Gray Matter

Kickin Butt & Takin Names

2011-04-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't figured out how to redirect this blog subscribers to my new Wordpress site. Until then I'll post there and leave a link here.

I shot a commercial for La Quinta Inn, "Kickin' Butt and Takin Names."
Here it is. Enjoy!

Monday Caption Please

2011-03-28T14:09:00.001-07:00

Got a good caption for this?

Does Love or Controversy Win?

2011-03-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

I wrote a bit about the LOVE WINS controversy. It's over on my new blog, here.

Guilty Dog

2011-03-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

Boy, do dogs act like humans. See the video here.

flammable

2011-03-05T00:57:00.000-08:00

This week I had my first experience with a house fire. I learned a lot about the power of adrenaline. I've posted it here on my new website.

Glee Audition

2011-03-04T09:40:00.001-08:00

I helped my friend Todd work on his Glee audition.

I'm moving!

2011-03-02T06:02:00.000-08:00

That is, my blog is moving, over to my website. It was painfully stuck in the previous century. So I got wordpress, bought a program called "Standard Theme," and done redid it.

Check it out here.

I'll probably continue to post here and duplicate it there, until I figure out all the rss stuff. I'm still a newbie at it.

Susan

On Anatomy & Physiology

2011-02-23T05:09:00.000-08:00

In keeping with yesterday's post
Here's a gorgeous poem by Dave K. Wheeler.

I still remember just how you look
naked, the pale curve of your back,
the quiet inlet where it bends
to meet the taper of your waist,
shower water wending where it will
along the architecture of your form.

There may have been studies of a form
such as yours, that begged charges look
and chart the firm geography they will
find around each smooth surface and back—
from the ankle to knee and knee to waist—
while changing, adapting as the figure bends,

saying, Note where the wrist starts, thumb ends,
and how the hip tendons each transform.
And every student might attend to your waist
but neglect the collective, assembled look
produced by the bones in your neck and back
how they form a straight line of poise and will.

Maybe what I saw when I saw you naked will
amount to what makes or breaks or bends
me. I caught your eye, and you glanced back.
You didn’t flinch or show the slightest form
of embarrassment. I remember the look—
a subtle nod and smile—you might waste

as if it were a familiar gaze, might waste
in calm, in nonchalance, in pure goodwill.
Or maybe this gaze is the way you look
into me, past the way my own body bends
to cover my soul, to hide and conform,
to be sure and have my own back—

to hold close and hold tight and hold back
like anxiety for being seen from the waist
down, naked, vulnerable, without form.
Maybe it won’t matter, and maybe it will;
but, having caught you so bared unbends
me, makes me measure, take another look

at my maudlin self—a cruel look to see my back
still bends wrong, my legs, trunk, hands—a waste
of time to contest if ever I will match your form.

On Anatomy and Physiology is from the collection
Contingency Plans: Poems (T. S. Poetry Press, 2010)

Love, Sex, Marriage. All or none of the above

2011-02-22T05:07:00.000-08:00

I just spent a lovely Valentine's Day with my husband. It was our sixth Valentine's Day together. We met in January of 2006 and were married that August. (Hey, when you've spent your entire adult life unmarried, you don't waste time dating Mr. Wrong or letting Mr. Right get away.) It's been a terrific four and a half years. We'd each spent years in counseling before we met, so I like to say that Larry came “plug-and-play.” We get along well and enjoy each other immensely. Nevertheless, we've had lots to unlearn, like selfish behaviors, weird habits, and how to enjoy the perks of marriage we'd survived without. The Nike slogan, “Just Do It,” goes a long way.

A year ago I sat down for an hour-long interview with Craig Spinks of “Recycle Your Faith.” We talked about a lot of issues, including sexuality. Craig posted a portion on Valentine's Day and titled it, “Christian Sexuality: Shut Down.” Ouch.

I grew up in a nice, polite Lutheran church that didn't discuss sex. As a single adult in a hip groovy nondenominational church, I was taught I needed to find my identity and contentment in the Lord first. Only then would He bring the right person my way. Aren't you glad this idea wasn't taught during the Black Plague? The human race would have died out. The only real directive I got was like Nancy Regan's anti-drug campaign: “just Say No.” But as Reverend Jesse Jackson famously remarked, kids also need something to say “yes” to. Christian singles need something more than 'Just Don't Do It.'

Not long ago, Jonathan Acuff, author of Stuff Christians Like, blogged that Christians have ruined sex. (I'd inject that Satan has done the lion's share of ruination). Acuff cites four ways he believes Christians ruin sex.
1. Sometimes we teach guilt, not abstinence.
2. We have few ways to discuss it.
3. We write 10 books about lust for every one about the gift of sex.
4. We are afraid to be creative in sex

Are you uncomfortable yet? Good, I'm not alone. This isn't an easy topic to discuss. In Point 1 Acuff points out how we grow up hearing how destructive sex is outside of marriage (and boy, is it), but then don't know what to on the wedding night. “You're supposed to magically, instantly shed all your guilt and fear about sex. We're taught guilt for years and then left on the doorsteps of our marriages to figure it all out by ourselves.” That brings him to points 2, 3, and 4. It leaves one the impression that the world is having all the fun and we're left with bland, boring procreation tools.

But what has secular society have to offer? We live in a dysfunctional age, in which we are biologically ready to procreate at age 15, but the culture wants to postpone adulthood until we're nearly ready for the rest home. You know this is true if you've watched Seinfeld, Friends, or seen any of Judd Apatow's movies.

This week author Kay Hymowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, Where Have All The Good Men Gone? It's excerpted from her book, Manning Up. “Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This 'pre-adulthood' has much to recommend it. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men.”

Well it certainly doesn't encourage the character Christians want to teach the next generation. Why grow up, the article asks, when young men have a Play Station, sports bars, and “lad magazines like Maxim, which makes Playboy look like Camus?”

Man, am I glad I got out of the dating circuit. Back in 2005 my roommate and I held a series of dinner parties for the singles we knew, in hopes that some might pair off and end up walking down the aisle. Over and over I observed a series of men, unable to make a move to ask a woman out. As frustrating as it was, I can't put all the blame on the guys. If it's true that men reach their sexual peak in their teens (and women in their thirties, oh the irony!), perhaps the motivation to get hitched is dead by forty. I also think that Christian men, in an effort to not do the wrong thing, do nothing at all. The church teaches them to be nice and tame. I also know that many men become addicted to pornography. And as the pool of remaining women shrinks, and those remaining become more desperate and shrill (I was guilty!) is it any wonder a man would be tempted to turn to pornography over a scary spinster?

This brings me to the article the Huffington Post ran on Valentine's Day: Why You're Not Married, by Tracy Macmillan, a TV writer with credits on Mad Men and The United States of Tara. Macmillan writes to secular women, giving six brutally funny reasons that are impossible to dismiss. I know, I was guilty of most of them!

1. You're a bitch. Meaning, you're angry. It scares men off.
Don't rant about politics. Least of all don't rant about men not being men

2. You're shallow. Ladies, are you looking for someone who loves Jesus, and has a six pack? Listen to the writer on Mad Men. “The only thing that really matters is character.” When I met Larry he wore his hair long. He thought it made him look young and artsy; I thought it made him look old and white trash truckery. He eventually cut it praise God. But I'll tell you, one day he looks like a frog and another day he looks like a prince, and it has less to do with Larry's grooming than with my mood.

One last look, and then say goodbye to the John Hamm poster hanging on the wall of your emotional boudoir. If it helps, tell yourself he's got lousy character.

3. “You're a slut. Macmillan mentions the hormone Oxytocin that is released when a woman gives birth or has the big O. It bonds a mammal to its partner or child. Here is a worldly, secular writer telling us we can't have casual sex because it effs us up. "Sex And the City" is a crock. Science is catching up to the Ten Commandments. Now we know.

4. You're a Liar. Macmillan refers to the woman who's afraid to tell the guy she's ready for marriage, because it might scare him off. I was guilty of this. I hung out with a Christian guys who I thought would come to love me eventually, or secular guys I told myself would come to love Jesus eventually. Of the first type: ladies, the eighth time he gives you a foot massage, ask him if he's interested romantically. Just think of it as fact-finding. If he says no, you say, Check, please. If he says he doesn't know, you say, Call me when you do, check please. He's not going to 'grow to love you' at some later date because you've managed to convince him. Guys decide early. Guys who can't decide are incapable of dating, or at least, of dating you. If he wants that kind of contact with a woman, he can go to massage school or hire a therapist. Forget missionary dating and Christian babysitting. They turn you into liars; and the worst is, you lie to yourself.

5. You are selfish. Macmillan says we spend too much time thinking about our thighs, our clothes, our wrinkles. This is the female counterpart to men and their Playstation. Go volunteer at the library and teach someone how to read. Go sit in on the nursery or the junior high youth group. Because ladies, your cat hasn't told you you're moody. Your husband will, either by saying it or withdrawing from you.

6. You're Not Good Enough. And by that, she means you don't think you're good enough, which is why you're looking for some guy better than you are: to make you feel better about yourself. Don't look for someone to make you feel better. Look for a person of character. Because looks and money won't cut it.

