

In spite of the irony, I think their arguments are sound. And I also thing they are just as good reasons why net neutrality is a bad idea as well. And they boil down to three main points.

1. Who decides what’s fair?

Generally speaking it’s better to have marketplace competition decide what’s fair rather than the politics of government regulation.

2. Standardized public “rules” are easier to circumvent.

This is especially true when it comes to technology. Publish the search algorithms and they instantly get taken advantage of by those who are looking to game the system.

By the way this is also the same concept behind, “outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.” I’m just saying.

3. It removes profit incentive for improvement.

Yep. If the biggest business requirement is to meet the government mandated standards then there is no longer any incentive to innovate. Why spend money on R&D, or building out higher capacity infrastructure, if there is no chance to earn profits as a result?

Bottom Line

Here’s my take. Let’s keep the government out of both the internet and the search engines. Let the market continue to run free so that we can continue to have tremendous innovation online.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Getting back in the game.

Sooner or later it happens to most every blogger. One day you turn around and find that your blog has been neglected for far too long.

Unless you are remarkably disciplined, have an incredibly structured life that never has surprises, or have partnered with a co-author or two life is bound to get in the way of your blogging. And it is especially true if you are blogging for your business.

As an entrepreneur you may be in a situation where you have to do it all. Keeping up with your blogging can be especially challenging.

Starting Back Up

How do you get started again?

This is going to sound overly simplistic. And it seems kind of obvious.

What you should do is sit down and write a blog post.

No secrets or tricks required. Just start posting again. Blogging is not rocket science.

Keeping What You Had

One of the beauties of blogs is that even if you neglect them for a bit, whenever you do decide to get back to them they are still there.

All that page depth and the incoming links that you built up when you were blogging will still be there when you get back to it.

Sure you may lose some of your audience, but if you had been emphasizing RSS subscriptions, many will still be there once you come back as well.

Big Mistake

Here is one thing you shouldn’t do. Don’t apologize for being away. Your readers know.

Besides how many blogs have you seen that have several irregularly spaced blog posts all saying, “sorry I haven’t posted in a while”?

There’s not much that will scare away readers faster than that. You’re better off offering a post with some value to your readers and moving forward.

You also might want to avoid making big promises about how often you are going to be posting moving forward. While it can be motivating to have the accountability of announcing your intentions it can also turn into a huge discouragement as well if business ends up overriding your intentions.

That discouragement can make it even harder to get started blogging again the next time.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is we all have seasons when our blogs get less attention than we’d like. Don’t let it get you down. Just write another blog post and move forward. Leave the past behind.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

I don’t usually get into politics around here. While I like reading about political stuff on my own time I have found over the years that some people take political stuff a little too personally. Besides, people come here for info on social media, not politics.

So I generally keep it off the blog here.

Sarah Palin speaks in Savannah

But then yesterday I did something I’ve never done before. I went to hear a live political speech by a national level figure. I started a new Twitter account to talk politics stuff on because I do find it interesting. One of the oldest folders in my bookmarks, from back before the days of feed readers, is one I labeled “Propaganda” and it’s where I keep links to my favorite politics web sites along with links to the news sites I frequent.

Yeah. I am a bit cynical at times.

I took a while to decide if I wanted to join the conversation about politics for a number of different reasons. Mainly I figured that many of the people who follow me at places like Twitter did so because of my social media focus. And they may not be at all interested in my politics.

The solution I came up with on Sunday was to open another Twitter account where I could focus on politics stuff. That way those who are interested can follow me there and the rest can ignore it if they like. So I’m now tweeting on things politics @CREEativeRight (and I’ll let you guess which way I lean.) It also helped me with a little social media experiment I was doing which I’ll share more about later in the week.

Anyway…

So I found out about Sarah Palin coming to town via @CREEativeRight and decided that there was enough hubub around her in the election that I’d go downtown and check it out.

Between live Tweeting her speech, taking photos, chatting with Jeremy Davis who ended up next to me, and getting text messages from friends who couldn’t be there I kept pretty busy.

