the center of the universe 'aint shiz...

I mean, don't get me wrong, New York City is nice and all but the 'be all and end all' it 'aint.

No-sir-ee.

See, we 'think' that there's this magic place where all your dreams will come true.  For some it's Hollywood, for others the Big Apple.  Name your city.  Pick your place.  There's probably a spot in the World where you've thought you'll be able to 'be' all that you feel you've been made to be.

If only you can get there.

Like Oz.

'Course 'Oz' might not be the best example 'cause all Dorothy wanted to do once she got there was go home--but that's kinda' why she came to mind.

See, NYC is a 'thing' all to itself.  The pace, the smell, the sound, the people--all of it is overwhelming.  Spending some time in the hustle of it all you get the feeling that a high-pitched life is the only kind of life to have, and the only kind that counts as significant.

But you watch the people there and you see two types.

Those visiting Oz--craned necks, cameras flashing, fanny packs (and fannies) bulging.  The tourists are there to see if NYC is all it's cracked up to be.

Then you got the locals.

Heads down, feet flashing, blackberry or iPhone glued to the head, some form of argument or invective spewing from them and you think, "Dang, I wouldn't want to live here."

Then you have your meetings (at '30 Rock' aka: NBC headquarters) and you're meeting in a room NEXT to the SNL studio and you're thinking to yourself, "Dang, that gummy--there have been too many humans in these here halls--smell is the smell of Britney Spears and Chris Rock and Jim Belushi and Justin Timberlake and Sting and Al Pacino and Jim Carey..."

And they smell just like you and me.

And maybe that's the lesson NYC teaches you.  Maybe when you put that many 'people' in one place you get to see what people are really like.  And I gotta' admit that the picture's not that pretty.

Especially when you drive into South New York or Brooklyn or Queens as we did on our way to the airport last night because the highway was backed up.  You drive there and you get to see how the 'real' people live.  The people who work normal jobs and don't earn a million plus a year?  Them folk live in an NYC devoid of all romance or charm.  Their NYC is plain filthy and desperate.  

And that's my thought for you and me today.

See it's one thing to live in a fantasy world.  Sure, my second meeting (for dinner) at this wicked little spot in the East Village was cool and fun and great.  Yeah the two types of water they bring you (one in a white glass bottle the other in a green one) are cool and the calamari was awesome and the chicken pot pie (from scratch) was chic and the waitress was playful and coy and the street was rockin' and the music was cool.

But you can't live at a restaurant in the East Village.

Nor would you want to.

You know what strikes me the more 'celebrities' and 'high achievers' I meet and rub shoulders with?

They want to be you.

They want your normal life.

And if you and I want 'theirs' that leaves our society in a weird place doesn't it?  'Cause you got the folk at the perceived 'bottom of the food chain' longing to climb their way to the top 'cause they think the folks up there got it on lock but the folks at the top are longing for the days when they could just go to the grocery store or mow the lawn without it being a big deal.

So if 'high society' wants what the 'commoners' got and the commoners want what the 'haves' got then nobody's happy.

And that's the point.

You gotta' learn to be content where you are, being who you are, doing what you've been made to do.

'Cause 'aint no city gonna' fix you.

T

work it baby...

You might sometimes find yourself facing a task so enormous that you freeze.

You'll freeze because you can't do it.

Or at least that's how you'll feel.

Let's think about that for a second.  The 'freeze impulse'.  I think it rears its head because it--a part of us naturally--knows that we're going to fail; or at least it fears failure.

This is why you don't freeze before you go to the store to get milk.  You've done it so many times that you're totally used to it, you know how it's going to go, you know you'll be fine and that you'll get your milk.

But what if you were on the brink of financial insolvency?  What if you'd gotten that dreaded 'insufficient funds' slap in the face enough times that you were actually worried you weren't going to be able to buy milk?  What if the thought of the scornful look the cashier gives you when that moment comes was too much to bear?  

