Wake Up Sleeper

(Check out the transition at 2:50. Can we please find a reason to play this as a band?)

This is Not the End

And yes, they’re on Spotify/Pandora.

The first one is about marriage and it is a great eye-opener that reminds me of some conversations that I had with Grandpa Bob. Tim Keller references an article called Picky,Picky, which is located here.

The other is a video about college students freeing people from human trafficking. Definitely worth the watch.

5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;

“For” is an important transition word, right?

May today and tomorrow be restful for you in light of a hard-fought peace that you did not earn.

I did get a haircut, which normally shouldn’t be too much news, but when it only happens, like, five times a year (I never did the math until now), inquiring minds want to know. I have lost my Alan Moore disguise. Mike, I’m excited to see Colorado’s Baron Davis Effect.

Nice.

I guess my version of Santa does look like Donkey Kong chucking down barrel-y goodness. It would make sense considering Yuffie the Snowman is trying to catch a ninjabread man scaling the roof of the A-frame.

I was listening to my Nobuo Uematsu station on Pandora (I highly recommend it) and Loreena McKenna’s “The Mummers’ Dance” came on.

It just so happened that I was at the point in my writing where an airship crew was dancing a mournful jig (because my story is awesome) and this song, a corsair interpretation of Ecclesiastes 1, came to me:

All streams run into the sea
But the sea is never full
All things full of weariness
But hearts are never whole

What do we gain from our day’s toil
Beneath the beating sun?
Can we say that this is new
Before our course is run?
Before our course is run

What I love about writing a fantasy is that I can bust out with a song and no one thinks it’s strange. I mean, if dwarves can sing of cracking plates, then why not a corsair jig about empty pursuits?

So, sing my song to the tune of “The Mummers’ Song” and marvel at one of the only music videos (that I know of) to feature people dancing with wicker chairs on their heads.

(A mummer is a performer who acts in a traveling troupe to tell folk plays. Yeah, I Googled it.)

In the belly of Sheol
I cry
confident
in Your love

Water closes in
driven from Your sight
my brain
a sushi wrap
my life
faints
what I have vowed
I will pay

A second time
I hear
Three days
In the belly
Three days
To the city
But I go
One day in
And say,
“Forty days left!”

And they
Believe

But how can they?
I’m the one
You sent
I can hear
Your word
I’m the one
You love

Fire here
Locusts there
A pillar of salt
A shake of the Earth
Maybe even
A flood
(You’d make an exception, right?)

But no, it’s
Sackcloth
Fasting
Turning
Relenting

Disappointing
I said this back home
I called it
My reason to flee

You are gracious
Merciful
Slow to anger
Steadfast love
Abounds

It is better
For me
To die
Than
To live

You ask
if I do well
to be angry

East of the repenting
I sit
Pouting
The sun beats down
You cover me
A worm warns
of Your judgment
I’m faint
I repeat
It is better
For me
To die
Than
To live

Do I do well
to be angry?
Yes, I do
Thanks for asking
Kill me now

Steadfast still, You say,
“You pity the plant that
you did not grow
came in a night
left in a night;
I show my mercy on those
who did not yet know.”

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest,
honor is not fitting for a fool.

26:1

Signed amnesiac masterpieces
Of a faithful artist

A little bit of math adds to the study of Advent with my oldest.

My wife says that even if I light all of the candles tonight, it doesn’t make it Christmas.

Give me a call or message me if you want to hear more about this past weekend.

Also of note: I have a magazine that signed on one of my short stories (a spec fic version of my nephew’s flag football game). The crazy thing is that the magazine is paying to publish the story. I think I’m entering new territory.

Haikus for a year
Make me want to play guitar
Just like Biff Tannen

Tom Wilson is also on Netflix. I will definitely have to check it out.

I hope you all are having a happy Veteran’s Day.

On Sunday, this is what I’ll be wearing:

No, Mike, I haven’t converted to something, although you gotta admit that my wife’s texts were a lot funnier than my own. (I said I had converted to Awesomeness. She beat that.)

I’m wearing it in solidarity with believers, specifically with Juma Nuradin Kamil’s family, around the world on a Sunday when we remember and pray for followers of Jesus who have been/are being persecuted. (Really, we should remember and pray all year long, which this app (for iPhone and Android) can help you with, but it’s also good to have a set day on the calendar.)

Thanks, Jeremy, for showing us this video that lines up with one of the songs we play. We won’t be showing it on Sunday, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

Art that expresses my heart? Sign me up.

Travis Prinzi of the Rabbit Room has a great article about telling a meaningful story, quoting from Walk the Line:

I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.

I started a new story as part of NaNoWriMo, yes, but also because it’s straight from my heart. Each book I’ve written, I’ve rejected people-pleasing more and more and now write what I believe to be a good story and not what I think will sell (if you’ve watched the majority of what’s on TV, you’ll notice that it’s not always the best story that sells).

Thanks, Futile Ohm, for the link to the NaNoWriMo version of Scrivener. This project has so many character details that it definitely helps me keep all my notes organized. Anyone that has seen me in the midst of writing a novel knows that they should have bought stock in legal pads and tiny memo notebooks.

And for those praying about agents looking at my manuscripts and all that, James 4:2-3 had some insight for me this morning.

Thanks, Jeremy, for the “paint using a syringe” technique. It gave me the control I needed. I couldn’t help but feel like Jeff Goldblum watching a rivulet creep.

“To be a Christian is to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard…how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say our prayers each night, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it means to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves.”

Gotta love R.C. Sproul’s take on Augustine, about how limited our fiat is:

“I can yell at the screen with the strongest imperative I know: ‘Write that book!’ but the thing is too obstinate to comply.”

Jeremy put music to two poems I had written. Amazing stuff and yes, I did get a little misty-eyed. I’m going to blame it on allergies. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My wife pointed out an interesting part of my creative process tonight. I didn’t realize how many times I say, “Maybe if I…” and usually what follows is trying to guess what someone else would like. I can tell you that it’s definitely come up quite a bit during this search to get published. It also shows up when I paint. You know when “Maybe if I” didn’t come up?

The Haiku Project

I just wrote. I just did.

Considering your audience is an important part of writing, but I swing so far to paranoia so easily. I was reading an article on the Art House America blog (thanks for recommending the site way back when, Sidewalk Driver) and found this quote from Rembrandt:

I can’t paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too. Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can’t do it. I just can’t do it!

The part of the quote that Art House left off was, “And that is why I am just a little crazy.”

I also started reading more about Emily Dickinson and learning that she had a huge portfolio of work and only a fraction of that is what has been published. That was the motivation (albeit sarcastic on my part) when I found out that e e cummings wrote a poem a day for years.

Dickinson wrote to write. Some of her greatest work she never intended for other people to read.

Two Sundays ago I was listening to the sermon and I just broke out in pages worth of poems. I was responding to what I was hearing, what I was feeling, and a whole bunch of other stuff. That flowed into the week and the night that I stayed up way too late and wrote a poem summarizing Philippians. I had wanted to create something as a response to Philippians for months. It was when I just sat, wrote, and had God as my only audience that this poem showed up on the page.

It’s funny because I’m not a good judge of poems. Sure, I can teach them, dissect their structures, but the “Is it any good?” question stumps me. Until the Haiku Project, I actually kinda didn’t like poems. They used to be a waste of time (thus my haiku sarcasm).

And that’s why I can’t overanalyze the poems that I write. I have absolutely no confidence in my poem writing ability with regards to other people’s approval and I think that’s pretty freeing.

So here’s to shunning the “Maybe this needs…” and the what-ifs.

Her notes on the sermon are definitely more concise and to the point than my own this morning. So cool.

1. How would the mer-people feel about the king’s rebellious daughter selling out and the king being the one to give her legs?
2. If “every last inch” of Gaston is covered in hair, isn’t Belle just going from one degree of hairy to another?
3. The author James Joyce looks like Nick Fury or, more accurately, the guy from Airwolf:
   
   James Joyce
   
   
   Michael Coldsmith Briggs III
4. Facebook is pointless.
5. I was tempted to write a short story about Esau the were-goat on a mission of vengeance to regain his double birthright. Having given away my previous copy of The Story to a friend, last Saturday I picked up the new edition. I love that book.
6. I did write two songs. I’ll share them later.
7. The Star Wars Blu-Ray edition still looks like the Krytos virus to me.

My friend Mick, a very talented artist, was telling me about a Chinese school of thought (which then the Japanese popularized) but he couldn’t remember the name of it.

It’s called wabi sabi, coming from two characters shared in Chinese and Japanese.

Wabi – used to mean “melancholy from living alone in nature”, but now is more “simplicity in nature”
Sabi – “serenity in the impermanence, transience of things” and a beauty in the aging of things

Essentially, it’s an understanding that things are not perfect, but that they are how they are meant to be at that moment with a knowledge that all things change.

