Thelma and Lewis

Well, the butt crack of dawn tomorrow finds Abby and I on the road for the next 12 days. Vagabonds, we are. Roamers. Wanderers. Strangers in a strange land. We're Jack and Jill Kerouac. Hope and Crosby. The Griswolds. Mickey and Mallory Knox. Bonnie and Clyde. We're Thelma and Louise, and Lewis and Clark. We're Thelma and Lewis. We hope to make it as far as Memphis, and maybe Nashville tomorrow night. Ambitious, I know, but we are spoiling for it.

We are armed with new CD's that we checked out from the library for FREE! (The library! Now THERE'S an idea I hope will catch on!). We've got Freakonomics the Audiobook to listen to, and we've got Shane's copy of the Velvet Elvis Audiobook, as well. We've got a cooler full of well-planned, portioned out healthy snacks (did I mention the Weight Watchers thing we're doing? Man. Whole other post....), deli turkey, and PB&J. We've got a Nintendo DS, an old-school Game Boy, an Atari Lynx, and a Sega Game gear. The iPod is fully stocked. We've got an empty credit card and a full tank of gas.

This will either be the all-time best experience for an 8 1/2 month married couple - or the worst idea since Flavor of Love 3. Stay tuned right here to find out! I mean, obviously I'll be blogging from the road, and keeping you up to date with all the excitement, like - "Oh, honey! Is that a Hawaii license plate? How DO they get over here?" - and other gems.

And if you're wondering whatever happened with that whole Mars Hill debacle - it looks like we're going to leave from Cleveland right after the wedding reception on Saturday night (thank you, sweetheart!) and boogie on over to Grand Rapids for a Sunday MORNING service. Take THAT Mars Hill Bible Church. You better be ready for J.T. - because I'm bringin' the tired, and I'm bringin' it strong. Word.

For those of you in the greater Dallas/Ft. Worth/Denton area - gird up thy loins, for the time of your visitation is surely at hand.

Amen, and amen.

Thwarted!

So, I e-mailed the nice folks at Mars Hill to let 'em know I was coming, and that they should get ready. I let them know that I'd be attending the 6p.m. service on September 6th. I also asked if it'd be possible to get a tour of the building, and maybe a meeting with a Youth Pastor, to pick his brain about things. I even told them I was willing to stick around until Monday morning.

So today I got a response to my e-mail. I turns out that Mars Hill isn't having a service at 6p.m. on Sunday, September 6. They have canceled it in favor of a church-wide picnic at a park somewhere. So J.T.'s plans have been thwarted, thus far. What a shame. I had been looking forward to it for so long.

Power Shopper!

I spent approximately 2 hours today on the phone with various customer servicers at Dell. Some of them actually spoke English, and I think one of them was flirting with me. I was, of course, in no mood for that sort of nonsense by then. The happy ending is that very shortly, I may finally have a new battery and AC Adapter for this gently used 3-year-old computer. Of course, it will probably arrive in the mail during my week-and-a-half long road trip... which isn't such a happy ending after all, I guess.

This just in: I'm working on a redesign for the site! Watch this space!

Write SOMETHING every day....

I spent the whole day today in meetings. We had our weekly staff meeting from 7:30 to 9 this morning, and then spent the rest of the day in a planning meeting for our upcoming sermon series on Worldview. Looks like I'm team-teaching on Church/Faith/Mission with the pastor one week, and solo teaching on Music/The Arts several weeks later. I always get a little excited about teaching in "Big Church", but this series has me a little more excited than others. It seems more... lofty. It's the kind of thing that's going to make it difficult for us to go back to teaching about having a better marriage, raising better kids, or managing your finances, with a straight face.

In other news, Abby and I are leaving on our National Lampoon's Summer Vacation next week - probably Wednesday the 5th. We're taking the scenic route up to Cleveland, Ohio for a wedding, stopping several times along the way. From there we'll head over to Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend a service at Mars Hill Bible Church. And then we'll head to Dallas to visit with friends for the remainder of our time. Total vacation length - approx. 12 days! Total time driving - approx. 11 days! Okay, not really. But it is a heck of a long way. Let's hope our little car can take it.