So that was the cluster of info for Valentine's Week. What do you think? Does the church need to talk about sex? Is it the church's responsibility? How much have your expectations been shaped by secular culture? Are you ready to write a book about hot Christian sex? Good, because I'm not going there.

Dat Brit film, Dey Done Said What?

2011-02-17T05:44:00.000-08:00

So like I done seen "Sexy Beast" wif Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley. SOrry Sir Ben. Yeh, so like as much as I unnastood most a whut day done said, was a bittuva stretch. If you done had trubble unnastandin dem brit cop films you gonna like this here sendup.

Another video for Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

A year ago I had the pleasure to meet Craig Spinks of "Recyle Your Faith." He interviewed me on camera, and we got onto a lot of subjects. Here's a fun one for Valentine's Day: Church and Sex. Yes in the same sentence. Or maybe I should say, "Christians and Healthy Sexuality.

For Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

Larry shared this on my wall. A great song, written by Bob Dylan, played by one of my favorite musician, Phil Keaggy!

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Natalie Portman's Norbit Moment

2011-01-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Gervais wasn't the only one to be awkward at the Globes. I guess Natalie Portman's acceptance speech got kind of bizarre. (At least it wasn't mean). She's also got a movie coming out this weekend that looks a bit shallow. I hope this isn't her Norbit moment.

Wednesday Video

2011-01-19T08:38:00.001-08:00

I'm teaching a sketch comedy class at Azusa Pacific University this semester. I love the class and my students are terrific. They had to bring in a clip of a comedy sketch and explain why they liked it. My student Jeremy brought this in; it's a group I hadn't heard of yet, "The Whitest Kids You Know." Check out this film noir bank heist sketch.

What Would MLK Do?

2011-01-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

Today our nation honors the life of Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian activist who led the civil rights movement using nonviolent means. He was assassinated for it. And though the civil rights movement continued, and though I believe that history is teleological, lately it doesn't seem to be moving toward a happy place. It's been a dark chapter in our history, as these last few weeks have highlighted.

The economy is in the toilet. Our culture has become increasingly hostile toward religion (and sometimes with good reason. Take Fred Phelps, whose church protests high-profile funerals with "God hates F-gs" posters. Sick.). Masses of dead birds fall from the sky, leagues of fish wash up on our shores, and some noted prophetess blames it on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Her line of reasoning reads like a Monthy Python sketch. Well, she's partly right. All that dead wildlife is a sign from the Almighty: it's God's retribution for PajamaJeans.

Some psychopath guns down six people at a political gathering, including a girl who was born on September 11, 2001. She was only 9 and was already interested in civic life. I imagine her parents told her every year on her birthday, “You are a miracle born out of despair. Someday you can make a difference.” And now she's gone like MLK. FoxNews tried to paint the insane shooter as a leftist; the Left tried to blame it on Sarah Palin. Of course neither side is directly responsible. But to deny that all this public venom has NO effect on us, is like saying that internet porn has no effect on intimacy, or violent video games on youth. Or that sex doesn't lead to dancing.

A few measured commentators agreed, we need to take it down a notch. Well one man tried to do something about it. Back in 2009 Mark DeMoss, a Republican and prominent evangelical Christian, was alarmed at the increasingly vicious tone in American politics. He founded The Civility Project. He wrote a pledge, sent 585 letters to every governor and sitting member of congress, and asked them to sign it. The Pledge was simple:

  • I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior.
  • I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them.
  • I will stand against incivility when I see it.

He received only three signatures. Three out of our 585 elected officials agreed to abide by the pledge. Last week DeMoss pulled the plug on the project.

So much for the politicians. What about the pundits? Just once I'd love one of them to listen to his opponent and reply, “I don't agree but I respect your opinion.” Or go really crazy with, “That's a good point. I'm going to think about that for a while, and maybe it will change how I look at the issue.”

Which political personality is going to be the first to dial it down: Keith Olberman? Glenn Beck? Not as long as they keep getting great ratings. Why do they have great ratings? Because we watch them. Why do we watch them? Well, maybe they scratch that sinful itch to point the finger at someone else. “It was Eve; she gave me the apple.”

When I say “we,” I'm referring to our society as a whole. But we Christians are part of our society, so some of us must be contributing to those ratings. We are not putting the hateful words in their mouths, but we are encouraging them to say those things by patronizing their shows.

Do words not matter as much as actions? Jesus said in Matthew 5? "You have heard that our ancestors were told, 'You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.' But I say if you are even angry with someone you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.”

Are we taking Jesus seriously? I don't propose we disengage from public life. In What's So Amazing About Grace Philip Yancey wrote:

“Politics draws lines between people; in contrast, Jesus' love cuts across those lines and dispenses grace. That does not mean, of course, that Christians should not involve themselves in politics. It simply means that as we do so, we must not let the rules of power displace the command to love.”

On Martin Luther King Day you may not be going to a rally or a prayer vigil or a love-in, but you can do something. Practice nonviolence by choosing what you say and read and watch and hear. Turn off the TV haters and read the Sermon on the Mount. Listen to worship music rather than a radio pundit. Pray for your opponents and ask God to give you a picture of how he sees them.

And please, for the love of all that is good and precious in this world, do not buy PajamaJeans.
Buy one of Cathleen Falsani's T-Shirts instead.

On Siren Magazine

2011-01-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

I did an interview with Sarah Hubbell of Siren Magazine. There's some new content on it; stuff I haven't talked about or other sites haven't deigned to publish. Enjoy! Read it here.

Whip My Hair

2011-01-10T04:49:00.000-08:00

This is Will Smith and Jada Pinkett's daughter singing. The video is inventive but the song's value is lost on me.

I had no awareness of this song until Fresh Air's "Best TV of 2010" episode last week. David Bianculli said that one of his favorite TV moments was Jimmy Fallon's entire hour with Bruce Springsteen. If you didn't see Jimmy Fallon do "Born To Run" on the Emmys, you must. Fallon may not be your favorite late-night talk show host, but he's a dead-on mimic. Here he is as Neil Young, with Bruuuuuce, covering the ridiculous song.

A Second Chance: Ted Williams' Golden Voice

2011-01-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

The most uplifting, encouraging moment in viral video history. Move over Antoine Dodson.

A New Year

2011-01-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

It's a new year. I was ready for 2010 to be over.

It has been a hard year creatively. I've had two projects on my heart I've wanted to finish this past year. I am almost finished with one: a book proposal. But the second, my solo show, sits on the back burner, always pushed aside as I dealt with the “tyranny of the urgent:” bills to pay, auditions to run off to, tours and shows and teaching and taxes. I got to shoot a low budget movie and was on the road for a month. IT was a terrific experience. I pray the movie goes somewhere. But I know better than to expect some event to resurrect my career. Not at this point. If anything will, it will be that solo show or another book.

It was a hard year on Larry and me, individually and as a couple. I taught two classes that brought me home late at night. I got to sleep late, he goes to sleep early. I was on the road a lot. I was gone for a full two months last year, but this time I was in and out of town. It was almost more difficult to do the "here and gone again" thing for two months. Plus, I was teaching and trying to act like an actor.

The longer I am married, the more I realize what a rat I am: I witness my shortcomings as a human being and it is not pretty. Larry and I get along very well. He is my absolute best friend. But my first impulse is not love but selfishness. Marriage is grandest adventure you may ever take. But it is not a boat cruise. It is work. It works on your soul. I thank God my soul is getting a work-out. I need it.

It was a hard year for Larry. He worked harder than he ever has. He hates corporate politicking, and he got a load of it this year. It was hard to see him that overworked, under-appreciated and driven nearly to a breakdown. Larry's got a quiet, even-tempered strength, I lull myself into thinking he couldn't crack. But he nearly did this past December.

My mom continues to decline from her vascular dementia. She lives in a rest home in Colorado, so I don't get to see her often. Every time I do visit her, I mentally prepare myself that it could be the last time. I spoke to her on Christmas. She cried. She always cries when I talk to her on the phone. I feel touched and slightly embarrassed at her emotion. After all, it's just me calling to say hello. I always assure her I will see her soon. And when I do see her, she cries upon setting eyes on me.

Why is she so emotional? Well, she was often like that before her strokes. But now all of her adult reasoning has been zapped away, and she is just like a child: a child who feels love and loss immediately and fully. There's no adult psyche to tell her it's not necessary to cry when your daughter calls or visits. She just cries. She's just pure emotion. The strokes took away her internal editor. And all that is left is her unrestrained self. And her unrestrained self is lovely. I think she started out good, but all those years of pressing her face into God and prayer in the face of sorrow, have burned off anything less than her true self.

And now she feels love and loss and beauty and unabated wonder. You tell her something she should know and she hears it for the first time. My father was not an easy person to live with or love. At our last visit I asked her if she missed Dad.
“Not really," she shrugged.
I nodded.
Where is he?” she asked.
“He died.” Her mouth shaped a silent O and her eyes flooded with tears.
“But it's okay Mom. He's with Jesus now."
“Oh,” she exhaled and dabbed her eyes. “That's so good to know!”

I miss her. I miss the old her, too. I mourn the fact that Larry never got to meet her as she used to be, with all her faculties. But she's disappeared in such small increments, I have come to expect meeting her just as she is and enjoying her that way. And however I can connect with her when I see her, I am grateful for it. I know the day is coming she will leave us. But I don't like to think about it.