A phrase connected to it is “natsukashii furusato”, “an old memory from my hometown” (at least that’s how this white guy says it).

It’s like the end of the famous love section in 1 Corinthians 13:

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I see wabi sabi as a reminder that now we only know in part and on That Day, we shall know fully as we are fully known. Art is a tangible reminder of that for me.

Here’s my first ever full attempt at a realistic lion:

and all I can see are the imperfections and asymmetry. And wabi sabi says, “Yeah. What did you expect? It’s life.”

Today’s picture is a lot different than how I normally draw lions:

When I watched Les Mis a few weeks ago, and when reading the book (which has been a three-year process I’m nowhere near completing (do you really have to describe every flower in the field at Waterloo?)), I realized that Javert resonates with me. Something about him is me.

Most of my readers are probably familiar with the show and/or a Google search, but the quick analysis is that Javert is Law Incarnate, pursuing Jean Val Jean relentlessly until justice can be served. So why does that catch my attention?

It’s because of how much value I put on my own accomplishments, how much worth I put in what I do and not resting in who I have been created to be. I judge people based on my own rule book because, frankly, it’s much more comforting to use a litmus test that I’m already good at. The sad thing is that, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not that good at it.

This is not to grab pity. This is to affirm what Paul says in his letter to the Philippians. Paul had every right to trust in his accomplishments:

• circumcised on the eighth day – righteous from birth and the way you’re supposed to do it
• of the people of Israel – not some Greek
• of the tribe of Benjamin – the only tribe fully loyal to Judah during the civil war
• a Hebrew of Hebrews
• as to the law, a Pharisee – not only that, but apprenticed under Gamaliel – the Levitical superstar to be apprenticed under
• as to zeal, a persecutor of the church – this guy broke up families and gave their kids to “more righteous” families, killed believers of “that Nazarene cult”

So that last part especially reminds me of Javert – the zealous hunter. Now, circumcision is not a huge issue in mainstream American churches. But the heart behind it is: relying on anything other than the Holy Spirit. It’s the same type of heart that Jesus accused the Pharisees of with their burdens that they don’t even carry. I don’t think we’d be as honest with ourselves. I’ve hunted people down in my heart. We are very much like the Judaizers who were believers but said, “You need grace…and this other thing, too.” Jesus plus [X thing that we know is not the right answer but our actions say otherwise]. They didn’t hunt people down physically, yet they added a horrible burden. Setting your mind on anything but the Spirit is death.

With Javert, this is played out literally. Thankfully this summer has been very grace-filled and I can count my Javert-like tendencies as loss.

“Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life.”

Man, I love this show.

One of the things I love about Blue Like Jazz is that it’s coherent and yet not. It’s Donald Miller talking about his life, but yet there are so many lessons in it. It’s no wonder that right now he’s hosting the Storyline conference.

I’m curious to see how a book that’s so anti-hypocrisy transitions into a movie, a medium dominated by heroes that blow up lots of things to stop people from blowing up lots of things.

Here’s the trailer:

I feel a little like John Madden, but when you’re dealing with Philippians 2:12-18, there are some huge things that we have sadly made commonplace.

This is the same guy that wrote How He Loves and one of the things I love about his songs are that they use non-churchy words to explain theological concepts. He does a great job of explaining his creative process and inspiration here, so check that out first.

On Sunday, we’re going to be singing Death in His Grave. As a worship team, we don’t want anything we do to get in the way of you worshiping. When learning a new song, it’s sometimes tough to sing along if it’s the first time seeing the words. With Death in His Grave, the words are so poetic we don’t want to miss the truth that those lyrics hold. The song is called Death in His Grave, but if we miss the fact that it’s Jesus putting death to death, we miss the whole song.

I’m going to post the lyrics with links to Bible passages that relate to what McMillan is talking about (some are different than his explanation, but we think they’re still relevant). I know Jeremy is planning on doing the same thing on his site. Hopefully we can get the lyrics out to enough people so we can look at some/all of the references and get a really cool picture of who Jesus is.

These references are a result of the Body in action. Jeremy, my mother-in-law, and I sat in the conference room at church and worked together on this.

Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Though the Earth cried out for blood

satisfied her hunger was

Her billows calmed on raging seas

for the souls of men she craved
Sun and moon from balcony

turned their head in disbelief

Their precious Love would taste the sting

disfigured and disdained

On Friday a thief

on Sunday a King
Laid down in grief

but awoke with the keys
To hell on that day
the first born of the slain

The Man Jesus Christ

Laid death in his grave

So three days in darkness slept

the Morning Sun of righteousness
But rose to shame the throes of death

and overturn his rule
Now daughters and the sons of men

would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent

when the day rolled anew

He has cheated

Hell and seated

us above the fall

In desperate places

He paid our wages

One time once and for all

Hopefully that helps. Here’s him singing it, if you want to listen while reading:

We’re looking at adding a violin to the team. So cool.

I always am encouraged when I see parts of Jesus’s life fulfilling centuries-old prophecies. It’s always a reminder that God knows what He’s doing.

So, John was talking about some cool stuff from the Passover feast (and all the rituals that went along with it).

You would need a lamb for your sacrifices:

The main supplier of lambs? You would herd them up from Bethlehem.

You would bring them in through the Sheep Gate:

(Nehemiah was one of the people who helped rebuild Jerusalem in ~400 BC.)
When would you bring in the sheep?

Sheep selection day was the week before Passover. Like, Palm Sunday/”Hosanna!”

You gotta make sure your sheep isn’t all jacked up. You need to inspect for faults:

This is also when the Pharisees and Sadducees starting questioning Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar and marriage after you die. (I drew a Pharisee pointing a finger and Pilate saying, “I find no fault.”)

Lambs were sacrificed at 9am and 3pm and the shofar (old school vuvuzela) would signal the ritual completed. Check Mark 15:33 and when Jesus was saying, “Eloi! Eloi”

The Amidah are a collection of eighteen prayers that are said at many Jewish festivals. Check out the sixth and fifteenth and picture people praying that during the Passover.

During the events of the crucifixion was also the Festival of Unleavened Bread:

and the Firstfruits ceremony:

I finally got around to clearing off some 3.5″ disks at school (where better to find a floppy drive in 2011 than a school?) I really don’t know why I felt like I needed to keep around those disks. 1.44MB doesn’t buy you much these days.

I am really glad I did, though. Check out why I found:

But that file sat alongside this file:

Captionary and Ohm started their married lives on Saturday. What will they be like 50 years from now?

My wife and I saw a movie yesterday – in the theater. I can’t remember the last time she and I saw a movie alone. The last movie I saw in the theater (correct me if I’m wrong (like online commenters need to be told that twice)) was Inception, but my wife and I went with the church staff to see that. It’s been at least a few years since we’ve been alone in a theater. //checking bloggh archives…// Confessions of a Shop-Aholic.

The movie that we saw (don’t want to name it or else it would be Spoiler City (that’s not the name of the movie)) got me thinking about two birthday-appropriate things:

1) What would I do if I knew I only had a minute left to live?
2) Who would I want to spend my last moment with?

I can tell you that the answer to #2 is my wife and daughters, although you rarely get to choose when you die. It’s because of that uncertainty that I don’t have a definitive answer to #1. I’m sure if I thought about it, I would do something with donuts and sharks, but that sounds more like the cause of #1 and not the effect.

With those two questions in mind, I got to thinking about my grandparents and my wife’s and the positive examples they gave. I think people would be less tempted to be jerks to the people they love if they knew they only had a minute left.

Old people that have a sense of the immediacy, the fleetfulness, of life are cool.











I hope my kids see that in me.

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish yourself to be.

I think it’s cool and hope that the corrosion-dating method is accurate, putting the pages in the time of the first century church. The pages are full of pictures, symbols, and maps. To think that one of the first church members could have held this book is exciting.

I’m still skeptical, though.

One – A lot of money could be made off of fakes.
Two – It’s probably from the first century, but it’s just the old school version of an artsy guy’s moleskine notebook. If you see a bunch of poetry about the angst of being dumped, you’ll know this is the accurate conclusion.

One of the things I appreciate about the book is Ben Burtt’s love for what he does. When he was first interviewing to be George Lucas’s sound guy (imagine that interview!), he saw concept art on the wall of C-3PO that reminded him of all the fun serials he watched as a kid. It’s like how my dream goal as a writer is to be asked to do an expanded universe novel.

Here’s a great quote from him about working on Return of the Jedi. Notice his enthusiasm for the saga:

“We were all charged up with when we mixed it,” says Burtt. “We were deep into the scene and felt like we were helping to bring about galactic justice that would cap the entire trilogy.”

The book has a sound file player attached to the side of it. You read the book and play the sound that he’s describing to hear for yourself. I know kids’ books do this, but this book is definitely for the film buff.