I'm seeing more of the world in the last year than I have in my entire life. It's kind of cool. I had actually thought that marriage would slow me down. I hereby repent of that nonsense.

Is it raining where you are?

I suck at blogging.

The sad part is...
I'm still better than a lot of blogs I read.
So there.

Anyway - I've always got crap to say, and always forget what it is when I sit down to do this.
Write SOMETHING every day. Write something every day. No matter how banal. That's what I tell my other friends who suck at this, anyway.

But something happened to me recently that made my top 5 life experiences of all-time, so come on - I couldn't let it slip by without a word.

Two Sundays ago, I left for Dallas to meet Shane and Cory for a guys retreat to the mountains of Colorado. By Monday afternoon we were in Parker, just outside of Denver, and by Tuesday afternoon we were at our little cabin beside the river in the mountains. We were joined by a friend of Cory's (now a friend of mine) named Shawn, and a spry 65-year-old named Wes. Wes does a lot of mentoring for guys like me, some counseling, and some consulting for great organizations like Compassion International. He spent the week encouraging, sharpening, and blessing us in a multitude of ways. On Wednesday we spent the entire day in Rocky Mountain National Park marveling and overlooks and complaining that our cameras were way too small. The end of the day found us at Wes's "sacred space" on Sprague Lake - a place which holds special significance in his own story, and now ours as well.

That night, he led us in an unforgettable communion using Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos and 12-year-old MacAllen Scotch. Strange, yes, and stranger for me because, teetotaler that I am - I reserve 100% of my alcohol consumption for communion. Afterwards, he anointed our foreheads with oil in the shape of a cross, and gave us this charge: "Go live the gospel."

Those were pretty much his last words to us. He left that night, and Shawn left shortly after. Shane, Cory and I spent the entire next day sleeping in, playing Bocce and horseshoes, grilling steaks and playing cards. Shane packed his new pipe for the very first time ever, Cory had a cigar, and I had many Sunflower Seeds. Sooooo many Sunflower Seeds.

Any summary of this trip must include three things: The unfathomable beauty in every corner of that part of the world, the unparalleled significance of 5 men seeking God and deep ecclesiology, and absolute fact that the altitude very nearly killed me. I felt terrible most of the week. On the day we went into Rocky Mountain National Park, I even resorted to taking hits off of Shane's inhaler. It didn't help. I will admit, however, that I have never felt so good feeling so bad. What I mean is, in surroundings like that, it's hard to feel bad about feeling poorly. I was determined to drink in every minute of it, and I think I did.

Yesterday I narrowed down my vast library of pictures to the top 100 MB that Flickr would allow me to upload. Check it out here. It pretty much excludes any actual pictures of me, because I looked and felt ridiculous. But the pictures it does include are far better than anything you'd find me in. Enjoy. I know most of them look like postcards - but they are, nevertheless, postcards that I was standing in at the time. Which is pretty rad.

Anyway - this is day one of the new "write SOMETHING every day" era. Oh - also the new "I figured a MUCH easier way of getting pictures off my camera, so I'll actually be using it now" era. Shalom!

The Man Who Laughs

For those of you who haven't been on the internet this week, and have only just now gotten on for the sole purpose of checking for updates at Go Brain, Go, I present to you -
Heath Ledger as The Joker.















My impression?
Mmmmmm.... geeky goodness.
I love the cut smile, and the insane look of it.
I can't wait to see more.
Here's hoping that this Joker will be less of a funnyman, and more of a homocidal psychotic sociopath.
*fingers crossed*

A couple of links for those of you descending into Batman sequal madness, as I am:
Batman-on-film (news and scoops)
The Dark Knight (Official site)
I Believe In Harvey Dent (Gotham City District Attorney "campaign" page)

Up until this weekend, the film was using a little viral marketing to tease the big reveal of the Joker image you saw above.
Several businesses found themselves littered with playing cards that looked like this:
















They have "I believe in Harvey Dent Too" written on them.
Until today, you could visit the website www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com and see a version of the "campaign" site that looked like it had been hacked and defaced by the Joker. At the bottom of the page you could enter your e-mail address, and it would send you an e-mail with X and Y coordinates in it, and a link back to the page. When you entered the coordinates on the page, it identified that ONE PIXEL, and revealed what was behind it. Thousands of e-mails later, the picture underneath was revealed to be our first look at Heath Ledger as the Joker.