The whole reason for the event was to promote the reelection of US Senator Saxby Chambliss who is in a runnoff election today with his opponent. I won’t go into the politics of what all she was talking about here.

But I would encourage all of you who are in Georgia to go vote today. Turnout for runnoff votes tends to be much lower than for general elections. Your vote will count that much more because today as a result.

I posted some more of my Sarah Palin photos on Flickr if you are interested.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Bed Head Day 34

A few months back I ran a series of posts I called the 40 Days of Bed Head. The idea was fairly straight forward.

Each morning shortly after I woke up I took used the web cam on my laptop to take a photo of myself. And my bed head.

Yes my hair sticks up in the morning. It’s always sticking up, but hardly ever in the same way twice.

I’ve gotten a lot of feed back on the project, and lots of laughs. Folks have been telling me that I should bring the photos together all in the same place.

So I finally put together a little photo gallery with all the photos in one place. One glorious frightful display of wild hair captured for your amusement.

So go check out all the bed head photos. Click though to the individual posts if you want to see what other folks had to say about the photos. And feel free to add your own comments.

Enjoy!

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

This week I’m bringing back our Sunday Morning Goodness feature that’s been on hiatus for nearly a year.

You see there is so much good stuff being published out there. And some of the things I find in my feed reader are simply worth sharing.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee, click through the links and enjoy your a great start to your Sunday.

Let’s start with a quote from an author who never fails to amuse me, Douglas Adams.

“He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”

Now on to some good blog postage…

• If you’re having trouble getting your blogging groove on check out Chris Brogan’s Sample Blogging Workflow. Not only does Chris address some good blogging strategy ideas, but he then goes on to share some critical tasks, and some tools to make blogging easier. Then he ends with some ways to get your creative juices flowing when you run short of post ideas.
• David Bullock give us a social media explanation using a senator, Twitter & you. David takes a look at how the radically different approaches of the Obama and Clinton campaigns towards social media in general, and Twitter in particular, produced an Obama victory. David’s spot on. Back in February I pionted out that Hillary’s approach to social media killed her campaign not realizing then that she’d hang on as long as she eventually did. Wonder if things might have gone differently for her if she’d changed strategies then?
• Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, takes it offline for a bit analog advice with some great tips on How to Stop Junk Mail. Tired of a mail box stuffed  full of unwanted catalogs, direct mail pieces, and a flood of credit card offers? Matt gives has some great suggestions on how you can some headway towards reducing the junk.
• Finally there’s a fun post from Christine Kane called 22 Sparkly Ways to Shine Your Inner Bling. I had to include this one because the dog photo made Goregous laugh out loud when she read the post. (Click through and you’ll see what I mean.) And despite the, um, less than manly sounding title, there’s some good advice in there from Christine for all of us.

Have a wonderful Sunday. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Konaboy

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton have finalized the list of contributing authors for the 2008 edition of the Age of Conversation. Natural attrition pared down the original list of 275 to 237 finalists. And the list reads like a who’s who of the blogging, social media and online marketing realm.

This means the book is one step closer to final publication, currently slated for later this summer. In the meantime I can offer you a sneek peek inside.

Check out some of these blogs from the list below. Be sure to subscribe to the any that strike your fancy.

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Note: This post is part of a group writing project for HighCallingBlogs.com for this month sponsored by Laity Lodge and which we’re hosting here at SuccessCREEations, Inc. The topic is Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! While the main drawing has already happened you can still participate in the writing project until the end of the month and get a discount on selected retreats for you and your readers.

Connectivity Culture

We live in a culture that is continuously connected. I’m as connected as anyone because of what I do here at SuccessCREEations, Inc.

Between blogging, a bunch of email addresses, four instant messaging accounts, Skype, 300+ feeds in my feed reader, and all the various social media sites I’m active on it can be a never ending stream of information.

And it’s getting worse, or better, depending on your viewpoint. With services like Twitter that can follow you around on your cell phone it is easier than ever to keep yourself wired in.

Out of the Vacation Habit

I grew up in a family where most all vacation time was spent going to visit family, usually over holidays. Most of you would probably agree that visiting family often isn’t really a vacation at all. Sometimes it can be even more stressful than every day life!

