future – nickmullis.com

January 18, 2020

Change…

My alarm sounded and I climbed out of the top bunk I had slept in since I was seven. It wasn’t a typical day but I did all the typical things that formed the routine I kind of had. I showered and got dressed and then waited for Mom and Dad to say it was time to go.

The moment came, and as I walked out the back door of our farm house I told myself I wouldn’t look back. As I walked I looked straight ahead and when I climbed into the front seat of the van I closed my eyes until the house was behind me. I wouldn’t look back. My whole world was changing and I was terrified but certain I was going to embrace the future.

In my immature eighteen year old brain I had just spent my last night in my parents house. I was heading to college and it was the end of an era in my life. I would never come home again.

I was gone for a month before I was home for a weekend and in the same bed I had slept in for years. I spent a lot of nights in that same bed for several more years as I faced a lot of change.

When I was younger I didn’t like change. That day leaving for college wasn’t thrilling. I still don’t go looking for change but I accept it when it arrives and sometimes I do seek it out.

I’m not alone either. Our culture is full of sayings, “The good old days…, I remember when…, I wish it could be like it used to be.” They are all notions built on our feeling that change is the enemy.

I wonder what it is that makes change so hard… Is it the fear of the future? We don’t know what is coming or if we will be able to handle whatever it is. We can. We have a whole life time behind us that says we can endure what is coming. We never knew what was ahead of us but we still made it. You didn’t know you would struggle in school. You didn’t know you would have an addiction that would steal a piece of your life, but you’re still here. Someone could have told you, “You’re going to be an amazing mom,” and you laughed at them — but now you are loved by your children. We didn’t know, and yet we made the future our present.

I think the pain of change is more about what we are losing. Where the future is unwritten, the past and present we know and we are comfortable with them. I know how to respond to what has already happened to me. If you start changing things, I’m going to lose things — stability, comfort, an excuse. If things change then I may hurt or someone I know may hurt.

We are a people that avoid pain at all cost, but we shouldn’t. Pain reminds us there is life and it is worth living and worth fighting for.

Here is some advice for the seasons or moments of change…

Don’t go it alone. We were not meant to be lone wolves; we are communal creatures and humanity would be better served if we lived that way. Speak out your fears and the things you will mourn in the midst of the disruption. Share each others burdens.

Don’t let anger rule the day. Change is going to happen. As the old saying goes, you never enter the same river twice. Anger is wasted energy in the world of change, because anger rarely makes things better, it clouds our perceptions and feeds our fears.

Do look for reasons to be excited. The fact that tomorrow will be different from today should stir our sense of adventure. Tomorrow is a chance to make something new, or build on a stronger foundation.

Do invite someone to share in your delight. As Paulo Coelho wrote, “Happiness is something that multiplies when it is divided.”

We only pass through this life once and change is part of the process.

October 3, 2019October 3, 2019

What makes a “house” a “home”?

I’ve lived in three houses in my life. From birth to late age five we lived on “H” street in town. Then we moved to the farm out on Highway 58. Finally, at age 26 I bought and moved into my small house back in town on 17^th street. With the exception of a couple of years in college before I became a commuter my entire life has been lived with those locations as home base.

It’s an interesting question, what makes a house a home? I have thought of each place as home for differing reasons. When I reflect on them they are all still home in a way. I’m not sure home is so much about a location as much as where I allow my heart to settle and the people with which I share the place.

In 2008 I was invited to take part in a conference in South Africa. There were some moments leading up to the trip that still leave me shaking my head. I spent a month misreading my itinerary and missed my original flight. When I got home after realizing I had the wrong departure date I discovered my house had been robbed. The next morning on my way to catch my new flight we stopped by the bank for me to grab some money and I left my debit card in the ATM and didn’t realize it until I was sitting at Dulles airport in Washington DC waiting for my connecting flight directly to Johannesburg. It was an exciting way to start a journey. I did eventually make it to the conference with no more major issues. South Africa is a beautiful country, unbelievable scenery, warm welcoming people, and cool wildlife. A favorite afternoon activity was to go walk the trails around the campground where we were staying. We were walking along a trail and one of my friends asked, “Isn’t it hard to believe that we are on the opposite side of the world? I still can’t get over it.” I said, “You know, I hadn’t even thought about it. It kind of feels a bit like home to me.” I grew up in Southern Indiana. The Hoosier State and South Africa are nothing a like. “I just kind of feel like this is where I am supposed to be right now.”

A soon as I made that statement I stopped in the middle of the trail, “Do you think maybe it’s because of how we believe that we can feel so at home so far from home?”

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” If I am made for another world then anywhere I set foot in this one can become my dwelling because I know it is only a temporary place. My truest home is in the midst of God. Where I find myself now is a gift that I get to enjoy. That means whether in one of three houses, in South Africa, on a mountain, or resting on a beach I can feel at rest because it’s all a weak reflection of the place my spirit longs for and for which it was made.

