Eleven years...

"Will give you such a crick in the neck!"

Remember that one (albeit with a few more years tacked on...) from 'Alladin'? Great entrance for Mr. Williams as the Genie.

"Look at me from the side....Do I look different to you?"

A lot of time has passed since then.

Eleven years ago tonight my wife and I were married.

Eleven years.

How crazy is that?

I was telling her last night that in some ways it seems like a very long time and other times it feels like it was just a week or two ago that we met.  Tonight it's eleven years, and four babies later.

We were walking downtown tonight on a 'mini date' for our anniversary; only able to escape for an hour or so.  See, our kids have the flu.  Daughters to be exact. 

Sarah got it boxing day and was up all night (from 11pm 'till 6am) puking her guts out.  Then Zoe got it and she's been randomly barfing for two days.  Niki and I feel like our whole life is wandering around cleaning up puke and waiting to see if it'll hit our boys or us.

We got sick 'cause we're nice.

My brother and his family are in town from Jerusalem for Christmas and they had the flu December 23rd and 24th.  We were going to stay away on Christmas day but felt like we just couldn't do it.  So we went and hoped for the best.  I can't bring myself to say that two out of six is getting 'hosed' exactly but it's too soon to say that JJ, Sammie, Nik and I have well and truly dodged the bullet.

We have faith though.

We ate mexican tonight.  With beer.  That's gonna' be just awesome if it comes back up.  Enough to make you invoke the sweet baby Jesus.  

So Niki's Mom (also nice) came to watch the kids for us to get out for a bit.  We bought skates for the kids (yes, I'm trying to embrace winter...) some books and stuff for her Dad and Stepmom who arrive tomorrow, then hit our favorite Mexican place.  After dropping Niki off I went to get her flowers and a card then arrived home to her holding the "I just puked" Zoe in her arms while Sammie howled at the moon from fatigue while Jordan did his best to walk through the puke spread all over the kitchen floor while Sarah ran around trying to avoid being put to bed.

They're great kids, really.

So we got them down.  Sat on our couch.  Ate Mexican.  Watched "Meet the Robinson's" (made me cry).

Now she's wrapping tomorrow's presents while I write this to memorialize our eleventh.

Eleven years.

I'm a fan of marriage.  I have one of those great marriages (if I do say so myself).  Like my parents.  One of those marriages that don't feel like a trap, don't feel boring, don't make you resentful.  

I love my wife.

We've worked hard at it.  So hard, it's changed my whole life.  

They say the two become one.  It's true.  More and more my wife and I are in sync.  Connected.  On the same page.  We understand each other and have found a way to help each other build a life.

Plus we enjoy each other's company, and still have a dynamic romantic life.

She's a gift.

I said in her card that I've learned what love is over these past eleven years and that having learned that (or begun to learn it) I've realized that I've never truly loved anyone but her.

She's glorious.

My Niki.  The hottest wife around.

All hail the Niki and the Jesus who gave her to me.

This is a thankful (though flu-ridden) man, signing off.

[And I'll write some about my 2008 very soon.  You have no idea what these deals are doing to my schedule.  Plus--in late breaking news--a new set of wheels might be materializing sometime soon.  Uploading that pic is gonna' call for some celebrating or some such thing.]

Nite, nite, sucka's.

T

When it rains...

And, well, you know the rest.

Deals have closed.

I'm sorry, lemme' just repeat that one time...

Deals have closed.

Oh thank God.

Can you believe we started working on 'em last (as in, 2006) October?  May 2007 brought 'em back from the dead, then they died again.  August 2007 I got a call that they might be back online, then in September we heard we'd have 'em closed by the second week of October, third week latest.

It's the week before Christmas and all through my house my wife and me keep pinchin' ourselves..."We're not gonna' lose our house!"

Or something like that.

I'll update the details later this week and will write some about the whole process and the 'perseverance imperative' that's built into show and church business.

But for now I'm just grateful that once in while...

It pours.

T

Happy eggs...

O.K, so the eggs didn't look quite that happy.

But close.

