You know, there's nothing like a little upheaval in your life - say, losing a job of eleven-and-a-half years - to shift your perspective around on things. And my perspective has certainly shifted on many things. Some of them have been good shifts, even exciting shifts - but not all of them. Some have been painful and some have been exhausting. And some shifts I've had to wrestle  to the ground and shove out the door. A few times. It's given me a lot to think about...

Thing that bugs me is that I apparently dare not discuss it in any public forum - at least not in any depth. People these days are so freaked out about what a potential employer is going to dig up and use as a reason to reject them as a candidate. Thing about it is, I really don't have much dirt to dig up. I'm not saying I've lived my life as an angel - who has? But I'm pretty transparent when it comes to who I am and where I've been. I don't run around spewing life details to strangers, but if you want to know something about me, usually all you have to do is ask.

Still, one of the things I learned in those 11+ years of working in communications in a church is this: communication is a two-way process. It always, and I mean ALWAYS consists of what is being said and what is being heard. There's the message, and there's the interpretation of that message, and the interpretation is always seen through the lens of the preconceptions of the receiving party. Lenses that, more often than not, we are not even aware we're wearing. I've seen plenty of situations where those lenses skew messages almost beyond recognition.

So I guess in that light, I'll be keeping my thoughts to myself for a while. Maybe some day they'll make some interesting entries in this little corner of blogdom...