In 2012 I lost a job that I loved. At that point I had spent a third of my life working for the same organization and I believed I would spend my entire life there. After the end came I was broken and that led to me being broke. I substitute taught and donated plasma and scrapped around doing what I could to literally keep the lights on. Keeping the lights on also meant that I wasn’t making mortgage payments. I limped along for several months and had lots of phone calls with the bank that held the note at the time. Each time I missed a payment my personal embarrassment grew. I was trying to launch a not-for-profit ministry at the time and for the first six months we were definitely not-for-profit. We had been meeting with students for a few months but there wasn’t money to make payroll. Between visiting a school and preparing to meet with 50 students that night I stopped by my house on 17^th street to pick up a few things. There were some papers folded and taped to the front door. I pulled them off and opened them up… I held the foreclosure notice. I was going to lose my house. I didn’t have time to think about it at that moment. There was ministry that had to be done. I pulled myself together I stood in front of a bunch of teenagers that night and told them that God loved them and he saw them where they were and they mattered to Him. In the back of my mind I knew there was a legal document sitting in my car that said in essence, “come up with a bunch of money or get out.”

I walked through the side door of my little house, and sat down in my chair and starred at a painting I have hanging above the mantel. In the silence I realized how numb I was. I didn’t know what to feel so I didn’t feel anything. I looked at the image and said, “God I don’t want to lose my home. I don’t want to lose this place.” I probably repeated it a few times then I was still. In the silence a statement crossed my mind, “Nick, this is a house not your home. I will take care of you.” I had no real reason to believe those words, other than they came from the center of all I believed and still believe. Two days later I walked into a board meeting and told my board of directors my situation and I told them about the conversation I had had sitting in my chair. I told them I was at peace, I didn’t want to lose my house but I was okay no matter what would come. A few days later all the payroll issues were resolved and a couple of significant donations came in, and I was given several months back pay. When the dust settled I had enough money in hand to catch-up the mortgage and pay the legal fees to stop the foreclosure and I still live in my little dumpy house.

What makes a “house” a ”home”? I don’t really know, but I believe it has more to do with the people that live there than it does with a material dwelling. Home is the memories. Home is the people you share it with. Home can be anywhere you set your feet, because this is just a house. My heart still longs for something it can’t experience this side of Resurrection.

July 30, 2019July 30, 2019

The Hen Cackles at Midnight

Oddly enough, a television show about war gave me a sense that everything was right in the world. Some of my fondest childhood memories were hearing the M*A*S*H theme song playing. By the time I was old enough to watch M*A*S*H it was in reruns that came on after Carson. I don’t think I actually saw an episode until I was into middle school but that wasn’t the point when I was a young boy. If I was hearing the theme song play it meant that I had gotten to stay up late with dad. Most of the time I was asleep before the final note played, but I still tried. I was going to cherish every second I had to stay up late. The warmth of my memories of the show meant that I did eventually start watching M*A*S*H. The show fed into my nostalgic personality and love of history. By the time I was a sophomore in high school I had seen every episode at least once and most of them multiple times. As an adult, once a year, I rewatch every episode of the TV series. Like everyone I have my favorite characters, Sidney Freedman, Father Mulcahy and my preferred era (Potter, Hunnicutt, and Winchester seasons).

One of my favorite episodes is found in season six – The Light that Failed. We find the 4077, low on supplies and morale, in the midst of a bitter winter. When the supply truck arrives it’s filled with summer gear and a small package addressed to B.J. Hunnicutt. B.J. rips open the parcel to discover he had been sent a mystery novel – The Rooster Crowed at Midnight. Over the course of the episode the book if torn apart and pages passed around so the entire camp has the chance to solve the mystery together. The problem arrises when Captain Hunnicutt finds the last page and, subsequently, the reveal of the murderer are missing. Eventually they called the, 97 year old, author Abigail Porterfield.

Though they never discovered who the villain was a noticeable change had swept through the camp. Doctors, nurses, and support staff came to life and were talking about the book. A book at the right time in the right place restored the waining spirits of a small displaced community.

A few months ago, my town had its own, “The Rooster Crowed at Midnight” moment. Except for us it wasn’t a book or a rooster. For us it was the painting of a hen named Rose.

Once upon a time ago my town was a center for the art of stone carving. We had carvers that did brilliant and beautiful things with limestone. Our stone works were famous the world over. Limestone is what put us on the map. During the years between the limestone boom and the modern era our heart for art was mostly forgotten. We still talked about it and acknowledged it, but it stirred neither passion nor excitement in the community. We had grown too familiar and too distant. Then the hen appeared. It wasn’t unexpected, the piece had been commissioned. The artist did his work in the middle of the day with onlookers watching him give life to a blank concrete block wall. When all was said and done, looking back at passers-by was a hen speaking love.

Much like the book in M*A*S*H, our hen lifted the spirits of all who saw it. It got us talking about the future again and who we could become as a community. For a moment it reminded us that we have talent and joy and life floating around in our small burg. It gave us a moment of hope that we might continue to come out of the stagnation we have lived in for more than a generation. It’s only a chicken, but it’s also a beacon of hope. We can be a source of greatness again.

I believe in my town.