Gorgeous is from a family that had more healthy vacation habits. But unfortunately in our marriage we’d fallen into my way of doing things what with parental failing health issues and all.

In the ten years of our marriage we can only remember one real vacation where we weren’t visiting family or attending a conference or some such.

Making an Occasion Special

As we were coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary this spring we decided we wanted to take a trip to get away an mark the occasion in a special way. We wanted to take a long weekend and go someplace different.

We chose Colorado because we’d never been to the mountains together. With my career working around the ships we’ve always been pretty tied to the coast. To someone in the low country of Savannah the Rocky Mountains are decidedly different.

I think the last time they had snow here was like in 1989.

Our idea was to get to the mountains and get some downtime. I did bring my laptop and cell phone with the idea that I could do a little work along the way.

Fatboy and Lowrider thought it was a smashing plan and tried to get themselves packed in with our luggage so they could tag along. Gorgeous thought better of that idea and rousted them from the suitcase.

We ended up in Glenwood Springs and what attracted us to the place was that big old hot springs fed pool that stays toasty warm all year long. In the end we stayed pretty much disconnected from the internet, didn’t use the cell phone hardly at all.

What we did instead was spend a lot of time soaking in the natural beauty of the mountains. The two of us talked a lot, just the two of us, about all sorts of things and about not much at all.

We drove around and explored some new places. We had no agendas, woke up without an alarm clock, and found places to eat when we got hungry, and went to sleep when we were tired.

Along the way we found all sorts of interesting folks to talk with. It didn’t matter to us whether it was a waitress where we were having lunch or dinner, a shopkeeper in a gift shop, a fellow vacationer in the hot springs pool, the check out clerk in a major chain store, or the folks working at the tourist information center, we seemed to always find interesting people to connect with.

It was a tremendously refreshing weekend for both of us.

Take Aways

Here are some things I learned from that time away

• There are interesting people everywhere you go. Take the time to strike up a conversation.
• We had gotten way more stressed out than we realized. Looking back we realized that we’ve been through a very stressful couple of years without much of a break. But like the frog floating in the pot that doesn’t notice the heat being slowly turned up, we had no idea how much the stress had been building until we got away for a bit.
• We needed some perspective. Getting away helped us get a better perspective on what all we are facing in our lives. When we got back home our problems didn’t seem quite so overwhelming.
• We need to make vacations a regular part of our lives. Moving forward Gorgeous and I agreed that we will be carving out regular vacations from here on out. Besides, if God took a break after he made the universe, what am I doing thinking I can go wide open and never take a break?
• Seems like there’s two colors of dirt in Colorado, red and tan. Either one can be very dusty. And sometimes the color switches in a very clear cut line right down the side of a mountain.

OK. So that last one isn’t very profound. But it was something I learned out there.

So how do you see vacations? Do you take regular time to just get away? Or does all your vacation time get used on obligations like visiting family?

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Have you ever felt the need to get away from it all?

Have you ever had to chose whether to take some time away or keep pressing on?

Which way did you decide to go?

What happened as a result?

HighCallingBlogs Group Writing Project

This month we’re hosting the HighCallingBlogs Group Writing project here at SuccessCREEations, Inc.

We’re going to take the next few weeks to share some of we learned learned from a time when we decided to get away for a while, or from a time when we decided not to get away (but maybe we thought we should have).

Win Your Own Retreat

Laity Lodge is sponsoring the Group Writing Project this month. That means they are doing 3 things for those who decide to enter a blog post.

• 50% OFF FOR YOU – selected retreats for any participant in this group writing project. (You don’t have to be a member of HighCallingBlogs.com, but we hope you’ll consider it.)
• 25% OFF FOR YOUR READERS – Anyone who reads your blog can register for 25% off. When they call to register, they need to ask for “the HighCallingBlogs.com discount.”
• A FREE RETREAT – On Friday, May 9, at noon Central Time, we’re going to put the names of this Group Writing Project’s participants in a hat and draw one out. The winner gets a free retreat for a married couple or an individual. Marcus will announce the winners that afternoon

How to Enter

To enter for your chance to win, or to just participate in the writing project you need to do three things:

1. Write up a blog post on the importance of retreat
2. Link to the sponsor, Laity Lodge
3. And also link to this post so I know to include your post in the list of submissions that will be accumulating right here.

