so, this morning, i’m heading out to the desert. for those not familiar with san diego, we’re bounded by mountains to the east. and on the eastern side of those is a vast and dry desert, stretching to arizona. it only take about an hour from where i live to get over the mountains and into the desert.

there is a lovely older couple in my church who have a cabin in a fairly remote canyon out there. it’s been in their family since the husband was a little boy. i spent a few days out there on one of my silent retreats a few years ago, and have been wanting to return ever since. many of the pastors at my church head out there monthly for a silent 24 hours (the owners are wonderfully generous with their place).

i’m not just doing 24 hours, or even 3 days. i’m going for 6 days. no cell phone signal, no internet. and the most profound silence i think i’ve ever “heard” (or, would that be “not heard”?). i am not a person who has a natural connection with my emotions, though i’ve grown a lot in this area in the past 6 years. so i need to be intentional about creating space for the grief i feel is bubbling just below the surface. i’m bringing a handful of books, and some homework assignments from a therapist friend. i’m only taking my laptop because i want to do some journaling, and it’s easier for me to type than write long hand.

in the old ysmarko blog days, when i would leave town like this, i would load up a full schedule of posts, set to go live each day. but that’s not the whyismarko way. since i’m going to be silent in the desert, i figure this blog might as well be silent also. :)

about two or three years ago, i started dramatically decreasing the amount of speaking engagements i was taking. then, earlier this year, i stopped taking them altogether, in an attempt to focus more of my time and focus on ys and my family. but now, things have all changed, of course!

so, i’m trying to book speaking engagements for youth events, youth ministry events, or even preaching in churches, between now and the end of may. i know that’s a short window, and the speakers for most winter camps and other events in that window have mostly been lined up months ago. but, since i don’t yet know what i’m going to be doing with the rest of my life, i’m not comfortable taking speaking engagements in the summer or beyond. of course, if i don’t have something lined up by then, i’ll be really wishing i’d booked a bunch of things for the summer!

i also enjoy short-term consulting — either for a church or publisher or ministry, or even for any organization that might want an outside leadership perspective, or, specifically, some help thinking through youth and young adult issues.

if you’d like to talk about having me come to your gathering, or creating something, feel free to contact me (mark.oestreicher[at]gmail[dot]com). or, you can contact tim grable at the grable group: tim@thegrablegroup.com, or (615) 283-0039.

Nurtureshock: New Thinking about Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
a stunning summary of new research about children and teenagers. some of it is truly counter-intuitive and surprising stuff (that still makes total sense as the authors unpack it). a must read for parents and youth workers.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
had heard praise for this book for years, and am glad i finally got around to reading it. a wild crime novel set in a “could have been” current day reality that doesn’t exist, with lots of insights into stuckness, addiction, self-loathing, relationships, power, and tribes.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
massively creative and worthwhile teen fiction, about teenage suicide (on the surface). but really about the horrible way teens can treat each other, and how it feels to be the recipient of that. worthwhile reading for teens and adults who care about them.

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin
the fascinating true story of henry ford’s attempt to create a culturally-influencing utopia in the amazon rainforest, with all kinds of implications for what a friend called “poisonwood business” (really, any exporting of culture, or cultural superiority). a bit long and repetitive at times, though — it would have been a better book at 100 less pages.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose
i found this book thanks to a.j. jacobs’ (the author of the year of living biblically and the know-it-all) recommendation. for those of us who grew up in conservative evangelicalism (and still associate with it), it’s a empathic, human look at our freaky little subculture.

The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark
not an easy read, but worth it. dark leads us through a pithy ride of pop culture and high-brow literary references, along with some great biblical framing, on a journey of beautiful, spiritual skepticism.

I Can See Clearly Now by Brendan Halpin
after my 5th halpin book, i think i can say he’s one of my top 10 american fiction writers. this only-slightly-veiled, fictionalized story of the 20-somethings who came together to write the “schoolhouse rock” saturday morning educational bits in the 70s is all i love about halpin: great story, fantastic character building, great pop culture grounding.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Brendan Halpin
i love halpin’s writing and the way he builds characters. this unlikely romance spends most its real estate developing two separate stories, which, in an ending that is just slightly too expected (by the time you get to it), weave into each other. still, great writing and worth reading.

Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age by Ariel Schrag
nice collection of short comics about my favorite group of people: middle schoolers. most of them show the painful side of early adolescence.

Learning My Name by Pete Gall
an excellent, shockingly honest exploration of identity (particularly, identity as a follower of jesus). seriously, no one writes with the level of vulnerability and honesty that pete gall writes with.

The Wild Things by Dave Eggers
dark and almost suffocating, eggers novelization of the screenplay based on the classic sendek book (where the wild things are) is brilliant, but not a pick-me-up! i was, however, made continually happy by my limited-edition furry cover edition (never have i so enjoyed petting my book whilst reading it).

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
eggers has been in my top-10 authors, mostly for his not-quite-nonfiction books (like a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, and what is the what); so i was intrigued to read this hurricane katrina nonfiction (without any fictionalizing). it doesn’t have the wit that eggers brings into even dark stories elsewhere. but the story itself is so remarkable, i had to remind myself it wasn’t fictionalized). this is a “how does this happen in this country?” story. i felt like i was exercising stewardship by reading it.

Fool by Christopher Moore
chris moore’s books are always funny, and work for me as stories most of the time (this time included). what a way to tell the king lear story (from the perspective of a twisted court jester, that is)!

This Book Does Not Exist: Adventures in the Paradoxical by G. Michael Picard and M. Hayden Picard
i wanted to like this book. but, man alive, is it ever poorly executed. the writing is boring and repetitive. and the layout has to be, literally, the worst i have ever seen in a book; it’s almost completely unreadable. i gave up after about 8 re-starts (making it about 1/2 way through). new title suggestion: this book shouldn’t exist, but, unfortunately, does.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
i read a good amount of YA fiction to keep current on what teens are reading, and gain insight into their world. and even of the YA books that are well written, many aren’t books i would give to my own 15 year-old daughter. but this is one of those great exceptions: a brilliantly creative story idea, told with craft and great characters, and it brings up all sorts of things to ponder. this is what YA fiction should be like. set in the near future, america has resolved the right to live/choice wars by creating a new “compromise” where life is protected from conception, but that teenagers can be “unwound” — the dismantling of all their parts, every cell of which is kept alive and used for something else. the story follows three “unwinds” as they wrestle with the implications of their impending process.

Motley Rock Stories by Jack Valentine
this self-published autobiography tells the rock-and-roll story of the first drummer to play upside down (long before tommy lee), and played – and lived with – mick mars, who went on to motley crue fame. the writing isn’t perfect, by any stretch (which is often the case with self-published books), and the author seems to still have some issues he hasn’t fully worked out; but it’s a fun insider look at the world of an on-the-brink-of-success rocker from the 70s. and he happens to attend the same church i do, and his kids have all gone through our youth group!

Notes from the Teenage Underground by Simmone Howell
well written and creative, this is one of those YA books i’d wrestle with giving to its target audience (let’s say, 14 – 16 year olds). there’s great realism and a peek into teenage relationships (particularly, girls’ relationships, focusing on an urban-hip girl named gem and her identity seeking). but there’s also a good dose of sex, drugs and alcohol. yup, those aspects can be part of the realism, i understand. but they seemed, at times, more about making the book “sexy” than actually adding to the storyline. still, a very well written book.

Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership by Jud Wilhite, Mike Foster
this little book had so much cool potential, but has understandably caused quite a stir among asian american christians (and others). it gave me flashbacks to the skits that teach episode, even though the content of the books is completely different. and while the writing is accessible, and the suggestions are all good and well, there’s not much new insight or depth. i felt like i was reading something i’d read (and heard) many times before, but in hipster packaging that’s causing massive problems for the authors and publisher.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
while i’d read and loved gladwell’s earlier books, i was reluctant to read this because of all the hype surrounding it. but the hype was accurate, and this book will shape my thinking even more than “the tipping point” or “blink”. we all hold to some myths about success that are so common, we’re convinced they’re fact. gladwell patiently (via reporting on research and great storytelling) turns over rock after rock, exposing the counter-intuitive truth about how and why people succeed (or don’t).

A Tale of Two Youth Workers: A Youth Ministry Fable by Eric Venable
wow! what an excellent little book, written as a fable, about faith development in teenagers. not only should every youth worker (and parent of a teen) read this book, it really has implications for anyone interested in faith development. a quick read, and very well written.

really, as i look back over the past year, i’m just stunned at how much god has been lovingly preparing me for this transition.

