Post 1 - Need A New Purpose

“You need a new purpose.” 

That’s what my wife told me. 

 I recently became aware that a lot of people are searching for a new purpose, perhaps some of them will want to hear the story of how I discovered mine.

This is an exciting story, I promise that.  My search for a new purpose is like an Indiana Jones adventure, it even took me and my wife to abandoned Mayan cities in Belize, where those popular movies were filmed.  After we climbed an ancient pyramid, our guide told us a folklore legend.  This Mayan tale changed my life.  It led me to discover my new purpose! 

If you are looking for a new purpose, join me as I tell my story describing this search for mine. 

You don’t have to go to Belize to discover what I learned.  I’m putting my story on this blog, convenient and free for anyone who wants to read it, anyone who is trying to find a new purpose. 

 

This is Post 1. To continue, scroll down or go to Post 2.

Post 2 - Discover Your Purpose

 

 

Post 2 - Discover Your Purpose

 

When the book, The Purpose Driven Life, was published, it quickly sold more than thirty million copies.  A lot of people were searching for a purpose.

I wasn’t.  Unlike those who bought that book, I had a purpose, or I thought I did.  I designed computer systems and wrote the instruction books for them.  I thought that was my purpose and I was satisfied with it, but the company where I worked was forced to downsize, and I was given an early retirement, too early.  I was not ready for it. 

Two friends and I invested a few thousand dollars in a business, and that became my new purpose.  For a brief time, I was happy with that, but I began to spend long hours at the new business, and even longer hours worrying because it was not working out as well as we expected.  It was losing money month after month, and I was becoming anxious. That was my retirement it was losing.

Then was when Virginia, my wife, said I needed a new purpose.  Our daughter had a different idea, she told me that I needed a break.  She said I needed to get away from the business for a while, far away.  She invited me and Virginia to join her on a vacation to Belize.  While we were gone, maybe the manager would make the business profitable.  That was the manager’s job, and if she did her job then I wouldn’t need to worry about the business anymore.

In this blog, I describe the trip and how it led me to discover the purpose I should have recognized years earlier, but I was too busy taking care of the problems that came with each day and I missed it.

I’m sure that has happened to a lot of people, we become too busy making money and paying bills, and we lose sight of our true purpose.

Fortunately, I was given a second chance.  Thank God for second chances!  Thank God for showing me a second time the purpose I should be following.

It’s never too late for a second chance! 

This is Post 2.  To continue, scroll down or go to Post 3.

 

 

Post 3 - The Book

 

Post 3 – The Book

            

This is Post 2 of the blog telling the story of how I found a new purpose for my life.  The story begins at Post 1, if you have not read that, go there before reading this post.

Earlier, I mentioned Rick Warren’s hugely popular book, The Purpose Driven Life.  That book gives a forty day program of Bible study and it says that after completing the study, God will send a ‘revelation’ to tell you what your purpose is.

Are you waiting for ‘a revelation’ to give you a purpose?

This blog tells how God revealed my purpose to me, but I cannot predict what God will do for you.  Somebody who predicts what God will do is called a prophet, and I do not claim to be a prophet.  That’s a risk I am not willing to take, because a prophet’s predictions must come true.  If they do not, then the prophet is false and the penalty is very severe.

Rick Warren’s book does not give any examples of people actually using his recommended ‘revelation’ method to find their purpose.  I also have not seen any testimonials from the many thousands who have read his book.  I see no indication it has worked for anybody.

 Neither does the book define what a purpose is, the purpose that book’s forty day program claims to help you find.  This blog corrects that omission by that book.  It defines what a purpose is, far different than I used to believe, and it also tells how God sends us signs we can look for that will tell if we are on the correct path, or if we need to change direction.

If you are using the book, The Purpose Driven Life, to help you find your purpose, perhaps you want to read this blog as well.   That book provides a religious theory, a start for your search, and this blog describes a practical approach to that personal problem, a way to complete the search.  This blog makes extensive use of three rules I learned while searching for my purpose.  I call them ‘Principles For Understanding Your Purpose.’  These three principles are:  (1) A purpose is not a job or a goal, (2) God is no dummy, he plans ahead, and (3) Our purpose is not kept a secret, life sends us indicators that point the way.