Did you know that the sound of the Emperor’s lightning is the same sound effect used in the 1931 Frankenstein film? The old guy that was the sound engineer on that classic film had to be convinced that this “Star Wars” thing was worth his effort in helping. Ben Burtt took a rough edit of Empire Strikes Back to show Ken Strickfaden since Ken had never seen A New Hope.

Strickfaden was blown away and took Burtt to the room where he still had all of the lightning lab still set up.

The craziest sound effect from the Luke vs. Emperor vs. Vader fight is the sound of the Emperor’s Dark Side explosion. Watch the clip:

Do you hear the sound of pigs wailing? That’s in there as he falls down the shaft.

Very Matthew 8:32, in a sense.

I know that some of you readers are fans of the song How He Loves. You’re probably familiar with the David Crowder version. The guy that wrote the song is John Mark McMillan (Don’t worry, there’s still a beard). You’ve got to hear the background story to why he wrote the song. Puts a lot of context to the un-churchy words he uses:

We’ll be recording this song for our live album on April 3. I hope to see y’all there.

I only have experience with lyrics in the same sense that I think most dads have. Both my father and father-in-law are notorious for lyric-swaps. (Slade – “It’s now or never…” What’s the next line to dad’s song?)

All of those ridiculous qualifying statements aside, here are some lyrics remixed from Psalm 39 and Psalm 40 (and HEAVILY borrowed (like “Ice Ice Baby”/”Under Pressure” bass line heavily borrowed) from Isaac Watts‘ notes on those chapters).

DUST

Teach me the measure of my days,
Thou maker of my frame;
I would survey life’s narrow space
And learn how frail I am.

A span is all that we can boast,
An inch or two of time;
None but vanity and dust
In all our flower and prime.

See the race of mortals move
Like shadows o’er the plain;
They rage and strive – desire and love
But all the noise is vain.

What should I wish or wait for then
From creatures, earth, and dust?
Expectations trampled on
In disappointed trust.

You raised me from a horrid pit,
Where mourning long I lay,
And from my bonds released my feet,
Deep bonds of miry clay.

Firm on a rock you have me stand,
You teach my cheerful tongue
To praise the wonders of your hand
In this, my thankful song
In this, my thankful song.

You raised me from a horrid pit,
Where mourning long I lay,
And from my bonds released my feet,
Deep bonds of miry clay.

Firm on a rock you have me stand,
You teach my cheerful tongue
To praise the wonders of your hand
In this, my thankful song
In this, my thankful song.

The above photo is from a manual created by Egyptian protesters to promote unity. In the manual, they detail proper ways to shield yourself using home implements and where to aim spray paint at riot police. Notice how “positive language” is part of the battle plan.

We’ll come back to that.

Also in the news this week was Casas por Cristo in regards to the violence in the Ciudad Juarez area. The number of volunteers has dropped off in recent years since the U.S. media has picked up the story about drug-related murders.

General readership, I hate to break it to you, but Juarez was violent before we ever heard of it (technically, even back to 1911-1912 and Pancho Villa’s gangs, but that’s for another book, so to speak).

Part of what makes Juarez scary is that some of the police have sided with the cartels for their own advancement or protection. We’ve been traveling there for eight years and even in 2004, there was the drug violence. But the United States is not spared violence. The same weekend we went to Juarez this year, a police officer was shot and killed in New Jersey. This stuff happens in the fallen world we live in.

So, imagine in Juarez a people who don’t know if they can call the police and trust that they will be safe.

Now imagine those people living only in structures made from wooden pallets and cinder blocks.

There’s a need. Oh, I assume people wouldn’t dispute that. I think the issue is who God uses to fulfill that need and how to meet the need.

I’m reading the book Radical right now and it is definitely on my recommend list, although it’s taking me forever to get through. It’s very easy to read vocab- and style-wise. Heart-wise? It’s boot camp.

One section that I just read was David Platt guest-speaking about missions at a church. When he finished and stepped from the podium, the pastor said:

…brother, we promise that we will continue to send you a check so we don’t have to go there ourselves…I remember a time at my last congregation when a missionary from Japan came to speak…I told that church that if they didn’t give financial support to this missionary, I was going to pray that God would send their kids to Japan to serve with that missionary.

I don’t know what offends me more, that the pastor used serving internationally as a threat or that he held up his prayers as more important than his congregation’s. (What’s to stop the congregation from praying against what the pastor is praying? That’s when God facepalms at our stupidity.)

Now, I’m not saying that:
1. The role of sender is not important
2. I am in any way awesomer than anyone else for having gone to Juarez

What I don’t want to see, though, is someone who would have gone but chose not to based on fear. Even our team had people drop as the travel date approached, so I’m not judging people’s convictions.

What I have noticed, though, is the best way to fight:
1. Love God
2. Love neighbor

It’s a true positive message, with power and not just positive thinking. If we have people fighting in this way (and not in the “let’s protest funerals/ComicCon” way) on both sides of the border, I believe that fear will not be given the leniency we’ve allowed it.

Pick up a copy online right now.

Or nuns will peg you with snowballs.

I’m almost ashamed as to why I didn’t put up photos on Sunday night.

I had to watch the very last Hannah Montana episode as it aired on the Disney channel in the hotel. Miley had to choose whether to go to Stanford with Lily or go to Paris with Spielberg. I know, we all are faced with similar choices and, as such, the teen narrative was gripping and I fell asleep without posting photos.

[/end embarrassing apology]

This year’s build was one of our favorites, in part because of the kids we were building for.

My daughter is quite the ambassador. She gets along with every kid she meets.

This year was a year of learning new skills. My wife and her crew did the texturing for the concrete slab.

This year, Casas started bringing in cement from a local (Juarez) business owner instead of having the team mix it from scratch. Usually I wheelbarrow the entire foundation. I felt like a total slacker, like I had no identity, until it was time to drill holes. I even tried to pass off the job to a new person, but drilling is my destiny.

(You gotta admit – that’s a pretty epic photo.)

The house was finished the fastest I can remember

and the family was very thankful:

We’re back at the hotel after a great first day of building. The weather was awesome (much warmer but not too warm) and the family we’re building for is super nice (like always).

The family lives on the ranch that we’re building next to. “Ranch” has a loose interpretation. In this context, it means “place where a bunch of cinderblocks are piled up and barbed wire encircles the perimeter”. They live with their boss (can’t imagine doing that) and the whole family helps care for the goats and pigs and tasty birds. (The local church cooked for us. They had a white folding table, which I think is a global requirement for any church function.)

One of the workers said that the little one year-old had been bitten by a black widow and had been near death. The ranch is surrounded by rattlesnakes (imagine that slipping between the cinder block and under your ragged blanket), so the family is especially thankful for the house.

I’ll post more photos when I’m not on the run to Golden Corral, but I’ll leave you with what my pockets look like at the end of the day.

Also of note: crossing back into the United States took an hour and a half, which is one of the longer times. This time, though, we didn’t feel harassed; they just scanned every single car’s passports. The longer wait time has created a begging culture like what we used to see when we crossed through downtown Ciudad Juarez. This poor (in many connotations) kid had to carry around a stone carving of the Last Supper that was bigger than his torso. The beggar lines have only shown up within the past two years as our crossing sees increased traffic.

Today, though, I debated during my drive to work about what to listen to. I decided to listen to a sermon from Francis Chan entitled “Surrender”. It turned out to be the one where he and his wife tell Cornerstone Simi Valley that they’re stepping down from leadership. Well worth the listen.

This past week we escaped to a cabin at an undisclosed location (it’s somewhere between Williams and Flagstaff, but the only landmarks are pine trees, which are relatively common up north). Thanks again, Mike, for the help. (Again, that’s not sarcastic.)

You can tell that all four of the adults present make a living interacting with people. Any non-conversation time was spent engrossed in trying to crush green pigs with pieces of concrete.

It was very much like this:

Yes, Devin, I hope the Birds and the Pigs can call a Christmas truce like the British and Germans of World War I.

We did use our words (horrible segue) in a game of Scrabble. I started the game out with vim. Yeah, I led with a “v” and only had three letters that worked. Mike followed it up with “pie”, which is always good. That’s why we allowed for the use of fanbag:

It was a serene setting that in a few hours changed from a brisk wind to snow on the ground.

This picture is peaceful until you realize that my daughter clocked me with a snowball soon after:

Both enjoyed their first real experience in snow:

We went back to campus so that our kids could see where legend stemmed from reality and their parents were, in fact, real people.

A decade ago I didn’t think I’d be taking a picture of my daughter in front of the JFK-esque lumberjack:

They moved the statue, but they still didn’t give him proper attire. I can’t help but think the dude would be more comfortable if he just had a shirt on.

