So, it has been a year to the day since my last post. A lot has happened this past year. I have switched jobs a few times, moved, turned 35, and have recently been ivited to serve on the board for Faith Works Project. It is this last item that has me very excited.
Click here to learn more: http://www.faithworksproject.org/
The page should be up soon, so keep checking.
In the meantime, you can ckeck out my friend, Scott's blog to learn more:
http://simplepilgrimage.org/scott/
Enjoy. |
I am so thankful to have friends that I call brothers. They challenge me. They SHOUT truth to me when I am whispering lies to myself.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 says., "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Man, that is the truth. After all, that's what friends are for. (Wow, i went from quoting the Bible to quoting Dione Warwick! I could probably work James Taylor or Michael W. Smith in here, but the question is...do I really want to? NO.) Ok, moving on.
So, when one friend is starting to come unraveled, the others come and entwine him. They lend him their strength. What a great picture! Once the rope forms, the weight that was tugging on the single strand seems much lighter.
So,to the other strands that I am walking through life with, thanks for all the times we come together as a rope, when the strong hold tightly to the weak, when we shoulder each others burdens, when we keep each other from breaking. |
I would like to apologize to George Lucas. I admit, I was sceptical. I heard it was dark, i heard it was good...but when I "reached out with my feelings", I didn't really believe it. So,as I sat at the Senator theater at 12:01 this morning, I was excited, as I had been for the previous installments, but after being disappointed with many aspects of 1 and 2, my excitement was tempered a tad.
The usual suspects were there. Some dressed in thousand dollar costumes, some in more , well, humble guises. There was the die hard thirty-something fans (like myself) who have grown up with the series and for whom the characters have become trusted friends. Then there were some from the new generation, whose first exerience has been with the new episodes. Perhaps they were actually looking forward to seeing Mr. Binks (a troubling thought, I know). Yes, fanboys and girls of all size, shape, and age teemed about the theater, hoping, for one last time, to feel the force surround us, bind us, and penetrate us.
I was surrounded by some good friends, had my wookie sized popcorn, and had decent seats (thanks Scott and Andy, who got there at noon). The anticipatory tension began to build. The time was drawing near. Tom took to the stage and as is his modus operandi, presented a few thoughts in prelude. Then we were treated? to a brief ducumentary of some of the line-sitting antics from the crowd that awaited the Phantom Menace. My friend Andy was in a few scenes. That was cool.
Then, the screen went dark.... the 20th Century Fox logo appeared, then the LucasfilmLtd. logo..then...
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
And like a tremor in the force, there burst forth a thunderous cacauphony of cheers, whoops, hollars, and clapping. And in that moment, my doubts melted away, I was caught up in the moment, screeming like a pre-teen for The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. The doubts did not return. For the next 2 hrs and 20 some minutes, I was completely swept away. My expectations were not only met, but exceeded.
I wanted dark - I got nefarious, pitch black.
I wanted action - I got intoxicating, relentless, combat.
I wanted drama, good human, drama (ya know, like in 4,5,6) - Surpisingly, it was delivered.
I guess this is where my apology kicks in. I doubted that I would ever again see the kind of human interaction that the first trilogy provided. To me, that is what is missing from Ep. I&II. Everything seemed stiff and forced (excuse the pun). But here, Lucas brings some real depth of character to the screen. Hayden delivered the goods as he turns ever more hateful, prideful, and evil. We really see an arc here. And Palpatine steals the show, subtly manipulating, quietly guiding his apprentice.
So, my apologies, Mr. Lucas. You delivered, big time!! |
We (Melanie, Andie, Jake, B, and I) went camping in Greenridge State forest this past weekend with: Sean, Erica, Tali, Beth, Eli, Bekka, Aaron, Rebecca, Lundi, and Peanut. It was awesome. We had perfect weather - warm and sunny during the day and a bit chilly at night. The ride there was a bit rough as I mistakenly took the ORV road with the Kia minivan. Now, this may surprise you, but the Kia Sedona is not known for its sharp approach and departure angles, nor for its towering ground clearance, so this was quite a challenge. All those years reading 4x4 magazine paid off and I was able to navigate the rough terrain and reach our destination. (Ok, so I had to get out and move a couple rocks here and there.) At one point my daughter exclaimed "We are in deep minivan danger!"