I realize that some people will not like the practical method described in this blog.  They will say it does not depend enough on faith, they prefer the religious theory approach described in that book.  I am not criticizing religion, some people consider me religious, but I have an unforgettable experience with that religious theory approach.

Years ago, a friend of mine was known for his great faith, he depended on prayer, miracles, and revelations to help him make his practical decisions.  For example, he and his family did not go to the doctor when sick, they kneeled together and prayed about it, and their good health always returned.  He said that is what happens when two or more believers ask for something in the name of Jesus.  He had great faith.

I figured it was because they were young and had never encountered a severe illness.

When his wife discovered a lump in her breast, he announced that they were going to cure it ‘by faith.’  He asked his most righteous friends, those with the greatest faith, to pray for God to remove the lump, because ‘the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.’  He didn’t ask me.  I suppose I did not meet the qualifications.

The lump continued to grow. 

He searched the Bible to find out what they should do next, and he carefully followed each instruction for healing the sick.  By this time, his wife was obviously in trouble.  He called the elders of the church to come and pray over her and anoint her with oil in the name of the Lord, as stated in the letter from James, and they did.  She died a painful death.

Faith is good.  But, don’t bet your life on it!

I realize that I may be criticized for lack of faith.  I have faith that God knows what he is doing, but not the faith that my actions or my rituals will impose any requirements on God.

The following posts tell the entire story of how I discovered the way God was revealing my purpose.  Perhaps he is revealing yours the same way.  It’s practical, and it’s free. 

If this blog is free, why am I doing it?  What am I getting out of this? 

I am a storyteller, that’s all.  I do it because I enjoy it.  I don’t want somebody to miss this story because they won’t spend money on a book they may not like and may not work, so I’m putting it on this blog.  If you don’t like it, you haven’t wasted any money.  But if it works for you as it did for me, it can change your life.

I don’t guarantee that.  I’m not a prophet, you know.  I’m just a storyteller.

To continue, scroll down or go to Post 4.

 

Post 4 - The Getaway

Post 4 - The Getaway

 

This is Post 4 of the blog telling how I found a new purpose for my life.  The story begins at Post 1, if you have not read that, go there before reading this post.

Earlier, I told you that I thought I knew my purpose and I was satisfied with it, but then I was given an early retirement and I invested my savings in a business.  It began losing a lot of money and I became very anxious, that was my retirement it was losing!

Virginia, my wife, said I needed a new purpose.  Our daughter had a different idea, she said I needed to get away from the business for a while and invited us to go with her on a vacation to Belize. 

While there, we visited the ruins of an ancient Mayan city and its pyramid.  The following photo shows Virginia at the top of the pyramid overlooking the city.  

 

 

Most people have heard of the Mayans, but know little about them.  Those ancient people built a large and powerful empire, then suddenly walked away from their magnificent cities and disappeared from history.  Nobody knows why, that is the famous Mayan mystery. 

They did not abandon thatched huts in a jungle, as I imagined before my getaway to Belize.  Notice the remains of a thousand year old palace in the distance behind Virginia.  As you can see, the city was planned well, with a plaza running from the pyramid to the palace.  It reminded me of the plaza at the center of our nation’s capital.

Our Mayan guide told us that ‘evil spirits’ lived in the abandoned city.  That strange tale had been passed down in his nearby village for an unknown number of generations.  I am a folklore enthusiast, and I learned long ago that every folklore tale contains at least a scrap of truth.  I wanted to find the scrap of truth in this ‘evil spirits’ tale, but I could not pursue it that day.  Our bus needed to rush us back to the ship, it would leave in a few hours.

That folklore tale led to a new theory for the reason the cities were abandoned.  It’s the beginning of my story about how I discovered my purpose.

The story is exciting, I promise you that.  It’s like an Indiana Jones adventure, searching through palaces and temples that had been abandoned for a thousand years and swallowed by the tropical jungle.  Not only did I find the scrap of truth in that Mayan folklore tale, I also discovered the purpose God intended for me, a purpose he had revealed to me years before but I did not notice it at the time.

That’s easy to do, to miss a sign placed conspicuously before us because we are going about our busy lives.  I’m confident that has happened to others besides me.  My story tells how I corrected the problem, how I discovered my purpose and how others can also.  It’s easy, and it will not cost you any money, only a little time.  You don’t have to go to Belize, as I did, you can do it at home.  All you have to do is read this blog, it tells the entire story and the principles I learned while seeking my purpose.