Many things on campus have changed. It was reminiscent of Frodo returning to the Shire to illustrate that you can never go home again. Home has changed, you have changed, and that’s the natural course of things. All of NAU’s renovations look great. The one that caught me most off-guard was this:

I used to be THE NAUCard guy. They even had my photo on the university’s website to advertise it. (I think they needed someone bearded to go with the lumberjack motif.)

When I worked the ID card office, it was a simple counter that I sat behind and people walked up, I made them laugh, and then snapped a photo. Now it’s a very professional office that looks more like a bank.

This is how I felt.

You could say this is a piece of our Shire:

Things have changed, but I retain my snow fashion sense:

What’s new is the addition of cleats. Someone gave them to me years back and I had no clue what to do with them. (You don’t wear them on a basketball court and the patrons have a tough time paying attention if you wear them in the library.) Now they’re my official snow shoes.

The last night/morning I awoke to a clacking sound outside our bedroom. I thought it was my youngest rummaging around when she should be in bed, so I started to get annoyed. When I inspected the noise, sans glasses, I saw this thing flailing around on the ground. With glasses, I saw a mouse with a leg caught in a mouse trap. The thing was running all over the kitchen and hallway, which is pretty impressive.

None of us really wanted to kill the thing, so one of us (we’ll leave you guessing) grabbed the fireplace tongs and flung the mouse outside. We gave it a chance to live, but the elements are extreme in the northern night and the mouse didn’t survive. Don’t tell Mrs. Frisby.

I will take this time to point out how many people live out in the cold and that sometimes your religion needs to reach beyond “God helping those who help themselves.”

Before I stay too serious, I want to show you the most dangerous cologne in the world:

And now to close with a photo blast:

More meaningful with friends

I know there’s a lot of, “Boo, America!” guilt trip out there, and that’s not where I’m taking this. We delude ourselves, though, if we don’t think stories like these affect us. Do we suffer from short-term memory loss, are we too comfortable, do we not understand the connectedness of the Body, or do we just focus on what’s in front of us?

All I know is that:
1. If my brother was arrested and beaten, I would go crazy trying to get him freed.

2. My complaints about “how to do church” really don’t stack up in the bigger picture.

Remember the martyrs and tell their stories.

Grandma Audrey’s memorial/celebration was convicting. A life lived for Jesus is a beautiful thing and I hope that legacy will continue with our generation.

Once again we had the guys of the family grab a shovel and fill in the dirt. Death is so not-talked-about in our culture, sometimes to what I feel is an unhealthy distance, that there was something very real, very tangible, very transitional about leveling off the final shovelfuls. Thankfully I know that something similar to Luke 24:5 is being enacted, so the shoveling is more for us.

My wife did a great job of making sure that my youngest’s birthday was not forgotten this weekend. She and a friend unfolded an entire Dora story arc for the toddlers and their amigos.

Dora and Boots

Let’s give the toddlers blunt weapons and promise candy:

The setting was farm-ish (if The Map, The Map, I’m the Friggin’ Map is to be trusted), so bring on the cute photos of kids holding baby chicks:

And then the still cute, if yet frightening, re-enactment of Act V of MacBeth:

Some loving, if yet crazy, members of Christ’s Body decided to show us love in a very appreciated way by cleaning our house while we were at the memorial. I’m still overwhelmed and learning how to accept grace. My youngest, though, has learned how to accept a Memory game. She says thanks!

In the midst of a birthday and a memorial, we had cousins over.


The Polly Pocket/Beast wedding was going well until Vader showed up. Thankfully Beast has a wookiee for a best man.

Yep. It was a good weekend.

Rejoice, you people of Jerusalem!
Rejoice in the Lord your God!
For the rain he sends demonstrates his faithfulness.

That added an interesting perspective to my rain-flooded kitchen.

He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so
Oh how He loves us
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us
Oh! how He loves us
Oh! how He loves us
Oh! how He loves

We are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about, the way

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles [Williams] is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien's] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald…In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.

– C. S. Lewis

To say that Westboro Baptist is not a “seeker-friendly” church is an understatement, based simply on their church’s URL. I guess they even have a picket line spreadsheet.

You don’t pick on a large group of nerds.

Vizzini would add that to his simple truths, like not engaging in a land war in Asia. Throughout their younger years the nerds may have been singled out for what they liked/believed.

Even when I was just out of college and waited in line for Episode II, I got spit on and someone yelled, “Get a job, you freaks.” Little did they know I was teaching Juniors in high school at the time and apprenticing another wave of nerddom. Currently, the students in my library don’t know what to make of me. The sports kids can talk to me about football and basketball and if Shaq is done or not. But then I can jump into another conversation about why I’d rather be Wash than Mal.

But when you go to a convention, a gathering where the law of averages says there will be more than a few sarcastic people, you gotta expect a counter-protest.

Maybe publicity is what Fred Phelps, leader of Westboro, is seeking. Temporary glory.

For me to start pointing fingers walks dangerously close to that same self-righteousness, though. I’ll share what God has been challenging me on this summer: life in his Spirit versus Adam-descendant flesh.

Galatians 5 makes a distinction, that you live either in the Spirit or in the flesh. It’s not a merging. Each action, each choice, each thought, is either one or the other.

Here’s how you can tell if you’re living in flesh:

• sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery
• idolatry and witchcraft
• hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy
• drunkenness, orgies, and the like

Life in the Spirit looks like:

• love
• joy
• peace
• patience
• kindness
• goodness
• faithfulness
• gentleness
• self-control

This fruit (not fruits) of the Spirit is the sign that God’s Spirit lives in you. You know what song was in my head this morning? One from these guys. I hang out with kids all day.

So before you choose to make a sign professionally instead of feeding some hungry kids, see if your actions line up with one side or the other. Unfortunately, Westboro calls their pickets Love Crusades. In the current novel I’m writing, I’m looking at making each character believable, including the antagonist. Everyone is pursuing their own wants and no one thinks that they’re truly doing the wrong thing.

Everyone’s a hero in their own mind.

I tossed around a few ideas of how to celebrate. I could pass on a funny link from J about classic movies being remade by Zac Effron, show you fan films of Star Wars and Firefly (thanks, Devin), or give a pop quiz about which Harrison Ford character would win in a street fight (oh, don’t fret. We’ll see how Rick Deckard does soon enough).

I even tried recording a video blog (remember when people tried to call them vlogs? I’m so glad we put a stop to that. Now if we could just remove the word ‘tweet’ from the Internet, it would be so double rainbow.). The video web log started out okay until I realized I have a beard made for radio.

Then I tucked my oldest in and reflected about the past five years (cue ‘Sunrise, Sunset’). When I first started posting stuff online, it was to get extra practice for Masters degree homework. I still remember feeding her in her high chair while I coded HTML, wrote an essay, and had A New Hope playing in a window for her.

Tonight she told me that if she got scared, she would read a book on courage by Frank Peretti and that she would read a book on helping others in the morning so that she would start the day out right and build up the Body of Christ. She reads her sister’s Bible to her because “it’s the only important thing.”

So, with that, I say thank you for reading the bloggh for five years and one day I hope to be as cool as my daughters.

Check out his album here. Here’s a preview:

If you’re going to be in the Valley, check out Freedom at FCOV at 7pm. (I’m playing bass.)

Either choice will garner my approval.

The next few days involve us trying to track down the parents of those shoes.

Yeah, it’s as exciting as it seems.

But whatever does not get claimed I’m taking to Street Light to help the people mentioned in a previous article on this site.

What I noticed when contacting Street Light today is that they’ve set up a Target gift registry to supply their safe house. Very smart thinking! You’ll notice that I put a link in my sidebar for the registry for if you ever want to donate at a later time. What’s great is that it’s not just anonymous money – it’s actual items that you know will help girls who have been freed from the sex trade in our area.

We watched the first 26 minutes of the Gospel of John movie on Netflix streaming. It’s actually really good and I wish it would gain in popularity. I get nervous when a movie claims to be word-for-word from a gospel, but it does it well. If you have a Netflix account, I think it’s worth your time. (I would have watched more but my daughters needed breakfast.)

Henry Ian Cusick plays Desmond on LOST and plays Jesus in this movie. Much like the Sylar/Spock anomaly, I wondered if I could separate those two characters. It helps that Desmond exists in two timelines at once and has a different perspective on life. I’m just waiting for Jesus to call to his disciples, “Come to me, brutha, if you want to live.”

Can I spend a moment of your time as an advertisement for Netflix?

We don’t have cable and we were very annoyed when Saturday morning cartoons got replaced by Horseland (it’s a show about a land…full of horses) and Skechers advertisements (the Really Tall ads do have more pathos than Horseland, though…)

Boo to you, horses, and your lame attempt at an E/I certification.

Now we can cue up some decent shows. I just found Fraggle Rock yesterday in instant streaming. I had only seen parts at a babysitter’s house growing up. This should be an intriguing foray.