You might walk on by the store and tell your wife you couldn't do it.

Have you ever felt like that?  Has that ever happened to you?  It has to me.

Now let's leap past the simplified milk example and up the stakes a bit.  What if--say--you're getting ready to enter into a two-year co-development deal with a known and established production company, a company with a hit drama series currently on network TV, and what if you have to meet with them tomorrow to explore the 'story world' of the series and what if you happen to be the person who's supposed to create the story world?

Think that might make you nervous?

Bet your butt it would.

So I thought I'd scan and post one page from the brainstorming notes I was working on yesterday.  Reason I figured I'd post it is 'cause I figured it might be useful to some of you to see someone who might be somewhat 'further along' than you on the "Hi my name is ________ and I'm a Hollywood Producer..." timeline posting something that admits to the fact that we're all scared when it comes to doing things that are significant and/or which dovetail with our sense of calling and being.

It's one thing to get rejected over a bag of milk.  It's another thing altogether to have your ideas, your dreams, your vision rejected.

And that's what I'm facing.

Lord knows I would love to be able to hit a producer's blog who's way ahead of me ('cause there will always be people further along and less further along than you...) and find hints, tips, admissions of weakness and transparently shared moments of victory to help me keep keeping at it.

I could do the same thing (and would seek the same) with preaching notes.

You could do the same thing with the notes you make as you build your life and the thing you've been made to do.

Maybe you should start thinking about sharing yourself a bit more--who knows--you might be 'of encouragement' to someone in south east Asia.

But back to the notes...

So I'm freaking out right?  I'm totally nervous and intimidated by the task at hand.  The only thing that's helping me practically at this point is that I've faced this feeling before.  In fact, I still have to force myself to keep moving forward many times when I'm facing a new situation or one in which the stakes have been raised.

(and if you want success and/or the opportunity to do significant work the stakes are always going to be rising)

So I did two things.  

1) I procrastinated a bit.  I had tea with my wife and she and two of my kids made me cookies.  I had come up from my basement office looking lost, my wife took one look at me and said, "You need tea and cookies.  Go back down and come up in half an hour."  I did what she said and half and hour later sat there with her drinking tea and eating warm cookies.  We didn't talk or anything.  I was too lost in the world of ideas but we were together and her presence was more comforting than the warm liquid or gooey chocolate.

Point is, that little break helped.

Then I went back downstairs and...

2) Just pulled out my notebook and started writing.  I don't know about you but the thing they taught you in high school english class was and is true.  Free-form brainstorming starts happening as you start putting ideas down on paper and linking them.  So long as you start and keep going for a few minutes you'll end up gathering a head of 'idea-steam' and, before you know it, you'll have eight or ten pages of good ideas.  I suggest doing this kind of brainstorming with pen and paper because a) it's tactile which I think is better for working with ideas and b) it allows you to make mistakes but not erase them.  When you write something that turns out to be 'not so good' don't erase it, cross it out and write a 'NO' beside it with a circle around it. Why?  Well, this way you'll always be able to see the bad idea and because you'll see it crossed out and in the context of the other (and better) things you were thinking at the time you'll be able to (i) not repeat it and (ii) learn from it 'cause it'll be right there in your notes along with the good, and really good ideas.

Get it?

(you can't do that on a computer--I mean you can with nova mind but who's got the time to master that thing?)

You can do this same thing if you're getting ready to preach.  Same thing if you're building a proposal for work.  

The key is to move beyond being frozen to that place where you start putting ideas (even if they're not so good to start with) down on paper.

They say 80-90% of writing is re-writing.  I think it's true.  The reality is if you don't brainstorm you won't write and if you don't write you won't re-write and if you don't re-write you'll never have anything to say or give to people which will mean you make no impact.

And it seems to me a key reason we exist is to impact each other.

T

it looks pretty bleak out there...

I was looking for an image that captured how I'm feeling today.

The one above does it pretty well.