- last december, when i was told i had to re-organize youth specialties, there was a week or so when i thought i was supposed to leave also. it created a massive panic within me, that, in hindsight, i wouldn’t trade for anything. even when i settled back into my role, i was left with a new awareness that my identity and my work were completely enmeshed, in a very unhealthy way. i was struck with the question: if i were to lose my job for any reason, who would i be? and, the really disequilibrating bit of that was that i did not have an answer to the question. sure, i had the cognitive answers. but they weren’t “soul answers.” i started down a path of unraveling marko from ysmarko (the persona, not the blog). this resulted in lots of prayer and thinking, lots of conversations with my wife and a few trusted friends.

- in march, i began a one year leadership coaching program with john townsend. it’s a 360 style thing, where a team of 8 of us meet with john for a whole day, once a month, and have regular interaction on a closed networking site in-between. i was asked to share, at our opening meeting, what i hoped to get out of this program; and, among other things, i talked about this un-entwining i needed to delve into. in the months since then, this team has walked with me as i’ve wrestled and prodded and queried and cried. really, i can hardly imagine what this current transition would be like for me had i not been processing all of this with that group all year.

- in may, on a ys leadership team retreat, i was deeply struggling with these issues. and, in an exercise our consultant led us through, i had an imaginary conversation with a 60 year-old version of myself, who was worn out and tired, and spoke to me (it was kinda freaky!), saying, “you have to stop!” for about an hour or two, i was interpreting that as meaning that i needed to quit ys! but in a side conversation with our consultant, i realized that i needed to take a significant step away from my “ysmarko” persona, at least for a season. i knew in that moment that i had to shut down my blog, cancel my twitter and facebook accounts, significantly reduce my travel, and pursue presence (both with my family, and with the staff of ys during that difficult season).

- in june, i was still regularly struggling with anxiety over the thought of “well, what else could i even DO with my life?” i brought this up in with my coaching team, and townsend wisely counseled me that my constant stiff-arming of the question (which i saw as a distraction) was actually keeping me from presence. he encouraged me (it was actually my “homework” for that month) to do what felt counter-intuitive: to focus on coming up with some answers to that question, so i could then set it aside for now. i went on a silent retreat, and i met with our consultant (who is also one of my closest friends), and came up with a handful of buckets of things i could imagine being life-giving for me, if a “post-ys” time ever become a reality.

- then, the last few months have been a roller-coaster ride. and i was very emotionally prepared (as much as one can be, i suppose) for the news that i was being let go. even three days before it actually occurred, i connected the dots and walked into the meeting completely knowing what was about to go down.

all of this was god’s grace. all of this was god lovingly preparing me (and, i think, in a sense, preparing ys) for this current season.

oh — one more: a week before i was let go, i got an email from a youth worker i’d never met. she’d been at the ys convention in los angeles, and wrote about a vision she’d had. she expressed that she was uncomfortable emailing me about this, and that she’d never done this before – especially with someone she’d never met. but she’d been standing in the back of a big room (general session), and suddenly had this vision of a man standing at the foot of a mountain, with hiking boots in his hands. he was looking at the mountain, trying to figure out how to best start his climb. then, he noticed that there was a picnic laid out on a blanket next to him. it looked so inviting, and he was conflicted about whether to attack the climb, or sit and enjoy the picnic. she knew the invitation to the picnic was the real deal – the loving invitation of god to sit and rest in god’s love. then, she wrote that she felt god telling her, “this is for marko — i want you to share this with marko.” she wrestled with this, and tried to dismiss it, as she didn’t know me, and thought the whole thing was just too weird. but, weeks after the convention (and one week before i was laid off), she took the courageous step of emailing me, telling me this story, and writing, in the most understated way, “i don’t know if this means anything to you right now or not.”

i was blown away. and that image of the picnic blanket laid out on a grassy hill, with cool fall breezes blowing, and yummy picnic food, has stuck with me in a profound way over this last month.

so, other than the cutesy play on words/sounds, that’s why this blog is now called whyismarko. i’m not done figuring all this out — that’s for sure! but, even when i do land in some other role, i want to be a new man and a new leader. i want to be confident in who i am as a child of god, a husband and father, and as a leader; and i want to lead from those places.