T'was breakfast as usual.  Coffee on the 'perk' ('on the bodum' didn't sound as good...) bagels toasting, kids trying to steal the fruit as we slice it.  Morning as usual at the Cantelon's.

I figured I'd make scrambled eggs.  I sometimes feel like my life is an endless sequence of trying to figure out new and creative ways to get a balanced breakfast into our systems each day.  Scrambled sounded good so I broke three eggs and dropped 'em in a bowl.  I was about to add the milk when I saw it.

Happy eggs.

Two of the yolks had stayed intact and one had broken.  The one that had broken was on the bottom and had curved slightly toward the two unbroken yolks above it (gravity, conservation of mass, etc...) on both sides forming a smiling mouth to sit beneath two happy yellow eyes.

If I had a digital camera (yeah, I'm still 'film'...Director, remember?)  I would've snapped a shot.  "Ah, just google 'smiley eggs'..." said Niki and I agreed, sure that I'd be able to find that the random happiness that had happened to me had happened to someone else with a digi-cam to hand.  

No such luck.

Sure I could dig a little, but who's got the time.  Instead I grabbed the image above and got on with it.

Random happiness.

Needed some.  In addition to the ongoing 'transitional stress' (which we hope comes to an end this weekend...) in our lives, we decided to watch 'Waitress' (Keri Russell) last night.  A bunch of people had recommended it, it's getting awards buzz, and the descriptor on the DVD box clinched it.  "Funny, heartwarming, lighthearted..." were some of the words used.

Lies.

Turns out 'Waitress' is a serious, dark comedy, masquerading as a romantic comedy.  I hate it when they do that.  I mean, I 'get' why they do it.  Who really wants to be sad for an hour and forty-five minutes then get five minutes of half-hearted happiness tacked on at the end?  I remember when "Message in a Bottle" (Kevin Costner) did it to us; pretended it was a lovey-dovey valentines flick then went and offed-him.  Niki and I had actually gone to see it as part of a valentines date and, man, did we feel ripped off.

The marketing guys aren't stupid you know.

If they actually told you what "Waitress" was about, you most likely take a 'pass' on it 'cause, if you're like us, there's probably already enough pain in your life without adding any gratuitous 'Hollywood-art pain' to it.  

Right?

Don't get me wrong, "Waitress" was really nicely done.  Well written, acted, and directed.  A strong picture worthy of the buzz it's getting, just not a 'happy' way to spend a night with your wife.

I keep realizing I'm not the kind of storyteller (for the screen or from the pulpit) who wants to take life that seriously.  I don't get 'jazzed' by the thought of training the camera on a story of pain for two hours.  I don't come to a text looking to find anything but the best, most inspiring, encouraging way to tell the truth of it to my audience.  

There's just too much pain in the world.

Did you know that the Writer/Director of "Waitress" was murdered before the picture released?  Did you know she had a baby girl (for whom the movie was a 'love letter') and a loving husband?  How 'bout the fact that the 19 year-old who killed her just lost his temper and punched her while the two of them were arguing over the noise he was making while renovating a loft beneath hers in Greenwich Village in NYC?  If you add the fact that he then strung her up with a sheet from her shower rod to make it look like she killed herself and that that's how her husband found her the next morning, it'd be enough to make you sick with sorrow.

Welcome to my last night.

'Geez.

So I figure 'happy eggs' are about what we needed today.

When you're lucky enough to take the pulpit and a hundred or more people show up, spending those moments of their life hoping that you'll enrich theirs, you need to frickin' remember that they're likely sad and needing encouragement.  

When you decide what story you're going to spend two years of your life bringing to life for the screen, you better make damn sure it's worth your audience's time and investment.

'Course some of you are thinking I'm advocating an exclusively 'Osteen-ish' approach in the pulpit and a Disney-fied take on all filmmaking.

(I'm telling you, "Enchanged" made me cry like a baby and not 'cause it was sad but 'cause it was beautifully redemptive, in a simple way.)

The older I get the more like a kid I feel.

I don't want 'sophisticated' and 'erudite'.  I don't want 'lofty' or 'arty'. I want someone to tell me that it's going to be o.k.

"But it's not going to be o.k, Todd.  That's the point."

