My Latest Creation

Here's a chair I built for a client. They wanted sort of an art piece that was also, well, a chair. The designer sketched out an idea, Bob drew up some real plans and I built it, out of red cedar, then painted it. The metal grill was built by a local fellow and installed by me using the amazing technology of screws.

Damn It, You've Got To Be Kind

Inspired by a recent post on my High School pal Russ' blog, I'm posting the sort of philosophical worldview I'm trying to implement for myself. It's so easy to get reeled in by the exploding violence around the world and tumultuous economic news that I, for one, can easily find myself living in a cloud of negative thoughts.

So I'm trying to follow some ideas from Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. In it, Vonnegut notes that there is no instruction manual to accompany our arrival here on this planet, but if there were one, this is what he thinks it should say:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

So I've been using that to help combat the oppressive negativity and feeling of doom that easily permeates my consciousness. First off, I'm trying hard to be kind. Always and to everyone. And it's not as easy as it sounds. Meanwhile, of course, the Bible could be seen as an instruction manual of sorts, and based on stuff we've been talking about in Sunday school, I'm trying to make sure I see every single person as a child of God and, even more, the very image of God. The only thing I can change is me, the only place I can interact is right here in front of me in my everyday actions here in my town. So I try not to focus on the tanking economy and the evil hatred that explodes internationally. I'm trying to just focus on being kind to everyone and seeing everyone as a child of God. I want to be a light to the world, to live my life as a thank you note to God, and the only way to do it is to see the beauty in everything around me, everything and everyone. Of course, it's darned near impossible and I see myself as mean-spirited and harshly judgmental. But I'm trying, damn it, I'm trying...

Impoverished

It's blog action day.

So I've been thinking about poverty and, to be honest, it's something that's been bugging me for years.

In the Bible, Jesus talked about poverty, like, 90 million times. Jesus talked about abortion, gays, flag burning and other hot button topics exactly zero times.

So why aren't we having a war on poverty? Why isn't every Christian doing what Jesus commanded: give everything you have to the poor.

"Oh," you say, "but Jesus said the poor will always be with you. So, you know, don't worry about the poor and save yourself."

Okay, did you read the whole story? He says it in response to Judas (of all people) giving Mary Magdalene a hard time for buying some oil to pour on J's feet in those last days. And Jesus, in effect, says, "Look, you'll have your whole life to help the poor. But I'm only going to be here for a couple more days. So chill out, Judas."

So why do we spend so much time trying to proof-text hot button issues and find excuses to get around Jesus' ideas about helping the poor and loving everyone and turning the other cheek and forgiving your enemies and all those other hard things he asked us to do?

Oh yeah -- because they're hard to do.

Or am I reading a different Bible than everyone else?

Our Big Finale

The Break Time Players, at the art museum. This was our final number and we decided to encourage some audience participation...

Does This Make Us Art?

The Break Time Players -- Bob Ripley on guitar and me on saxophone -- were invited to play at the local art museum last week. So we did.

Here's a brief excerpt.

Happy Breakaway Day!

The New Star Trek

Sneak Preview

Our church publishes short pieces on the cover of our weekly bulletin. I wrote a couple a few years back. I was asked to write a new one to go in the bulletin sometime this November relating to our stewardship campaign. I was inspired and went ahead and wrote it now rather than, as is more typical for me, waiting until late October.

So here it is.


Feeding the Five Thousand


Let me make this one thing perfectly clear: it’s not just about the donuts.

Sure, the donuts are a nice bonus. I mean, last summer, we got donuts after every service. Kind of makes it even more fun to go to church, you know? And we still get donuts every few weeks when new members join our growing church family. So there certainly continue to be numerous opportunities for donuts. And, hey, what could be better than donuts?

Well, there’s also coffee.

And while there’s nothing all that miraculous about donuts and coffee (although together they are a mighty powerful team) and I’m certainly not going to suggest that any kind of transubstantiation occurs when you eat a fried ring of dough covered in powdered sugar, there does remain a certain sense of something special that does occur in their presence.

Let me try to explain.

In the story, Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, looks to heaven, blesses and breaks the loaves, then divides the fish and, when the disciples set them before the gathered crowd of five thousand men (not to mention any additional women or children), all ate and were satisfied.

All of them ate.

We aren’t given an explanation. We don’t get a Sorcerer’s Apprentice style scene in which the loaves and fish start rapidly multiplying and walking themselves through the crowd uncontrolled. We’re simply told that all ate, that all were satisfied and that, most miraculously of all, there were leftovers.