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and now, the technical stuff: i’ve reset feedburner, and the 500 or so of you who were subscribed to the old blog shouldn’t experience any problems. but if you do, just drop that feed, and subscribe to this one. with the help of a friend, all the old ysmarko stuff should be here, but it might take a week or so for all the images to work. and i’m sure there will be technical glitches we haven’t foreseen. if you still have a link on your blog to ysmarko, i’d greatly appreciate it if you would update that to this URL. i’m still not going to re-start my twitter account; but please do feel free to tweet this new URL.

i’m very stoked about reconnecting with the conversation, thinking, and fun we’ve had on this blog in the past. i’ll not be posting with the frequency i once did, because i refuse to become obsessed with this thing. but i expect i’ll show up here a few times a week for now, and see where it goes.

but the craziness of everything is just driving me batty. i told jeannie i feel like a need a sudden, unplanned road trip with a friend — a time of laughter and distraction. jeannie encouraged me to leave my cell phone at home, and get outa town. so that’s what we’re doing. luckily, i have some of those grace-filled friends who are willing to drop everything for the next few days and go with me, and after a few quick calls, found one who said, “sure, i’m in!”

to my friends at the cincinnati national youth workers convention: may god deeply bless your time this weekend. i will be praying that you are rocked with god-moments of epic proportions. i will be praying that the focus is not on controversy, or me, or even on youth specialties, but on jesus, and on the tribe of youth workers jesus so completely adores. may you worship without holding back, listen for the voice of god, be challenged and encouraged, laugh and feel at home. may you know, deeply, that your calling comes directly from god, and that the tribe you’re with this weekend are your people, and they “get” you, and they love you, and they accept you. and, in all of this, may god be glorified this weekend. amen, and amen.

but i’m golfing with tic long today, and that should be just what the doctor ordered. i’m confident we’ll laugh a ton, be obnoxious, lose more golf balls than humanly possible.

i’ve experienced some pretty significant a-ha’s in the past week or two, all around the sustainability of my lifestyle, my identity, and my most important relationships.

a month and a half ago, i started a leadership coaching process with john townsend. and i was asked to talked about myself at the first gathering. i wrote a bit about this on this blog (the whole plate spinning thing). since naming that, i’ve had a few more words to describe the dissatisfaction i’ve been feeling about my life; but i still felt way short of clearly understanding what i needed to do about it.

then, last week, on our ys leadership team retreat, we were spending some time talking about blindspots and roadblocks. to make a long story short, it became very clear to me that two things consistently eclipse the relationships and values that are actually most important to me (especially at this stage in life and work):
1. my family
2. the staff of youth specialties

the two imposters that constantly threaten (or supercede) the things that are most important to me are:
1. my travel schedule
2. being the voice of youth specialties (or, to put it in a more negative way, “nurturing my public persona”)

here’s a thought: our behaviors –> reveal our priorities –> which reveals our true values.

here are a couple photos i snapped in new zealand (ironically — mr. travel) of the “community lounge” on the back side of a church

i took these pics because i thought the sign and location of the “community lounge” said something significant about this church’s value of community. in other words: they might have a community lounge, but they don’t seem to actually value community.

this is a metaphor for why i’m making some big time changes.

i’ve been having a value stand-off, between what i say my values are and how i’m living my life. and it’s eroding (and threatening) my long-term happiness, and the life i really want.

let me get to the point:

1. i’m going to stop nurturing the whole “ysmarko” thing. which means, starting today, i’m going to stop using facebook (i’m planning on deleting my facebook account tomorrow), and stop twittering (i’m going to delete my twitter account tomorrow), and this is my last blog post on ysmarko (at least for the foreseeable future, though i’ll leave the blog sitting here for now).

2. i’m also reframing what “essential travel” is for me, which is allowing me to cut back 50 – 75% on my travel. i won’t be traveling internationally in the next year or two (or ever?), other than our canadian convention. and i’m cutting back on all other travel, other than a few truly essential things as well as family-related and personal stuff.

i know this is going to be hard in many ways, and i’ll likely go through some form of withdrawal. but i’m also excited about the new focus, extra time, and relational presence i expect to experience in the coming months.

i’ve enjoyed the interaction i’ve had with so many of you through this blog, and pray god’s blessing on you, as i ask you to do for me.