Once everyone arrived, we had a great time hangin' in the woods. The dogs retrieved sticks thrown into the C&O canal, the rest of us enjoyed big fires, tasty s'mores, frisbee, hacky sack, stupid jokes, the occasional campfire song (Tali's song about the Scotish man's "first prize" was my favorite), and general camping bliss. |
| » The Brotherhood of the Briar |
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After 4 years of absence, I attended a meeting of the Chesapeake Pipe Club last night. Wow, what a blast from the past. These guys have been at it for a long time and they are still going strong. I ran into a guy at the gym on Friday who I hadn't seen in years. We were talking about the tobacco shop where I used to work and he said, "ya know the pipe club is still meeting regularly, in fact its right up the street from you."
So, I decided to check it out and see if any of my old pipe-tokin' friends were still there. As I was getting ready, I have to say I was pretty excited. I was picking out a few of my pipes to bring, selecting the tobacco, and then I remembered a jar of Lane's Crown Achievement that I had crammed into a sealing jar (so it would age nicely)one night back in April of 1999. I was working with Jeff Goldman that evening and we each packed a jar-full. We agreed not to smoke it for five years. And joked about how no matter where we were in life, we would get together and smoke some together. So, I got the jar, put it in my backpack, and headed out, hoping that Goldie would be there.
I arrived a bit late, however and missed Lou's opening pipe poem (apparently he's writing his own now). When I walked in, I was greeted like Norm from cheers. It was awesome. There were some new faces, but there were some old regulars as well. Dave Welbur, Fred Hanna, Joe, Bob Herbert, Bill Fields, Bill Maitz, and Jeff Goldman were all there, puffing away gleefully.
I caught up with Goldie and we were like toddlers at Christmas (or Hanukkah for Goldie)cracking open the Crown Achievement, reminiscing about old times, soon a small crowd had gathered to hear all bout the night that we packed the jars. Everyone was filling there bowls with not just the tobacco and with each bowl, they were connected to the story, to the memory. Sure that's kind of an esoteric, but that's what happens when you smoke a pipe. It was pretty cool.
It was wonderful being back with these interesting group of men (of whom I am the youngest by far). I love being around passionate people and while these guys might not strike you that way if you saw them in another setting, here, in the basement of Jonny D's lounge, they are in the zone. At one point, I was sitting enjoying my bowl of memories and I saw Fred standing at another table, holding court. "Ya know how when you open a new tin of virginia, the first half of the bowl has that bite to it?" Heads nodded. "Well here's what I 've been doing to get rid of that. You take the unopened tin, put it in the oven at about 220 degrees for about 2-3 hours. You don't want to go hotter than that. The tin might swell a bit and every now and then ne pops. But after it cools, open it up and try it. Your actually cooking the tobacco in its own juices and it mellows it out. Just like when you cook an onion, it takes the bit out of it. Ya know tobacco is actually in the onion family."...etc.
I just sat and smiled. I have missed these guys.
Mar. 15th, 2005 @ 08:06 am
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| » The Oscars |
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The 77th Annual Academy Awards has come and gone. Here are a few thoughts:
Chris Rock was absolutely hilarious.
Sean Penn takes himself way too seriously. Come on Spicolli, lighten up already.
The best moment was Morgan Freeman winking at the camera while Al Pacino was droning on about the lifetime achievement award.
There is some justice in the world - Sideways and Eternal Sunshine won their respective Screenplay categories.
I think if Melanie and I had Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek over for dinner sometime, that could be an interesting night.
If you are in a wine shop and are tempted by the CabZilla label and wonder if its worth the $18....It isn't.
Paul Giamatti was snubbed. ....yes, i get bothered by things like that.
I think Beyonce should release a CD of French Lullabies.
The coolest acceptance speech had to be Jorge Drexler accepting for best original song for "Al Otro Lado Del Río" - He just sang. Nice.
Wow, Sidney Lumet has had some career.
Dave Wann is the man! He predicted 14 of the winners!!!
Nan is the woman! She also predicted 14 of the winners!!!
Feb. 28th, 2005 @ 09:00 am
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| » Champions |
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Two nights, One bar; Two sizes, One beer, Two Hartly's, One ok, enough of this....
Tuesday night, I hung out at Champion's with the Inklings crew. I really enjoy these times. The topics flowed freely. We talked about work, family, personality types, Egyptian coptic Christians (Yacoub was there) and the finer points of Nestor (no, not the long-eared Christmas donkey, the other Nestor), etc., etc. It is great to hang with old friends, its comfortable, safe. As the discussion progresses, you can almost know what others will say because you know their experiences, their outlook on life, their personality. With this comfort and trust comes the amazing ability to shape each other. Because the safety net of solid friendship affords the ability to say hard things to each other... to question, to criticize, to encourage. Amazing. I love my friends.