Genius.


**EDITED TO ADD:**
I went back to www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com a minute ago.
Even though the page content appears to be removed, and the page says in red letters "Page Not Found" - if highlight over the entire page, it reads "HahaHahAHAHaha" all over it. VERY disturbing.

Here's what I think...

Also - he's going to live, and Charlie will die in the next episode.
What say ye?

My new life motto

www.toothpastefordinner.com

Parental Discretion Advised

Please, oh please, click to enlarge.

My Humps... if by, "my" you mean "Alanis"

There are no words.

Prince Caspian

Great quote from C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian that I was reminded of while reading ysmarko's blog.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”

“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Do you have a problem with that?

Check out this video for the song Sweep The Leg by No More Kings. It is written and directed by William Zabka, who played Johnny in the Karate Kid. He managed to reassemble most of the Kobra Kai, and even wrangled an appearance by the Karate Kid himself - Ralph Macchio, who still looks like he's about16 years old. Keep your eyes open for the homage to Raising Arizona, and for Mr. Belding. I've never heard of this band before, but this song is pretty sweet.

Geek Mythology

Back in 1983, my parents took me to see a movie in a theater for the first time. And I vividly remember waiting in a long line for tickets. Paying at the box office. Sitting in the theater eating popcorn. Staying awake for the whole movie. And walking through the parking lot when it was over begging to turn around and see it again right away.

I don't recall ever feeling that way about a movie again - until last night.
The first movie was Return of the Jedi. The second was 300.

I wanted it to never end! And all day long I've been going over my schedule for the week in my head - trying to figure out how soon it is before I can go see it again!

It was epic. It was intentionally anachronistic. It was shot entirely on green/blue screen. It was bloody. It was the most beautiful film I've ever seen. It was perfectly cast. It's my new favorite movie ever. Oh - and it was in IMAX.

I can't wait to run out and get the Frank Miller graphic novel that inspired this film.
That's the way to do it, you know. Since the book is always better than the movie - see the movie first, and if you love it, you know you'll love the book.

Yes, I am aware that I'm a HUGE nerd.

Blue Like Fieldy

"Eagle-eye" Thomas. That's what they used to call me. You know - because I could see stuff. Okay, okay.... nobody ever called me that. BUT THEY SHOULD! This weekend, I guess there was some kind of Miami Ink marathon on, and I got sucked into it. I'm not embarrassed, it's a good show. You should check it out. On one of the episodes, the guys joined the band Korn on the Family Values Tour. A couple of the band members and security guys wanted tattoos, so they took the show on the road. One of the tattoo-ees was Fieldy, bass player for Korn. When the Miami Ink tattoo artist walked onto Fieldy's trailer, there was, conveniently, already a cameraman in there. Fieldy was sitting on the couch reading a book. What book? - you might ask yourself. What sort of book would the bass player for Korn be reading in his trailer. Well, having asked myself the same question, I paid close attention, trying to catch a glimpse.

Blue Like Jazz.

Fieldy was reading Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller's magnum opus (so far).

(Sidebar here, to mention that if you haven't read Blue Like Jazz yourself - you should really be feeling very badly right about now. Fieldy from Korn is way ahead of you in this game.)

Here's the episode on YouTube, which I will not embed because the Department of Justice has put the fear of God in me.

Here's a screencap of the scene where you can see the back cover of the book he's holding.
And here's a scan of the back cover of my (autographed! Thanks Shelly!) copy of Blue Like Jazz.

I meant to post this months ago...

J.T. - Don. Don - J.T. He said he wished he could grow a beard.
We all do, Don. We all do.

Heartbeats

Have you seen this video by Sigur Ros? Amazing. I saw it just about a week ago, and was blown away.