We’ll also post a link to your post over at HighCallingBlogs.com!

Update: Mark pulled a winner for the free retreat! Check out the video to see who one. But just because the winner has been chosen doesn’t mean that the project is over because we can all still be winners. Remember you can still get 50% off of selected retreats just for submitting your blog post to this group writing project and your readers can still get 25% off. So if you’re like me and haven’t submitted a post yet, there’s still time to be included. Keep writing!

1. Journeys by L.L. Barkat shows us that they can sometimes “Turn things upside down and sideways. Take us away, only to bring us home with a new perspective.“
2. Only the Strong Retreat and Surrender by Kathy Hansen, sharing with us a quiet moment alone on a porch.
3. Sacred Ingress by Carl Holmes reminds us of the overpowering scale that can be found at the edge of a powerful ocean.
4. Retreat to Appreciate by L.L. Barkat reminds us of the transcending beauty of nature that longs to be appreciated.
5. A Listening Prayer by Gordon Atkinson points out the simplicity and value of being quiet and listening to the world around us for a time. (And it just so happens the moment he described happened on my birthday a few years back!)
6. Retreat – Get a Handle on God’s Design by Marcus Goodyear holds up a warning sign to church folk who get all caught up in tidy rules instead of the complex reality. Getting a way for a while can help us maintain our balance.
7. Asleep I Sang With the Body of Christ in Retreat by Samuel Adams (I’m sorry but that’s a totally cool name!) points out the difference between a retreat and a vacation. It never occurred to me that they may not be the same thing.
8. Retreat by Tina Howard shares about a time she set some time aside to decompress with a group that was preparing to head overseas.
9. The Power of Retreat by Robert Hruzek gives us an example of how attending a retreat might totally change the direction of our lives as it led to Robert meeting his wife. For me this post was especially interesting because Gorgeous and I met at a singles retreat ourselves. Funny how things work out sometimes.
10. Retreat Retreat Reretreat… at Home by Mary DeMuth reminds us that sometimes just breaking our normal routine can be as refreshing as getting away somewhere.
11. Monastic Practices for Modern Christians by J. Dodson describes a place where he used to retreat when he lived in Boston. Now that he’s in Austin he’s looking for someplace similar. Anyone got any ideas for him?
12. Retreats, why? by Gerrard Fess offers a fabulous top 10 list of the benefits of getting away for a bit.
13. Come! Charge! Retreat! by Robin Bryce makes a good point that retreating is a contingency that any battle plan should allow for.
14. Celebrating My Recessive Retreat Gene by Tom Petersen is a great post explaining the difference between laziness and a retreat. Tom got me laughing. Something about mud…
15. Secure Your Own Mask First by Cheryl Smith brings up the reality that we won’t be much help to others if we don’t care for ourselves. Cheryl offers some good suggestions on how to maximize your time away.
16. Colossians and Creation by Heather Goodman recounts a time of reflection while sitting on a bench in the woods near some water.
17. It’s God Who Draws Us to Retreat by A. Anjeanette Brown shares some insights from going on a trip as well as ideas on how to retreat when life’s demands wont let you go to someplace new.
18. ~Retreat, Retreat, Retreat~ by Duane Smith reveals how conversation can develop when we get away long enough to listen.
19. The Symbol on the Rock by Brandon Satrom shows us a glimpse of remarkable beauty found at 12,000 feet one day.
20. Retreat Retreat Retreat by Sally Ferguson is a confession of a retreat junkie. Sally shares some new things she learned one time at Mount Rainier.
21. The Get Away by David Rupert points out that we’ve got a tremendous example before us of one who made regular time away a part of his life.
22. Value in Getting Away by Yours Truly where I share how I learned down time is important after years without any vacations.

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