Yesterday was my wife’s talent show for school. I watched my daughters while my wife taught. My youngest wanted to run around, so the two of us left my oldest in a row on her own.

From the back of the audience I pulled out my phone to text my oldest and then realized that she’s a lot more mature than I give her credit for. For some reason I thought she had a cell phone.

I was conflicted with how to manage my youngest during the talent show. Some young mega-violinist was on stage performing a great solo but my daughter wanted to make some noise. I heard the familiar sound of one lightsaber hitting another and looked down to see that she had attached the markers end-to-end to create an elegant weapon from a more civilized age.

How can I shush that?

Children contrast with the rich young man simply because there is no question of their having been able to merit anything. Jesus’ point is: there is nothing that any of us can do to inherit the Kingdom. We must simply receive it like little children. And little children haven’t done anything. The New Testament world was not sentimental about children and had no illusion about any pretended innate goodness in them. Jesus is not suggesting that heaven is a huge playground for Cajun infants. Children are our model because they have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything, it can only be as a gift.

Our youngest ragamuffin got her first haircut last night. She had not cut her own hair yet, like her older sister had by this time, but I’m sure there’s some kind of grace imagery comparing a haircut freely given and the mangled mess that happens when kids try a self-trim with safety scissors.

Instead of much more from me, check out what else is out there.

• Reflections from sidewalkdriver, wookieburger, and even a Fun Night alum.
• Wookieburger also created a great conversation between Grand Moff Tarkin and Luke.
• If you haven’t listened to April’s podcast at freedom.fcov.org (no trackback necessary), you must do so now. And yes, Mom, I made a category so you can find it easier.
• If you remember the new Rickroll I pointed out to you, I think you’ll be excited to see Captain Kirk’s judicious response to planet Trolololo. Pretty impressive stuff, especially compared to his fight versus the Plastic Lizard Man.

Why I bring up Freedom Firm is that a good friend of mine is raising awareness at our church about child trafficking going on in the Valley. Freedom Firm liberates kids in India. I didn’t know there was such an underground network going on in the U.S. We’re collecting supplies for the VICE squad to use when liberating children from prostitution (the average age of prostitutes is 13 years old).

The supplies needed are:

1. XL T-shirts, plain dark color
2. Medium flip flops
3. Combs/picks
4. Shampoo
5. Conditioner
6. Toothbrushes
7. Toothpaste
8. Soap
9. Deodorant
10. Wash cloths

The Internet has aided in the sale of children, but it can also be used to get the word out to stop child slavery. You can contact my friends at avoice.fcov@gmail.com
You should also look at sites like visionabolition.org and brandedphx.com to get more of the story.

We (the collective humanity we) have a lot of people asking for our time. That’s why I appreciate brandedphx listing different levels of assistance based on if you have five minutes or more.

If you’d like to donate supplies, e-mail my friends of comment/message me and I’ll get you an address to drop-off/mail supplies to.

World Vision today is mourning the brutal and senseless deaths of six members of our staff in the Mansehra district of Pakistan, following an unprovoked attack by gunmen.
We have confirmed that the gunmen entered our office compound, threw grenades, opened fire on staff inside the office, and left the compound after exploding a homemade bomb. The compound is located about 40 miles north of Mansehra town.
In addition to those killed, eight employees were hospitalized with injuries. Four of them were released from the hospital, while another four remain hospitalized in critical-but-stable condition.
No threatening letters were received prior to the attack. World Vision’s relief and development work in Pakistan is conducted by local citizens, and local leaders have strongly condemned the attack. World Vision sees the attack not only as an attack on its own local staff, but on the Pakistani people themselves.

They provide aid for poor kids and will still do it, although operations in Pakistan have been suspended.

Things learned while at the dealership:

1. The Scion is ready for Casas.
2. Journaling on T9 for an hour is thoroughly satisfying even if the service manager thinks you’re in one really intense game of Breakout.
3. People should clip their nails in private. This has started an interesting string of Facebook comments and rationales. (Interesting if you’re into fingernails, to clarify.)

I also got pretty far in Ally Carter’s Heist Society, which is good since certain sites have taken to open threats against the Bloggh.

Perhaps I can appease them with something I found on Pandora. While cleaning the bedroom I left on Pandora (my Nobuo Uematsu (with Konami added for variety) is killer). Did you know that you can only listen to 40 hours for free on Pandora? Can you guess what supplied the soundtrack for Christmas this year?

Who maxed out Pandora? This guy.

We survived our trip to Hoth. It wasn’t as cold as last year and not one animal had to have its innards lightsabered, a success to say the least.

Now for the random photos:

I found this while dusting my dresser. Do you remember when 10KB was a lot for a PDA to store? Let’s just say today’s journal beat that. Yes, it has been some time since I’ve dusted the dresser.

Nothing says Christmas like hot chocolate, angels, and adamantium.

It was a tear-filled send-off, which I think is quite appropriate for Christmas. Today was bessiejo’s first day at work as a super-important numbers person. I’m pretty sure her nametag says that. She’s the big super-important numbers person for Schreiber Foods. This bloggh has always been cheesy, so it shouldn’t be too big of a stretch for my readers to support the dairy industry.

You know how you can make a guitar using a piece of wood, a box, and some rubber band/elastic strings? This is what happens when you hook up an amp pick-up to the homemade guitar.


How do you smuggle in a life-size alligator replica as a gift? This is how. You should have seen it perched high on a shelf. G walked into the other room, we heard a “What the??”, and we knew that our gift was a hit.

More pictures will come of the time with my side of the family. I just had to capture this wrapping paper on my phone. It’s safe to assume I knew what my gift was. Yep. Captain Kirk handkerchiefs. I was way off, though. I’ll have to settle with getting the best Star Trek movie instead.

In great bloggh tradition, I shall attempt to prove how video games make everything better.

Thank you, J, for pointing me towards Rush Coil’s 8-Bit Christmas album. Scroll to the bottom of the linked page for the Flash player.

If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

Thanks to Bob Kauflin, someone I consider to be a mentor about worship, for this video:

That’s Christmas! from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

I shout out for peace
For a glimpse of the river
Washing us today

I would like to say that facial hair leads to a deeper spirituality, but we all know what goatees lead to.

I’m reading through George Muller’s journals right now (I know, I feel like a busy-body) and his attitude of prayer blows me away. It’s like when my wife and I helped out in Honduras. Friend Ships is an organization that smuggles (they probably wouldn’t appreciate my use of the term) food, Bibles, and other supplies to places where the need is greatest. Picture blockade runners sneaking into China and Russia, past the government to secret locations of people. That kind of awesome. But they started it all without really marketing/pushing for donations. They put up places where you can donate, but that’s not their focus.

Back to Muller – he was the guy who started up five orphanages without asking for any donations and never went into debt. It was always at the last minute when the food/supplies would be provided. The journal entry that I read this morning dealt with a husband and wife who woke up one morning thinking, “You know what? I think this guy needs a table” and donating most of their furniture to Muller’s orphanage – and Muller hadn’t mentioned the need. Whether it seems simple or not, I’m still always encouraged when I see people give out of love instead of being guilted into things. Think about the complaints people have against televangelists – the focus on money is one of the biggest complaints. Now imagine if we all had Muller’s attitude. Easier said than done, right?

Other thoughts shifting around in my brain this morning…

1. I put my sarcastic book on hold. I want to do it justice in its mockery of cliches without becoming cliche itself. It’s like Luke and the Dark Side of the Force, really.
2. I did start a different endeavor, though. A narrative in haikus is all I will say in this non-secure communication.

Something else that the sidewalkdriver will applaud: Booyor’s Ferris Bueller tour of Chicago.

Some time may passed since the last time you’ve seen the movie. I can assure you that this is not it:

Okay, so the reading thing is not surreal. But here’s what is: I looked at the epic adventure that the characters were involved in, especially in Prince Caspian and Dawn Treader, and wondered what it would be like if Sunday School were like this. What if kids truly realized their role in the kingdom of God?

Now, having grown in my distinguished sideburns, I can sit back and marvel at what God has done with Holy Order of the Lion. Like I said – surreal. I had almost forgotten filming this trailer.

My oldest took sermon notes today in her little notebook. They read, “Fools NO!”. I think that’s a valid response to Proverbs.

What should His be?

We adopt new tactics
Emotional Terrorists
Conform to my will
Or we blow this unity apart

Two year-old desires matched with thirty year-old resources

We cause trouble for our family
We deserve the wind

But He is the same from
Red Sea
to
Galilee

Creatures of dust complain
Life is too slow, too quick

And yet

We are the praise of His glory?