I miss Honey, my dear cat of 14 years whom I lost this past July. I cried solidly for a month. Some nights I got up and went into the other room just to cry in my soundproofed Voice-over booth. I have her pictures posted in strategic places in the house, and my sister-in-law made a beautiful collage of her photos that I keep in my office. I look at them momentarily. I'll pass them when I walk out the back door or look to the left of my desk. But if I look long enough, I will see her face and remember what it was like when she rested that face on my forearm as I was typing.

I still find memories of her around the house. I moved a shelf in the pantry yesterday and swept behind it and found some of her hair. If you have ever owned a cat you know they like to “mark” objects with their scent: doorways, corners, fridges, anything to claim as their own. Over time a gray waxy mark appears. I noticed a mark on the fridge at her height. It's been there all the time. I almost didn't wash it off. As unappealing as it sounds: a gray waxy mark on your fridge, I was reluctant to remove one last trace of her presence. But I did. I already regret it.

We adopted a second dog. Herbie sweet and full of nervous energy and doesn't have a malevolent bone in his body. But I miss Honey. I think about getting a cat. I sometimes look at the cats on Petfinder.com. I can't help but doing a search for Honey's breed: dilute tortoise shell. But I look at every cat and compare them to her, and they're always found wanting: the face is too long or the markings aren't as beautiful. On one occasion I noticed a thumbnail of cat that looked very much like her. I clicked on the details and a larger picture and was brokenhearted. Because it wasn't her.

I make no apology for loving a cat: a creature that could never return that same love with the same intelligence that I loved her with. After all, God has managed to love me in my small-mindedness and my inability to return his love in the same measure. A God who repeatedly loves me when I am so closed and brittle and small of heart.

In 2011 I plan on completing those two projects close to my heart. I also plan on loving my husband more. I want to get another cat. Maybe. But not this year. It's still too soon.

PS: I wrote the above at 2:30 in the morning. I would say, "forgive my maudlin display," but well, I need to work on being more maudlin and less "together."

Caption Please

2010-12-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

Okay so I nicked this from Roger Ebert's blog, but the picture desperately needs a caption.
Any takers?

Doggy Poo, the Unlikely Hero

2010-12-21T05:11:00.000-08:00

I am not sure if the creators are sincere or not.

Animal Voice Overs

2010-12-20T05:26:00.000-08:00

I've seen a few of these that aren't THAT great, but this one is hysterical.

Steven Colbert on the gospel

2010-12-17T13:51:00.000-08:00

I just love Steve Colbert, preaching it on prime time.

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

Dramatic Lemur

2010-12-10T05:06:00.000-08:00

Continuing last week's trend, someone took the Dramatic (animal) meme and took it to a new level. I found this the funniest of all. Especially since Larry and I had just watched "Star Wars" on TV and witnessed the now-familiar THX intro ...

Dramatic Chipmunk

2010-12-03T03:52:00.000-08:00

Apparently it's a trend.

Dramatic Eagle

2010-12-02T03:49:00.000-08:00

Norwegian Humor

2010-11-30T05:04:00.000-08:00

There's this myth that Scandanavians aren't very funny. True, Ingmar Bergman didn't do much to dispel this myth, but Bergman was Swedish, not norwegian. Okay, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch didn't either. But there's Garrison Keillor who's been finding the funny in Lake Wobegone for years.

Well, if you haven't seen this, you must. It's from a Norwegian sketch comedy show, and one of the most inventive comedy sketches I've seen. The kind that begs the question. "Why didn't I think of that first?" Well, because the Norskes did.

Christmas Gift Ideas

2010-11-26T04:29:00.000-08:00

It's Black Friday! Are you going shopping?
Me neither. I would rather participate in the Advent Conspiracy. More on that next week.

But the December consumer season is upon us, and I can't stop you. So I thought I would offer some timely advice for those would-be shoppers out there.

Demotivation

2010-11-17T05:48:00.000-08:00

Flash Mob, Hallelujah Style

2010-11-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

The day before Halloween, the Opera Company of Philadelphia did their own flash mob and invaded Macys. Kinda takes the commercialism out of shopping, eh?

I SO want to do this in LA!!

One act can change a life

2010-11-12T03:24:00.000-08:00

As part of the Permission to Speak Freely book tour, we are stumping for Compassion International: A child sponsorship program that gives children in dire poverty the physical emotional, educational and spiritual tools that change their lives.

The young men and women in this video were sponsored as children. Now they're being sent to college because of Compassion. One of the guys here was sponsored because a family decided to forego a second home phone and sponsor him instead. Now he's going to college.

One Act from Compassion International on Vimeo.

I went to El Salvador with Compassion and I've seen the program up close. I've met the staff, I've met the students.

I can't watch it without feeling compelled to act, without wanting to shout to everyone I know, YOU CAN DO SOMETHING. YOU CAN DO SOMETHING FOR ONE PERSON.

Permission To Speak Freely

2010-11-08T06:20:00.000-08:00

I’m out on a mini tour with author Anne Jackson and musician Solveig Leithaug to support Anne’s new book, “Permission to Speak Freely.” Her book was borne out of a question she posted on her blog a couple years ago: “What is the one thing you feel you can’t say in church?” Within a week she had over 500 responses. People wrote about their addictions to porn, alcohol and food. They were afraid to talk about homosexuality or poverty or social justice. A man said after his wife divorced him, his church rejected him too.

The response to Anne’s blog was so tremendous that CNN picked up the story. (Apparently it’s news to the world that church people don’t feel safe in church. Is it news to you?)

It got her thinking more deeply, and so she decided to turn it into a book. She asked readers to send those secrets on cards, art, however they felt led. And so her book, Permission to Speak Freely, became a compilation of original art, poetry and stories. Not just Anne’s stories but those who wrote in.

And now we are on the road, turning that groundswell into a live event. In the first half, Anne, Solveig and I share our dirty little secrets: sexual abuse, spouse’s addictions; alcohol, porn and food addictions; divorce and depression. The longer we hid, the sicker we got. But when we got honest, we began to heal. In the second half we hold a Q & A for the audience to ask questions.

We’ve only had two events so far: one at a modest church in a working class town, another at a wealthy church in an über-rich suburb. The attendees may have looked different from the outside, but their inner lives were so similar. I know because of what they’ve shared during Q & A. One teenage girl said her cousins had stolen her ‘innocence’ and she wanted it back. A woman shared how, when husband abandoned her, she went on a sex-spree to numb out. Four young women from a 12-step program showed up, including a 23-year old who had been a prostitute to support her meth habit. A man told the crowd he was the abusive, addict spouse we’d talked about. Another man shared he was in recovery from porn, but it had cost him his marriage. It was astounding to hear people open up and get free. It’s a privilege to witness it, and I pray this kind of honesty becomes commonplace in church.

But why isn’t it? Why don’t we feel safe in church? I doubt we are afraid of telling God our secrets: he already knows them. Maybe we are we afraid of other people: those people who show up to church all scrubbed-holy and put-together. Maybe they do have it all together; maybe they just act like it, or maybe we just think they do. It’s easy to compare their outsides to our insides, and think, “if they knew the real me, they’d reject me.” And sometimes they have rejected us. But church, of all places, should be the one safe place where we can own the sick truth about ourselves. Jesus said he came to heal the sick, not the healthy.

I learned a phrase in 12-step meetings: “you’re only as sick as your secrets.” In other words, if you can admit your secrets to someone, you can heal. Wouldn’t it be great if church looked like one big S.A. Meeting? Sinners Anonymous? I don’t mean we should lie around, wallowing in our brokenness and using it as an excuse not to get better. (I’ve been to that church). We need to move on from that and become productive members of society. But it starts with bringing those secrets into the light.

I also learned another thing in the 12 steps: don’t share your secrets with someone who doesn’t understand them. Share them with someone who’s been there, done that and doesn't lord it over you but says, "oh yeah, me too.”

Last Sunday our church had a 12-step forum after the service. Those of us in Program talked about what we got out of it, and how it differed from church. For me, confessing my sins didn't zap me into heaI had to walk that out in my life and my behavior. I liken it to this: you want to lose 15 pounds. What works better? Telling yourself you’re fat and need to lose weight, or making up a food plan that you can follow? That’s how the 12 steps have worked for me: working with a sponsor who has been there too, and helps me work through the specific steps. I don't to a 12-step meeting and expect them to believe what I believe or practice how I practice. I go to program for program. I go to church for church. I need both.

So could we speak freely and openly at church? Yes and no. I don’t think the Sunday morning service would work as a communal confessional. The Sunday service is about turning our attention to the divine, not ourselves.But that doesn’t mean we can’t create a safe place at church for people to open up. Our church does have a midweek healing service that is intimate, safe, and we have a time to share with each other. Many churches have adopted the “Celebrate Recovery” program, a program like the 12 steps but with a specific Christian spirituality. I haven’t done CR. I like the original twelve steps, and I like interacting with people of all kinds of faiths. But some might prefer the CR program.

In any event, the Church needs to become a safe place to speak freely. We need to allow people to come: dirty or clean, healthy or sick, holy or messed up. It’s the sick that need a physician, not those who are well, or who act like it.

“A bruised read he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.”

