The same old story...

Spread over what feels like a million years.

I was at 'Hart House' on the U of T campus today.  HH is the main 'student center' at U of T but to call it 'student center' is to strip it of its romance and charm.  It's a classic old-school building from a  'Cathedrals-are-still-a-design-icon' age.  It's the place where I spent most of my so-called University education.  Mostly I'd hit the upstairs library and sleep.

I'm still so amazed that I actually graduated that I have recurring nightmares of getting a notice in the mail that I've been found out as a fraud and my degree has been revoked.

Not that it helps me much anyway.

B.A in English/History anyone?

So today the wife and kids had a trip to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) to see the new Dinosaur exhibit and I drove them 'cause we're in deep freeze here and I didn't want Niki stressing out on her way there.  Taking four kids to a MUSEUM is stress enough, right?

After dropping 'em off I drove a block and a half south to Hart House, parked (the minivan, which is so uncool...) and went inside.

Nothing's changed.

I still had my U of T backpack from first year on my back, the girls were still hot, the guys still mostly nerdy, the couches still red vinyl, the downstairs cafe still serving brilliant food.

I felt like I was home.

And the weight of the years just hit me.  I started going there in 1992!  That's, what, sixteen years ago?  How on earth is that possible?  I can't believe it's been that long. The only thing that looks any older on me is my hands (getting that wrinkly dried out look).

Then I was talking to one of the new anchors at CTV in Vancouver today, getting a reference on a dude we're looking to hire for one of our shows, and the guy tells me he's known and worked with our prospect for thirty years!  That's almost as long as I've been alive!  And I'm going to be this guy's boss?

That's crazy.

So I'm feeling very caught between age and youth today.

To add insult to injury, I overheard a report on 680 News (our local all news radio station) outlining a study that has discovered that, for the typical North American, 'mid-life crisis' starts at 44 and can continue into the early fifties.  They said 44 is the bottom of a 'U' with twenty at the top left, 44 in the center bottom, and 70 taking up the top right spot.  Happy at 20, deeply depressed at 44, then as happy as a 20 year-old again at 70.  Told Niki about it and she said; "Maybe that's why we've been so 'dark' these past two years?"

See, we're 33 and 31 going on 43 and 41.  We've been in our career for more than ten years, have four kids, have owned three houses, have a net worth, two cars, land, some growing career 'respect' and the growing list of career 'enemies' to match.  Our backyard has a 'red wine bottle graveyard' that looks like a mid-forties couple lives here.

We're in mid-life crisis.

And it all started back when I turned 29.

I was three years into planting a Church that I hadn't planned to plant alone, my brother and I were in our first ever potentially life-altering dispute, and my TV career was going nowhere.  I was trapped.

So in the four years from then 'till now I've resigned that Church (which I still miss deeply, like a wound rubbed raw...), ruined then patched (to some small degree) my relationship with my brother, axed my TV career to launch a film one, continued to struggle to launch the film one, had my name dragged through the mud trying to 'faithfully' (and I'm already on-record here as a self-admitted 'mix up covered in a fix up' so back off...) pursue some other Church planting options, mostly (trying for honesty here) because I was so freaked out at having no prospects, no future, no pulpit, no money and an ever-increasing number of mouths to feed that I felt that unless and until I 'heard' otherwise I should at least keep trying to pursue the opportunities that were being presented, and then (to my utter shock and surprise) had my TV career resurrected from the dust.

A very surprising four years.

And I still deeply, painfully, miss the life I used to have.  

I miss the carefree days of 'student-dom'.  I miss the pulpit.  I miss being just me and Niki.  I miss Gord and Jess and David.  I miss the fresh-faced approach I used to have and the things I used to believe.

But then again, I embrace the 'missing' for what it is.

Accrued experience.

I am, after all, in mid-life crisis.

And am, after all, the recipient of some pretty neat 'dreams come true'.  The logo above is for my new company.  A film and TV production company I've wanted to launch all my life.  And it's actually doing work.  Potentially 329 episodes of television this year, plus the release of our first feature film, plus possibly (ALWAYS POSSIBLY) the production of our next.

To say nothing of the fact that my wife's beautiful, smart, motivated, and organized and my children are glorious.

So my mission today, good reader, it to remind myself and you that there is 'goodness' in the midst of 'suffering'.  There is 'gain' in the midst of 'loss'. There is 'vindication' in the midst of 'vilification'.  

And, always, there is work to be done.  So much work.

But I got to say that seeing good ol' U of T today, mostly unchanged and truckin' along, reminded me to calm the 'eff' down, embrace the pain and promise of my daily life, and trust.

'Cause some things change, but some things never do.

T

The big pitch...

Nothing happens 'till someone sells somethin'...

It's true.