He is not insane
He has not handed the kingdom over without purpose

Adopted children?
Chosen?
Christ is the perspective

…including but not limited to His genealogy, His persecution, and His death. The Messiah had been spelled out as coming from the seed of woman (Gen. 3:15), a descendant of Abraham (Gen. 12:3), a descendant of Isaac (Gen. 17:19), a descendant of Jacob (Num. 24:17), from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), heir to the throne of David (Isa. 9:7), to be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2), to be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14), to flee to Egypt (Hos. 11:1), to be preceded by a forerunner (Mal. 3:1), to minister in Galilee (Isa. 9:1), to speak in parables (Ps. 78:2-4), to bind up the brokenhearted (Isa. 61:1), to be rejected by the Jews (Isa. 53:3), to enter Jerusalem triumphantly (Zech. 9:9), adored by infants (Ps. 8:2), betrayed by a dear friend (Ps. 41:9), betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12), silent to accusations (Isa. 53:7), spat on and struck (Isa. 50:6), to serve as a vicarious sacrifice (Isa. 53:5), to be crucified with criminals (Isa. 53:12), to be pierced through the hands and feet (Zech. 12:10), to be sneered at and mocked (Ps. 22:7), to have His clothes distributed by gamblers (Ps. 22:18), to be forsaken by God (Ps. 22:1), to be killed bones intact (Ps. 34:20), to be pierced in the side (Zech. 12:10), and buried with the rich (Isa. 53:9), to be resurrected (Pss. 16:10, 49:15), and to be ascended to God’s right hand (Ps. 68:18).

And to consider all these prophecies, it is a pretty tough list to fulfill. It would take a lot of work to get it all done, much of it, such as being preceded by John the Baptist, fleeing to Egypt, being killed by crucifixion and yet not having a bone broken, being recognized as a baby and rising from the dead is stuff you can’t control unless you are, in fact, God.

“…it is a pretty tough list to fulfill.” That’s awesome.

Thanks go to Devin for his cartographic curiosities.

Another Super NES star showed up today. Check out the Virtual Console for Super Star Wars today. I already have the original, but I’m glad to see that it will be preserved for a couple more years. This is probably one of the toughest games I have ever played.

So many dead womprats… I just never got how when you killed one large scorpion it turned into two small scorpions.

Rumor has it that the Check Mii Out channel will have Star Wars characters this week. I expect that Everybody Votes will finally let us figure out if Han shot first.

Which he did, you know.

You may have seen Bono’s challenging interview with Bill Hybels a while back.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the response:

In no way do I recommend living to make sure Bono is happy with us, but it is encouraging when I see people take action.

This is part of why I dig Aradhna. Their music is so different and refreshing – they also support Freedom Firm. It helped that I had recently read Sold right around the time that I hung out with the band. (And who wouldn’t want to hang out with a band in someone’s house? Coolest concert ever.)

NO FOREIGNER
IS TO GO BEYOND THE BALUSTRADE
AND THE PLAZA OF THE TEMPLE ZONE
WHOEVER IS CAUGHT DOING SO
WILL HAVE HIMSELF TO BLAME
FOR HIS DEATH
WHICH WILL FOLLOW

Yeah, that would make me feel totally awesome. Oh, wait. I mean horrible. I’m reading (and hanging out in) Ephesians and when Paul writes to the Ephesians:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

I’m guessing that may have been tough to accept for some. It’s brought to the forefront in Acts 21:27- Acts 22:29 when Paul defends himself for associating with Greeks. The crowd goes wild (in a non-Sports Night sort of way) and we now know why, in context with the warning sign.

In fact, I’m sure that hearing that Christ broke down the walls separating the groups would be tough. Think about how many things in Christian culture are non-essentials but that we hold onto for dear life (not realizing life that’s been given to us). I know none of us would label it as a wall of hostility, but that’s easy to say on the other side of the wall.

The site Stuff Christians Like (and I would get mad if anyone said all Christians were white people) points out some parts of Christian culture that we could do away with. Most make me crack up, many describe me, and some I facepalm.

People who were at my wedding, did you see the scorecard? How did we do?

I did not pay for the satellite dish.

Well, the previous owner had it on the roof when I bought the house, so I guess that counts.

Yesterday ants started streaming through the ceiling in our kitchen. (Which happens to be near where the satellite dish is.)

A couple of days ago our DVR recorded So You Think You Can Dance, but left off all of the audio. It makes for a pretty confusing dance show without any music. (Sad, I know, because I hear it was bucc.) My pirate creative mind started thinking through how to steal a satellite signal without paying for it.

How do ants and dancing connect? (Aside from the obvious Dave Matthews reference…(“Dave Matthews GPS”))

I’ve been diagnosed with a blood disease called “sin”. One of the effects of this sickness is that it burrows down deep within my body and tries to hide so that it can’t be removed.

Kinda like a bird burrowing into my attic to make a nest.

Seriously, the poor bird was probably in a storm and needed shelter. There were even eggs in the nest.

All had been dead for quite some time.

The bird had crawled in through where the satellite dish cord comes into the house. The install guy from before we had moved in years ago had not replaced the screen over a venting. This hole looked surprisingly similar to a hole for a bird house. We’ve been in this house since before my oldest child was born. The nest was of a size that Jeremy and I think it had been in there for quite some time.

I could go on treating the symptoms, spraying ants in the kitchen (did you know Clorox stops the ants without being too nerve-damaging humans?). But until the deep rooted cause of the ants, a dead bird in the attic, was removed, the symptoms would return from time to time when I least expected them. It’s like how my interactions with people sometimes get strained – it’s not the people that are the problem, it’s really the decaying, nasty stuff inside of me that taints those conversations. (See my other spiritual metaphor for another reference point.) Gotta get that junk out. Know what I’m saying?

Now, while two large men wielding a rake and a Shop Vac in an attic is rather hilarious (“fat guy in a little coat“), I know that there is part of the nest that we won’t be able to get. We removed the main cause, but some dead grass remains.

There’s only one surgeon I know that can remove the decay perfectly every time.

Slade and Mike, this photo explains my comment that warrants a bigger boat.

“That, boys, is a perimeter.”

The next picture may not be suitable for all audiences. I feel bad for the bird and the second picture spurs compassion in me, but I know it’s not for everyone.
That in mind, I will put a pretty (non-disturbing) picture first as a consideration for you.

and then a reminder of my own temporalness:

I post this video with a warning that it may be offensive or make you cry:

Actually, if this guy’s worshiping (instead of focused on performing/crowd reaction), I think this is a cool rendition. (Yes, J and Futile Ohm, you can collectively slap me in the forehead (a Successive Forced Facepalm).) I’m not one to judge someone’s flailings.

A Big Band worship conference? Rock-stepping in the aisles? I think I can dig it.

I think I’m biased towards our trumpet player, though:

It was a fun treat in a desert. And then my porch got even funkier.

Keep in mind this is after some repairs. I know.

Racing the clouds today, like a globophobic avoiding balloons (the most terrifying thing a certain brother-in-law could click on), I made some makeshift repairs to my porch.

Aluminum – What can’t you do? You hold soda, you case laptops. Now you can be applied like a Band-Aid to a leaky roof.

Sure, it looks horrible. But it keeps water out a lot better than housing development signs. Yeah, the previous owner built a porch out of scrap wood. It started out great, but it didn’t last long.

While up on the roof, I noticed more shingles that had broken off. Tomorrow morning holds even more promise. My wife bought a bundle. Why didn’t anyone tell me these things were so ruttin’ heavy?

Today also brought the repair of a toilet. We went through a certain hierarchy to prioritize the work today. I always get nervous around water repairs. I hold my breath until I forget that I worked on it. It’s not like a shelf – you put something on it and if it breaks, then it wasn’t a good shelf. But water can leak subtly.

I love summer because I can finally catch up on repairs that sit during the school year. My wife and I started to repair the handle system to our guest bathroom. Some readers may remember that over a year ago a bestia imparable crushed the handle by just resting a pinky on it. We’re now getting around to repairing it.

With this work I feel blessed. Through previous stuff breaking down my wife and I have added to our repair repertoire. We learned some of these tricks from helpful friends. The bathtub no longer leaks. It’s not quite where I’d like it. While having the ‘H’ turn on the cold water is quirky and may lead to some comic mischief, I think we can do better. Many in the world don’t have running water, so today was a reminder of what I do have.

For months, many places have directed viewers to https://www.dtv2009.gov/ (Kent Dana and Bob Vila, people…names you can trust) for more information about the transition. Also, I was very appreciative of the coupon to apply towards the purchase of the converter box. My recording schedule is all askew, having to keep the box on and turn the VCR to channel four, but at least I can still watch TV.

317,450 people called the FCC help line, 1-888-CALL-FCC, when most stations made the switch on Friday. 4,000+ FCC workers plunged through the 700,000+ phone calls this week about the digital transition.

I guess June 12 snuck up on people. If only we had been warned in February…

We’ve always got time, right?