For more information on the tour visit the Permission to Speak Freely website. To book the tour at your joint, contact Jim Chaffee at Chaffee Management

The Renewed Mind vs. The Soup

2010-11-04T05:41:00.000-07:00

Just in case you didn't see Monday's video, here is Joel McHale on "The Soup," giving his own commentary on the same.

Preach it, Joel

Radical

2010-11-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

A month ago Larry and I got to see our freinds Dave and Heather. Dave is a book editor. He spends a lot of time working on books that don't exactly inspire him. Dave is a casual, humble guy. He never toots his own horn. But he did say he edited a book called, "Radical," that challenges us to rethink the American Dream, and ask ourselves if it squares with the gospel. He said it was something he was really proud of, and he hasn't said that often.

A friend just mentioned it on facebook, so I went looking for it. I found this video.

Radical by David Platt on Vimeo.

This made me think about what we've been hoping in these elections - what we expect government and politicians to do for us. I disagree with the Tea Party movement, but I sure understand people's frustrations over taxes. We shouldn't expect the government (or big business) to hand us our lives on a platter. I think most of us want to work hard and get something out of it. We want to put food on the table, raise our kids in a safe world, do something important, or at least satisfying, in the world. But how easily our dreams turn into anxieties, and we can find ourselves hoarding what we've got.

Last night my friends Anne Jackson and Solveig Leithaug did a show as part of Anne's Permission To Speak Freely tour, promoting her book of the same name. We shared the stories we didn't feel safe to talk about in church. Then the audience shared theirs. It was spectacular, the way people opened up.

Afterward, a gal named Meeshee gave the three of us a handbag. We loved them. Then she told us the story behind the bags. Four years ago, Meeshee went to South Africa and visited a township, crippled by poverty and AIDS. She had a dream to create some kind of work for them: work that could give them even a fraction of what we have.

She started The Tag Bag: handbags made by the people of this township, created from used South African license plates and inner tubes! The journey wasn't easy; the manufacturer pulled out of the endeavor, and production halted. But recently Meeshee found a new manufacturer. So the bags are back in production.

They're fabulous bags. Check out all the styles here. And if you buy one, you do more than just get yourself a stylish handbag. You employ a township that needs the work. You give them the opportunity to feed their kids. Even then, they'll have only a fraction of what we have.

So that's what was on my mind on Election Night: not gloating or moaning about who's in and who's out. But rethinking the American Dream. And doing something radical.

So have you had any radical dreams recently? A germ of an idea or a hope for someone other than yourself? I get caught up in my dreams for myself or Larry or my family. I need to rethink my American Dream.

Your Monday Morning Horror Video

2010-11-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

So Halloween was yesterday, but here's where the real terror lies.

Greyson Chance

2010-10-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

I scoffed yesterday when I saw an article on the LA Times. Some new teeny bopper in the making, and his name is Grayson Chance. With a name like that he's lucky not to get beaten to a pulp before he graduates junior high.

I just had to follow the article. Said he performed at a sixth-grade function at his church and posted it on youtube for th heck of it. Heck of it. it's now had over 32 million views. I had to watch.

WHOA.

This kid is not the next Justin Bieber. He could be the next Billy Joel or Elton John. I'm praying this kid has good support around him. He'll need it. But what a talent.

That Is Priceless

2010-10-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

Just discovered this blog: That Is Priceless takes classic pieces of art and gives them new captions.

Gustave Courbet fans may not like this one, but Johnny Depp Fans sure will.

Caption: Johnny Depp realizing he left the oven on

For more fun captions visit the That Is Priceless blog

Save Blue Like Jazz

2010-10-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

I can point to several authors who influenced my Christian faith: CS Lewis, NT Wright, Henri Nouwen and Walter Wangerin Jr., to name a few. There are fewer authors that influenced me as a writer. But I can only think of two authors who influenced me as a writer of faith: Anne Lamott and Donald Miller; specifically, Traveling Mercies and Blue Like Jazz.

By 2004, my spiritual and professional life had hit the skids. The only job I could get was working at a church office. (God sure has a sense of humor). It wasn’t a bad job, actually. My bosses were cool, and my pastor let me come into his office at lunchtime and vent my frustrations and doubt. He’d nod and say, “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He loaned me several books that encouraged my faith. Not happy titles, mind you: Dark Night Of the Soul by St John of the Cross, Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb, and A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. The latter title sounds positive, but it’s written by a man whose wife, mother and daughter were killed by a drunk driver. The book is great. Read it.

But it wasn’t my pastor who told me about Blue Like Jazz. It was this random artsy guy who stopped in to visit the seminary intern working at the office. You know these young, artsy guys. They dabble in creative pursuits. They have their whole lives ahead of them and think the answers all their questions will be Yes and Amen. “Get back to me in ten years,” I want to tell them.

So this artsy guy was sitting across from my desk, raving about some über hip writer who had defined faith for his generation. “Blue Like Jazz,” he said and tapped on my desk. That’s all he said: “Blue Like Jazz. Read it.” And then he and the seminary intern went off to smoke cigars.

Two weeks later our pastor brought in an entire box of Blue Like Jazz and gave me a copy. It was like he was daring me to read it. I took it home, ready to pick it apart with my cynical, artistically mature eye. I didn’t want some young hipster dilettante telling me what my life was like.

Then I read the intro. I had to admit his analogy was creative: God was like jazz because neither resolved. He had a way with words. I read the first couple of chapters and had to admit he made some great points. When he said that going to a big church “was like going to church at the Gap” I laughed out loud. When he wrote about the confessional booth, I cried. Blue Like Jazz was better than Random Artsy Guy had said. It was terrific, and Don Miller became my hero.

When I sat down to write my own book, I thought of Blue Like Jazz and Traveling Mercies. Those books gave me permission to write honestly, and provided a yardstick with which to measure my own work.

Six years have passed. I’ve had the privilege to meet Don and get to know him. He's not some über hip artsy dilettante. He's a funny, talented, generous guy. I got to tour with him last fall. (God really has a sense of humor).

For the past two years, Don and Steve Taylor have been trying to make a movie based on the book. I read the screenplay, and it’s great. But they’ve run into problems with financing. And after two years they have finally given up.

So, how come this insanely popular book can’t get made into a low budget movie? Money. Basically, the guys who have the money to make the movie aren’t from the same generation as those who’ll go see the movie. The money guys probably like going to church at the Gap. They don’t cuss or smoke (at least, not in public). The movie has a little cussing and smoking, and the Money Guys can’t get around that. Now in Hollywood, old guys fund young-guy films all the time. Who do you think funded Superbad? Not Michael Cera’s friends. But in faith-based filmmaking, they can’t bridge the gap.

On September 16, Don announced on his blog that the movie was being shelved. In Hollywood they say it “went away,” because no one likes to say “over.” But the film was over.

Or was it? Two crazy young guys got an idea: get the kids who love the book to come up with the $125,000 still needed to make the movie. It was like Michael Cera’s friends decided to pass the hat. Here’s the video they made:

Save Blue Like Jazz from Save Blue Like Jazz

Maybe you're thinking: “Why should I donate? I’m an old white guy. I like wearing Dockers to church.” Or, "I'm a young white guy and the movie will ruin the book for me." Or, "I'm poor, I don't have a buck to spare." Well I’m an old white chick. I go to an old musty church with incense and choir robes. But if we are going to show how Jesus matters to another generation, we need to speak that generation’s language. Young twenty-something hipsters won’t respond to the things I respond to. But they’re going to respond to the way Jesus and faith are presented in this movie, because it’s written for them.

Do you have a child or a friend who doesn't "get" your faith? If you could make Jesus come alive to him or her, would you spend ten bucks to do it? Then do it.

I’m that random artsy guy tapping on your desk.
"Blue Like Jazz. Fund it."

Check out the Save Blue Like Jazz website.

Permission to Speak Freely

2010-09-29T04:19:00.000-07:00

This fall I'm going to go on a mini tour with author Anne Jackson to promote her new book, Permission to Speak Freely. Have you heard of Post Secret? A blogger invites people to send postcards detailing some deep dark secret they're afraid to tell others. The blogger puts them up on his blog. People have submitted some wild secrets: funny, tragic, poignant. And their art is pretty amazing too. Post Secret blog has taken off and the blogger published a book.

Anne was taken by the idea. So she asked her fans and readers this question:
What's the one thing you don't feel safe to talk about in church?
People sent in their responses. Anne's book features those original post cards, as well as her own essays, poetry, and story about her own secrets. The secrets she wasn't allowed to share in the one place we should all feel safe to be our whole selves, warts and all: church.

Permission to Speak Freely Tour this fall.

We've got a few dates schedule in the Pacific Northwest, a few in the midwest. We'd love to go more places, so if you think your church would benefit from us stopping by, please contact Chaffee Management.

Your Monday Morning Fun Pic

2010-09-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

Where's Waldo?

And where's your scintillating caption for your Auntie Susie?

Fall and Honey

2010-09-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

Fall is here. I don’t know why they wait until September 21 to call it autumn. I can feel it weeks before. I always sense it first in the sky: the light gets low and melancholy long before the temperature drops and the leaves fall. I sensed it as early as the end of August. It feels like earth must hit a particularly sharp curve in its lap around the sun, where it loses more time each day than in, say, June or July. I'm not an astronomer, just guessing. At any rate, I could sense it from Labor Day, that low achingly sad light in the afternoon sky, the slow slipping down of the temperature.