To become a follower of this blog, go to the top right of this post and sign on.  I believe you will enjoy it, and I hope you tell others about it.

To continue, scroll down or go to Post 5.

 

Post 5 - Enjoy Your Purpose

 

 

 

Post 5 - Enjoy Your Purpose

 

This is Post 5.  To start at the beginning of the story, go to Post 1.

I previously told you that Virginia and I went on a trip to Belize with our daughter.  She has an amazing attitude, nothing ever bothers her so much she cannot laugh at it.  She knows her purpose, and she enjoys doing it.  God wants you to enjoy your purpose like she does, I’m confident of that.  God does not give you a purpose you will hate.

One of the indicators to show you have found your purpose is that you enjoy doing it.  That’s not the only indicator, of course.  Just because a young person enjoys rock music does not mean God has given them the purpose of being a rock musician.  Everybody can’t be a rock star.

Look for another indicator as well.  Are you having success with some God-given ability?  That is important.  Don’t give up your day job just because you enjoy doing something else, you must see true success at it.

In a previous post, I mentioned three rules I learned while searching for my purpose.  I call them ‘Principles For Understanding Your Purpose.’ 

 

 

A Purpose Is A Journey

 

Principle # 1 is that a purpose is not a job, as I previously thought it was.  Neither is a purpose a goal or a destination, a purpose is a journey.

A job is an important part of your purpose because you spend a lot of time at it and it pays for your journey, but it is not your entire purpose.  I discovered that when I was given the early retirement.  A friend told me I could retire from my job, but I could not retire from my purpose.  He was correct.  I do not have to go to the office any longer, but the journey continues.

A purpose a not a job and neither is it a goal, such as building a dream house or accumulating a certain value in an annuity.   Neither is it a destination you intend to reach some day, like moving to Florida or to Hawaii.  Your purpose is more than any of those, your purpose is the journey of your life.

Before I could move on with my search, I needed to recognize this first principle, that a purpose is a journey. 

For me, it has been an exciting journey, keep reading and you will see.

 

 

God Is No Dummy

 

That is principle # 2.

The popular book, The Purpose Driven Life, says that after we spend forty days reading the Bible verses it lists, God will provide a ‘revelation’ to show us our purpose.  It also says that to find our purpose, we cannot begin by looking at ourselves. 

Where do we look?  How will God reveal our purpose?  As I thought about that, I realized that God is no dummy, he plans ahead.

When God gives us a purpose, surely he also provides us with a means to accomplish it.  So, if God gave me a purpose, he also provided me with some means, possibly some God-given ability.   If I could discover that ability, it would be my ‘revelation,’ it would point to my purpose.

I agree with the popular book that we should read the Bible because it shows us the way God wants us to live, but to find the specific purpose for which he created us, we need to discover the specific ability he provided us to accomplish that purpose.  This tells me that the first thing we should do when seeking our purpose is to look at ourselves, and that is the opposite of what the book says. 

Had God given me an ability?  If I could find it, then I would have a good start at discovering my purpose.

Then came the darkest time of my life, an interruption of my search for my purpose.

Christmas Day of 2004, the big news was not about the holiday.  A tsunami was sweeping across southern Asia and that dominated TV.  Thailand had been especially hard hit, many hundreds had been confirmed dead and thousands were missing.  Phuket was named as a city in the center of the devastation, a wave more than thirty feet high had smashed into it, and had swept completely across its nearby islands.

Our son was vacationing at an oceanfront resort on one of those small islands near Phuket.

When a tsunami sweeps across an island, it totally destroys everything in its path.  It washes away the resorts, the people in them and all records.  There’s no way to find out who was there or where they were staying.  Rescue teams rush to the scene, try to locate survivors, then collect the bodies of the victims.  They depend heavily on inquiries of relatives and friends to determine who was there, and to identify the victims.

Our daughter sent an inquiry so they would know our son had been there.

The first day, we did not hear anything.  Virginia kept her eyes glued to the TV, hoping for a glance of our son.  The second day we did not hear anything, and the third day was the same.  The situation looked grim.  The confirmed dead rose to the thousands, and the number missing was in the hundreds of thousands.  Our son was included among the missing.