My wife has Proverbs 3:5-6; I have Hebrews 10:23-25 for me. These verses really rang true with me throughout the latter half of college. They were emphasized this morning:

23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We don’t live like That Day is coming anytime soon. It’s tough to, like always walking around ready to pounce. But reminders of it pop up throughout our lives with enough glances at eternity – the trick is what to do between those reminders.

You can tell that we don’t have That Day on our minds as we exist Every Other Day, as evidenced by how we treat each other. Imagine what the world would look like with eternity on our minds.

Since finishing Catching Fire

yesterday I’ve been reminded of my own mortality and have felt a renewed call to action.

Just giving you a heads up.

What do we do? It’s far away, so how do we act? Iran screams like Panem:

Protesters battled police over Iran’s disputed election and shouted their opposition from the rooftops Sunday, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the unrest as little more than “passions after a soccer match” and drew his own huge rally of support.

Just after sundown, cries of “death to the dictator” echoed through Tehran as thousands of backers for Ahmadinejad’s rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, heeded a call to bellow from the roofs and balconies. The deeply symbolic act recalled the shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” or God is Great, to show opposition to the Western-backed monarchy before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Don’t worry about freedom in Iran,” Ahmadinejad said at the news conference after a question about the disputed election. “Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don’t worry about it.”

My wife is directing this year’s choir camp for our church’s elementary-aged kids. This summer’s musical is “The First Action Heroes”, starting on Monday. As church choir camps go, this one looks promising (promising as another way of saying “no dancing 5.25 floppy disks“).

When my wife and I looked at the suggested backdrops that will act as the set, we both felt like what was being suggested looked more like Sunday School workbook covers and not comic book covers.

You, as the faithful reader, get to see my re-boot/re-envisioning/re-doing of the set. These are guides for the volunteers to project and trace, so the color will be gone.

I thought that some of my comic literati might be able to guess where I got my inspiration. I feel like my students when I’m proud to say that I didn’t even trace.

To those who graduated with actual Art training, this may be glaringly obvious.

Even if it’s apparent that I can’t draw a straight line worth anything, what’s fun is that I’m going to be drawing all of the props. Benches, bushes, stacks of firewood – all in my big black Sharpie style.

If there is a cardboard famine for the next two weeks, it’s not my fault.

I needed help with moving the action into the camera:

Replace the sling with a shield and you’ve got Captain America.

This one has some Cap to it, mixed with some Ki-Adi Mundi leading the charge.

This one was inspired by this Batman cover.

When I think of princesses that chew bubble gum and take names, I think of Leia and this princess.

And then there’s the savior of the entire human race (pretty sure the offer would extend to Kryptonians):

This one I drew last because I didn’t want to have the dorky looking Jesus, or Buddy Christ, or even a picture of a lion and lamb. The picture pales to the real deal and I’m okay with that.

…we are mistaken to believe this is a war between people with flesh and people with flesh. The only appropriate war rhetoric is war rhetoric that calls our enemies spirits, and people with flesh the victims of this war. Satan wants us to fight with one another, and I understand that sometimes evil must be restrained, but our war, the war of the ones who believe in Jesus, is a war unseen. If we could muster a portion of the patriotism we feel toward our earthly nations into a patriotism and bravery in concert with the kingdom of God, the enemy would take fewer casualties to be sure.

Something for me to remember – he compares the effects of the first betrayal to what happened to kids born around areas of nuclear fallout. Our souls are mutated/broken.

My youngest had her first sashimi roll last night and my oldest was excited to be making progress with chopsticks. The photo of my oldest is from the teppanyaki night; last night she was able to do it without training sticks.

Yeah, I’m proud. I mean, even I can appreciate the level of cute:

I think it’s probably on purpose that every time I hang around my kids, God shows me a spiritual metaphor. Here’s what really struck me this morning (even funnier that my oldest is now interrupting saying, “Dad, I need help with my dress.”).

1At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

5″And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
– Matthew 18:1-6

My kids trust that when they wake up, I’ll help them get breakfast. My daughters don’t worry about mortgage payments (of which I thank Jesus) nor do they think I’m out to ruin their fun (for the most part…we haven’t hit pre-tween “you’re ruining my life!” yet).

Where conflicts come into play is when their own idea of what’s good clashes with mine (I know, who would disagree with me?).

Jesus saying that we must come to him like a child, with full trust, even if we don’t understand everything all the time, is genius. And it’s okay to be needy with him. We know that a sane father doesn’t hand a kid a scorpion when they ask for an egg (although Slade may consider handing my daughter sashimi to be the equivalent).

Something that I noticed for the first time when I was reading in Mark yesterday morning is how much Jesus protected the disciples. With all of the miracles and crowds and stuff, I always wondered why Jesus sometimes told people to not mention what he had done to anyone else.

I had never noticed Mark 9:30-31 before:

30They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.”

He really had to warn the disciples of what was going to happen and knew that, since it was a concept so out there, the best way to teach the very people who would start the Church is in a small group instead of an escalating crowd. They had to get it. They had to see what was truly good for them.

It’s not like time can escape Jesus, but it is good that he pulls them aside for their own sake on the road from Galilee to Capernaum.

View Larger Map
Capernaum and the Galilee region

After Jesus broke the news that he would be betrayed and that he would come back to life, they’re arguing amongst themselves about who is the greatest.

It actually sounds kindof childish.

But what makes a child different than an adult is that the child knows that they are a child and knows that they don’t have much power on their own. That’s why they want to grow up, so they can eat what they want and stay up as late as they want.

We’ve got that part down pretty well. But do we trust as well as a child? Do we get excited as well as a child?

Do we love as well as a child?

Some will have a problem with being like a child because of how ignorant children are and their lack of experience.

I think we’re foolish to assume we’re anything but.

For the grandparents: If you make it to the end of the article, I’ll put up some cute photos of the grandkids.

Thank you to The Family for the tickets to Third Day last night. Very cool, especially since the last time that I went to one of their concerts was one of my wife’s and my first dates (watching The Road to El Dorado with Mike and his wife is also in our First Dates origin story comics series.)

We have kids now. Look at my eyes – can you tell? Click to zoom.

This is how they started. For the other videos, I zoom in.

Before we get to more pictures, make sure you check out their Twitter accounts:
Mac Powell – Lead Singer
Mark Lee – Lead Guitarist
Tai Anderson – Bass Player (took pictures of fans during the concert…another bassist thing)
David Carr – Drums
Scotty Wilbanks – Keyboards

(What’s really cool/creepy is voyeuring how the band went to go see Wolverine, how their flight was and how they reacted to Celebrity Theater’s “in the round” set-up.)

Click to zoom.

I enjoy that they come off as very real. I’ve met with authors who show up and are very much, “Buy my book! Buy my book!” and then there are others who will talk for a little bit at the beginning and then walk the students through how to be a better author.

Mac Powell will sometimes call the audience to join in an impromptu church service and I love it. Mac shares my heart for Jesus and in turn shares my heart for the beaten down in the world. I know that some people get frustrated when they go to a concert and the lead singer just yammers (something Bono gets criticized of), but it doesn’t feel like that with Third Day. (I guarantee I’m biased.)

Third Day fact: Mac and Mark went to the same high school. Mark had heard Mac sing at a high school assembly and asked him to join the garage band. Also – they had technically played in a band previous to that. Mark played trombone and Mac played trumpet (like all holy marching band alliances…what did you expect, a clarinet? As if.).

Mac is mixed by a Mac. The great thing about the Celebrity Theater is that it’s very intimate. So much so that I’m thankful J got us aisle seats. I sat sideways (when I sat…Revive came out and asked everyone to stand. We stood for most of the show.).

I’ve determined that if libraries are abolished in the dystopian version of the future, I will become a rock and roll pastor. They have this guy, Nigel, whose sole job (as he put it) is to keep the guys in line. (Imagine if The Who or Guns n’ Roses had done this.)

They’re very honest with where they’re at, including musically. The majority of the second half of the concert was taking requests. Very cool. Jason Mitchener, who runs their fan forums, had been hounding them to play May Your Wonders Never Cease.

They’ve never done it live.

They did it live last night.

Now, when a rock star forgets the lyrics to one of his own songs that was on the set list, that’s a rip-off (but kind of funny). But when a band hasn’t played the song in years and is trying to remember how it goes? Reality. Mac jokingly told the crowd to stop Twittering him now. He apologized ahead of time.

They played Thief, still my favorite song of all time (followed closely by the song that plays when Kenobi dies (and Into the West is up there, too)(Wow. Never noticed the trend before.)).

And here it is:

Tears still welled up. I’m telling you, every time.

I’m big on humble bands not doing encores for the, “Look at me!” aspect. When they did an encore last time, they played worship songs with Jennifer Knapp. This time I held my breath – they started playing “Light at the End of the Tunnel” but thankfully moved on to some straight up worship alongside Revive (who Third Day connected with when they went to Australia) and Brandon Heath.

