The week that was...

Another photo recap for you this week...

My new bike. Thanks Mikey. It's an '87. 

When I took it into our local bike shop for new tires and a tune up the owner of the store started laughing. "Well, that's a classic..." he said. Positive guy that I typically am, I assumed he was giving me a compliment. Turns out it was a pretty good bike in its day. I'm told it'd be a $1,000 bike today. What I found most interesting was that he said that this (classic) bike will be 10 times better than the mountain bike I had been training on and that, if this year's triathlon goes well and I end up wanting to keep at it which might mean buying a new bike, I will find that today's version of my 'classic' will be 10 times (again) better than this one. 

I was amazed. 

"How could that be?" I asked. "It's got two wheels and a chain, how different could it be?" He smiled knowingly at me, shook his head a bit, and told me that someday I'd understand.

Progress.

Got me thinking about the man I am today versus the man I was ten years ago. 

Have I progressed anywhere near as much as bike technology has?

Hef.

Crazy.

I interviewed him last year and, just now, we're completing his episode. T'was pretty cool to see the interview cut down and packaged. Tells quite a story. I look forward to you being able to see it sometime later this year.

Main thing I took from my time with him is that passion and drive coupled with hard work and perseverance still tell the tale. Mr. Hefner comes across as a man possessed. He had a very clear vision of what his life was supposed to be about and his just went and pursued it.

Very informative to sit with him and measure (in the silence of my own heart and mind as we chatted) my own passion and drive against his.

Pool time. I've been emptying ours. What's interesting about this is that my Father in law offered me his amped-up Honda pump which, he told me, would empty the thing in an hour or so compared to the week it would take for my little submersible to do it.

I decided (mostly 'cause I was afraid of breaking his pump) to use mine. Took a week with me having to work at it a little each day. Interesting lesson there.

You don't have to have the best tools to get the job done. A little bit of simple, humble, consistent work can go a long way.

I guess you could say 'size' isn't everything after all!

My two littlest babies. 

Love this shot.

Sitting in the empty pool waiting for summer.

Sitting together.

It's important to make sure you don't spend your life alone (despite how much sharing your life with someone will cost you) because waiting is much better when you're not alone.

Another mastering session downtown.

I continue to be humbled to find myself working in the industry I set out to find myself working in ten years ago.

I am very grateful.

I remain very hopeful.

I was so inspired by the above image. Everything looks better on a big screen. Well worth the work and wait it took to get it up there.

Ah yes, 'Date Night' at THE WELL.

Once every two months we book our city's best indoor playground and provide free babysitting and free admission so our people can invite their friends out for a 'date night' knowing that their pastors will be watching their kids for the night.

Kids went wild. The new parents, dropping them off and picking them up, were amazed that a church would do something like this.

Cool.

A good week all told.

T

Sunday...

I've started my day weeping.

(for joy)

This is why...

www.marknbarbie.tumblr.com

That's Mark and Barb Jurgens, our friends, and one of our associate pastor couples at THE WELL, and they've had TRIPLETS today. I was so moved reading through Mark's blog posts from last night that I just kept crying and crying.

Did I mention they already HAVE one-and-a-half year old TWINS?

This should make for a pretty wild day at church.

Please spread the word about their blog and keep praying as their 'littles' will have some hills to climb in the next week or so.

But for now, God be praised, all three delivered and well, and Mommy too!

Hallelujah!

T

Practice...

My littlest daughter's been teaching me something lately.

See, she discovered this thing called the 'cartwheel' last week. I think it was our neighbor's kid who showed her.

Wouldn't you know it, Zoe's been practicing it, and I mean non-stop, for the last week. We're out front relaxing, she's cartwheeling. We're watching a movie downstairs, she's on the other side of the movie room cartwheeling. I watch her at recess (the school's right behind our house), you guessed it, cartwheeling.

She won't stop practicing 'till she nails it.

Pay attention you writers and preachers and assorted dreamers.

Practice makes perfect.

Sure, I've heard that before, but a five year-old beauty is teaching it to me all over again.

T

What you got(s) to do...

Directing today.

With a sinus infection.

So I'm directing from a prone position on the floor. It would be funny (it it wasn't so crappy) to look back and actually count how many days I've spent directing while feeling so sick I can barely function. One time I directed (a feature film) through the night after totaling my car that evening. I couldn't move so they rigged my monitor on the ground, covered me in a sound blanket and away we went.

Sometimes you just gotta' do what you gotta' do regardless of how you're feeling.

This is especially the case in show-biz where budgets and timelines and production schedules conspire to become an insane pressure cooker that forces you to do things no sane person would (or should) do.

Like direct with a sinus infection.

T

500!

Five. Hundred. Posts.

Interesting.

Better make this one worth it...

So, some 'photo recap' for you, again.

That's my neighborhood on 'Earth Day'. Yes, the lights are still on. What struck me about this was one question; "What does this say, if anything, about the culture of my city?" I'm not *saying* I know what it says, nor what that might mean, but I have a pretty good sense. The reason this is important to me is because, in my line of work (as a Pastor and a storytelling Producer) I need to *know* my audience to some degree so that I can *know* how to reach them.

What scares me about this picture is that it suggests that some in the culture of my city are too busy, too successful, too 'sophisticated' to care about a movement that many others around the World do care about. I worry that these actions are saying "I'm above this. I think any mass movement is manufactured. I don't care. Leave me alone in my fancy house, bought with my fancy job, outside of which my fancy car is parked." What worries me about that kind of attitude (if it in fact exists) is that it suggests that the people in my culture aren't very in touch with their 'need' and that makes telling them stories (either entertaining, or life-changing ones) very difficult, 'cause if you think you 'have' it all, what need have you of a good story?

Ahh yes. Mastering a recent episode in one of our series. This one was painful. Why? Well, when I saw the name of this guest on the booking sheet I immediately *knew* this show would suck. I just *knew* (or thought I knew) that he wouldn't have the depth needed to make the particular show in question 'work'. I tried to push back, tried to fight it, but--for various reasons--had to cave.

All this time later, mastering the show, I was proven right. This particular episode is not going to be one of our best. Honestly put, it sucks. So why did I do it? Well, I had to. And sometimes, if you're going to 'make it' in show-biz, you have to do things you don't want to do in order to get to the next step. Not a popular thing to say, not something the 'unrestrained artist' in you wants to hear, but the simple truth.

And on a lighter note. My littlest boy, Sammie, got upset this weekend. For no good reason, he put his head down on the couch and began to weep. Moments later he lifted the pillow and, realizing what he'd done, showed us what you see above. He immediately burst into a smile, all sadness forgotten.

We (I) can learn from him. Sometimes you're just sad for no good reason. That's normal. That's okay. But when life offers you a way out, a way to begin to smile again.

Take it.

T