Author: David Paquette

     After leaving Raleigh, Amy & I came back to my parent’s house in Waxhaw, NC. One of our favorite “Grandma & Pops'” house activities is taking short scooter rides around their neighborhood. The boys & I had a blast doing that! I was also able to have some great conversations with my parents, and I definitely felt much closer to them after this visit.

     Truth be told, I had moved the dates for my sabbatical three times. The final time I moved them was because I realized I could be in North Carolina on August 21st (the day of the eclipse). My parent’s house in Waxhaw is about 70 miles from the dead center of the eclipse, and this is much less than the 800 or so in Abilene (obviously). So our plan was to leave my parent’s house and begin our drive home on the day of the eclipse, timing everything so that we could be in South Carolina to see it (genius).

     I’m not sure if eclipse day traffic was news in Abilene, but it was definitely news in the Carolina’s. Several projections predicted that South Carolina would experience the most traffic in the nation, and the interstate that we would be taking (77) would be the worst place in SC. So driving south on country back roads towards the interstate, Amy & I were keeping a keen eye out for traffic. We were both surprised that we didn’t see much at all until we got to the interstate. As we were driving over the overpass I looked north and didn’t see any traffic, and then looked south and saw that the traffic was bumper to bumper, presumably for the entire 40 miles into Columbia!

     Needless to say, we decided to stick to the back roads. We ended up completely avoiding all the traffic we had heard about, and ended up watching the eclipse (it was 2:37 where we were) in an amazing spot with a hundred people or so only 1400 feet from exact dead center! It was a truly memorable experience, and everyone in the family agreed that it was absolutely worth the drive!

     The rest of that day and the next was spent driving to Fort Worth to spend some time with Amy’s mom, and then finally getting back home on Wednesday evening.

     All told, this was a truly awesome experience, and I am so grateful to have been given this wonderful gift! Thanks to Kris & the board, may you reap 100x your investment in me and my family!

    We woke up bright & early on Monday, August 7th, and left our wonderful beach condo on our way to Waxhaw, NC to visit my family. On the way, we stopped in Houston a the NASA visitor’s center there. We were able to get there a little after lunch, and got to see the two things we really wanted to see (the Saturn V rocket and the moon touchstone).

     On the way into the NASA visitor’s center in Houston, Amy posted on facebook that she was with four very excited boys. I know that this will shock all of you, my faithful readers, but I have to admit, it was definitely true: I love rockets. I enjoy museums quite a bit, and aquariums, zoos, etc…, but my level of excitement walking in would definitely have been ‘uncool’ in high school. It’s holy ground I say!!! You hear that the Saturn V is huge, but pictures don’t really do it justice at all. It’s amazing!

     We drove the remaining distance to Waxhaw over the next two days, stopping (accidentally) at the NASA Infinity visitor’s center in Mississippi and then in Atlanta where we spent the night with my Aunt and Uncle. It was great to connect with them, as we hadn’t seen them for six years! My uncle Chuck is the first person who I saw demonstrate how to give in a manner where “your left hand doesn’t know what your right hand is doing.” That being said, he loves to give thoughtful and sometimes funny gifts, so this time he said that he wanted to, “give the boys something to remember Georgia by,” and so he got them all camo hats. Good times.

     We arrived the next day in Waxhaw at my parent’s house, and stayed there until Friday, when we drove up to Raleigh to visit my sister and brother-in-law. It had been four years since we saw them at their wedding reception in Waxhaw. They just moved to the area after my sister got accepted into Chapel Hill’s Psychology program to work on her PhD. While we were there we got to go to a Durham Bulls baseball game (they’re the local AAA team that feeds into the Marlins), visit the Raleigh Children’s museum, and the State Farmer’s market! You guys, they had entire stalls devoted to freshly grown hot peppers. I’m just sayin…

     It was great to catch up with family that we hadn’t seen in years, and spend some time getting to know my brother-in-law! More to come!

     You know, it strikes me as somewhat unfortunate that so many of these “beginning of the sabbatical” blog posts begin the same way. As in, “Wow, what an amazing blessing, and what a wonderful company to work for that would give me an opportunity like this!” I guess it’s unfortunate because by the time any of you read me saying it, you’ll gloss over it because you’ve probably read it on every other blog, and if you’re anything like me, you tend to skim over stuff that looks familiar. All that to say: Jiminey Cricket! What an amazing blessing!

      I spent the first three days of my sabbatical channeling my inner Loper out at Gold Monarch, a healing center here in Abilene. I’ve been working on a how to sum up what they do there for a good 15 minutes now, and I just can’t. They’re amazing. They help people who are hurting. They help people who have given up hope find hope and find healing that seems otherwise impossible. I love them, I believe in them, and I have personally benefited from them. Just google “Gold Monarch Healing Center” and it’ll be the first thing that pops up (well, it is for me anyway). Or just click here.

      The center sits on about 20 acres or so here in Abilene and is covered with beautiful mature mesquite bushes trees – it’s really quite beautiful. I happen to love to tend to trees, and so I had asked David & Amy Black who are the center’s directors and spiritual parents to me & my wife, if I could come out and tend to the trees for a couple days. The initial plan was to prune branches that were too low to drive a lawnmower underneath (it takes a long time to mow 20 acres) in order to make it easier to maintain the property, but what ended up happening was somewhat “prophetic” if you will.

     A couple years ago, the prior owner of the property had planted several oak trees in the middle of the mature mesquites. Why one would do that is beyond me, but the problem was that the mesquites were choking out the oak trees. So I ended up spending three days pruning the mesquite trees in order to make room for the oak trees to grow.

     It’s contemplative and physical work, as the problem is that you have these beautiful mesquite trees that you don’t want to just cut down and destroy, but you also have these young and vulnerable oaks that need to be given space, and are a higher priority than the mesquites. So the contemplative part is, how can you minimize the damage and pruning of the mesquites while ensuring that the oaks end up with what they need? Sometimes you have to just cut an entire mesquite down, which is unfortunate. Sometimes you can only save half of an existing tree, which leaves the tree with a large and painful wound, but the tree is still living. The best is when you can make minor cuts to several trees to give the oak what it needs.

     The physical portion is cutting down trees, chopping them into firewood, and stacking and disposing of the branches (this is a beautifully manicured estate we’re talking about, brush piles just won’t do). One word: “iLoveChainsaws”.

     So the prophetic portion is this: in many ways I feel like I’ve been in a season of pruning as well. The challenge has been (and continues to be) defining priorities in life and making the wisest and least disruptive changes to ensure that (a) the highest priority things in life are placed ahead of lower priority things (even when they’re newer and less mature), (b) we’re respecting and valuing the good things that have already grown in our lives, and (c) that the end result is beautiful.

     Sometimes newer and more important things require the removal of valued and beautiful things in life, and when that happens it hurts and can leave a long-lasting scar on the landscape. It’s unfortunate, but it’s better to remove the mesquite than to lose the oak. Other times you don’t have to remove the mesquite, but you have to cut it back pretty heavily. It hurts the tree, but the tree doesn’t have to die, and hopefully it will recover from the pruning and  flourish in a new and less obtrusive direction. The best is when you can use wisdom to discern how to make minor cuts here and there. That’s zen. Wonderful when it happens, but it’s just not always possible.

     And as far as preparing, well we’ve also been getting ready to leave town for three weeks! Hooray road trips! More to come.