We still held hope because he was not yet confirmed as dead, but that hope was fading.  Virginia would not give up, she continued watching for him on the TV.

Times like this are when a person needs faith.  Some will say I do not have faith because I do not believe I can perform rituals and then God will give me what I ask.  Instead, I believe that I must adapt to what God sends my way, whether I like it or not, because God always prevails.  That also requires faith, you know.

I once worked with a Jewish man who had an amazing faith.  We designed computer systems together, and when a situation looked totally hopeless, he would say, “This too, shall pass.”

He told me that his faith was based on history.  When his ancestors were slaves in Egypt and had no hope, God provided a miracle.  That miracle was called ’The Exodus.’  Crossing the sea was not the end of their problems, but they learned to hang in there, adapt and keep going.  All of them suffered and many died, but in the end God prevailed.

In times of trouble, my friend thought about the Exodus experience, and that carried him through. 

I have my own Exodus experience.

I was working for a manager who had a lot more ambition than ability.  I disputed his judgment, and he did not like that.  He would have fired me on the spot, but my work history was too good to allow that.  He was my manager, though, so he could give me enough new appraisals to push my previous accomplishments off the records.  He began the process, and he first made me ineligible for a transfer.  He had enslaved me, I could not escape until he had taken his pound of flesh.

I was living in Texas, my house had a big mortgage and was in the ranch country, beyond the limits where buyers were looking for homes.  It would take a long time to sell, so I was stuck there.  If I lost my job, I would be bankrupt before the house sold.  I could not get another job there because no other employer in the area needed my skills.

My situation looked hopeless.  I was sitting at my desk and thinking that I could not survive in Texas.  I needed to get to some other factory where I would be given a chance to prove what I could do, but I was blocked from getting a transfer.

I was sitting at my desk, silently talking with God about my hopeless situation, and the telephone rang. 

“This is Jack Stuart.  How would you like to come back to Raleigh?”

I had worked with Jack about ten years previously, had lost track of him.

“I’d love to Jack, but I’m not eligible for a transfer.”

“You let me handle that.” 

In a couple of days, I was sitting in Raleigh and Jack was explaining his problem.  He was responsible for instruction manuals of an important product that was costing the company more than a million dollars a month in service calls.  The instruction manuals needed to be rewritten, and fast.  No writer on his staff could do it.

A million dollars a month was enough to override my manager’s hold on me.  I went back to Texas and called a moving company.  God had opened a path for me across that sea.  That was my Exodus.

I rewrote the manuals, and the first customer to buy the product afterward installed the equipment without a single call for help.  I was back on the correct path, back where I needed to be.

From that experience, I gained the faith that no matter how hopeless a situation seems to be, God will prevail.  Some people may suffer and some may die, but God will prevail.  I needed to accept that.  I didn’t expect to ever see my son again, but my job was to hang in there and adapt, keep the remaining family together, then keep going.  God would prevail, and maybe someday I would understand.

Then an e-mail came from Bangkok.   Our son was alive! 

He had been miles out to sea and sixty feet deep on a dive when the tsunami came by.  It passed harmlessly over him.  He was at the very safest place he could have been, because a tsunami out on the ocean is merely a long and low hill of water.  As it reaches the shallows near a shore, that is when it rises up as a breaking wave and builds its devastating force.

On that vacation, our son spent very little time under water, the scuba tanks do not hold enough air to stay down for long, and soon as the air runs out, the boat returns to the dock. 

Sometimes, a miracle is a matter of a normal event occurring at exactly the right time.  If our son had not been diving, he would have been on the beach when that thirty foot wall of water smashed ashore.

I told him that God must have a purpose for him, that’s why he was kept safe.

When he returned home, he gave me and Virginia two airline tickets to Belize.  He knew we enjoyed our trip there and we wanted to go back.  He also gave me a Rolex.  I could not afford to buy such an expensive watch, those things cost thousands.

I asked if it was a real Rolex.

“If it isn’t” he said, “I wasted ten dollars with a street vendor in Bangkok.”

The airline tickets, however, were authentic.  Virginia and I returned to Belize, and I resumed my search for the scrap of truth in that Mayan folklore tale the guide told us.