I don't watch a ton of videos, but I'm working on developing a 4 or 5 week teaching series for the youth using videos like this one. So far I'm also considering UNKLE's Rabbit in Your Headlights, and maybe REM's Everybody Hurts (old school). I'm still looking for a couple more videos if anybody's got any ideas. Bill gave me a couple of great ones, and Abby.... well, she thinks it's a pretty dumb idea. They need to be kind of like short films, something striking to the eye, or with a big payoff at the end. I'm not concerned that they be squeaky clean, but I'd prefer if they didn't have nudity or any language that you can't hear on daytime television.

Click here to check out one of my favorites, so far, that Bill suggested. You may recognize it.

Are you there, Margaret? It's me, God...

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Margaret from church left a bag for me at the Guest Services desk. I looked inside, and lo and behold, it contained all the West Wing DVD's a guy could ask for. To keep! For FREE!! She had bought them on eBay, and then somebody gave them to her as a gift, so she gave them all to me. Actually, it was seasons 1-5, and since I have 6 and 7 on my hard-drive, I can now watch any episode of TWW any time I want. I am now hip-deep in Season 2, and loving it. Margaret was such a blessing to me that I wanted to sing her praises here in this public forum. Madge - God used you to bless me - and I thank you!

ENVY ME!

Fat Tuesday!

Happy Mardi Gras! Or, if you prefer - Martes Gordo! I hope you are doing well on this festive occasion, and filling yourselves to the brim with all sorts of delicious and sinful things that you will hereby abstain from for the next 40-some-odd days known as Lent. By the way, did you know that "carnival", as Mardi Gras is sometimes called, is a Latin word, that actually translates - "farewell to the flesh"? Today is the day we overdo it, to make up for the next several weeks of tragically(yet nobly, and very spiritually) under-doing it. I brought a beautiful King Cake to the office today, complete with plastic baby nestled within. I will most likely return home with 7/8ths of said cake. Baby included. Yeah- Texas sucks, whaddyagonnado?

I've already given up soft drinks of every kind for the entire year 2007 (yes, it's going very well, actually - thank you for asking), but for the lenten season, I have decided to add coffee to my fast. The wife said that sounds too easy, but I give it 4 or 5 days without coffee before she starts to sing a different tune. She, on the other hand, is giving up granulated sugar, and has informed me that for the next 40something days I'm to make my sweet tea with Splenda(tm). To which I, quite naturally, and as you would expect replied...... "um... yes, dear" ...and then mumbled something under my breath about that not really being sweet tea, and communism, or somesuch whateverness.

Are you giving anything up? And don't say, "Lent" or "Catholicism", because I'm the only one that makes stupid jokes like that around here, got it?


So, I bet you're wondering what would bring me out of hiding, after a more than 2-month-long hiatus. Well, here it is:
Sex God. The new book by Rob Bell (referred to by my wife as "your boyfriend"). The long-anticipated (by me) follow-up to 2005's Velvet Elvis. If you haven't read either of these books, then your life will never be considered complete. I hate to be the one who has to tell you that.

I have an insider at the Grapevine bookstore, who sent me a message as soon as it went on sale. I picked it up yesterday, and it took me about 2 1/2 hours last night to finish it. What a great feeling. To actually finish a book, instead of taking 3 months, and reading a chapter every time I go to the bathroom. Speaking of that....
I finally finished this book today, too. What can I say, I was on a roll. If you're interested in a fresh, uncomplicated take on an often misunderstood set of teachings, and something that's a little different from your typical Christian Living section fare - I recommend Matthew Paul Turner's Beatitude. MPT is the former editor of CCM Magazine, but don't let that scare you away. He was fired from that job, anyway - and probably for a good reason.


Lastly - I realize that there have been very few..... okay ZERO mentions of my recent nuptials on this blog. In fact, if you think about it, you might notice that I very rarely speak about the ladies at all on here unless they are of the celebrity variety. And everybody knows that celebrities aren't real anyways. But, I will confirm that I did get married on December 23rd, 2006, and that yes - she is hopelessly out of my league, and that all future posts will probably feature sickeningly frequent mentions of her, and no small amount of gushing. Those of you who are into that kind of thing can check out pictures of the wedding event HERE.