No it's not.

The point of the redemptive story or urge is that it IS going to be o.k.  We're not o.k, I get that.  We need to become o.k, I believe it.  But the central, core message of the redemptive story is that it's been made right.  Life has.  

It's gonna' be o.k.  

And yes, tell me the whole story of creation, fall, incarnation, death, resurrection, redemption from the pulpit.  Yes, take me from 'normal' to 'abnormal' to near disastrous to alright when you make a movie.  But please tell me the whole story. 

Because not all of life is loss and not all men are beasts and not all women whores. Not all kids nightmares.  Not all jobs 'dead end'.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and our films and our preaching need to reflect it because it's Christmas and...

Even the eggs cry out.

T

Addicted to the shivers...

Everybody gets 'em this time of year.

The first major case we ran into this time was courtesy of my eldest son, Jordan. We were visiting the Eaton Center in downtown Toronto-- a 'Christmas Mecca' of sorts for my family.  We used to go at Christmastime when I was just a kid, and to take my kids now is time warp city.

Anyway, this was our second or third trip this year and each time we've made a point to visit 'The Big Guy' (as our kids call 'Santa').  It's a neat experience to see all four of them sitting with the old dude.  We have pictures of Jordie with the same 'Santa' from when he was just a baby.  The same Santa, all these years.  So strong an impression has the Eaton Center Santa made on my kids that they're sure he's the 'real' one and that all the others are just 'helpers' 'cause they know Santa can't be in two places at once and can't move faster than light except on Christmas eve.

So, on this second trip to the Eaton Center there was a different Santa in place of the 'real' one. Our kids were a little 'thrown' by this, but after some coaxing, made their way up to him.

And he gave Jordie the shivers.

"Seriously Dad.  All the way up and down my back.  He gave me this warm feeling. He must be the real Santa!"

And that got me thinking about 'The Shivers'.

See, I bought Niki a Christmas album yesterday, Josh Groban's "Noel" (a wonderful CD buy the way, well worth the purchase--not a dud on it) which we've been listening to non-stop since I brought it home.  I do this every year, show up with a Christmas album as an early Christmas present for her.  She loves Christmas. Intensely.

So I'm cleaning up after dinner last night and Josh is singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" from the living room.  It sounds glorious (in the authentic sense) and I find myself in the living room, transported.

I got the shivers.

And I got to thinking about the glory of God and the way in which that glory is strong enough that it works its way through all our fallenness to connect to us and call us to the heights.

See, David Foster produced the album and since I'd had the misfortune to tune into his reality TV show a couple of times for a couple of minutes last year I had come to realize that he doesn't seem (and I use 'seem' intentionally 'cause, after all, who the heck am I to judge or label anybody?  I'm just sayin' it's how it seemed to me...) to be the kind of guy in whom the thirst for godliness runs especially deep.

And I got to thinking about friend David standing in the recording space as Groban and the London Philharmonic ripped through the glorious tunes on that album and I wondered if he would have been feeling 'em.

The shivers.

Then it hit me.  Of course he's feeling 'em.  That's how he knows what's good and what's not.  That's how he writes the theme to the '88 Winter Games in Calgary and it's so damn good.  That's how he knows how to arrange the songs so that they soar so high they make us all want to take wing.  

That's how all great artists (filmmakers and preachers included) create work(s) that are worth the audience's time and investment.

They must know God.

To what degree, in what capacity, to what end, these are not for me to discern or decide.

What I can do is marvel at the greatness of the 'Author of the Shivers' and the way in which He causes people to experience those moments of clarity and transcendence where they connect to that great unknown whose incarnation (aka: making Himself 'known') is being celebrated this time of year by 'shivers addicts' the world over.

Noel, indeed.

T

The Beautiful Things...

Nothing like uncertainty to focus your vision.

I do realize that this 'season' of blogging may come across a little more 'mopey' than my "I'm a strong, cool, got-it-together kind of guy" self-image would typically be comfortable with, but them's the breaks when you're waiting for a deal to close.

Update on that:

Last I heard, days ago, the 'honcho' was going to look over the budgets then get back to us with what I was told would be a 'green light' as they wanted us to start actually working the first week of December.

