Give Yourself Away

Watch Papaw's New Year's Resolutions.

"A new year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other." -Some wise cracker.

I don't really believe that, but there is some truth to it. But, if I did not think that change was possible, improvement was attainable, goals achievable, the New Year would not be worth celebrating.

I love new starts. I love the idea that one can dream, and then do the work it takes to attain that dream or goal. So what is this year's dream for me? What will 2010 bring?

I have to throw in the obligatory "lose ten pounds." That's just my tradition. Of course if I didn't gain it all back then I could never do that goal again. That would be kind of sad right?

There's usually some kind of "make more money" type goal, some lofty spiritual quest, and a highly challenging goal to create a certain number of paintings, songs, journal entries, etc.

What will make this year different? What will set this year apart as the one when I have the discipline to do the work, hang in there through the hard times, get going when the going gets tough?

Well, to start with, I'm writing it all down right here so that all ten or so of you reading this will know. So when you see me, please ask me how it's going. And I'm talking about in June or so. No, better make it around March. That's usually about the time my memory starts wearing thin.

Also, my whole church is in on it too. We've been challenged to declare a Mitzvot for ourselves this year. My interpretation if it is a worthy goal. Here is Pastor Dan's explanation of it.

My Goals for 2010 are:

Create a show that changes people's lives.

Integrate sharing Holt International's message that every child deserves a loving home at my performances.

Finish reading the Chronological Bible that I have already begun reading.

Lose ten pounds and keep it off by integrating better habits into my diet and workout regiment. Have been between 155 and 165 for most of the year on December 31st, 2010.

Give myself away by accurately recording what I experience, and by God's grace, create something uniquely beautiful, from it.

The most rewarding activity one can undertake in this life is to freely give of one's self. This is a wellspring of fresh inspiration, a renewal, a profound pick me up. When we follow Christ's example of generosity of self, we are rewarded exponentially.

What's Next?

So it has almost been a year since I began writing Start Somewhere. That has me thinking, what's next? Video blogs? Music Monday? Mammaw Monday? Tasty Tuesday? Where are we now Wednesday? Therapy Thursday? Funny Friday? Fitness Friday? Follow me Friday? Fix up your old furniture Friday? It's time to take it to the next level, and I want your input.

It all started with this gut feeling that I should write. Sometimes I would think I wanted to write a book. Other times I thought I should write songs. I've even considered that one day I might be one of those lucky people who go to exotic islands and get paid to write about their experience. But mostly I just knew that I wanted to improve as a writer; and to do that, I simply needed to write more.

My wife, Amanda, and our pastor, Dan Scott, had both encouraged me to write, and I was also inspired by my dear friend, Stephanie Kling.

So then Amanda's cousin, Jeremy Shore, (also a blogger) sat down with me and helped me set up my blogger account (which is free and easy) and off I went.

What have I learned? That writing regularly takes thought, discipline, and time. And that you might end up having to write whether you feel inspired or not. In other words, that inspiration often comes after effort. I've also learned how to post pictures, add links, that without spell check I can't spell exercise, and that I can proofread something ten times and on the eleventh time I will find a glaring error. Oh, and that I really do love the written word, even if it is my own rambling.

At first I said I wanted to write three times a week; that didn't last very long. But I am glad to have written as much as I have, and I generally consider the first year of Start Somewhere to be a success. Some months I have been more prolific than others. Some of you have commented, thanks. Some have become followers, thanks. Some of you have told me in person that you laughed at something you read or found something inspirational. And I thank you too.

If you have a reason that you like my blog, what is it? If there are some things you wish I would shut up about what are they? What could I do better? I'm not promising I'll listen, maybe I'm just curious. Nothing is off limits. Except nudity. You must be fully clothed while posting your comments.

If you have left comments about my blog on my Facebook status or in the notes section of my Facebook page, would you consider clicking here to go directly to my blog and leave your comments there? You can also get there by going to the news section at stacybeam.com. It just keeps everything in one place and generally creates a more interesting blog.