And now, finally the leaves are beginning to fall (what leaves actually fall in LA). The pepper trees shed their seeds, the maples are beginning to turn. And our wisteria vine is losing its leaves. I've only now been willing to go into the back yard. The gladiolas died off completely, but I haven’t had the will to pull them from the ground. I haven’t been able to go into the back yard. There’s too much of Honey back there.

I've always loved fall the best: that time to be thoughtful and beautifully melancholy. It prompts a time to reflect, take stock, then hunker down and get to work. It's no surprise to me that the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement occur in the fall. Except this has been a particularly sad season. Too much loss this summer; so I'm not appreciating the melancholy of autumn this year. (Then again, if the sun were blazing happily above me I might resent it mocking my sadness).

I haven’t watered in the yard since the day before Honey died. I'd been “gone” working on a movie for nearly a month: either pulling 16 hour days in town, or gone completely on the road. That Friday was my first real day off. So I went out into the back yard to pull the dead gladiola flowers off their stalks. Honey padded over, trilling “burrup” the whole way. She kneaded her paws into the grass, then lay down at my feet and rolled over. I sat down and petted her for a while, then scooped her up, held her for a while and brought her inside. Thank God I did.

Just a few days before I’d groomed her, which she enjoyed. In retrospect, I must admit that thought that crossed my mind, “if she Is in pain, this must be a welcome distraction, t his pleasure she has in getting groomed.” I’d noticed her complain when I picked her up the wrong way. I worried she had some undiscovered mass, but when Larry took her into the vet, he said he didn’t feel any masses at all, and her blood work was fine. So I was lulled into believing. Still, grooming her a few days before I wondered … if she did in fact feel any kind of pain, perhaps the grooming made her feel better. Funny, the thoughts which float over the transom of your mind. Funny how you wish they’d lodged in your brain and made you pay attention. Made you ready.

Thank God I scooped her up that day. Thank God I’d made sure she went to sleep on our bed that night. It would all be over ad she would be gone less than 24 hours later. Thank God for one last memory of Honey.

Death turns everything into an affront. I winced at the violets in the window box: “How dare you go on living? How is it you can still be here, pulling life out of that soil and she’s gone?” I remember feeling that way when my father died. How could people go on, driving their cards and shopping for food and bickering and, well, living?! How could they go on living like the world was the same; when it was so horribly altered? That’s what it felt like when my father died. That’s how it felt when Honey died.

Every time I went out into the back garden it ached; it hurt from her absence. Today I walked down to the bottom of the garden and noticed how ragged the roses had become, rust on the leaves and trapped with spider webs. I didn’t care. Let them die for now. Maybe I’ll think about the roses in spring.

There have been more tears for Honey than I've shed for anyone else, and it was more than my midsection could handle. Everything from my neck to my pelvis hurt. My arms hurt. That was an odd, my arms hurting from grief. Like something had been ripped from them and the vacant space just made them ache. The hole she left made my arms hurt. My chest hurt from crying. My heart hurt. Everything hurt.

There were things to put away or to hide: bags of catnip, her scratching post, her winter bed and her summer pillow. I couldn’t even throw away the unopened cat litter I’d bought just a week. Larry got rid of the things he could see, but there were always more things to find. More things to remind you of a friend who’s been with you for what seems like most of your adult life. I had to reach back into memory to recall a moment before she had been around. She was in every place I lived for the past 13 years: the first place I got by myself, where I drank my way into sorrow and then got her to heal my way into sobriety. The house in New York, where I moved when she was only two years old. That house had about eight women come and go over the course of five years. They all knew Honey. And then there were all those house-sits and sublets and flats I’d lived in up until the day I got married. I couldn’t bring my mind to recall that last studio apartment I lived in alone. Because I didn’t live there alone; I lived there with Honey.

A friend emailed me. She recalled the writing groups we had at my house, and remembered how Honey plopped herself in the middle of the room, or the table, or the couch, and made sure she was part of the group. She was special, that cat. That soul. That little girl I loved so well. And miss so much.

I miss her more than I miss my father; perhaps more than I will miss my mother when she goes. My mother has been leaving us, bits at a time, to the point that there’s little left of her. I marvel to think she stood up and watched me get married four years ago. She can’t walk anymore. She doesn’t remember anything. When Mom goes, of course I will cry and miss her. I’ll ask Mom to look for Honey when she gets there. I’ll ask Mom to tell Honey I miss her.

I tell that to God a lot: that I miss Honey, and that will he please let Honey know that. I’m more than convinced she’s made it to heaven. She’d make it before I would. She never sinned or disappointed God or told him to “go away,” the way I had done. She was just her true, loving self: more of a completed soul than I’ll ever be this side of heaven. But I wonder what she knows, what she sees? Does she ask around, “where’s Susan? When is she going to be here?” I pray she finds my friends and family and they look after her until I arrive.

You don’t really notice when grief finally leaves. It just gets a little easier every day. I don’t recall when I stopped crying every day. But I did. Still, all I need is a little prompting. Just last week I was sitting in a coffee shop and cried. Larry and I were sitting at the kitchen table, and I noticed her waxy ear-mark on the corner of the fridge. I had to stop eating. Her collar hangs on my corkboard, next to the many photos I finally had printed off my computer. The collar hangs in such a spot that my lamp usually obscures it. But I moved the lamp just a few moments ago, and there it was: the black braid, the gentle bell, the tag with her name and my phone number that told people to whom she belonged. Only once in her life did someone have to call me. I’d been working all day, and Honey had been sitting out on the front lawn, waiting for me to get home. The kind neighbor called to let me know “your cat is on the lawn, looking around.” I came home soon after. I remember several nights back at that last apartment, coming home late, and seeing her little silhouette next to the driveway. Patiently waiting. She never strayed beyond the parkway. Never once saw her run across a street. She knew where home was. Home was the only place she wanted to be, except when I wasn’t there. And now it’s hard for me to be home, when she isn’t here.

Our dog is little comfort. He’s young and arrogant, and he’s Larry’s dog. He adores Larry; he only tolerates me. I’m still his biggest competition and he lets me know it. It’s tiring. I want my cat.

Larry and I talk about getting another dog, mostly for Wally to have a playmate to run around with all day. Cut down on our doggie day care bills. Larry says, “We don’t need to get another corgi. Get the kind of dog you want.”
I say, “I want a cat.”

My friend Katherine has had many cats. She grieved over the loss of every one of them; but there was one special cat. Miles. Katherine has never forgotten Miles. Katherine says you never heal adequately until you get another cat. Maybe we'll get a dog for Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll get a cat for Christmas.

But it's only September. I’m not ready.

Your Monday Morning Fun Pic

2010-09-20T03:47:00.000-07:00

A pic to brighten your dreary fall Monday morning.

Now how about a caption for your Auntie Susie?

Friday Fun Video

2010-09-17T04:18:00.000-07:00

This video has been up on YouTube only a week and it's had nearly a million views in that time. See why. A groom had a special surprise for his bride. If this won't make you smile, I'm afraid you may be in a coma.

Merengue Dog

2010-09-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

So for Wally's next dog training class, we shall NOT be attempting this....

If we are learning anything from Cesar Millan, it's that dogs need activities and tasks and exercise. Okay, so retrievers weren't bred to dance on their hind legs, but this looks like s/he's having a lot of fun.

Emily Timbol Takes It To Video

2010-09-14T03:49:00.000-07:00

Meet Emily Timbol. We connected last year after she read my book. She was a writer waiting to happen. She has since published articles on Relevant Magazine, and now she's taking it video. Here's one she made using the format of the Google "Search On" commercial. I think this is terrific.

Your Monday Morning Fun Pic

2010-09-13T03:44:00.000-07:00

It's Monday. You need a laugh.

Now, how about a caption?

September 11: A revisit in a new book

2010-09-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's hard for me to recall the events of 9/11. They can feel like a dream. But I know it happened. I lived in New York City at the time, and my then-boyfriend happened to have a meeting on the top floor of the World Trade Center. At 8am. And he was never late. I wrote about it a while ago. You can read it here.

We all have our stories about what we were doing that day. Author Sarah Cunningham was a "23-year-old save-the-world idealist" living 600 miles away in Jackson, Michigan. She and her now-husband recruited 45 professionals from her church, to go to New York City and help in the wake of the disaster. "Being stationed near the makeshift morgue for the New York Police Department felt like being on the set of a disaster movie, except that it was all sick reality."

Sara wrote about the whole experience in her new book, Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life's Weeds.

Here is a more lengthy excerpt:

In the first week after September 11th, it was my dad’s dream come true: It seemed like every human on the planet had become a New York Yankees fan. During the downtimes at Ground Zero, longtime Cubs and Braves fans could be found saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if—after all this—the Yankees won the World Series?” And then they would add, “Just this year though.”

Unfortunately, the Arizona Diamondbacks later determined that New York’s comfort would not come via Major League baseball, as they defeated the Yankees in the best-of-seven series that November.

