Day 1030- Shop Talk
Dammit! Yesterday we returned from our eight day trip to Phoenix/Scottsdale/Sedona. As Soul II Soul is playing in the background repeating the lines “Back to Life…. back to reality”, I’m writing this post remembering the bliss of being with my soul family over the last eight days. I so don’t want to be here right now.
Tywana and I arrived in Arizona on Wednesday even though the Helping Parents Heal conference didn’t officially kick off until Friday. I was looking forward to some sun and heat. We got some sun. Not much heat. Arizona was unseasonably cool. We planned to stay two more days after the conference closed on Sunday. We were meeting up with friends we met physically just over 14 months ago, but we have been in constant contact with since. It was our third meeting actually face-to-face. We were meeting with other friends we have known over the last few years but have never met physically. Someone asked me over the weekend just how many ways I am involved with these people because I kept mentioning one way after another I’m engaged with them. I volunteer with Helping Parents Heal as an affiliate leader of the online group with two of them and Tywana. Those same two and I volunteer on the Soul Phone Foundation. Those same two and I volunteer on Greater Reality Living (we will be launching the website soon. The book just came out- I’m mentioned in the foreword). And, I am a moderator in a Facebook group of about 6,000 people. They are members. Also, two of the people I was meeting at the conference I am in conversations with about two different business ventures. So, we have a lot to talk about. Since we don’t often get to meet face-fo-face, I had three conversations planned with three different people to talk about how we could do some of these things.
As I was leaving Arizona yesterday, I realized that of the three conversations I had planned to have in Arizona, I had only had one. Two of them involved money making ventures. One of them was related to our volunteer work. Guess which one of the three I actually had.
It’s not that we didn’t have time to talk. I was in the hotel with these people the vast majority of the time I was in away. We didn’t have a car. We barely left the hotel. We stayed up late at night until 1:30 or so in the morning on some occasions. We were up early. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. But, while business talk dominated the conference, the business talk was not what you might expect.
As we were Ubering around town, one of the drivers asked about what brought us to town. How to describe a Helping Parents Heal conference to someone in 30 seconds? It’s not your typical industry conference. It’s not a Comic Con or a Trekkie kind of thing. It’s not a hobby conference like coins or a boat show. What is it that brought us to this conference? And, what kept us up late at night talking, so engaged that we hated to part company and go to bed?
Then this morning, it came to me. Our talk was shop talk. We did talk about our business.
Luke 2 46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
The presenters; from Jeffery Olsen, whose wife and infant son transitioned in an auto accident 20 years ago, to Tom Zuba, who has had two children and a wife transition on separate occasions, to Suzanne Giesemann, whose daughter Susan was struck by lightning which launched Suzanne’s transition into being one of the world’s best mediums, all were not only sharing inspirational stories. As someone would at a business conference, they were giving presentations on how we go about the business we are in, the business of shining light in this world and making it a better place. How do we turn these tragedies into something meaningful? How do we complete our missions laid out in our soul plans? (Sara Ruble) The conversations we had in the hallways, by the pool, at the bar, and back in our rooms (thanks Tracy and Heidi for hosting the hospitality suite) were all shop talk. It’s not the type of business we get paid in dollars for, but we are certainly enriched by our participation in it. We do get paid.
To those two people I didn’t get the chance to talk actually dollars and cents business with this week, we’ll have to do it now that we’re back in the real world. This past week was about Spirit’s business.
