For unto us...

Well, Merry Christmas blog readers.

Every time I check this site I'm amazed to see where all you readers are coming from.  I find myself wondering who you are, what your life's about, how you found SFS and what, in each particular case, you 'get' from your visits.

I was reading my first post recently and it's quite the thing to see the progression.  What's most interesting (for me) is to watch the comments start appearing and then the visitors arriving by ones and twos.  I remember being told in first-year marketing that 'word of mouth' is the best kind of marketing and that most of us promptly forget that fact the second we find ourselves with something to market.  Just over a thousand of you stop by each month so somebody must be talking to somebody...

I started writing this here blog right in the middle of what was, at the time, the most difficult phase of my personal/professional life that'd I'd ever endured.  I realize that can sound melodramatic, but from my perspective things were looking pretty bleak.

I'd resigned from my Church (a Church my wife and I had planted in January 2001) and found myself, all of a sudden, with no audience, no outlet for my 'communicative urge' and very few prospects of that vacuum every correcting itself.  Sure, I was working as a Director but there's a big difference between speaking to a thousand or so people (cumulative) each month and working on one piece of communication over the course of two years.

(to say nothing of the fact that my salary was a big fat goose-egg...)

Just not the 'rate of return' I'd been used to.

Anyway, I was driven to start writing by an almost physical urge to communicate something to someone.

I felt like my 'something' was a strange fusion of pulpit and screen and that this blog might be an honest chronicle of my struggles (personally and professionally) as I fought to find meaning in life and a way to encapsulate said meaning in the things I produced.

Things have changed somewhat since I started writing.  For one thing there are now 102 posts where, at first, there were none (they're worth visiting sometime...) For another, my life has filled up considerably with work that--strangely enough--is all about communicating meaning and hope for the screen.

(and--thank God--my salary's not currently a goose-egg...)

2009 looks like a very interesting year both in TV and feature-film making for me and those with whom I work.  I'm looking forward to continuing to share that process with you and I will continue to hope that you 'get' something out of your visits.

The above shot is last night at our house.  Niki and I were just about to hit the sack, our babies already asleep waiting for Santa.  I figured I'd snap a quick shot, naturally lit, to commemorate Christmas 2008, a Christmas where, against all odds, my wife and I had the means to buy gifts and food for our babies who slept peacefully in a house we can afford to own and heat and light.

A photo that says in less than a thousand words that we have been provided for, are being provided for, and shall be provided for.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace..."

The Provider.

Happy Christmas everybody.

With love and respect.

T