New Years-itis...

Pretty much my favorite moment of 2010 right there.

Sailing my wee boat through the cut and into the Toronto harbor on our way to a couple of nights at the Toronto Island Marina.

I'd been dreamin' about it for years.

I've told the story, right? Summer 2009, 'UP' has just come out, I'm sitting at the Bronte Harbor with my wife and kids eating ice cream staring at the sailboats coming and going and thinking--hoping--dreaming-praying, "Someday...someday, that'll be us!"

But I'd just seen 'UP' you see, and so I just up and said it to her.

"I don't care what it takes. I don't care how small we have to go to start, I'm buying a sailboat next year and we're going to get started..."

And we did.

So, when I took my boat, with my family aboard, through the Toronto Island cut and had to dodge the ferries and got to watch the planes come in (at what seemed) twenty feet above our heads and when I got to check in to the gas dock and the entire marina (it seemed) started coming over to meet the crazy family of six that would sail to the Island on a TWENTY FOUR foot boat, and when I got to motor us over to our slip and when we got to settle in for the night well...

It was a dream come true.

So there you go, friends and two thousand some blog readers, my New Years wish for you...

May your dreams (the best, most redemptively-charged of them) come true.

And may the fact that this one dream came true for me this year charge both you and me with faith that some of our dreams for 2011 might be worth the pursuing and that, they too, might in their time and turn...

Come true.

Happy New Year!

T

A love letter...

Yes Sir, fourteen years ago today.

Married a lovely lady.

'Cept she was a girl (20) then.

She looks much the same today as she did that day. I remember the day I knew I'd marry her. She was wearing a plaid bikini. No, it wasn't by the pool that I knew it, it was walking in the forest with her before. Know what did it?

She reminded me of my Mom.

No that 'aint weird, until I met my wife, my Mom was the best woman I knew. Smart, kind, hard-working, beautiful, friendly, bright-eyed, motivated, committed, kid-friendly, self-confident, spiritually alive.

Nik was like my Mom, first woman I'd ever met who resonated that way.

"Better marry that one quick. She's like a Ferrari..."

That's what my Dad said that day.

Guess he saw the same reflection I saw.

I know you hear it from folks like us all the time, "The years have just flown by. It just keeps getting better. I love her more today than the day I first fell in love with her." I know you don't believe it.

Believe me.

Love that girl.

That Niki.

My girlfriend.

Yes, she's my wife, has been for 14 years but, to me, she's still my girlfriend. That's why you marry a girl isn't it, so she can STAY your girlfriend forever?

Smokin' hot one too.

Wow.

Love ya' Niki.

Oh yes.

T

Reflection time...

The funny thing about plans is you've got to make them but, in making them, you're doing two things simultaneously; 1) opening yourself up to a sequence of events that will result in the 'best laid plans' coming to fruition and 2) opening yourself up to a sequence of events that will result in those same 'best laid plans' coming to naught.

Crazy right?

The tendency, when faced with this immutable fact of life is to freeze. That's right, stop.

Many people do this. You can spot 'em if you try, going through the motions of life with no real zest, or focus, or passion or drive or peace.

They're stopped.

I think the logic behind stopping is simple, "If I stop, I'm less likely to get hurt..."

I think that's true.

However, if you stop you're stopped.

It's a tough one.

Being the end of the year my thoughts are quite naturally turning to next year. Things slow down dramatically for me on the show biz front this time of year. We hustle our butts off from September until this week trying to get new contracts in place for next year then, the week before Christmas, everyone just checks out 'till at least the second week of January.

I think I've written at least ten TV series proposals in the past three months. So far none of 'em have locked. Looks like at least one or two of 'em will, but we won't know 'till mid-January earliest.

I could fret about it, but instead I've learned to just enjoy the enforced silence and idleness of these three weeks and to take advantage of the opportunity to sit still and play with my kids and enjoy friends and family.

It's like the breakneck speed at which we live the year slows down for a bit and I get a chance to reflect.

"What do you want to do next year?"

Which leads to, "What do you want to DO?"

Which leads to, "What are you SUPPOSED to be doing?"

Which requires a lot of quiet sitting and reflecting.

I hope you take some time this week and next to do just that.

Sit still, drink some egg nog (with RUM in it) watch the fire and listen to what God might be calling you to DO with 2011, and with your life.

Happy Holidays kids.

T

Let's try this again...

The kiddoes at 'Brookfield Place' downtown T.O this week.

We were there for our annual 'Christmas in Toronto' trip. Had a good time despite super-frigid temps.

Got home to some bleak times as the workers downstairs at our rental did their best (while building a basement apartment) to drive us absolutely nuts.

We may have to move sooner rather than later.

The wife cracked a bit because of it. I wrote a post about it this morning but, due to extreme bleakness, I deleted it and am writing this one in its place.

Lemme' just say that dislocation 'aint fun, especially for my sweet wife who's wired for home and family (and the odd overseas trip and monthly 'date') more than anything else.

All I can do is keep working.

It'd be nice to SNAP! my fingers and make 200K appear out of nowhere so I could buy her the house she *really* wants but, since that's not in the cards, all I can do is keep working.

It's of some comfort (and help with our praying) that I actually have projects, finished and percolating, that have actual potential to yield some kind of snappy return in the next few months. It's one thing to pray on a wing and a prayer, another altogether to pray with focus connected to work you've already done and continue to do.

And while I'm waiting for God to do whatever it is that He's going to do, all I can do is keep working.