Well it's the first week and I'm still waiting.

My biz-partner is fond of telling me that things are moving 'lightning fast' by 'corporate standards' and that I should relax.  The harsh reality is that things aren't moving anywhere near fast enough for me, since it's Christmas and I've got four beautiful things to take care of.

See 'em up top?  Lovely no?

One thing my parents never did (and my parents are wonderful by the way) was talk to us about money.  We never really had any clear sense of what they made or how they managed their money.  My impression (and I could be wrong, y'never know when your Mom might find your blog...) was that they kept it to themselves by way of sheltering us from the stress of it and because it was kind of a 'generational thing' inherited from their parents...you just don't talk about certain things.

I wanted to be a little more transparent with my kids.  

Now, I've certainly not gone 'full disclosure' with them.  They're not aware of the particularities of our current 'transitional financial state' but they do know that we're waiting for these 'deals' to close; to the point that they've started praying for it.  

In classically 'childlike' manner, they're praying for the deals to close so that we can buy them the things they've asked for from us for Christmas.  They've got no stress about the things they've asked Santa for since, according to them, "The Big Guy's made of money..."  But that ne'er do well father of theirs, well he's gotta' close them deals.  Sarah said at breakfast today; "Well, why don't you just close 'em daddy?"  

My thoughts exactly.

So we wait.

And our mental state while waiting is increasingly fragile.  Niki and I typically wake up stressed, don't talk much while prepping breakfast, calm down a bit by our second cup of coffee then ramp up to stressed again by lunch then off a bit for the busy afternoon, then back up for dinner after which we try to do our best to not think about anything other than the next episode of 'Lost' or the latest romantic comedy I've rented for her.  And, yes, I'm aware that food has a lot to do with our emotional cycles.

In all seriousness, it's a dance to keep one's state of mind (and spirit) in healthy orientation.  I keep thinking of Job and spurring myself on to love God in the midst of this 'dark' (relatively speaking of course, I'm consistently reminded that there are many [MANY] out there suffering to much greater degree than us...) season that's stretching on to two years now.

Niki said it yesterday... "Man, we've been 'church-less' for two years..."

Two.  Years.

Jordie picked up on the phrase; "Yup', we're ChurchLess", like he likes how it rolls off his tongue.  The kids have started lobbying for us to plant another Church. They still ask about our old one which is endearing 'cause when asked for specifics about what they remember of it, things get real hazy real fast.  

Adding to the tension is the lack of a 'backup plan'.  That'll cause your heart to constrict right there (and God help me if my Mother-in-LAW find this...) Amazes me sometimes.  I wonder if I'm irresponsible or faithful.  After thinking on it for a bit I tend to land on the latter, simply because I decided to sell my life out to following the path of faith many, many, years ago now. I don't really have any other options.  As I've said many times before, it really does come down to whether or not you actually believe that God exists.  If you don't, then live your life.  If you do, well then, "My life is God's life now..." is how I put it once.

So, reduced to that kind of faithful foolishness, one has very little recourse but to live life moment to moment doing one's best to focus on all the beautiful things you encounter along the way while you wait for God to do His thing.

Things like a great egg and cheese sandwich made for my wife and I this morning. Things like a great sex life (oops, Mom or wife might be reading this...) and a marriage that is still glorious after nearly eleven years.  (We were sitting by our Christmas tree this week, eggnog to hand, candles burning, and Niki looked over at picture of us on the wall.  "We've been doing this a really long time."  She said. "I'm so amazed it hasn't gotten old." 

Things like glorious kids with eyes that shine.

I've been thinking about atheism lately (there's been some ruckus about it and connected to me at an online community I'm part of) and I just can't square it with my gorgeous kids or the lovely way in which the bark on my backyard tree spirals up towards the sky.

None of those beautiful things make any kind of sense in a world with no God.  

Last time I checked, 'natural selection' didn't care about beauty, just survival (and don't go commenting about how 'beauty' enhances reproductive ability...I already thought that one through...) and all around me I see...

The beautiful things.

So I keep on believing.

T