At the time, though, it seemed like everyone wanted New York to find some small good to tide it over until the city could flourish again. Emergency personnel, of course, worked through the night and through the day and through the next day, logging weeks worth of overtime they’d never be paid for. Department store chains sent their delivery trucks to transport literally tons of bottled water to the disaster site. Cruise ships arrived in the harbor to feed and house volunteers, cell phone companies handed out free phones to relief workers so they could keep in touch with their families, and therapists administered free counseling and even massages.

I could not believe that in this unlikely patch of ground, what was growing reminded me so much of Eden."

Visit Sarah Cunningham's website. And if the book intrigues you, check out the book giveaways going on.

Jimmy Fallon's Emmy Opener

2010-09-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

The Emmys this year were filled with some great winners and upsets. But I missed Jimmy Fallon's Glee-inspired opening. Just found it on YouTube.

Your 20 bucks = 20 years of clean water

2010-09-08T03:09:00.000-07:00

Two years ago our friends Lori and Ted adopted their son, Abe, from Ethiopia. Abe is such a charming, funny, expressive boy; he's definitely inheriting his father's personality. But Abe's life could have been much different. By getting involved in international adoption, Ted and Lori became aware of the fate of many people in Abe's home c.

So much so that, Ted did something really COOL for his birthday that September.

Instead of gifts, Ted asked friends to donate to Charity:Water to help build a well in Ethiopia. They succeeded! Ted and Lori helped build a well that, while it wasn't right in Abe's home village, it was in the same region. It was one way they said "thank you" for their beautiful son.

So here's my Charity:Water pitch. This month I'm one of 30 bloggers who are trying to raise $30,000 in 30 days, to build wells in Africa, through Charity:Water. Here's the 30 Bloggers' Donation Site

$30,000 will provide clean water to 1,500 people. That's 300 families, 6 entire communities.
A single $20 donation provides clean water for ONE person for 20 YEARS
100% of the money GOES TO THE WELLS. Private donors take care of ALL overhead!
We're building for: the Central African Republic (scroll down a bit).

This PSA with actress Jennifer Connelly: envisions what it would be like if NYC didn't have access to clean water.

Or this video, featuring Beck's Time Bomb

If it's hard to think of this in specific terms, just think of little Abe.

Please consider donating $20.
Go HERE for more details.

Thank you!

Religious Horror? Q & A with Jonathan Weyer

2010-09-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

When I was about five years old, my brothers were watching "Creature Feature" on Saturday afternoon TV. I made the mistake of joining them. The film was The Beast With Five Fingers, starring Peter Lorre. A pianist dies, and his dismembered hand goes around murdering people. It traumatized me. I wouldn't go to the bathroom in a public loo for years. I was afraid when my parents turned out the lights. That hand was going to come get me.

I avoided horror movies ever since. Never saw Friday the 13th, Halloween, Blair Witch, not even Scream, a horror parody. The scariest film I ever saw was Brazil, because the naturalistic horror seemed in the realm of possibility.

I heard that Clive Barker, author of the Hellraiser novels, was religious. So was Bram Stoker: his Dracula was defeated by the Cross for a reason. But I watched 15 minutes of True Blood and thought, "meh."

So I was curious when I heard about author/pastor Jonathan Weyer's upcoming horror novel, The Faithful. Actually I first saw his cover art on twitter and thought it looked cool. We chatted in 140 characters or less, then he sent me a copy of the book.

Full disclosure:I haven't read it yet, and it may take months before it makes its way up my pile of books. But I was intrigued by what he was doing. Here's a blurb from his website:

Adian Schaeffer is a young pastor at a crossroads. Conflicted by the hypocrisy of the church, he feels alone and depressed. His only companion is his dog, Bishop. When he begins to doubt his faith, he knows he is entering a spiritual battleground and starts searching for answers. Then he learns his ex-fiancée is murdered in a possibly demonic ritual, and he's a prime suspect; he's catapulted into a deeper fight. Tormented by supernatural entities, Aidan becomes a medium that will hold the key to solving this murder mystery.

Did I mention that Jonathan is a pastor? We did a Q & A (not via twitter)

Q: So you are a pastor. And you wrote a religious horror novel. Sundays in your world must be interesting. Have you gotten flak for writing horror? (from religious people) Or flak from horror fans for being religious?

A. So far, everyone has been great. I think the religious folks have been skeptical about the label “horror.” I usually tell them there are three levels of horror: the unsettling, the gross out, and torture porn. I would put The Faithful in the first category, but a gross out can be used as well. Torture Porn is out of bounds because it's just horrible for so many reasons. Stephen King said that at its heart, horror has morality that would make a puritan preacher smile. Torture Porn doesn't have that worldview, its violence for violence's sake. Once I explain that, religious folks get it for the most part. I'm sure that once the book is released, there might be more controversy on both sides of the fence. We shall see.

Q. How do you incorporate your love of the supernatural with your deep religious faith?

A. The Bible and the Nicene Creed tells that God is the creator of the seen and the unseen. I find it odd when Christians become too naturalistic in their faith. I don't find the ideas incompatible at all. Are there some tensions in being a pastor and writing a ghost story? Sure, but not the ones you would think. Those lines from the Creed have always struck me and I love stories that try to explore that tension between the seen and the unseen.

Q. Where do you get story ideas for your books?

A: Ha, too many to name! The chief place would be Coast to Coast AM. It's show on in the middle of the night that talks about all kinds of paranormal things like ghosts, aliens, etc. I listen to it when I can't sleep or I'm going on a long trip. Plus, growing up, I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies. I scared myself by reading real ghost stories, stuff about Bigfoot and the scariest of all, the Mothman sightings in West Virginia. Oh, and the Weird America books are invaluable!

Q: Were you always interested in both writing and pastoring? You started as a Presbyterian pastor, then moved to campus ministry. Were you writing all the time?

A. I was. In fact, in seminary (don't tell my professors) I would write little notes to myself that turned in my first novel (not The Faithful). In fact, my preaching professor in seminary told me he loved my writing, but that it would always make it hard for me to preach. I think the reason is because there two different things are going on, and making the switch is pretty difficult. As I kept writing after seminary, I found I loved it more than preaching. When I realized that, I knew I should probably step out of the pulpit and concentrate on start writing. I'm still ordained and ministering to college students. I'm just not preaching anymore.

Q: Tell us about the Thomas Society. That sounds fascinating.

A. The Thomas Society is the name of the student group I founded at Ohio State. It's a group dedicated to providing a third place where anyone, Christian or non-Christian can ask any question in a safe forum. I have an amazing group of Christian students who lead the group. Last year, half of our group consisted of Christians and half consisted of atheists. The discussion is often very intense, but intelligent. Name calling and simplistic arguments aren't allowed.

Q: Did your involvement with atheists and the Thomas Society influence this book?

Not at all in the beginning. When I first came up with the idea, I hadn't even started campus ministry, much less hanging out with atheists. The whole thing started because I wanted to write a ghost story. As things progressed, I realize how much Aidan, the main character, really struggled with his faith. That started to filter into the story, especially as I began work at Ohio State. The biggest influence on the book came in the rewrite and editing process. It happened at the same time I was thinking through what I wanted The Thomas Society to about: being an open place for everyone to ask their questions about Christianity. There is no doubt each influenced the other.

Q: Religious people can form ideas of what atheists and agnostics are like. Tell me what you've observed. How do the atheists and agnostics you talk to, deal with the issue of Evil? Or of the supernatural?

A. I'm the only Christian minister on the speaker's bureau for the Secular Student Alliance, an International group for atheist college students. This past summer, I took part in a panel discussion at their national conference in Columbus. I actually spoke there last summer as well. When I walked into the room, I got hugs from about ten atheists. How often does a preacher get hugged at an atheist conference? I loved it. I speak to a lot of their student groups. In fact, a group in Seattle is talking about bringing me out in November.
As for the issue of Evil, there really is no consensus among atheists about that question. In fact, that's the biggest misunderstanding religious people have atheists, that is, we think they are this monolithic group. They aren't. Opinions on evil range from its just a social construct to those who would believe that there really is evil, but it's merely a leftover of an outdated evolutionary necessity.
As for the supernatural, they obviously think all of it's crap, God, ghosts, the devil, unicorns, etc. They think it all belongs in the same category of stories that just aren't true.

Look at that cherubic face! Hard to imagine him brewing horror up in that noggin. If you like supernatural horror, check out The Faithful. It comes out on October 1. Just in time for a Halloween. Mwah ha ha!

Find out more about Jonathan Weyer and The Faithful at his website.
You can also follow him on twitter.

Back to Church

2010-08-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard my share of “leaving church” stories; and not from immature, fair-weather Christians but from long-term, mature believers – many who had been in leadership. They grew disillusioned by schisms and scandals, they got tired of what felt like a formulaic service, they didn’t feel fed, they didn’t feel needed. So they left – not God, but church. And they’re not alone. Anne Rice is just the latest statistic. As George Barna said in his book, Revolution, people are “leaving church in droves.”

I could have been one of them. If it weren’t for a dinner party.

I doubt I’d feel happy leaving church for good. I spent stretches of time not going, but never with the intention of staying out. I just hadn’t found the right church, I told myself. By the time I met my husband I’d found one; but we moved too far away, so we had to find a place near home where we’d both feel comfortable. We visited just about every place that friends attended and recommended.

And we left most of them angry.