That's my youngest son sketching in the sand at the beach on our rained-out vacation a week ago.  What I like about the shot is the emptiness all around him.  You got what looks like an ocean of sand and the actual ocean surrounding him.  Nothin' but him.

And his ideas.

I didn't ask him to sketch--didn't suggest it.  I was a hundred yards or more away from him when I saw him pick up the stick and start.  Grabbed my telephoto and off we go.

My son in the wilderness with his ideas.

Just like me.

Sometimes I feel like that's really all we have.  Us and our thoughts.  Us and our ideas.  Us and our loneliness.

And to fight the loneliness we come up with ideas and--if we have the tenacity, talent and perseverance--give birth to them so that we might fill the World around us with things that feel familiar.

Familiar because they've come from us.

Or have they?

That's the question, isn't it, when it comes to ideas and creativity?  And the question is relevant to those of you who preach and to those of you who produce and to those of you who 'make' things and to those of you who need to come up with ideas to fill your world.

Where do our ideas come from?

Some would say from our subconscious.  Some would say from our past experiences, education, upbringing, relationships and so on.  Some--who've recently read 'The Secret'--might suggest the ubiquitous 'universe' as the source and others might say God.

I've found that, in my life, the question as to the root of creativity or ideation has led me down the path to being found by and in God.  My hope would be not to try and direct or even influence what you find but rather to encourage you to keep thinking on it and searching and wondering.

Because I believe that those who seek will find.

And that imperative (seek and ye shall find...) is of encouragement to me today as I sit here at my desk working to make headway while feeling like it's almost impossible to do so.  I'm reminded--looking at the photo of my baby son--that though my ideas, thoughts and dreams are mere sand-scratches in the wilderness of eternity, they're 'my' (Our) scratches and I was made to scratch them.

Nobody else is going to do what you do so it's important that you do it.

T

they say...

The grass is always greener on the other side.

I certainly am fighting that sense right now.  The reason is we just got back from visiting my wife's Dad and his wife at their more-than-fabulous home in Mooresville (just north of Charlotte on Lake Norman) North Carolina.

Their house is so perfect it makes me depressed.

Not while I'm there, but once I get home.

See, my home is simple and basic, nothing like my father-in-law's mini-mansion by the lake and when we arrived home after our trip the day before yesterday after thirteen hours on the road with four kids under nine in the van we were hit--again--with how humble our house is.

So I parked the van, walked inside, changed my shoes and immediately started mowing the lawn.  Then I went and washed my car.

("...the good people of the World are washing their cars on their lunch breaks, hosin' and scrubbin' as best they can in skirts and suits...")

Why?

Couple reasons.

First is my neighborhood.  It's an older one (60+ years) and that means the majority of the residents are retirement age plus and that means their gardens are beautiful.  If you let your lawn lapse in my neighborhood you might get picketed.

And it's not the stupid (Pleasant-ville/Disney) kind of 'manicured' but the blue-collar/immigrant kind of cared-for.  The people in my neighborhood were grateful to be able to buy these simple little houses two blocks north of the lake and that gratefulness led them to take care of their houses for years and years and years and when you have that kind of community focus applied to where you live you end up with one of those neighborhoods that never really depreciate.

In fact, over the course of this recession, while flashier mini-mansion-er type neighborhoods around us have plummeted 30% or more we've lost maybe 8% and houses are still selling here--not in the week to ten days it took during the boom--but in a month or so.

Anyway, it's one of those nice neighborhood where people care.

So you mow and you sweep and you trim and you edge and you plant and you make your town a home.

That's what I did.

And, wouldn't you know it, as my wife and I applied ourselves to the simple work of spring gardening a truth began to dawn on me as my house slowly turned from humble to lovely.  

I realized that the grass isn't greener on the other side.  

The grass is green everywhere.

You just need to tend it.

So I'm feeling a renewed call to 'flourish where I've been planted'.  This is my home.  Sure it's not in NASCAR country (and many of my leftie-readers would salute that fact) and it's not 'on the lake' and it's not very big.