Brandon Heath on his own towards the beginning of the show:

Other fun moments:

When Mac came out at the beginning to sing with Revive for a song, he joked about not knowing how to get off the stage.

Brandon Heath said that he had some friends in the audience. He waved to them and said, “See you in about five minutes.” (Because the stage keeps rotating.)

You’ve got your trekkies/trekkers; you’ve got your browncoats. But have you seen the Gomers? They’re dressed in bright orange at the concerts.

Many artists don’t want pictures taken or video posted online. Third Day asked us to take as much footage as we could and that it would only help them out.

Because I needed more reason to like Third Day.

As promised for the grandparents: cute grandkids!
Click on pictures for zoomed view.

My date is super hot. I hear she’s in her 20s, but that may change today. I need someone that can handle distinguished sideburns.

Also, J has posted a video from Easter. Very cool on all accounts. See if you can find:

1. A bass player encouraging groove.
2. A trumpet that could hang with Wynton.
3. My mom with a videocamera.
4. The Church doing what it was born to do.

Here’s the video:

but you should leave a comment on J’s site.

For next week’s BibleQuest, expect this comic about being aware of your gifts to be able to help others.

I hope it’s not inferred that I blame video games (unlike a staff meeting a while back where they blamed the fall of society on violence in video games…I haven’t enacted any violence I’ve seen, although that’s not a good, scientific argument considering I’ve never been presented with the opportunity to kill a zombie…kill a zombie down in Africa).

We hunt for brains down in Africa
We go insane down in Africa
The virus is waiting there for you

Lists are my thing.

1. They help me to get out what’s hanging over my head.
2. They help me to work efficiently by organizing my efforts.
3. I can check off the items and move on.

But if I were to just list off to my wife what I liked about her, there’s a meaning behind that list. If I handed her a spreadsheet detailing her attributes, it might be cute at first, but no serious woo-age will occur except that she understands and trusts where I’m coming from.

It’s like a character sheet, really. Sure, Kraka on paper was a Mon Calamari Jedi scholar with, I guess, not a high enough defense rating versus a Vong warbeast. But it’s the in-game interactions and the way the other players and myself viewed Kraka that made him cool. No one looked at my character sheet and was, like, “Wow. This guy rocks. Look at all those pretty numbers.”

I’m challenged with lists like I’m challenged with norming things that shouldn’t/won’t be normed.

Here’s from Searching for God Knows What:

I started wondering if our methodology, that of charts and formulas and lists, is not hindering the message Jesus intended. If our modern methodology is superior to the methodology of historical narrative mixed with music, drama, poetry, and prose, then why didn’t God choose lists instead of art?

I began to wonder if the ancient Hebrews would have understood this intrinsically, if they would have sat around watching plays and reading poems knowing this is where real truth lies, and if our age, affected by the Renaissance and later by the Industrial Revolution, by Darwin and the worship of science, hasn’t lost a certain understanding of truth that was more whole.

…

And while our earlier conceived list of features might have been accurate, it certainly wouldn’t have been meaningful.

It makes you wonder if guys like John the Evangelist and Paul and Moses wouldn’t look at our systematic theology charts, our lists and mathematical formulas, and scratch their heads to say, “Well, it’s technically true; it just isn’t meaningful.”

If you ask me, the separation of truth from meaning is a dangerous game.

I’m one for predictability, so much so that this morning one lunch lady handed me a breakfast burrito while another yelled for the back room to go get a strawberry milk. Not once did I actually place an order. (For scientific purposes, the same happens at lunch. Orange chicken with lo mein and apologies if they don’t have any more strawberry milk. You should see the panic if I’m in a hurry and ask for a slice of pizza – straight up dogma shift.)

The trouble is that Jesus is all about relationships.

Formulas are not about relationships.

This is where a majority of Christian self-help books break down, when they start forming lists. We can’t norm interactions with Jesus. He heals by saying, “Get up!” one time (Matthew 9) and for a blind guy in John 9 the healing doesn’t happen until he washes out the mud. But before we start to say, “Well, one couldn’t walk and the other couldn’t see”, check out Mark 10.

Addition: Should we norm Christian leadership? “Follow Christ, stand up for what you believe in, be stoned by the community – The All-New Stephen Method!” “Have everyone respect your religious heritage, become blind, be healed by Jesus, go from town to town getting beat up – Four Steps to a More Paul You” “Reject God, get swallowed by large water creature, have your shelter eaten by a worm, reluctantly see God’s perspective – Daily Devotionals to Read by the Beach”

The trouble, then, is that Jesus works differently in different situations. No formula. Donald Miller is quick to point out, though, that a formula, by making it predictable, takes away the relationship aspect and instead turns Jesus into Jeannie (maybe without the outfit and the blinking, but just as silly).

The formulas propose that if you do this and this, God will respond. When I was a kid I wanted a dolphin for the same reason.

If you haven’t read Searching for God Knows What, pretty cool read.

It’s tough to prescribe a process for change aside from

• Step 1: Connect with Jesus.
• Step 2: Repeat Step 1.

Granted, we feel like there needs to be more, but how much stems from our fear? Maybe I’m the only control freak around here, the fact that I obsessively update a bloggh being prime condemning evidence. Or was that my desire to re-write every episode of Heroes to make it better?

It’s good to see that Renaissance Bible Church is still rockin’ it, this time with their Christmas bail-out (it’s a tiny church in North Carolina). Another previous stunt awesomeness was when they bought gas for the community. (This is a state where they just ran out, plain and simple.)

We Got Gas from RenBible on Vimeo.

So, Boxing Day was initially set up as a holiday dedicated to loving others. Here are some thoughts on love…
From Jean-Paul Sartre, in his 1944 book, Closed Doors (ever the optimist):

Hell is other people.

(Ravi Zacharias contrasts that part of Heaven is your interactions with others)

Thomas Merton:

Man is not at peace with his fellow man because he is not at peace with himself. He is not at peace with himself because he is not at peace with God.

Donald Miller:

He was saying I would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself. It was as if God had put me in a plane and flown me over myself so I could see how I was connected, all the neighborhoods that were falling apart because I would not let myself receive love from myself, from others, or from God. And I wouldn’t receive love because it felt so wrong. It didn’t feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to be humble…If it is wrong for me to receive love, then it is also wrong for me to give it because by giving it I am causing somebody else to receive it, which I had pre-supposed was the wrong thing to do.

And the guy I will grab a cup of tea with past the Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis:

I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.

But the most tangible example of love for me? You didn’t see the diaper I just changed (which also resulted in a bath for my youngest). I am very much reminded of my diaper/sin metaphor from when I first started this dad business.

I am very thankful that Jesus washes us up. Because I seriously don’t want to sit around in that.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

Humility is nothing else but a right judgment of ourselves.

Today I heard some quotes from William Law and became intrigued. He’s the author from the 1700s (not to be confused with 1800s William Law) of the book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life and it’s not as self-righteous as some of the writers from the time period come off to be.

One of the concepts that grabbed me is that knowledge of the Bible that is not acted upon inoculates us to its reality. We get too used to hearing the same old stories and think that we know everything, whether we’ll admit it or not. Or we’ll just stop caring about what we know or not. I think this is a major issue with churches in our country and why we’ve lost perceived relevance in many situations. Yeah, I’m reading through Blue Like Jazz again. I love it.

Advancing the cause of not helping out your fellow human:

That split second of, “Could I get sued?” could mean a life. Should we just say, “Leave ‘em” just to keep our lives less complicated? But a person jumping in to save another is going to be a risk taker already. Would they fear a lawsuit?

We also put the lights up tonight. A simple strand.

Booyor’s Light Tip for Christmas:

Try a different night than a worknight. I always put up lights in the dark. I know there’s something poetic there, but my poked fingers are missing the irony.

NEW YORK – Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday’s video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries.

Hard to identify because of the human swarm? People bummed that a store closed because a worker died? Please don’t write this off as a New York thing.

PALM DESERT, Calif. – The shooting occurred in a crowded toy store on the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, but authorities say it wasn’t related to the bargain-hunting frenzy. Instead, two men pulled guns and killed each other after the women with them erupted into a bloody brawl, witnesses said.

Here are the AP articles for New York and California.

Granted, in California they say it’s not part of the frenzy but was instead something that they had going on before they entered the store. I think with both instances it’s a trouble inside of us before we enter the stores. It’s the same trouble inside of us that leads to tragedies like what went on in Mumbai (and the constant trouble in Pakistan). Keep in mind that this trouble is not just overseas.

The question is, what are we going to do about this trouble? It’s something that’s tugging at the back of my mind this Christmas season.

(Don’t get me wrong. I’m still very much excited for the awesomeness of an Animal Crossing (even the website changes based on time of day) that I had missed the first time around. And yes, Slade, that includes fishing tournaments which I will drag you to.)

And Peter then says, “Oh, dear.”