This was an exciting adventure.  We explored the ruins of several abandoned cities and we also visited nearby villages of Mayans, descendants    of the ancients who had mysteriously walked away from those cities.

We spent many days there, searching for the scrap of truth in the Mayan folklore tale.  That scrap of truth led me to a new theory for why the ancients abandoned their cities, and it also led me to find my purpose. 

I am now convinced that this trip, given to us by our son after his miraculous escape from the tsunami, was a part of the means God provided to help me find my purpose, whatever that was.   Did God also provide me with some ability?  If I could find that, would it point me toward my purpose?

 

 

Signposts

 

          The first principle I learned was that a purpose is more than a job or a goal.  The second principle was that God is no dummy, when he gives a person a purpose, he also provides that person the means, sometimes an event but often an ability, to accomplish it.

Principle # 3 is God does not keep a person’s purpose a secret, he sends us indicators to show if we are on the right path or if we need to change direction.  I call those indicators ‘signposts,’ but you can miss them like I did before I learned to look for them.

As I tell the story about my search for the scrap of truth in that ‘evil spirits’ folklore our Mayan guide told us, I describe more than exploring the pyramids and the cities that were abandoned a thousand years ago.  I also describe the way God provided for me to achieve the purpose he had planned, and I tell about the signposts he sent to warn me when I strayed off the path.

If you like this blog, please go to the end of this post, or any post, and put your comment on it.  That’s easy to do, I will appreciate hearing from you and I am certain that others will, as well.

To continue, scroll down or go to Post 6.

 

 

Post 6 - Search for my Purpose

Post 6 - Search For My Purpose

 

 

          This is Post 6.  To start at the beginning, go to Post 1. 

As I began the search for my purpose, I recognized a signpost that had been placed in front of me years previously.  At that time, I was not searching for my purpose and I missed it.

I was working for a computer company, and my employer assigned me to the job of writing educational materials.  I did not merely choose to be a writer because it was the ‘cool’ thing to do, and I did not discover I had that ability, my employer did. 

An important point here is that my employer did not make me a writer, my employer merely recognized a God-given ability I did not realize I had, and assigned me to that work because it saved the company a considerable amount of money.  Helping customers solve their problems is very expensive, and well written instruction books reduce that expense.

I enjoyed the writing, that should have told me ‘writing’ could be my purpose, because God does not give a person a purpose they do not enjoy.  But I did not enjoy the aggravation of going through the review process for everything I put on paper, so I needed to learn the discipline of examining the facts and describing them carefully.

I spent more than ten years learning that discipline, with an editor and about a dozen engineers reviewing and criticizing every paragraph I wrote.  I did not realize they were teaching me how to write better, but eventually I learned from them that every word is important, not only to editors and reviewers but also to readers.

Unfortunately, I did not recognize this success at ‘writing’ as a signpost the first time it was put in front of me.  Years later, that signpost was put in front of me again, and I realized I had seen it before.  This second time I paid attention to it.

Other signposts were put in front of me, and I missed each of them.

The second signpost was a biography I wrote for Lem Ward, a well-known artist.  He and his brother are considered by many to be among the pioneers of today’s popular wildfowl art movement, and the North American wildfowl art museum (go to www.wardmuseum.org, this site will surprise you) is named after them.

He was a friend of my grandfather, who was a ‘pot hunter’.  When I was young, our family ate the fish and oysters my grandfather and my father caught from the Chesapeake Bay, and the ducks they killed ‘for the pot.’ 

Duck hunters need decoys, fake ducks that were carved from wood in those days, and this friend of my grandfather made decoys so realistic that some people bought them to display as works of art, and these ‘mantle place birds,’ as he called them, eventually made him famous.

My mother called me, said Lem had suffered a stroke and was confined to his bed.  She suggested I write a book about him, so I visited him and asked permission to write the book.  At first he was reluctant, but I found a publisher to print it, and he agreed to let me write it.  His daughter sent me letters that I turned into a biography.  Enough copies of the book sold that the publisher considered it a success and wanted me to write another book.  That was a sign I could write about something besides computer programs, but I did not have the proper experience to write another book for that publisher’s audience, so I did not accept his offer.  I did not consider myself to be a writer, it was merely a job.  