Especially if you're in business as a 'Church Planter' or 'Filmmaker'.  

(To clarify: for my purposes, a CP'er is someone who starts a Church from scratch--the hyper-entrepreneurial kind of Pastor/Preacher-- and a FM'er is a writer/producer/director/editor or some combination of the four...)

See, nobody believes you and nobody wants to help you and nobody cares if you succeed or not. 

Life's a bitch 'aint she? 

My Dad puts it somewhat more delicately, "Never let anyone else champion your cause."  They don't care, don't want you to succeed, and don't give a whup' whether you can feed your kids or not.

So you have to sell them.

A phone call with a major record label in the U.S yesterday got me thinking this way.  I'd been in touch with one of the honchos at the label a month ago (a relationship that's been simmering for almost half a decade...) and took the opportunity to pitch him a few of the concepts we've currently got in production.  I was hoping to get him to 'bite' on helping me find a way to align his label's interests with mine.

Aligning of interests--remember that one.

So out of four pitches, he bit on two.  One I'm following up on.  The other got thrown to another person in a different dep't.  The honcho said he'd let her know to expect my call and I could take it from there.

Mission accomplished part 1.  He'd 'bought' my pitch enabling me to move onto step two.

It then takes me two, no THREE, weeks to get her on the phone.

So we talk yesterday and I do my dance all over again.  Norman Jewison famously refers to what we Producers do as 'dancing', whirling and twirling and smiling and hoping to make our audience want what we've got...

"So this kid gets sucked back in time to the eve of the very first Christmas..."

And it takes me nearly forty minutes (and if they give you more than four minutes on the phone you know you've got them at least partially interested) but at the end of it she 'buys' what I'm selling, enabling me to move to step three.

This is why my wife doesn't do what I do.  

She can't stand the steps.  It'll probably take me twenty to thirty steps to close this deal, stretching over three to six months.  And in that same period of time I'll probably pursue another five to six equally complex, involving, pitches pouring my whole heart into trying to 'sell' them to one party or another and each of those will fall flat at some point.  But this one might stick and I won't know for sure unless I complete the steps and I won't get to another step unless she 'buys' this one.

So the call yesterday ended in a 'victory' which means I get to do more work.  A full-out proposal that she's going to shop around her department and if (from a distance) I (through my proposal) get them to 'buy' what I'm selling I'll get to go to step six (four=creating the proposal, five=her dep't 'buying' it) which will be to travel to her head office (two hour flight, ten hour drive in my new sports car, hmmmm....) to do my dance in a flashy boardroom for her boss and peers.

I'll wear my suit and shave and flirt up a storm for that one.

D'you see how hard it is?

And the thing is so many Pastors see themselves as 'mystics' and treat 'selling' as beneath them and so many Filmmakers see themselves as 'artists' and treat 'selling' as selling out...

Which is why you get so many broke, bitter, unsuccessful folk in those lines of work.  And hey, I'm not sayin' I've got the lock on any kind of virtue here.  

Mostly I'm just terrified.

Terrified I won't rise to my potential, won't feed my babies next month, won't feel that fierce sense of fulfillment that comes from achieving something you've dreamed of, won't enjoy that deep peace that comes from being 'obedient' to your calling.

I'm damn scared.

Which is why I sell.

And y'know how I learned?

By failing.

I've got so many rejected proposals and show ideas in my files it should make me want to throw myself off the nearest bookcase.  But I learned something about ten years ago.  I realized that if I ever started keeping track of all the dead ends I'd lose my joy.  I'd lose my ability to believe. I'd stop trying.

And you know what's happened?  

Those hundreds (thousands maybe) of hours of what could very fairly be called 'wasted effort' have turned me into a selling machine.  I just do it.  Intuitively, almost effortlessly.

(and, truth be told, that's why many people dislike me to greater or lesses degree--because I'm always 'selling', always dreaming out loud, always talking about what might be and that makes me say too much by times and that pisses people off and I understand and I'm sorry...)

'Cause I still believe in the dream.

And if you don't believe you can't sell and if you can't sell you won't work 'cause...

Well, nothin' happens 'till someone sells somethin'.

(and that shot off the top is one page of 37 prep pages for a script that I wrote a year and a half ago that I still haven't been able to set up but in which I still believe...)

Deeply.

T

The uncommon magic...

I've been away a while.

Suffering mostly.  

"Suffering through what?"

Through learning how to edit.

I mean, I know how to edit.  I've supervised more hours in an edit suite than I care to remember.  And to all the editors reading this who are thinking, "You don't know how to edit..." may I submit that I was supervising edits back in the day when analog suites where considered cutting edge. 

Analog.