A character in a novel I once read, an Episcopal priest experiencing a crisis of faith, thought that maybe the way the story really happened was that it was as though there were only five loaves and two fishes. The miracle was that the people shared what they had with strangers.

And isn’t that exactly what Jesus repeatedly calls us to do?

Now I could recite the familiar litany of the amazing depth and breadth of mission work our church supports. I could line item the educational, ministerial and charitable opportunities that made our sanctuary burst at the seams. I could give you a spreadsheet that tells you where all the money goes. I could share my testimony of the tremendous difference Westminster Presbyterian Church continues to make in the lives of my whole family.

But all I really want to say is that when we gather together, whether it’s at a worship service, a church supper, a small group meeting or, yes, just a bunch of folks chatting around a table of coffee and donuts, we make a difference. A huge difference, not just in our own lives, but in the lives of people across the upstate and across the world.

So when I drop my envelope into the collection plate, I’m not just doing it for the donuts. I’m doing it to feed the five thousand – and more – people who come away satisfied from Westminster Presbyterian Church.

I Know Nothing

I have no knowledge of John Edwards' alleged love child.

I swear.

I know nothing.

UPDATE: What a jerk.

Jet Pack!!!!

Made of Meat

Read this story. It won't take long. It addresses the idea of why we seem to be alone in the universe.

What's for Dinner

http://view.break.com/534274 - Watch more free videos

Band Practice

Bob and I got caught by a photographer from the local paper while we were out practicing during coffee break time.

Time Travel Advice

Sage words of advice for that inevitable moment when you meet your time traveling self, coming back from the future to confront the current you.

Retro Italian

Thanks to Mr. Meyers, I've been engaging in some Mo Ranch era nostalgia for old Italian pop songs.

It's a long story.

But here's Che Bambola!

And, of course, the greatest of them all -- BoBo Step!

At Last!

Woo hoo! That jet pack I was promised in childhood is finally here!

It runs on gasoline. Sweet. Now I can keep a five gallon can in my shed for the lawnmower and the jet pack.


Hmmm. I imagine it's pricey, though. Anyone got a bunch of money they wanna give me? I'll totally give you a ride...


Thanks to my high school pal John for the link!

Alien or Punisher?

So this guy in Denver held a press conference recently to show his alleged definitive proof that aliens are visiting us.

Shockingly, the footage is the same stupid blurry crap that always passes as definitive proof. When I saw a photo of it, I immediately thought it was a guy wearing a Punisher shirt standing outside the window.

Here's the folks from one of my favorite podcasts, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, discussing the event.



The older I get, the more I understand (even in a limited way) about physics and the unimaginably large size of the universe, the more I understand that all this alien visitation garbage is just completely stupid garbage. Sure, there very well may be life out there. But they certainly aren't visiting us. If they were, we'd all know it. I grew up believing in Bigfoot and Chariots of the Gods and all that crap. But the older I get, the stupider and more juvenile and desperate it all seems. I'd love to believe. But give me some real evidence first.

And get me my jetpack while you're at it.

The Logical Choice?

Fascinating.
Can we all now live long and prosper?

More Sparrow

A couple of my favorite quotes from The Sparrow.

"He felt as though he were a prism, gathering up God's love like white light and scattering it in all directions..."
----
"The Jewish sages tell us that the whole of the Torah, the entirety of the first five books of the Bible, is the name of God. With such a name, they ask, how much more is God?"
----
"He found the life of Jesus profoundly moving; the miracles, on the other hand, seemed a barrier to faith, and he tended to explain them to himself in rational terms. It was as though there were only seven loaves and seven fishes. Maybe the miracle was that the people shared what they had with strangers."

TV Barn

When I first started using the internet, way back in, oh 1996 or so, I stumbled across what we would now term a blog called TV Barn. It was run by a fellow named Aaron Barnhart, tv critic of the Kansas City Star newspaper. He began by doing a regular email list about late night tv and wound up getting a gig with the paper, while still maintaining his website. I bookmarked it back then and I've visited it nearly every day since then, lo these ten plus years later. He's changed the look and feel of the site many times over the years (and even fought off leukemia at one point) and the balance he's got now is just great.

He covers tv related news and such in some well written and thought-out articles, but has also added a "what's working for me/what's not" featurette that's a great added bonus. And one of the star attractions remains his ticker, a running list of tv related news items. Now I'm not the biggest tv watcher by any stretch, but I've consistently enjoyed TV Barn and highly recommend you check it out.