Why? Well, for one, we’d each grown uncomfortable with modernist liturgy: the 45-minute rock concert, followed by a 45-minute sermon – often containing 15 minutes of content padded out with alliterative bullet points and anecdotes. (I began to feel sorry for pastors: they had to produce a new 45-minute act every week!) Church had begun to feel like “the Sunday Show,” as a friend described; the show that Northpoint Church poked fun of in their video, “Sunday’s Coming.” (They have the right to poke fun, because it’s the same format they follow).

However, many people we loved and respected went to those churches. And I could see they were getting a lot out of being there. So, perhaps nobody was wrong; it was just that everyone was different. So Larry and I kept looking and visiting. And leaving angry.

At the end of our ecclesiastical rope, I discovered that an Episcopal priest, whom I fondly remembered during a church-hopping stint 15 years prior, was now the senior rector of a teensy church just a couple miles from us. I remembered when she celebrated the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit was all over her. So we went.

And we didn’t leave angry. That was the high water mark.

We went back the following weeks. I don't remember being bowled over or pissed off; comfortable or uncomfortable. We just went. I finally reintroduced myself to her. Reverend Anne made sure we filled out a card, and two weeks later she invited us to a newcomer’s dinner. At dinner, Anne got excited when she found out that Larry and I read C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright and Donald Miller. She’d been trying to launch small groups for some time and asked us to join in a training group. We said yes. What else were we going to say?

There were eight of us in training, including a woman who’d come to Christianity after studying eastern religions; a guy who’d left a large parish because it was more concerned with politics than religion; a couple whose wife had attended church for years but the husband only recently decided he needed to ‘get right with God,’ as he put it. He was a scientist. He questioned everything. He needed data. He refused to pray out loud. Toward the end of the program he finally agreed to pray, but only after his wife gave him tips on what to say.

Three small groups launched the following spring, reading a Lenten devotional with essays by everyone from CS Lewis to Khalil Gibran (hey, what the …? ) When Lent was over, the Scientist and his wife joined our group. He didn’t want to read essays; he wanted to read the Bible. “I don’t know what’s in there.”

We bought NT Wright’s study guide, Luke For Everyone, and began to read. And we began to change. The Bible came alive, not just to the Scientist for whom the story was new, but to Larry and me who thought we knew everything. Wright filled in the historical and cultural context; he debunked the religious folklore that had crept into my thinking. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus became real and vivid to us. It was like we were there.

We moved on to Acts. Other people joined the group: longstanding church goers, outcasts who’d been away from church for years: a lesbian who got expelled from Bible school, a Buddhist who visited our church one Sunday and couldn’t stop crying; a great-grandmother who’s gone to our church for 50 years, a single mom and her teenage daughter. We’re all reading the Bible and discovering new things.

We are also growing together. We’ve begun to share our stories. When my beloved kitty died last month, they prayed and cried with me. I’ve grown closer to Larry too. Every week I see how much people look up to him; I observe what a scholar he is. I respect and love him more every week. Yes, we belong to a church. But the core of my church experience is my small group.

It’s not always amazing. Sometimes the Sunday service is boring. They can pick some musty old hymns that make me long Chris Tomlin. But we’ve launched a contemporary, contemplative service. That’s where the Scientist says he really gets emotional. The Scientist is having emotional experiences with God.

The small group has had its awkward moments, too. Once a woman told us that Jesus had visited Britain; it was proven, she’d seen it on the History Channel. I asked her if she’d been watching Para-history Channel. Another time a man visited. He said he didn’t care if the resurrection happened. “Everyone gets into heaven, even Hitler.” He hasn’t returned, but I heard he read Velvet Elvis and is devouring Rob Bell’s Nooma videos. It just reminds me that God is working on each of us in his timing, in a way that each of us can stomach.

I didn’t leave church. I came back, and I’m learning the lesson that my more mature friends – the ones who love churches I walk out of angry – have already learned: just pick a church and go. Every place will have assets and liabilities. You’ll meet true friends and people you can’t stand. You may find yourself the radical leftist in a group of right-wingers, or the conservative prig in a group of radical leftists. Just go. Plug in. When your pastor invites you to a newcomers’ dinner, say yes. If you’re asked to lead, say yes. If you don’t think you’re prepared, ask God to prepare you.

Not long ago, the former Buddhist confessed she wasn’t feeling so sure about her faith. She missed that glow she first felt. The Scientist nodded, “Don’t worry. It comes and goes. Just keep showing up.”

Here is a video from Bel Air Presbyterian’s drama group, aka the Bel Air Drama Department, aka B.A.D.D. They've made a host of FUNNY videos, and here is one about small groups, done in the vein of “The Office.”

Political T-shirt

2010-08-23T05:39:00.000-07:00

When it comes to politics, I belong to the "Everyone Poops" party. I see good and bad on both sides. The 2008 Wall Street Meltdown made me wary of free market enterprise; but the recent Bell Salary Scandal reminded me of what happens when you give too much to government er, um, "servants." Anyway, I thought about making up some T-shirts with the following design. Who wants one? :)

Hide your Kids, Hide your Wife

2010-08-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

Well y'all may have been living under a rock. But 9 million hits on this video already. This guy fought off his sister's would-be attacker. And how about his demeaning rant, just to get the point across. I love it.
Way to go Antoine, you're our hero!

Cuddle With An Elephant Seal

2010-08-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know how tame the seals are in Georgia (Russia), but this is pretty amazing to watch.

For Honey: Death Be Not Proud

2010-07-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing to love, hope, dream: to be—
To be, and oh! to lose.
A thing for fools, this, a holy thing,
A holy thing to love.
For your life has lived in me,
Your laugh once lifted me,
Your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
'Tis a human thing, love, a holy thing,
To love what death has touched.
- Chaim Stern

This is a eulogy to a pet. If you are not inclined to maudlin pet tributes nor have room in your theology for pets in heaven, then save me the embarrassment and yourself the frustration, and give this piece a skip.

My dearest cat died on Sunday. Honey was 13 years old. I’d held out hope she would be one of those cats that made it to 18. But even if she had, it wouldn’t have been enough time. Not for loved ones. We always want one more day.

It’s hard for me to call Honey a pet. Having been single most of my life and having no children I poured my love and mothering onto her, and she became my child. She became my friend. And she became more of her true self: not just an animal or a pet, but a living soul that has been transformed by Love. Honey taught me a lot about love, and now I’m learning unspeakable grief. (Again, if you aren’t a pet lover, feel free to go read The Five Points Of Calvinism)

I had noticed changes in Honey this past year: she’d lost weight as older cats do; she moved more slowly and started to complain if I picked her up a certain way. It was the arthritis the vet had spotted, I told myself. She’d taken to spending evenings out in the cool of the garden –we moved into a house with a fenced yard and she didn’t have to worry about predators: that’s what I told myself. But my childhood cat had done the same thing the summer before he died. The vet said she was fine, so that’s what I told myself. We tell ourselves a lot of things.

Back in 1998 I was trying to heal from some behaviors, like smoking, drinking and dating awful men. I decided I needed a companion that wouldn’t make me feel crappy about myself; a pet I could be responsible for, stay sober for, someone to love. I wanted a dog. But my landlord insisted: no dogs, only a cat.

So I visited local animal shelters and pet stores for a cat. All I found were cat-type cats: blasé, remote, saw me only as a food source. On my way out of one such shelter, I spied a flyer for a kitten rescue organization. I went home and logged onto their website. A flashbot kept blinking at me: “Find a Home For Honey. Find a Home For Honey.” I called the number.

A woman named Lisa answered. She’d found an abandoned cat in her neighborhood, but already had three of her own and couldn’t take a fourth. I went to meet them.

Lisa had been walking to her front porch when a cat cried out from her bushes. It was starving, matted with dirt and sores. When she washed, fed, and got her revived, Lisa discovered a petite, pastel-colored tabby with soft hair and bright green eyes. She realized it had belonged to some badass neighbors who’d done everyone a favor by moving away. Well, better for the cat. Lisa said she named the cat “Honey” for her sweet disposition. I was waiting to see that disposition, so Lisa let her out of her crate. The cat was timid. But when I reached out my hand to pet her, she affectionately butted her head against my palm. She sat, kneading her tiny paws on the bedspread, waiting for more.

Then she trilled. “Burrup?”
Yes, I replied.
I took her home that day.

The first few days Honey wouldn’t come out from under the bed. Great, I thought: a cat you never see unless you get up in the middle of the night and find it eating or pooping. But a couple nights later as I was watching TV, she appeared out of the dark at my feet. “Burrup?” She trilled, jumped up in my lap and butted her head against my chest.

I spent many a night crying over the mess I had made in my life. Honey parked herself on my chest, purred, and affectionately butted her head against me. I lay there, running my fingers through her soft pastel gray and gold fur until the sorrow went away. God’s love can feel so theoretical. But a warm fuzzy creature that loves you no matter what, that’s love you can touch.

I healed with Honey’s help. I moved cross-country twice, watched my career fall apart, survived a gut wrenching breakup, and a spiritual dark night of the soul. Friends came and went. Family members died. Careers dissolved. Men left. Even God hid himself for a while. But Honey never wandered off. She wanted to stay. No one had done that before.