In the past 2 months I've also bought a car, and leased a house, and taken a 7 day cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. Most significantly - I've grown the beard back. Yes, it looks great, thank you.

I am such a slacker...

A big wet kiss on the mouth (or substitute prize of comparable value) to the first person (besides Bill) who can name this song.

I care very little for politics.

Yesterday Austin and I went to UBA (Union Baptist Association) headquarters for a dialogue on the Emerging Church. It was reasonably well-attended by some key leaders in the Houston area, as well as some prominent and influential Emerging Church personalities. Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, and Debbie Jones (wife of Andrew "Tallskinnykiwi" Jones) were in attendace, as well as a group of guys from a ministry in Germany called Kubik. All in all, I'd say there were about 30 people there.

The boys from Kubik are evidently masters of audiovisual technology, and showed us a short flash presentation they had put together, which included a series of question that they and the folks involved in their ministry are asking. Questions such as (I'm paraphrasing here), "If God is inclusive, why are we so exclusive?", "Why do we feel like we can't be honest about our failures?", "Why are we so inward-focused?", and some others that were so profound that they have escaped my memory. We then spent the next 10 minutes in small groups of 5 or 6 reflecting on our impressions of those questions, and which ones resonated with us the most.

Next, we spent about an hour in a circle, just questioning and answering. A couple of questions that came up:

"Where are all the women in this movement?"

"Is the Emerging Church really just a phenomenon among affluent white people, or is it crossing racial and cultural lines as well?"

Ken Shuman, the local guy who kind of put this gathering together, asked
"What does an Emerging Church look like?"
Which, of course, is the question you just CAN'T ask. Not because we don't want to answer it, but because it can't be answered, which is kind of the whole point. Churches will reflect the communities and relationships that they are generated out of, and not some predetermined formula. "Emerging" is not a style, or a model. The sooner people figure out that "Emerging Church" does not mean candles, soft music, gotees, Apple computers, and flash videos, and that you cannot just drop these things into your old service and make it postmodern, the sooner they will get their arms around what "emerging" really means.

Out of this conversation came a remark by Doug Pagitt that the Emerging Church is not merely a question of ecclesiology, but a question of theology, which prompted me to ask,
"Theologically, then - is there anything that is 'off the table', not open for discussion?"
It's a question that Tony Jones had posed at the Late Night Theology Discussion at NYWC.
One of the responses to this question came from a guy who talked like he was really important, but I have no idea who he is. He said, "If you're asking if there's anything theologically that is off the table, then I would say - the table. If you're trying to develop some kind of 'Emergent Orthodoxy', then I'm not interested."

Brilliant. For more questions like this, check out this blog post by Tony Jones.

After this discussion was some more time just to talk and network a little bit. I had a minute or two to talk to Doug Pagitt, who made a remark in our private conversation that didn't go over very well with Austin. Doug said, basically, that American Christianity, which he would call "Augustinian Christianity", in the form of Catholicism and Anglicanism had failed. I understood this to mean that they had ultimately failed in the end, and are failing today - not that they had been a failure all along.

I then posed the question I wish I could have asked 2 years ago.
"What's a guy to do when the language and questions of the emerging church are capturing his heart, and interest, but the church where he serves, that he loves dearly and is invested in keeps butting up against those things? Can he stay there, and be a change agent? Or does he have to leave and start something new?"

Doug said that that guy could stay in his current position as a change agent as long as he relinquished his salary. If he wants to continue to get paid by that church, he cannot stay there and try to push an agenda that is contrary to the vision and values of the existing church. "Pirates" is the exact word he used for them. The fact is that most guys who ask that question, when they get another job, don't give a rip about the church they were in. So if you really feel like you need to be a change agent for the church you're in - you gotta give up your salary, and you have to stay just as committed as if you were still receiving it... which I would guess is not all that likely.

Also, I asked the guys from Kubik if they had a website. One of them said - "Don't bother, it's all German." The other said, "We did have one, but we took it down because we were getting overrun with a bunch of Christians."

In other news - I've added a wedding countdown to the sidebar over there. I will now begin accepting your congratulations. And your gifts.
The couple is registered at Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Amazon.com