 The next signpost came when my brother asked me to write a book to defend the Chesapeake oystermen.  Oysters were becoming scarce in the bay, and marine scientists were claiming the problem was caused by the oystermen catching so many that not enough remained in the bay to multiply and replenish those being caught.  These scientists were recommending that the state of Maryland place severe restrictions on the oystermen, so severe the oystermen would be put out of business.  The oystermen claimed they were the victims, not the villains, they said pollution running off the land was killing oysters, and that was the reason for the decline.  

I wrote the book, using mostly my brother’s experience as my source material, and I tried to find a publisher for it.  The book was turned down, so I decided to publish it myself.  Sales were slow until a distributor in the Baltimore area put the book in his catalog, then it became very popular in bookstores around the bay.  It caught the attention of the Maryland legislators and the restrictions were never passed.  The book sold enough copies that I made more money on it than my annual salary for my regular job of writing about computer systems.  This proved my writing would sell, but I did not have another marketable subject so I continued writing about computer systems.  I still did not consider myself a writer.

The next signpost came when the director of a non-profit group asked me to write a request for a financial grant to complete a study about an impending environmental disaster.  The population of an island was growing so much it would soon pollute the drinking water, making the island uninhabitable.

I volunteered to write the request, it was for a large grant of money and the director was informed that our request was the best of more than eight hundred seeking the available funds, and some of those requests were written by professional grant seekers.  I did not make any money by writing that request, and only a few people read it.  Still, it was a big success.  The committee that read the request gave the funds to the environmental group, and they created a plan that would save critical land from development to protect the drinking water on the island.

I learned from this that a success in writing does not depend on selling a lot of books.  Your audience is not always large, but you can accomplish a worthwhile goal, anyway, by merely meeting their needs. God sometimes gives us a job where we work in the shadows and never appear in the spotlight.

This success, meager as it was, served as a signpost showing that I could write about a variety of subjects, but I still did not consider ‘writing’ to be my purpose, so I tried to start a business when my job disappeared to downsizing. The business lost money.

My failure at that business was a signpost I could not miss.  I obviously did not have the natural ability to run a business, this was not the first time I had seen that sign.  Earlier, I had failed in the publishing business until a distributor put my book in his catalog and began selling it.  He took over the business part of the publishing and left me with only the ‘writing’ part, and I was successful at that.

My failures in business were unmistakable signs that this was not what God intended for me.  I could easily see the way the signposts were pointing.

I knew what I should not do, but what should I do?  What was my purpose?

If you have not yet signed on as a follower of this blog, it’s easy.  To learn more about how I discovered my purpose, go to the top right of this page and join this site. 

Scroll down to continue this story, or go to Post 7.

 

 

Post 7 - Return to Belize

 

Return to Belize
 

This is Poat 7.  To start at the beginning, go to Post 1.
 

Previously, I told you that our daughter invited Virginia and me to go with her to Belize for a vacation.  She wanted to get me away from the business that was causing me such agony.  While in Belize, our Mayan guide told us an unusual folklore tale about ‘evil spirits.’  That tale had been passed down for an unknown number of generations in his village near the deserted city.  I suspected that tale began with some traumatic event there, possibly a thousand years ago when the ancients abandoned their city.  I believed it could hold a scrap of truth that would help us understand the famous Mayan Mystery, why they left so suddenly and never returned.  I could not pursue the tale at that time because we had to hurry back to our ship.

When we returned home, I began to study Mayan history as intently as possible, even though a great distance now separated me from where it all happened.  I looked for it on the internet, I watched for it on TV history channels, I read books and old National Geographic articles about it. 

I found that whatever happened to those Mayan cities was unexpected, and it happened suddenly.  The ancients left behind cook pots and tools that are normally carried when people move.  Jewelry and even jade carvings were also left behind in the abandoned cities and were found hundreds of years later, so the people appear to have fled in panic and they did not even return to retrieve their valuables.

Why?  Nobody knows.

 

 

Go home and write something.

 

After the visit to Belize, Virginia and I both went back to our normal routines.  I walked about two miles every morning, and I sometimes stopped at a small church a few blocks from our home.  If the pastor wasn’t busy, I would briefly talk with him.  He told me he was working on an important course that should help him in his ministry, and he needed to complete a paper as his final step.  He said that preaching came natural for him, but he was not a writer.  This paper was causing him great difficulty and he was behind schedule.  He may not meet the deadline.