So come on flagship biography series, start re-selling already! Come on pending talk television series (4 of 'em), lock down already! You go, micro-budget feature-film about to distribute (at long LONG last); sell a million tickets already! Come on Hugh Hefner bio, work your magic already! Let's get busy TV drama series, you can become a reality! I believe in you graphic novel projects #1 and #2, you've got what it takes to really make an impact! 100 more bio-series episodes? I can SO do that! Do your thing baby church, you're growing at 43% in attendance and 57% in giving compared to last year, all I need you to do is DOUBLE in size by Easter 2011.

That's all.

As I said, all I can do it keep working...

And keep praying.

T

New digs...

Finally making some headway at our new studio/post-production space.

Had a 'civilized' lunch in it yesterday. All the art's up and the books are comin' in and the white board is up in the story-development/boardroom area.

Cool.

Funny thing is, it feels so familiar. It's the *same* office I've always had (since getting my official 'start' on my own as a producer in 1998), just a slightly fancier version.

There's a life-lesson there. I think so long as you're doing what you're called to do things don't every get really wildly different, they just grow incrementally (sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly) but if you're really in the 'zone' of what you've been 'made' to do, it seems to me that what you're doing and where you're doing it (since 'space' is a reflection of head-space) should always feel familiar.

Interesting.

Makes me think about the things I do and how to zone in on 'em while staying hands-off enough (on the faith side to allow room for God to be God, on the show-biz side to allow space for the creative process to unfold as it wants to) so that things happen in the way they're supposed to happen without too much manipulation from my side of things.

Learning the practice of practiced un-practice.

T

Tough action...

Yes, that's our mini-van with the captains chairs out as we get ready to clear it out to use for the move last week.

Crazy thing is we clean the thing out every single week. Wild. I mean, look at that filth! That's what four kids will do to you. Imagine if we didn't clean it consistently!

Then, the next morning, I pulled up with the moving truck and started loading. This is the first box, first step, first action that felt truly irreversible.

Tough action.

It was hard moving. It's still hard. My wife and I aren't talking about it it's that hard. See, we lived in our last house for almost seven years. By FAR the longest we'd ever lived anywhere. We moved 13 times in the early years of our marriage then slowed down considerably. Four years in the Beach (Toronto) six and a half years in Burlington.

That's what four kids will do to you.

Make you stable, and your cars filthy.

Our rental house is fine, small, with a fireplace (which is nice for winter) and centrally located. The problem is we're not even hanging pictures, which is making us feel unsettled which is exactly *why* we're not hanging pictures.

Makes you feel lonely in your own life.

We're 'using' it (the loneliness) though. Every time we feel frustrated or sad or dislocated or disconnected we channel the angst of that into forward thinking energy. We fixate on what's to come.

"But you don't know what's to come..."

Exactly.

Please allow myself to quote myself...

"The only thing the wife and I find difficult about Faith, is Faith..."

Yes.

It's hard to believe.

So what do you do?

Well, you work hard. Clean the car even though you know it's going to get dirty again. Wash the floors in your humble rental house. Keep looking at houses for sale even though it's two weeks before Christmas so there's nothing for sale. Keep believing that the right house is out there. Keep praying about it in front of your kids. Do the simple things (like breakfast and working out and walks with the kids for hot chocolate, and wine with the wife and lovemaking) you need to do to try and help your life 'feel' normal even though it's not.

Keep taking the tough action needed to find your way forward.

That's what we're doing these days.

T'will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

I've got some cool things brewing (in the meantime) on the business front which is helping us with all the 'blind faith' required around here. I'll update you on that in a day or so. In the meantime...

'Joyeux Noel' everybody.

T

A Christmas message...

I feel like I always do my *best* work in and around the Christmas and Easter seasons respectively. My preaching work that is.

This past Sunday was a real treat. I preached so hard I almost threw my back out.

Just listened to it, told the wife after; 'Man, somebody should LOCK me up...'

Yeah, it was THAT kind of sermon.

Thought it might be of encouragement to you (and some folks you might know) today.

Blessings on you this Season...

T

"NOW UNTO HIM..."

Back to basics...

Moved into our new (temporary) place this week.

That's the living room, all decked out for Christmas. Probably the most Christmasy living room we've every had.

Tell you what, having a fireplace for a few months is going to make us make sure the house we buy next has one too.

Move was hard.

We were really organized, but it's always tough. The second day was the worst, nearly sixteen hours long. We're still exhausted from it, two days later.

It took all our strength to up and leave our old place. We really loved it. Had always dreamed of living in that neighborhood but 1) we outgrew it (2 kids when we got it, 4 now) and 2) it's not good (in our opinion) to get too 'settled' somewhere. We find that allowing a 'settlers mindset' to creep in (instead of a 'Sojourners' one) blunts your thirst for the fields of the Lord.

So we moved.

Almost as an act of obedience (or 'Mitzvah' for the Jews) as if we're saying with our actions that we believe there *will* be a better (or more interesting, or more challenging, or more fulfilling, or more stretching or more fun) tomorrow out there for us.

It's tough though. We're feeling this loss for sure.

But simple things are helping. Things like breakfast today (same as always--except the rental kitchen is even LESS user-friendly than that of our last home) or a living room set up for Christmas.

I just finished writing my first sermon in this house. Sat at the dining room table ('cause I don't--and won't--have an office here) put on my headphones and the same CD I've been writing sermons to since I was 20, pulled up a half glass of vino rosso, and did it.

Like I always do.

And it was good. I mean, I haven't preached it yet--tomorrow will tell the tale--but I *know* in my bones that it'll be alright.

Just like I know there's a home out there for us and that a fire's a good thing to have and that my wife and kids are excited for Christmas.

Now if only the Christmas present at the top of MY list didn't cost $50,000...

"Dearest Santa..."

T