If you have tried to post comments to Start Somewhere and you have had problems, what are they? You may just need to get a gmail account, which is free and very easy. Just click this link and follow the directions.

Finally, I would also like to ask you to officially follow Start Somewhere by clicking follow to the right of my page. Then, share my blog with your friends if you haven't already. Got all that? If you don't do it I'm gonna send one of my Start Somewhere staff thugs to your house in the middle of the night.

I'm telling you, she'll do it.

I Believe

I believe:

That no paycheck is big enough to make me live a life that is untrue.

It's not just OK to be different, it's more fun most of the time.

Getting to do your dream is worth a lot of sweat.

That I am an artist.

January 29th, 2004 was the luckiest day of my life; because I married my dear Amanda on that day.

That dogs are a gift sent from God to teach us some of life's most important lessons.

There are a whole lot of things we could all just lighten up about.

There are a few things that must never be compromised.

That we live in the greatest nation in history.

Whining is a sin, and I'm guilty.

That relationships are the most important thing in life.

That I am worthy of my goals because God made me that way.

In God the Father Almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord;

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell;

the third day He rose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,

and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

What do you believe?

Mammaw and Her Football

My Mammaw Nita Ann is a character among characters. When I describe her to my friends, they are often stunned in disbelief at some of the tales that have become commonplace in my family's lore. Among those suitable for public viewing are: the time she sent me an enormous window unit air conditioner via US Mail to New York City from Arab, Alabama. Or the time she led her girlfriends on an expedition away from school for the day. When the principal found them and drove them all back to school, he marched them into his office. But before he could get in behind them, she locked the office door! Then, they all took off again out his window! Or the fact that she can recite our ancestors by name, not only back to Arab's founder, Stephen Tuttle Thompson, but all the way back to President John Adam's favorite signer of the Declaration of Independence, Stephen Hopkins.

She has found her life's purpose in pouring herself into family relationships. The ways she has loved me and supported my career as an artist and musician are far too many to name, but you can suffice it to say, she started early and has never stopped. More recently her devotion has been shared with my nephews, Bo and Blake and niece, Shelby.

Just for the sake of this story, I'll use Blake as an example. Between her visits to Lake View Dialysis for treatments, she has found time to go to every one of his football functions, games, and practices. Literally, poor Blake can't sneeze without her there to wipe his nose and then brag to her friends at the Beauty Shop about how bravely he went about the whole thing.

So, a few months ago, Blake and his teammates decided to take a game ball, all sign it, and give it to Mammaw. Well, she could not have been happier if the Queen of England herself had crossed the great pond with her Royal Entourage to Arab and declared her Lady Nita Ann Bentley.

It is a very special thing to be loved that way. I know. I've joked that she loves me so much that if I committed murder she would not only figure out why they had it coming, she might help me hide the body.

The point of this is to say that unconditional love is an extremely powerful thing. If you were not lucky enough to have a "Mammaw" like mine, just learn from her example and find a kid, believe in him or her beyond anything they could imagine, and watch what happens.

On Working Out and Pigging Out

Somehow I seem to be able to be simultaneously into working out and pigging out. It is the lover extremes in me that is not satisfied until I've either worked so hard that I can barely move or eaten so much that, well, I can barely move. What's up with that?

Last night Amanda made this amazing Indian dish called Chicken Saag-wala. Click on it if you want the recipe, she said to tell you that she halved the cream and added a can of diced tomatoes. I ate all of my portion and then some, then I ate way too many chocolate covered almonds for dessert. I asked Amanda to hide those things from me when she bought them.. seriously! and that worked until the other day when I was looking for something else and stumbled onto them. Once it is in my house I have trouble leaving it alone.

Monday's workout was a Crossfit standard called Filthy Fifty. Basically, you do fifty repetitions of ten different ridiculously hard exercises. You can click here to read more about the crossfit gym in Murfreesboro where I work out. I was still way sore from filthy fifty when I went in yesterday and did yet another tough one, -and now I can't wait to get back in there again tomorrow morning! Evan Satterfield and David Branch do an incredible job there. They really are "forging elite fitness" as their motto states.

