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No, don’t stop reading just because I wrote my age in the title. This is not a senior citizen blog. Rather, the one writing is no longer concerned to say things he would never have said at a younger age.
I'm James Glynn. My personal story will weave in and out of this blog. I’ve been a musician, mentor, pastor, and missionary all my adult life, but mostly I’m an ordinary man doing my best to serve the God I know and trust. Stop there; that sentence is not entirely true. Yes, I’m an ordinary man but no, I’m not always doing my best to follow God and no, though painful to admit, I know Him to some extent and trust Him to some extent, but not completely, and not always.
Some parts of my story will help you fit together the pieces of the other subjects I share. In and out will weave what I’m facing, learning, struggling with, excited about, succeeding or failing at right beside topics of life, death, suffering, joy, faith, Jesus, the Bible, what’s going on in our world, what’s ahead for us and planet earth, what I’m reading and watching and what it all has to do with anything that could make a positive impact in your life.
The convoluted story of how I got here and everything else that explains why I am who I am today will come in pieces. Since 2020, I’ve lived an hour south of the Tijuana-California border in Baja, Mexico. Besides the Mexican population, this coastal corridor is home to 40,000 U.S. expats, the majority retirees, escapees, and deportees from California.
I rent a small (you’d call it quaint) two-story house on a hill from where I can see the ocean. I was Associate Pastor and Worship Leader of a local English-speaking church for two years. I resigned that position a few months ago and am now “reconstructing” my life, as I’ve chosen to call this process.
This coast is called “heaven” by thousands of Americans. I have yet to be convinced that it deserves that title, or else many people must be clueless about the real heaven. I vacationed for thirty years with my wife and children in both the Pacific and Caribbean resort areas of Mexico, and I would rate this one at the bottom of the list.
Everything here looks old and dumpy, except the oceanfront condo towers where you can buy luxury for a half million to over a million dollars. Yet even those places are mostly parking lot, a few palm trees, a ribbon of beach and unswimmable, polluted ocean. But the real draw here are the restaurants, taco stands, seafood places, and bars, from fairly cheap to over the top, plus regular trips to the vineyards of Mexico’s most highly-rated wine country just a bit south. The most popular Facebook group for Rosarito expats has 56,000 members. The group’s most common posts are photos of food, restaurant ratings, reports on crossing the border, sunsets, and homeless dogs needing rescue.
The positive side is that it’s comparatively cheap. People who sell their multi-million dollar homes in California can buy one here in the same luxe category for one million. Others who would have to spend a couple thousand a month to rent an apartment in the U.S. can find one here for a few hundred. With my income I’d be hard pressed to find anywhere decent to live in the U.S. Here I get two spacious floors with two bedrooms, two baths, laundry room, kitchen, living room, oneTV room which also holds my keyboard and sound system, office/reading room, garage, and walled-in gated paved yard, for $600/month. My electric bill is about $25/month. Still, a person who’s here not to enjoy his wealth but because he can’t find a financial alternative can feel trapped in paradise, so to speak.
Does it sound like I’m complaining? Yes, but only partly, because there’s another side to this, and it has everything to do with the long view of where this blog is going. You see, I’m discovering at this late age, but never too late, that many of the values we may have held all our lives have turned out to be untrue. At least they’ve proven not to yield what we thought they would. And it takes a serious reconstruction of our lives to admit that, to stop following those values that lead to discouragement, disappointment, depression, and to start practicing new values learned from the negative results of the old ones. I’m discovering how the things I call negative can stretch and grow me and thus become positive.
There’s a principle that comes from the Bible which says, “For those who love God all things work together for good.” We can couple it with another verse, “Give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus.”
Here’s one example from a dozen that come to mind: I’ve been freezing here. For some time it made me angry. After all, I was used to vacationing in tropical parts of Mexico. You’d think I could easily adjust to cold since I’m from Chicago, but we had whole house heat there! Here I have multiple portable electric (expensive to run) or propane (with CO alarm) heaters. I wear warm shirts and hoodies indoors every day for six months of the year. I used to get angry when people said how they love this “ideal” weather.
This being my fourth winter here I gave up flannel since I have a dog whose hair would stick to it like a magnet. Yet, due to my desire to see good in the midst of bad, and a greater desire to rebuke anger from my heart, I’m making peace with chilly weather. I tell myself “I’m alive” as I walk outside, and I’m fine inside till it gets below 64 degrees while 68 used to feel too cold. The ocean has a different kind of beauty here, not the clear, still, warm water that invites you to float under the sun, not the cool white sand of the Cancun Caribbean, but rather waves, rocks, darker sand or pebble beaches, places where cliffs front the ocean, vistas and sunsets that stretch to forever, and surf from calm to wild.
I’ve come to realize that a vacation place may be nice for vacation, but not for a place to live. For many years, in times of discouragement with life, I would say, “I’m moving to Sayulita.” I once spent a day with my family walking through that cute little town on the Pacific north of Puerto Vallarta. It was laid-back old Mexico mixed with tourist-friendly coffee shops, restaurants, silver jewelry places, and a long surfing beach backed by umbrellas where you could sit and order fresh grilled snapper. Nice for a one-day visit. I recently discovered that Sayulita’s daytime crowds have made perpetual gridlock of its narrow streets while restaurants have no seats at mealtimes. I also conveniently forgot, for the sake of my perfect dream life, that Puerto Vallarta summers have unbearable heat and humidity unless you’re vacationing in an air-conditioned timeshare condo and can spend hours each day at the pool.
Let’s return to the “reconstruction” of my life, which I discovered had to begin with major adjustment of my attitudes. In the middle of a place that doesn’t seem ideal apart from lower cost of living, if I turn my attention to the positive results of my living here, the fireworks start to go off. Most important, from this place, in this moment, at this age, I am experiencing the deepest personal and spiritual growth beyond anything I’ve ever known. There are many other positives, but this is the one I want to describe first.
My faith has turned “furious,” and here’s what I mean by that. No more excuses, no more whining that God seems distant, no more jealousy over the seeming successes of others, no more little prayer little worship little Bible study while wondering why I reap little harvest. I read, I study, I pray, I go to my keyboard and sing to the Lord. I take every possible opportunity to make relationships and totally overlook the kind of people I would previously have avoided or judged as annoying or even disgusting.
Now I confess my sins daily, deeply, believing for the first time that I can live alone not angry because of loneliness and not prey to temptations of thoughts, desires, longings, or attractions while thinking pure actions was the best humans could expect. Most of all, I am convinced, contrary to everything the demons have shouted at me for most of my life, that I am furiously loved by God, closely held in Jesus’ arms, guided and counselled by the Holy Spirit, even when all visible reality appears to the contrary.
This furious faith is becoming a deep taproot in my life, but it has needed the soil of pain, suffering, disappointment, loneliness, and death to self in order to reach a complete reconstruction of my life. It’s become clear to me that death really does lead to resurrection, and that without suffering and death, all the negatives of life yield only anger, depression, prideful excuses, and a faith that’s fake at best, dead at worst.
Hope you’ll stay with me in this blog, because it will move in unexpected and unusual directions. My hope is that you will receive the fruits of all that my reconstruction has poured into the depths of my heart, mind, and spirit.
Be blessed, today and always.
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