Non-Profit?

My daughter asked me yesterday what to tell people when they ask, “what does your dad do?”  It’s not the first time she’s asked that.  It was an easy question for most of her life.  He’s a contractor… slot filled, box checked, identity neatly secured.  If I trained her right, and I did, her answer might even produce a lead for a job. 

For the last few years, no one really knows what I do.  Including me.  I have been busy enough.  I think I’ve avoided apathy entirely and hope I’ve dodged lazy and good-for-nothing.  It’s just that my answer to, “what do you want to be when you grow up,” has been inconveniently interrupted by the growing. 

Immediately upon closing my contracting company (Jan, 08) I did some consulting.  That ended, started up again and is still in the works - Front Porch Solutions.  I tried to start a how-to-be-your-own-contractor school called Darby School House but no one came.  For some reason, I don’t think I was supposed to do that.  In exasperation and a little petulance, I made a deal with God.  I reminded him of his promises to provide if I would just deal obediently with what he put in front of me each day.  My “deal” (I use that word weirdly) was:  I’ll get a job in a coffee shop, go back to school and help people fix their houses (or whatever) pro-bono, i.e. – not-for-profit.  He was in charge of making sure we ate, had a place to live, etc.  It was a bit of a test.  Made this deal in April 09 – it’s still in effect and we have not missed a meal or had to live in a car.  So many miracles have occurred that I’m just skipping that part of the story for now.  Suffice to say.  God has kept his end of the bargain well, albeit a little unpredictably. 

The coffee shop job at Old Town Battle Grounds turned into a remodel in exchange for some ownership.  The ownership is pretty much just free food and coffee for me and my family and a great place to hang out in the midst of a community I love.  I finished college at Multnomah.  I did remodel work.  I got involved with several different non-profit agencies and started building relationships all over the county.  I sold a couple pair of shoes for Somnio, helped a few people (including me) get healthy with Take Shape for Life and sold a LOT of wonderful items on Craigslist.  I met many interesting people through Craigslist and spent some fantastic/long moments with them.  I’ve spent many hours in coffee shops with people who are wondering and wrestling with the same issues.  Out of that, I’ve connected with amazing people and gone on some fascinating adventures.

So many words… I’m barely skimming the surface, I swear.  I told my daughter, say this, “he is the partnership developer and community engagement consultant for Go Connect, a non-profit organization that helps neighbors meet practical needs in their community.”  She said, “does that mean you won’t make any money?”  That is a great question.  Since then, I’ve been mulling over the idea of a non-profit.  I explained the basic idea and put her mind at ease, I think.  But mine has not been.  The question pokes at a major dark spot in the cloud of thoughts in my head regarding contracting and the capitalistic system in general.  For me, there is a problem with the “for profit” approach.  It clouds my motives.  It appears to cloud the receptiveness of whoever I’m working for as well.  They don’t know if I’m authentic or if I’m just trying to get some cash.

I want to be who I am (I feel like I should sing that).  I want to be that in practical ways in the moments I am presented with, however long or short they are.  Really, the longness or shortness is irrelevant.  Moments in eternity are sized according to qualitative measurements, not quantitative ones.  It’s hard for me to describe the size of a moment or my appropriate interaction with it.  I just trust that I’m in the right place at the right time and do what seems fitting.  This can really mess up both my schedule and my measureable productivity.

If I am concerned with making a profit, it changes my approach.  If I am concerned with producing a pre-determined result, I sacrifice my ability to respond genuinely to perceived interruptions.  The interruptions may in fact be the more important invitations.  This has been the case innumerable times.  I recognize the conflict here.  I’m not speaking of it lightly.  I’ve spent many years working for a profit and wrestling with authenticity in the midst of the effort.  I have no clear, easy answer to the problem. 

For the time being, I have chosen the non-profit approach.  As a business model, it just means the left over money (ha ha) goes back into the company.  As a way of approaching life, it means that I try to see each interaction in the physical realm as a connection to the spiritual.  I see the temporal happening within the eternal.  The eternal is the crucial context.  This radically affects my investment in each moment.  Theoretically, it means that if I’m making a cup of coffee, building a deck or having a conversation, I’m doing it with all of my being.  I’m being with all of my doing.  At the same time, I’m ready for a shift in direction, a new discovery or a change of paradigm.  While it can be confusing and exhausting, I’m finding the practice to be life altering.  My ears to hear and eyes to see work better.  I get God’s jokes and see the path more clearly. 

Practicing this way of being alive follows the same principles as practicing anything else.  It does not come naturally.  I have to remember and do the same thing over and over and over – the rudiments.  I improve and find more to repeat.  I experience frustration and pain.  I get blisters and sprains.  I look back and realize I’ve made mistakes and incremental progress that has put me in a much different capacity.  I learn that there is still more to learn and sense that this will always be true.  I am encouraged by the growth and humbled by my ever more apparent lack.  I have more answers and more knowledge at the same time I understand that the percentage of what I know is shrinking.

What to say to the question – I’m still not entirely sure.  I don’t like the question.  I can say what I’m up to right now.  I can tell some stories and introduce some people.  What I do though, is just a small part of something much larger and much more significant than this moment.  I am connected to God and what he’s doing and I only have hints of what that is.  Exciting hints, broad brush strokes, I don’t really know for sure.  I’m just building this deck, making a cup of coffee, talking to a new friend from Craigslist. 

What do you do?