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Here in southeast South Dakota, we are in a “blizzard watch.” Not sure if it will actually hit with the full fury that they’ve warned us about, but we have had a nice four inch snow to start our Sunday.

I’ve been AWOL from Cobbled Together lately. It’s been a busy few months and my need to cobble together an income has meant more time and mental energy has gone into places other than the creative outlet that is Cobbled Together.

I’ve been putting together a new resource for language learners, working with more clients as a language coach and am creating a new online course that I’ll feature at a very cool new platform called Udemy. The course is called Language Learning 101 and I’ll begin shooting the lectures next week.

On top of that we’ve begun packing in order to vacate the home we’ve been able to live in for the last six months and preparing to move into a new home at the end of the month. We are excited to get to a place we can call home for a while.

We ordered seeds for a garden and my wife and kids are talking seriously about raising some chickens for eggs in the back yard. I’m dreaming up ways to build that home office I’ve been thinking about for the last eight months. (after a chicken coop perhaps)

I’d like to build it completely (mostly completely) with second hand or natural materials. Strawbale has always been a dream of mine, but I’ve recently come across a new idea that excites me to no end. Building with shipping pallets.

Seriously!

A small guest house built with pallets. Image Credit

Malachi is pretty insistent on whatever structure I build having a living roof. Better insulation, cost savings and another place to grow strawberries are all part of his reasoning – and I agree.

I am going to create an email reminder to put a little more emphasis on writing more regularly – namely each Sunday if I can. Once a week, just for fun and a change of pace from all the language writing I do. We’ll see how it goes.

More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity

I just received a free copy of Jeff Shinabarger’s new book, More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity. My receiving it free highlights one of the true advantages of the digital age – advanced copies of books are virtually free to give away and help spread the word.

I am excited about the book. The endorsements and table of contents get me very excited. Living simply is a topic rich in the history of my personal journey and one that was put far back on the shelf when we lived in Turkey.

I’ll write a proper review when I finish it.

You too can get a free copy of the book if you would like. [Click here to get yours.]

Now that we are working to settle back into life in the states, simplicity – living more with less – is a value I’d like to recapture and I am hopeful that this book will be part of that journey.

We’ve enjoyed nearly six months house sitting a grand home but will be moving into a new home at the end of the month. We are looking forward to getting into our place that we can take a bit more ownership over, even as we rent to begin with. We just today got a package in the mail filled with packets of heirloom seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds.

Very Exciting.

[Sorry for the long intervals between posts. Life is a bit crazy and I’m working really hard to develop the business over at The Everyday Language Learner. I’ll try to be a bit more regular]

Go and Make Disciples . . . Really?

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about discipleship since returning from Turkey.

As I read through the scriptures and read the biographies of those heroes of the faith who we esteem I am haunted by the suspicion that perhaps we are missing something.

I’ve read again and again that passage we call the Great Commission and will share it here:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

A few observations:

First, I am always stunned by the admission that some doubted.

Some Doubted!

Jesus is alive and some doubted. Out of the very men who walked with Jesus for three years and watched his crucifixion and then got to witness the resurrection – some doubted.

It seems pretty clear that God can handle a little doubt.

Second, Jesus gives them the command to go and make disciples and then a second part to that command – teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

Okay. So going and making disciples is no longer optional. Jesus commanded it.

Third, Jesus didn’t say, “Go and make converts.” “Go and get people to say the sinners prayer.” “Go and invite people to your church.”

He said, “Go and make disciples.”

So now I am left to wrestle with that. Am I making disciples? And what does that mean?

I am still working through what exactly that means, reading the scriptures and praying and trying not to rationalize my way out of hard answers.

But it is not optional.

First Snows

Our family have been enjoying listening to the Little House on the Prairie series as we travel in the van.

The rawness of frontier life lies in stark contrast to our comfortable and well maintained life in the 21st century.

For Laura Ingalls and her family, a winter storm meant the cold cruelty of hard work and suffering, offset only by evenings gathered around the glowing cookstove and the sound of Pa’s violin.

For us, the first snowstorm of the year, a certified blizzard in itself that kept us home from church today and which has cut off our view of the football stadium across the road from our living room window, has meant a quiet afternoon listening to stories on the iPod, drinking hot chocolate and jaunts outside with the kids to pretend we are arctic explores.

I love winter for this reason.

It slows life and by coming in, we are able to slow down and come out. Ideas from the long months of business begin to settle, to sift themselves into the spaces between activity and to come alive for the first time. It is as Annie Dillard writes about in her winterish book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

It was also Annie Dillard who reminds us that:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Today, I’m spending mine with my kids – inside and out, with a few cups of hot apple cider, a visit to the nursing home to visit my wife’s grandfather, with games and stories and a bit more.

Small Town Realities

Small town fun: Using a combine inner-tube as a trampoline.

I live in Freeman.

It is a rural town of just over 1,000 fine folks located in the southeast corner of the state of South Dakota.

Freeman is a fine place with a teeming main street, two schools, a museum and plenty to do.

But it’s not Disney World. It’s not Chicago. It’s not the Rocky Mountains.

Here in our corner of the prairie, we have a matrix for how much friends from other parts of the country love us:

If they don’t visit, they probably still love us.
If they do visit, they are crazy about us because no one comes to South Dakota.

If they take pains to travel to tiny Freeman in the southeast corner of South Dakota, they have come to see us – there is nothing else to see.

If you live in New York or California or anywhere else really, well, they may just be stopping by on their vacation to the beach. There may be mixed motives.

