Introduction to the new series: Thought for the day with Dr K

In my quiet time this morning before I got out of bed, I believe the Holy Spirit was speaking to me about using my writing talent during this transition from daily divorce litigation challenges with clients and lawyers to the new challenges of helping startup enterprises like Microbicbloc. 

I am a talented and award winning author, and I have downplayed that talent my entire life. I won my first award for my writing in 6th grade (thank you Mrs. Minga Hall) for my autobiography entitled "Me". My second award for writing came right after law school when the book I co-wrote with Dan Shuman, one of my law school profs, "Psychiatric and Psychological Evidence" was published by Shepards/McGraw-Hill. The American Psychiatric Association recognized the book with the Alfred Guttmacher award for the best book in law and psychiatry for the year 1986.

Next, I envisioned and co-wrote "Loving Your Children" better with my graduate school friend, Dr Mary Ann Little. Published by Nova Press, it is still available as a used book on Amazon, but it was not a best seller by any means. 

A bit later, my colleague Harry Munsinger, JD PhD and I co-wrote a custody evaluation system I created called the "Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System" which is still published by Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. and which still provides me with small and dwindling royalty payments.  It is the peak of my publishing career to this point!

One of my advisors later convinced me to write a book about divorce, based on my professional experience as a pioneer in divorce litigation consulting and coaching. I wrote and self-published "When All Else Fails: Minimizing the Damage Before, During, and After Divorce" through Amazon, and it's still available. Not a big seller, to say the least, but well reviewed by some divorce professionals when it came out.

I wrote and co-produced and starred in a Madrigal Christmas musical dinner theatre show with my choir buddy Robert Taylor at Northway Christian Church in Dallas. We had three sold out shows for two consecutive years before church politics shut the production down.  Renaissance period Christmas music, hand-made period costumes produced by the church members, really good dinner menu, and talented musicians from Northway Senior Choir made it special.

I have written another Christian musical, an opera really, there is no dialogue, entitled "Word". It is the Jesus story with a some modern characters who are contemporary observers of the Jesus story and who are transformed by it. The music is covers of a selection of contemporary Christian music from Phillips, Craig, and Dean to Cain. The drama is played out on a blank stage with digital image sets on huge screens upstage to bring the Biblical setting to life. The search for production partners, a script writer, costumer, a musical score writer, and a lighting/media designer to make it happen continues.

One other work is in process. "Walking the Walk: Leadership Lessons from the book of Luke" was a download to me while I was sitting in a Starbucks reading the book of Luke for my daily devotions. Having recently ended my adventures in leadership development during a sabbatical at Texas Instruments, I was tuned in to the way in which Jesus mentored his disciples to move them from their earlier lives into their calling to be leaders of the early Church. As has been my experience in creative inspiration, the outline of the book, with the leadership principles demonstrated in the gospel, came in a flash like a complete picture, all at once. I just had to write them down. Now the challenge is to find a collaborator to fill in the outline with stories for each of the principles. So far, that hasn't happened.

I also have a TED talk in progress entitled "Vision". I am a visual guy, and love art, design, and architecture and interior design. I am also a fan of vision in the abstract sense, as I believe vision is a critical component of leadership. And my experiences in leadership development at TI introduced me to the Santa Fe Institute and chaos theory, and I am working on a  TED talk to integrate these apparently disparate arenas into a story about how we fit into the natural world.

Finding collaborators for these last two projects has been a frustrating and disappointing journey so far. Because of the way these projects were downloaded to me, I feel a real sense of urgency to complete them before Jesus calls me home, and I have a similar sense that my time here is limited. Perhaps someone reading this will be inspired to join me.

In any case, that's the backstory for my launching a new series of blog posts on a wide variety of subjects as they occur to me in my quiet time. 

First topic: Why does experiencing nature create relaxation and a sense of serenity?