Just because I like to go to the gym and work out pretty faithfully, does not mean I that don't have my struggles. I have put on and dropped the same ten pounds three or four times in the past five years. I make deals with myself, I'll be very strict until a certain deadline and then make up for lost time. I've even known a cheat meal to mysteriously turn into a cheat month if you know what I mean.

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that there are certain habitual struggles that we may be saddled with for a lifetime. There will be ebbs and flows, but all I can do is hang in there and encourage you to do the same. If you get too down over a slip, you might not get back up again. And if you get too high from a success, look out! Temptation and/or failure may be right around the corner.

I guess I can be happy now that going to the gym is not the drudgery that it has been at other times in my life. How did I get to this point?

*First of all, I think I have repeatedly told myself over a period of years now that this is simply what I am going to do (regular exercise of some kind.) I will actually picture myself with gray hair and wrinkled skin schlepping my gym bag and pruny butt to go run or bike or lift weights when I am eighty-five.

*Then, if I get too bored or in a rut with a workout I will try something new. For instance, I had been lifting weights at the same Y for a year or so and was a little discouraged. So I decided to try a spin class. I liked it so much that I got certified as a spin instructor -and I got my membership free! But soon enough I got tired of that. I really think you need to do a more varied workout than to ride a stationary bike. Sooner or later I'm sure I'll want to try something different than I am doing now, even though that is part of why I like Crossfit. We always mix it up.

*Also, I'll sometimes buy a Men's Health magazine. Or just getting a new pair of good workout shorts or shoes can make me feel better about hitting the gym.

*Finally,I also get encouragement from talking to people who have it more together than I do. Like Amanda's cousin, Jeremy Shore. He is the real thing. If you look around, there is always someone smarter than you who would probably be glad to share what they know.

So, if you struggle with achieving a goal, start somewhere. You are not alone. The apostle Paul even said "Why do I keep doing the things that I do not want to do?" Pardon my poor paraphrasing. Everybody struggles, you win some and you lose some, but if you never try, well, you won't get anywhere.


This is a pig out that I will not repeat. Some friends and I went to Bolton's Hot Chicken and Fish on Gallatin Road in East Nashville a while back, and lets just say the end did not justify the means. (My end was on fire!)

Christmastime is Here

Have you watched A Charlie Brown Christmas lately? I could get a little obsessed with its music because I love it so much. One song in particular, "Christmastime is Here."

The song captures the strange melancholy that often washes over me in waves during the holidays. Somehow it is as if this flood of wonderful Christmas memories brings with it the painful realization that things aren't just right... I haven't accomplished everything I meant to by now, pretty soon I might be bald like Charlie Brown, there are loved ones with whom I will never share another Christmas dinner. The melody, with its odd chords paired with the sweet and beautiful lyrics together paints, in the foreground, the "Sleigh bells in the air, beauty everywhere," against a back drop of this unsettling, even disconcerting longing for something more.

This longing can feel like so many different things:
Why won't this stupid string of lights work?
Is everybody conspiring together to make me this mad?
Why don't I have enough money to really make this a great Christmas?
Why can't things be perfect?

Can I get a witness? Charlie Brown can relate.

I believe this longing is placed purposefully in our hearts by God. It is an awareness that we are yet incomplete. Inadequate to fulfill our own longing. We need a Savior.

The cartoon is as a near a perfect advent sermon as I have ever heard. Charlie Brown is depressed by all the trappings of the holiday season. In his frustration he turns to Lucy's "Psychiatric Help" stand and you know she only makes things worse! Finally, at the end, Charlie Brown pleads "Doesn't ANYONE know what Christmas is all about?" and we get to the point. Linus stands center stage and eloquently recites directly from Luke's gospel, the story of Christ's birth.

That is where we always must return. I'm not sure when "A Charlie Brown Christmas" airs in your area, but pay attention and watch it. It's great.