Prologue

Over the years, I’ve worked harder and harder to find meaning in life. But the more I've looked, the more I’ve wondered if I was going about my search the wrong way.

I've been looking for meaning through experience, but I think now that I've always had it backwards. Life will never be defined by extravagant experience, but about finding extravagance in common experience. So for 2009, I'm going to focus less on living large, and focus more on living well. Each month I'll start a new month-long project (like trying to run 3 miles faster than George Bush), to find uncommon results from common experience. Each project will involve daily activity, so every day of 2009 you can check my progress on the monthly projects and see what I discover.

None of these projects will cost much—in fact, I think most will be free. So if you're looking for a year uncommonly rich, you can join me. There's no membership required, just participate and comment if you want. Either way, get ready for a year I hope is unlike any other.

Epilogue

I stumbled across the finish line, but I manage to complete 8 of the month-long projects successfully. Blogging is now over at Wonderfam!

 
 

It's September, and September was a …

A Month of Accomplishment (about)

 

~ or ~

 

Forcing myself to finish something (about)

 

06
02

Starting small, one lunch at a time

Written by Nathan on June 2, 2009 at 10:37 pm from A Month of Serving.

Most of the year my oldest two children are enrolled in school, which means that my wife gets a break from motherhood a few days of a week. She teaches at their school so it’s not a break from responsibility entirely but it is a chance for her to get some space from the demands of parenting. But there’s a part of the year when she’s with the kids all the time, and Monday was the first day of the summer, and the first day of three months of Jenn, three kids and some incredible heat.

Like all kids, ours can be demanding (just like they can be amazing). When I’m at work, there’s not much I directly do to help  referee fights, occupy kids or tend to the domestic chores during the day. But I can take her out of solo-parenting, however briefly, when I have lunch with the family. So rather than wait the day for big acts at the end of the day, I asked her to bring the kids to meet me for lunch. I don’t know with certainty that the hour pause midday made any huge impact. But for those 60 minutes I got to be the listener, the child-chaser, and the attention-giver. For that little bit of the day, she got to be not just mom, but also Jenn. 

Even as I tried to serve and care and help, I knew my invitation them over meant she had to corral the kids to the car, pack the lunch to bring and even at the lunch still share in parenting duty. So it’s possible I did as much damage as good. But I think that a big part of successful service is not just whatever act was done, but also letting someone know you care. Jenn doesn’t know that serving her is my goal this month and I’m hoping to keep it that way. But I think she’ll notice that I’m working as hard to take care of her as she has to work to take care of us, and I do hope that will alleviate some of the weight of her summertime homemaking.

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