You may just be a free motel.

But if someone comes to visit us, they aren’t on vacation.

We are their destination.

And we feel loved.

Small town realities.

Would You Buy Don Miller’s New Book for $30.00?

I was reading a post by Andy Traub today which did a good job of introducing his readers to Donald Miller’s newest installment, Storyline, and at the same time bringing the discussion of pricing products into the picture.

The topic of pricing would not have come up of course had Storyline not been priced at $29.99.

A 95 page paperback workbook for thirty bucks!

I don’t want to get into whether or not Don’s new book is worth $30 or not – I love Don’s writing and believe that the value to be found in the those pages is probably is worth that price, and if it changes your life, it’s probably worth a whole lot more.

But I want rather to discuss pricing.

I am an online entrepreneur. I am working to make a living through guide sales, affiliate links, an upcoming online course and through language coaching.

In all of that, I have to set prices on my products and services.

The world would say that you price products at the maximum price that the market will bear.

So we have music CDs that sell for nearly $20.00.

We have digital products by popular bloggers selling for hundreds of dollars.

And Don Miller can sell a 95 page workbook for $30.00. (His tribe is big enough that he could have sold it for a lot more)

Pricing is based on a premiss – make as much money as you possibly can.

It is of course not the only premiss, it is far more complicated than that. But it is a major factor.

That is the way of the world. That is why I saw a headline a few years ago about 3M laying off 5,000 workers when their profits were not as high as expected. They laid off 5,000 workers and they were profitable!?!

But I get that. It’s business. Business as usual.

It’s just that I can’t live by the premiss that the goal is to make as much money as I can.

First it doesn’t resonate with my sense of propriety. Asking what is going to make the most money is not the right question for me. Asking instead, What is the proper price for me and for my customers.

Second, I guess as someone who reads the Bible and has decided to believe it to be true and to both obey Jesus’s teachings and to follow the examples that I find in the pages, I can’t seem to get past 2 Corinthians 8: 13-15:

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”

Again in the 30th chapter of Proverbs this is reiterated, albeit a bit differently.

“Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

I guess my struggle is that our pricing structures in some way reflect our hearts. And I want my pricing to reflect a Biblical heart.

And boy is it a struggle.

Everyone always says that Christians’ lives should look different than the world. I guess I had always missed the small print – except when it comes to making money.

I remember reading a biography of Rich Mullins. He was a hugely popular Christian recording artist in the 90’s. Superstar huge. And yet amidst his fame (and fortune, but more on that later) he moved to an Indian reservation in Arizona where he taught music to Native American Kids while living in a trailer house.

When asked about how much money he made from his music by a journalist, Rich responded truthfully that he didn’t know. You see Rich had his studio send all of his checks to his church and had the church pay him a salary that was at the time, around $24,000 a year. (Read about it here)

Rich, like my Bible reading habit, challenge me.

I don’t in any way want to walk in condemnation of others and how they price their products. I price my products too and if I were to condemn, then the proverbial log is in my eye.

I guess I just want to see a conversation take place, to see some reflection and, to get some help in understanding it all myself. I am trying to walk this out well and proper and in good conscience.

Rich Mullins and the Bible keep me uncomfortable though. So uncomfortable that I do things like give all of the proceeds of my guide sales this month to Blood:Water Mission to fight HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. [read about it now]

Andy, in the blog post that prompted this exploration, ended his post by asking, “Would you spend $30.00 on a book?”

And for me it led me to my own question, “Would I charge $30.00 for a book?”

If you are looking for a great Christmas present for someone you know, check out Rich Mullins: A Devotional Biography: An Arrow Pointing Toward Heaven (That is an affiliate link).

Wandering and Wondering

I began this blog in a rocket launch flame of glory back in June and did well to break through the stratosphere in the first three months, publishing three to four weekly posts.

But then I got lost in space.

I’ve wandered a bit as I worked to gain focus on other aspects of life – namely resettling after four and a half years living in Turkey and working to get my income generating corners of the web up and running in a way that pays the bills.

Well we aren’t really resettled yet and, while the other sites are not yet paying all of the bills, they are beginning to pay more of them.

Thankfully, our bills are pretty minimal right now.

Anyway, I’d like to work at writing more here again. A little every day perhaps. A few times a week if I’m doing well.

We’ll see how it goes and I hope I’ll keep up with it all. I’ll do my best because I know that:

Good intentions are fodder on a field of broken dreams.

If you are on Twitter, you can tweet that.

Friday Poems: Technology

We have been in the process of moving into our new home in Freeman, South Dakota and in that process have unpacked countless boxes and bags, some of which were packed over five years ago. It has led to more than a few interesting discoveries, one of which was a yellow piece of legal paper with a poem scribbled on it.

I believe I wrote it sometime between 2002 and 2004 while we were living in the Twin Cities. I find it interesting as it reflects my long-standing and nuanced distrust of technology and innovation. It is the tension I still live in and in fact, live in now more than ever as I work to craft a business based on technology and the innovation that has given us the world-wide web in all of its fullness.

– – – – – – – – – –

It has come

to save us from

the mundane tasks

of paper and pen.

Instead of letters

of time and of thought,

emails are sent

and emails are caught.

Instead of visits

within sight of a friend,

chat rooms entice us

to a life of pretend.

Life will be better

is the thought of the day

as technology and innovation chase us

into the grave.

Cobbled Together

Thoughts on faith, the great commission and our cobbled together life.