I told him that writing came natural for me, and I offered to help him organize the paper but he would have to write it.  He completed the paper after only a few sessions of me working with him.

I then explained my problem, I told him that Virginia said I was sliding toward depression and needed a purpose.

“You need to go home and write something.”

“Write what?”

“I don’t know.  You just need to go home and write something,” he said, and he told me, “You need to embrace that depression.”

“No way.  I’m going to do everything I can to avoid it.”

He said that God sometimes sends desperation to force someone to change direction.  This depression may be a blessing sent to make me search for my true purpose. 

While I was helping him, he became convinced I had a God-given ability to write.  He insisted that I consider ’writing’ to be my purpose, and that I should resume it.  Perhaps he was correct, I had written about fifty computer instruction books, some more than three hundred pages, but I never considered writing to be my purpose.  It had been my job, and an aggravating job, at that.  I liked the writing part, but getting a book approved by the engineers was something I endured to make the money to pay my bills.  A job was all it had been to me.

Perhaps he was correct.  Perhaps ‘writing’ was my purpose.  How could I find out? 

Like he said, I needed to write something.  That would be the test.

Write what? 

 

 

A Novel Idea

 

My years as a technical writer had not given me anything interesting to write about, and my computer information was now obsolete.  I would need a different subject.

I did have one experience that had been exciting, the trip with our daughter to Belize.  While we were visiting the ruins of a city the ancient Mayans mysteriously abandoned a thousand years ago, someone asked our guide if he ever came to these ruins as a young boy, and I remember his exact words.

“No, never!  The old folks told us evil spirits live here.”

I was intrigued by his ‘evil spirits’ folklore tale.  I grew up in a maritime town beside the Chesapeake Bay and collected folklore stories the old oystermen told as they sat around the store near the docks.  I learned that every folklore tale has at least a scrap of truth in it.

The scrap of truth in this tale probably explained why many Mayans of this nearby village do not go to the ruins.  Could it also tell the reason their ancestors suddenly abandoned the city a thousand years ago, right at the peak of their achievements, without leaving a clue as to the reason they left or where they went?  I do not know of any other people recorded by history who had done that.  Researchers have offered several theories for why they did, but each of them has a serious flaw and could not possibly be the answer.  Could this folklore tale provide a clue the researchers had missed?

Perhaps it could.  Archeologists had searched for clues by excavating around the pyramids and among the ruins.   Perhaps I had learned something from these villagers those researchers had not discovered.

I wanted to spend more time trying to learn about those ‘evil spirits,’ so I began to study Mayan history as intently as possible.  I found that whatever happened at that city was sudden and unexpected, and the abandonment was complete.  The ancients appear to have fled the city in panic, and they never returned.

Why?

When our son gave us airline tickets so we could return to Belize, this was my opportunity to learn more about those ‘evil spirits.’ 

This trip, Virginia and I spent enough time in Belize so we could return to those ruins and also visit nearby Mayan villages where the people followed many of the old ways.  From them I learned much about their ancestors, and I began to understand the scrap of truth in that folklore tale.   This was an important step in discovering my purpose.

What I learned by my visits to the ancient cities, and to the nearby villages inhabited by the descendants of the Mayans who abandoned those cities, helped me visualize life there a thousand years ago.  That led me to develop a theory for why the cities were abandoned.

Could my new theory be the answer when the theories by researchers failed?  That was possible.  A folklore tale about ‘evil spirits’ started my search, but researchers would not discover that tale digging holes in the dirt around pyramids.

What could I do with my theory?  An archeologist would present a research paper, but I could not do that.  I could write a paper, I had no problem writing because I had years of experience at technical writing.  The problem was that I could not present it because nobody would listen.  I did not have the proper credentials.

Then, an idea came to mind.

I could write a novel.  I did not need a degree in archeology for a novel, all I needed was an interesting story.  My search among the pyramids and palaces in Belize was similar to an Indian Jones adventure, and a lot of people like those movies.

This would be a test.  Had God given me the purpose of ‘writing?’  Had he provided me with a story interesting enough to become a book? 

One way to find out, write a book about the Mayan Mystery.  This would tell me if I was on my path of purpose.

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End Post 7