But it's ours and it's simple and--when cared for--it has a kind of meek loveliness to it.

Tomorrow I'm going to the bank to see if I can re-finance it to get some $'s flowing to extend it a bit.

And maybe put in a mansion-worthy hot tub.

Either way, I'm going to be happy.

'Cause, dang, but the grass in that shot up there (taken after I finished cutting it on my return from mansion-land) is plenty green enough for me.

T

making the best of it...

So it's officially been a crappy vacation.

My poor wife.

She's been so jonesing to hit the beach for the past four or five months it's literally become something of a joke around our house.  She's just been plain crazy for some time in the sun, sand and saltwater.

So this week's trip south to see her dad and his wife at Hilton Head in South Carolina was to be her 'dream come true' moment for the year.

Then yesterday we hit a record low temperature for this time of year.  Seriously, rain for two days straight, gale force winds, the opposite of what she'd been hoping for.

And through it all I've been trying to stay positive and keep an upbeat outlook--for her sake if for no other reason--but today I've started to be worn down a bit.

When we did get a break in the rain last night, we rushed to the beach on our bikes and took some shots.  The one up top is my favorite.  My eldest son Jordan is in the foreground with Niki, Sarah, Sam and Zoe running up in the background.

Kinda' captures our experience this time round.

Crappy weather but still finding a way to have fun in the midst of it.

But this morning--at breakfast--I felt happy despite the cloudy misery.  And I don't think I was feeling happy for any particular reason other than the typical undercurrent of happiness that attaches itself to simple Christian folk like me.  At the root of my experience I'm happy because of Jesus--because of what's been done for me, what's been accomplished, what's finished.

I'm happy.

And it hit me like a small simple revelation that that simple happiness is quite the treasure. The kind of treasure that turns crappy vacations to good times away with the people I love and who love me.  People who've been given me as gift.  People who are contributing to my ongoing sanctification--people who are making me a better person.

Little people (four or 'em) and one lady-person.

My family.

My friends.

T

a question of perspective...

So lets try to spot the difference between these two shots...

Yes, the top one is darker.  It's the master bedroom window at our vacation house in Hilton Head S. Carolina.  It's raining outside and my wife is feeling crappy.

This one is the living room window, looking out onto a lovely pool, hot tub and golf course.  It's raining outside and my wife is feeling crappy.

The reason for this post is because of something my wife's been saying all day.

She'd walk to our bedroom at the front of the house--watching the sky, looking for some sign of it breaking up--and say, "Hey it looks like it's starting to turn..."  Then she'd walk down into the living room and do the same thing, except this time looking out the window on the back of the house.  "Oh man..." she'd moan "No it looks worse from here..."

Same house, same weather system, two different perspectives.

(and funnily enough on the screen here the effect is reversed with the bedroom shot looking gloomier than the living room one)

So why does she feel differently about the two views?

Here's my theory...

The front view is in our bedroom.  We sleep there together on a super comfy bed.  Our baby joins us halfway through the night.  In the morning we lay there snuggling and our kids come in and fill the bed with us.  We do our pushups and sit ups in that room each night after we come in from the hot tub.

We love each other in that room.

It makes her happy.

This morning, down in the living room, my wife's Dad was waiting grumpy as all get out.  He's grumpy 'cause it's raining and this is his one vacation this year and the first time he's seen our kids in nine months and he's the kind of guy who must be 'doing' things at all times and almost exclusively outdoors which is why he's chosen to live 1,100 km's away from us on a lake in North Carolina.

So for him, this rain is death.

Following me?

My wife wakes up with her husband who loves her, looks out at the same rainy sky and feels happy and hopeful.  Meanwhile, downstairs, her Dad is simmering.

She comes down, meets him, gets infected with his mood and--voila--the back room view suffers.

See?

Perspective.

This is important for a few reasons.

