back to school...

Okay, so the place I was speaking at yesterday day didn't look quite as nice as Trinity College (pictured above).

But I had fun nonetheless.

I was there to talk about my two areas of expertise, Church Ministry (especially preaching and church planting) and Show Business (especially film and TV).

It's rare that I get to focus on both disciplines at once.  I'd like to do more of that.  Think I'll get a new site up soon to promote that side of my life and work.

Some reflections on yesterday:

-College kids are KIDS.  I don't remember feeling that young when I was that young.  This means I'm getting older.  But I don't mind it.  I sure wouldn't want to trade my life experience for their youth.  No way.

-College (secular or not) is an insular place.  I was reminded how important it is to keep yourself immersed in the 'real world' you hope to inhabit someday in a working capacity even (especially) while studying in preparation for invading that world.

-Christian culture is still very separatist in inclination.  I made a reference in my 'talk' to hitting a shot of Patrone (the high end tequila--dunno' if I spelled it right) while at one of L.A's hottest clubs on open mic night (featuring Macy Gray and one of Kanye's collaborators on 808's) after shooting wrapped with my crew a few months back.  There was palpable SHOCK in the room. Then, after I was done, they made an announcement gleefully reminding the room of their big 'group twister' game scheduled for later that night.

Excuse me?

You're SHOCKED that I'm hitting the Patrone and dancing with my friends after working with them (by way of respecting my friend the pop star who was in L.A, wanted to see me [his former pastor] and got us into the club in the first place...) yet you're 'cool' with encouraging 140 hormonal 19 years olds to twist themselves into various sexually provocative (don't tell me it's not that way, I used to PLAY twister too...) poses in the name of 'good clean fun'?

Is it just me who sees the GLARING inconsistency there?

I almost felt deflated by that (having tried to convince them that 'sanitizing culture' is neither the mandate of the Christian nor the slightest of possibilities to begin with...) but reminded myself that Rome wasn't built in a day and I'm certainly not going to change Christian culture's silly hypocrisy (I'm variously guilty as charged by times, make no mistake) all at once, or ever.

The best I can hope for is to have participated (in whatever small way) in the mighty GHOST impacting a few of the people in the room.

THAT reminds me that we shape culture (in grace) one person at a time.

That helps.

What else?

-(this is a little too honest here) I noticed that most of the kids looked pronouncedly different than the kids I see and rub shoulders with in 'the biz'.  That's to be expected but what troubled me about it was that, I think, many of those college kids would claim that their 'heart' is to find a way to 'minister to' or at the very least 'connect to' the kids in actual culture who look and act (from what I could see) NOTHING like the college kids do.

This might be a problem.

How will you find a way to connect to a culture in which you've spent no time, for which you have no genuine affection or affinity?

Seriously, how?

After I was done speaking, the Dean of students had me come up to his first year seminar class and take questions for forty minutes.  I enjoyed the kids.  Some of then had some good questions.  I was humbled to have the chance to chat with them.  

I wish a guy like me had come by my U of T first year philosophy class and unloaded on me.

It would have helped.

Hope I did.

Yesterday...

T

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