Wednesday after LG, I went back to Champion's to hang with some new friends. Greg, Bender, Lisa, Sean, Erica, and Slenge(sp?) That was great too, in a different way. It is so fun to meet people, to get to know what makes them tick, what their interests are, etc. It's like embarking on a new adventure to some place you haven't been before. A surprise waiting around every corner as you answer each other's questions. It's like a dance. You develop a rhythm, trying to balance listening and talking, sharing information, opinions, and experiences. Finding the right balance between sharing too much and not enough. And most importantly, sifting through to find the points of connection. those sweet places where two stories come together. It may be a shared experience, a shared interest, a shared sense of humor, sometimes it can be quite subtle (no way, blue diamonds aremy favorite Lucky Charms marshmallow too! Even though they were not one of the original fab four.) Sometimes it can be major - (Wow, I went to the same school! One year behind you, I can't believe we never met.)
I keep thinking of this song we used to sing in 5th grade music class... "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold." So true.
Feb. 24th, 2005 @ 08:17 am
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| » Jesus of Montreal |
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I just watched this great movie, written and directed by Denys Arcand (The Barbarian Invasions).
Daniel Colombe is a young actor asked to play Jesus in a local church's Passion Play. He agrees if he can write it and cast it. "Jesus" now gathers a group of actors to himself and they begin to work on the play.
***********SPOILERS*************************************************
***********SPOILERS*************************************************
Life begins to imitate art as we see various situations that are a modern application to some prominent events in Jesus's life. One of the actresses does commercials and is asked to audition for a beer commercial. Daniel goes with her and becomes irritated when the director asks her to take her top off. He overturns a few tables and the camera and then drives the film crew out. Later, a lawyer takes Daniel to a high rise and begins to promise him all sorts of riches if he lets him be his agent.
The play itself is a bit controversial and the church leaders cancel the show. During the last performance, the cross on which Daniel is hanging falls over and crushes him, delivering a mortal injury. In the last scenes, we see Daniels organs being donated to those who need them. Someone gets his heart, another his eyes, etc. This really impacted me. It got me thinking about what it means to be a follower of Christ? What does it mean to "make disciples".
.To have his eyes. Cheesy Amy Grant song aside notwithstanding, it would indeed be wonderful to see people as Jesus sees them. To see through people's sin and shortcomings. To look past what people do and see who they are.
To have his heart. To be broken for people like He was... to love, to serve, to care for and teach. Jesus always seemed concerned with those who others were not. His harshest words were for religious hypocrites. He hung out with the "wrong crowd" so much that he had a reputation of being one of them and of being their friend. I recently was told by someone that among other things he thought of me as a "good Christian" I wanted to puke. I know he meant well, but I seriously recoiled for two reasons. First, he obviously doesn't know my heart. Second, if I were truly being a "good" imitator of Christ, many would be questioning if I were a Christian at all I think. Its been a loooooong time since anyone has been concerned with who I was hangin out with. In fact, as my last post said, I have been around so many people within the church lately, it would be hard for me to name 10 people outside of some sort of church setting that would say I was a good friend to them.
Feb. 8th, 2005 @ 08:59 am
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| » Church-centric |
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Well, its happened again. I've become very church-centric.
Why does this happen? How can I stop it? Is it good/bad? What the heck do I mean by church centric?
Much of my time and energy has been focused on or around "church" for the past year or so. The overwhelming majority of conversations I have are with people who attend my church or at least share my spiritual beliefs. More importantly, many conversations are about church or "lofty, esoteric, spiritual, matters". I've gotten caught up in all the buzzwords, all the hype, and even some of the gossip.
I have participated in discussions about whether or not a coffee shop is a church, about what a link group really is (is it a specially defined meeting, with particular people or is it when anyone even remotely involved with my church gets together with someone else? hmm...), about what is leadership (surely its not the definition thats generally accepted in every other circle but ours), about what it really means to love someone, about what church is, about what it means to be "emergent", about post modernism and how the church should respond,about how whether or not cussing is wrong, blah, blah, blah......
WHO CARES?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Well I guess I do..judging by the amount of time i've spent talking/writing about such things. OK, so why do i care? I honestly don't know. But I think its time to chill a bit.
I've got a wife to love, kids to raise, a struggling business to work on, a degree to finish, old friends to connect with, current friends to go deeper with, new friends to make, and people to meet.
Feb. 2nd, 2005 @ 02:50 pm
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