One, if you're a preacher, you must keep in mind that your perspective and possibly your exegetical and interpretive work is always impacted by your environment, your life, and the things you're dealing with at any given time.  It's not my suggestion that you try to mitigate against this as that would be impossible and much of the beauty of preaching is in that strange mix of dust and divinity that occurs as we bring all our baggage to the process and God enlivens it with His Spirit for the sake of (and usually tailor-made for) the audience.

I'm just suggesting that we should be aware that this is happening so that we can be sensitive to the process with the hope of working with it in as optimized a manner as possible.

Two, if you're a producer, you should keep in mind that your perspective as you come to developing a story for the screen is going to be impacted by your environment and the key thing to be aware of here is that the environment that influenced your 'take' on the story at the start of your process is--of necessity--going to shift and change over time as you work your way through the process of bringing that story to life which means that the 'first environmental experience' must be potent enough to last and stay with you over the course of the years that are to follow as you develop the story and long after the initial perspective-shaping experience has faded into memory.

Three, if you're neither a preacher nor a producer, you should still stay aware of the factors that are impacting how you feel about your life.  Once you recognize that--perhaps like my wife--your husband (or wife) makes you happy you should do what you can to stay with them most of the time and, when life takes you away and there's nothing you can do about it, remember that it's their absence that's making you feel so low and use that perspective to shape how you're feeling in the moment.

(it's not that you 'hate' Vancouver it's just that you're there alone...)

If you're aware of how your perspective is manipulated by the company you keep or the environment in which you're situated you should be able to 'take charge' of how you're feeling (to some degree) so that your rainy days start looking a little better.

You'll also get better at recognizing what's driving the way in which your audience is feeling and that'll help you craft stories that resonate and sermons that turn rainy days...

To lovely ones.

T

What really matters...

Yes I am, in fact, blogging while on vacation.

Doesn't feel like work, that's why.  

Lemme' tell you about the pictures first, then I'll get to the body of it.  The first shot above says it all.  A husband and a wife hoping for the best for the couple in the accident while being thankful it wasn't them.

We stopped dead on I95 southbound, headed for Hilton Head.  As far back as you can imagine the highway was one big tailgate party--or would have been under normal circumstances.

Three times the air-evac chopper arrived, picked up a patient, flew them off to the Charleston Hospital then came back to do it again.  Three chopper rides, two ambulance trips.  Five people critically injured.

We sat on I95 for just under two hours watching it unfold.  We were about half a mile back from the site of the accident.  We'd been rolling along no problem, more than ready to 'be there' as a four-hour trip from Mooresville (just north of Charlotte) was a little more than we had appetite for after the 12-hour trip we'd just done from our home west of Toronto to my wife's Dad's place.

Anyway, all of a sudden we see brake lights.  Serious brake lights.  We stop, then emergency vehicles start racing past on the grass shoulder lights blazing sirens blaring.  We sit for a few minutes then a few minutes more than everyone starts getting out of their cars shielding their eyes from the sun trying to see what's happened.

The trucker next to us says someone's dead.

The helicopter arrives.

We know it's serious.

And we start talking with our kids about death and dying.  We pray for the people.  We hope for the best.  The trucker keeps giving us updates.  Can't get 'em out of the cab.  It's a camper and a car tangled up.

Nobody's dead--critically injured.  We should be here an hour or so.

One more patient to go.

They're spraying the road down.

('spraying the road down'?  from what?  what are they washing away?)

Good to go.

Pass the wreck.

The entire front cab of the motor home is destroyed crushed right back into the body of the vehicle.

Lord have mercy.

And that shot of the couple off the top hit me.  I'd just pulled my camera out and started shooting and, checking my shots later, there it was.

"Together"

That's what matters.

Snuggle up next to the one(s) you love and squeeze 'em 'cause you can be sure the couple in that camper who swerved to avoid the car and hit the bridge abutment instead had no idea yesterday was going to be their last.

Go on and get to huggin'.

T