Like, I walk in with twenty pages of timecode notes (a 'paper edit'- yes, we used to do those) and once the system copies from tape to tape we start to put it together in realtime.  Like an 'online' except without the leeway.  And before you go and start speculating on how old I am ("Analog?  This guy must be a dinosaur...") may I also submit that I started my career at age 19.  And the whole "19 year old supervising a 38 year old editor..." thing is another story altogether...

But my Executive Producer and I have decided it's time for me to (as I like to put it) learn how to 'ride the machine' myself.  It's just time.  So I spent all of last week commuting three hours a day to sit in a class with a bunch of computer geeks (SUPER geeks...) doing my best to not have my brain explode while wave after wave of nonlinear digital editing software info rolled over me.

It was truly a humbling, mostly awful, experience.

Now that I've finished I have to get my own system up,  (you don't even want to ask how much it costs...) read the textbook, and start cutting stuff.  It's a very strange to feel like a complete idiot again.

I kept getting ideas during 'hell week' for posts but never had the time to sit my butt down and type.  The upside is that many of the 'so-called' and otherwise flaky ideas that occurred to me percolated some and were discarded as less than worthy of my/our time, leaving me with something for today that is, I hope, actually worthwhile.

The uncommon magic.

So we watched 'Stardust' the other night and really liked it.  It took us away to another world.  Was wonderfully paced, beautifully written, acted, art directed, and directed.  A really nice film.  The thing that struck me about it after was that it was so nice a trip that I didn't spend much time nitpicking the story or plot holes.  It took me away.

Because of the magic.

There was a moment in the film where Niki exclaimed, "So that's what you were trying to do with the Oracle in your movie.  That's exactly what you would have done if you'd had the money!"  Yes my love, I would have.  And that was a nice moment friends.  To have my wife, who is both ardent fan and strident critic, recognize that I did something 'great' (emphasize 'small' "g"...) with something little.  That was cool.

So if my film and 'Stardust' shared nothing in terms of budget, quality of production, etc. what was it that caused her to trumpet their similarity?  

The magic.  A whole lot of it in 'Stardust' that reminded her of the wee little bit in mine.

That's the thing really.  Magic.  Or call it 'transportational ability' if you want.  That 'thing' that allows a storyteller to take his/her audience away.

'Cloverfield' did it to me last night.  Totally took me away.  Not for one second did I feel like I wasn't 'there', like what was happening on-screen wasn't really happening.

It had the magic.

Which leads me back to Church for a second, if I may.  Was at a Church service recently and, though the kids had a great time (for which I'm well and truly grateful and humbled) the service left me with nothing.  I might as well have not gone.  Seriously.  Nothing.  I took nothing with me.  Nothing about the worship, nothing about the preaching, nothing about the production design did anything to leave a mark on me.  It didn't take me away.  At all.

The people were really (REALLY) nice, for which I'm grateful and give them their props. Their professionalism was impeccable for which I admire (and slightly envy) them.  They did everything right.

Except.

They didn't take me anywhere.

I was reminded again recently that it's 'effects heavy' films as do the most business.  And why's that?  Because those kind of films take people away.  O.K, sometimes.  There are many effects films that fail to transport because they lack story.  Those films fail miserably and bankrupt their funders because gobs of $'s have been spent on the flash with no substance. There are, of course, those films that transport on story more than on razzle-dazzle.  The ones with truly great story cross over and become hits.  

If, however, you combine transportational story with transportational effects you get a mega-hit, a blockbuster.  Check out the top grossing films of 2007 and tell me I'm wrong.

(it's not like I can be wrong on this, I didn't make any of it up...)

So, how does this hit home to us, the producers or pastors?

Well, crap.

We have to transport.  

That's the thing.  Everything you do with your piece needs to transport.  And where that gets difficult is in the small details of the work you do.  Take one of the TV shows I'm producing this year.

"The Daily: with mark and laura-lynn" is a daily half-hour series that will be airing in Vancouver (and potentially across the country) starting this spring.  The one-liner I've been using to describe the show is "Breakfast Televsion, at night."  So how, exactly, do you make that exciting?  How does a show like that rise above 'normal' to attain 'transport'?

(and here's the price of admission for the day [if I do say so myself]...)

By finding the uncommon magic in the everyday.

What is it that is extraordinary, special, marvelous, about what happened today?  What would make a 'hook' to a song, a story, a sermon?  What thing did you observe in the world around you that is worthy of your audience's time?  What 'spin' can you put on it to help it rise to a level of inspiration so that your audience is arrested by the beauty, humor, or painful truth of what you've decided to share with them?

Finding and applying the uncommon magic is the thing that separates a 'blah' TV spot from a great one, a smokin' movie from an 'o.k' one, a brilliant sermon from a waste of time, a 'singalong' from a session of touching Heaven.

Man, oh man, we've got to find that magic.

If I don't, my show will fail.  If they don't, their pulpits will be weak.  I you don't, your efforts will be wasted.  And here's where the non-producers/preachers get something from this.

The magic is everywhere.

I truly, honestly, believe that...

You can cook it into the breakfast you make for your kids.  You can mix it into the love you make to you wife.  You can wield it in your relationships, at work, in your heart as you struggle to find the strength to do the right thing in the face of doubt.

Where's the magic?  Where's the magic?  Where's the magic.

The uncommon magic.

How can I grasp it?  How can I apply it?  

BOOM!

You find that sweet spot and, all of a sudden, your work rises to art.

"Eeez-alla-mumbo-sheem-een-dumbo!"

(watch 'Alladin' again, kids)

T

Objectivity...

"The pride of your heart has deceived you..." (Obadiah 3)

So how do we ever know what we're up to?

(oh by the way, that's my new car up there...)

It's a serious problem for the spiritually seeking as well as for the creatively working. I can't count the number of times I've seen the same question from new writers; "How do I know if my work is any good?"  The answer from the grizzled vets is typically some version of "You just know." And if they're feeling grumpy that day they add that if you don't know the difference between good work and bad, you're a poseur.

So how about that kind of 'knowing' in my spiritual life?

Could cause you some stress, no?  Not knowing (for sure) if your spirituality is truly vital or not.  That kind of insecurity leads to all manner of disfunction in the organized Church (and it's not 'cause the organized Church is 'bad' it's just that any organized thing is typically more full of people than a non-organized thing and where there are people [in whatever context--corporate boards anyone?] there is dark and dysfunction) and on your average movie set.

Why is the starlet freaking about her close up and driving the makeup artist crazy?'Cause the starlet thinks (deep down in the honest inside) she's ugly.  Why have I often flared in defense of my work at the first sign of criticism? Deep inside I believe I'm a hack.  I've heard the same confession from folks at the top of the show biz heap.  They keep waiting to get 'found out'.  Keep waiting for someone to kick them out 'cause they suck.

I wonder if people in Church feel that way.

(what if they found out about my...[insert your weakness here]?)

With my movie (www.thestormiscoming.com) I've had the hardest time in the past year (as we slowly inch towards release) being objective about it.  I'm so close to it, I can't really tell if it's any good.  I remember reading a quote from Spielberg talking about 'E.T' where he said the film had given him a great gift twenty years later by allowing him to see it with fresh eyes, like he'd had nothing to do with it. M. Night says (in his biography) he sees all his movies that way once he starts screening them for audiences.

Deep inside I don't believe him.

So you read a quote like the one off the top of this post and it either drives you to work, legalism, and insecurity or it drives you to relax into grace (a gift you don't deserve...).  Look, I am bad.  I am lazy.  I am also good and hard working.  I've never met anybody who's all one thing.  That's why they say we're "mixed up".

Call me a bag 'o tricks.

And the whole of me, good, bad, ugly, good-looking is the thing that has been redeemed.  I'm covered.  Notice 'covered'?  Doesn't mean the practical bits of me have radically changed over night but all of it has been covered (like with a blanket) so that when I'm looked at by someone who sees life through 'redemption-oriented' glasses I'm seen as a mix-up covered in a fix-up.

(I like that: 'mix-up covered in a fix-up' you could rap that...)

You embrace that and you get to work.

Nothing's every going to be perfect.  I'm o.k though, as I am.  Have been made so. So I work at what I've been made to work at, doing my best somedays and a percentage of my best others.  All through it I keep moving forward (one foot in front of the other...) knowing that all I have is my sense of things.

Maybe someone conservative is thinking about 'objective truth' here.  I believe in it. But I know I see it through my view.  Am I a relativist?  I am.  Is 'Truth' relative?  I don't think so.  'Truth(s)' can be.  "Truth" (like gravity, justice, entropy, life) can't be.  The tree's gonna' grow whether you believe it or not.  A starving child shouldn't be, no matter how enlightened or dark you are.

So your work is never going to be objectively 'good' or 'bad'.  It's just work.

Your spirituality is never going to be objectively 'good' or 'bad' 'cause it's inextricably caught up in your subjective life and that's why it had to be covered. You can't (under any circumstances) make it 'right'.  

So why bother?

'Cause you love it.

Don't you love it?  Don't you love touching Heaven?  Don't you love the majesty of it?  Don't you love the magic of writing, of collaborating, of rendering images on-screen crafting a facsimile of life?  

Isn't it glorious?

That's why I love my car.  (And I know some people find my ongoing love-affair with the things abhorrent...I rest in knowing that their subjective view is stupid [!]) 

It's beautiful and I don't deserve it.

My heart may be deceitful but it's covered.

So, back to work.

T

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