Honey healed too. She changed from a fearful castoff to a gentle, loving, soul. She became gregarious: if I had people over, she would find a lap to sit on. She was patient with children who tried to hold her in their spindly fingers. She learned to play. She even learned to talk: If she wanted something her voice turned up at the end like a question. She complained shrilly when she was upset. She knew how to con me into a second breakfast by trilling and kneading her petite gray feet.
And she trilled. “Burrup?” She trilled in the morning when I woke up. She trilled when she wanted up on my desk. She sat with me as I wrote. She liked to park herself between my arms as I typed on my computer. If I moved her to the side, she made sure her paw touched my arm. If I were journaling or reading, she’d try to sit on my notebook or book. Wherever my attention was given, she wanted to be there.

I didn’t always get how much being her mom had changed her. I occasionally traveled out of town, sometimes for a couple months at a time. I left her in the care of roommates or family members. I didn’t think Honey would mind. “She’s independent. She’s just a cat.” But a roommate scolded me. “Honey’s not the same when you’re gone. She waits for you. She misses you.” For three years I dated a man who hated cats. When he broke up with me, he cited Honey as a factor. In a panic I offered to give Honey away. Thank God I didn’t follow through. It turns my stomach to think of it now. I vowed to never date a man who didn’t love Honey.

When I met my husband, he was a 50-year-old bachelor who’d never kept a pet. He said it was too hard on him when they died. My red lights went off. “Pet hater.” But the first time he sat on my couch, Honey jumped up in his lap. That was it. Larry came to love her as much as I did. Honey came to belong to Larry too; and we to her.

Last fall I left on a 2-½ month book tour. The night before I left I came out to the garden to call her out of the bushes. She always came when I called. I picked her up and held her close. “Please don’t go yet. Not while I’m gone. Please be here when I get back.”

And she was. But she was frailer. She started vomiting hairballs here and there. It was shedding season, I told myself. I groomed her more. She loved it. She’d stretch her teeny body across the lawn, extending her claws into the grass, rolling around to make sure I got both sides, and purring. She had the loudest purr.

Two weeks ago I left to work on a movie out of town. I asked Larry to take her into the vet again. The vet said she checked out fine. No masses, no lumps. The blood tests came back normal except a hyper thyroid. I shouldn’t have trusted the tests. I should trusted my gut. I was her mom.

At 5am last Sunday morning, Honey bolted us awake with a horrible yelp. We rushed her to 24-hour Emergency vet. A squat tattooed technician gave us a list of tests they would perform for $1,000. “Are you running a scam?” I screamed. “Use your common sense! What does it look like the problem is?”

The east-Indian vet came in. “It doesn’t look good." But what did it look like? I yelled. He would have to run a blood test. That took 30 minutes. Why didn’t I force him to pump her with antibiotics right then? I was her mother. I knew her; they didn’t.

Larry and I went into the lobby. Larry asked me what I wanted to do. I couldn’t make that decision. Larry had to say it. But we knew. We’d known it was coming. It always comes. We went back in. I held onto Honey and stroked her hair. The tests showed she had a massive infection. The vet swam in veiled verbiage, “the prognosis isn’t good.” He smiled. Why was he smiling? Was he nervous? Was it a cultural thing? I wanted him to change places with her.

Suddenly she went into convulsions. Larry nodded. They put a towel around her to contain her flailing body. I reached my hand out to her. She reached out her paw to touch my hand.

And then it was over.

We didn’t own the place we live in. We didn’t own a shovel. We had a dog that was a compulsive digger. We couldn’t take her with us.

They let us sit alone with her in a private room. I stroked her soft hair. I told her how much I loved her, how much God had shown his love to me through her. I told her how much I would miss her, how much it was going to hurt. But I was wrong. I had no idea how much. I asked her to wait for me. I told her I would be waiting for that day I would see her again.

We drove away with her collar and a lock of her fur; that beautiful, soft fur you could run your hands through and forget your sorrow. Why didn’t I get a better look at it? I want to see it now, all those colors. But I can’t remember.

We went to the 8am service. There were only a half a dozen people there. No choir. I didn’t stand up. I mimed the Creed. When they passed the peace, I sat alone in the pew. My pastor sat down next to me and gave me a hug. I couldn’t look up.

But I went forward for communion. As they placed the wafer in my hand, I could hear Jesus words: “Remember Susan. I’ve gone on through ahead of you on this. Death is not the end.”

Was that true? Really true? Just for me? Or for Honey too?

That night a friend sent me a link to Cathleen Falsani's blog. She had blogged on this very issue that morning.

I have spent the week vaulting between inconsolable grief and a desperate need to know that I will see my dear Honey in the new heavens and the new earth. Billy Graham thought it a reasonable hope. CS Lewis suggested that in the same way God breathes his eternal spirit into us, we breathe that eternal spirit into those creatures we have loved. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes a woman in heaven surrounded by children, angels and her pets.

“Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”

But was CS Lewis right? What if he was just spinning a fairy tale full of wishful thinking? Well, in Revelation, Jesus rides in on a horse. A lion will lie down with the lamb. Are they just metaphors? I found this online, written by Carol Bechtel, a professor of Old Testament, addressing the possibility of pets in heaven.

“While the Hebrew word nephesh is often translated 'soul,' it really means 'a living being.' In Genesis 2:7, when God breathes into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, he becomes a living being. This same word is often used with reference to animals (Prov 12:10). So what distinguishes human beings from animals is not that humans have a soul, but that humans are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27).
The Bible's promise is about the renewal of all creation. "God so loved the world.” N.T. Wright puts it this way: "The New Testament picks up from the Old the theme that God intends, in the end, to put the whole creation to rights. If we have grown up believing something else, it's time we rubbed our eyes and read our texts again" (Simply Christian, pp.217-219)."

I called my sister. She reminded me of the verse she read when she buried her 14-year-old Calico.

For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to the curse. But with eager hope creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. Rom 8:19-21

All creation is waiting to be liberated from death and decay. Doesn’t that include the creatures we have loved, whom God entrusted to our care? Why not my dear Honey, who showed God’s love to me in tangible way? Did I have to find an explicit verse to be convinced? Not even the Trinity is explicit in scripture.

Is this some ridiculous hope uttered by a pathetic idiot who waited to long to get married and have children? I’ve lain awake at night. I’ve gotten out of bed and flattened myself on the floor, weeping and begging God. “You can make me a pauper, take years off of my life, if you will just let me see and know her again! If she’s not in Heaven, I won't go. I refuse to go!"

The thought came to me: God might be grieved by my begging, that I didn't know him well enough to assume he would have to be cajoled into that. If I could imagine him saying anything to me, it would be this: "Why do you doubt my goodness? Do you think you love Honey more than I do? Wasn’t it I who rescued her 13 years ago? Wasn’t it I who brought her into your life, gave you the holy privilege to care for her, love her, and transform her into a loved, living being? And didn't she redeem you as well? So, why do you think I would abandon her now, after all of that? Why don’t you trust me?" At least, that’s what I believe God would say. Because I believe God is good.

As St. Julian of Norwich said: All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

As Tom Petty said: The waiting is the hardest part.

This loving bond between animal and man–(between Honey and me), didn’t God come up with it the first place? Isn’t what we experience here just a shadow of the real thing we will enjoy in heaven? Why would God cast away the love we started here, or the creatures we loved here? We might as well believe there’s no hope for us.

This may be the ramblings of a middle aged idiot who waited too long to get married and have children. But I loved whom God gave me to love. And yes, may bastardize St. Paul’s original context: but I know the One in whom I have believed, and I am utterly convinced that he is able to guard all I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.

Take care of Honey, Father. I miss her more than tears can tell.

DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and souls deliver.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then;

One short sleep past, wee wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Glimpses

2010-07-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

My friend Lori took this video. We were sharing the Rooneys house. Honey was very patient with Little Abe.

Kitty was Abe's first word.

Tis a Fearful Thing

2010-07-23T13:34:00.001-07:00

It is a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, hope, dream:
to be
And!
to lose...
A thing for fools, this.
and
A holy thing.
A holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
'Tis a human thing: love.
A holy thing
to love
what death has touched.
-- Anonymous

I Bless The Night

2010-07-12T13:37:00.001-07:00

My friend Debby Thomas sent this to me. Loved it!

A Morning Offering

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

HR 101

2010-07-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Back in 2001 I worked on a TV pilot that never made it to air. In fact I don't think it was ever finished in post because the producers ran out of funds. It starred my fellow members of King Baby Comedy: Tony Hale, Jeannie Noth-Gaffigan, and Todd Wilkerson. As well as Malcom Barrett and Selenis Leyva. Every single one of them went on to star or write in TV shows and commercials. Here's the video I found of the promo the producers put together....

HR101 from Nina Shelton on Vimeo.

Actually they must have run out of time because the cut off the sketch mid-joke. Ack! Nevertheless it was fun to find it online. Ah, nostalgia ...

Green Coffins

2010-06-17T05:22:00.000-07:00

I never want to be buried in a fancy coffin. I figure, if I don't get cremated, I'd want to be buried in the cheapest pine box. No formaldehyde, just me in a suit.

There are these new "green" cemeteries. You can have your ashes buried in the woods, marked by small, simple markers. That might be a little too granola green for me. I'd be fine being buried next to my parents if Larry doesn't mind being buried in Costa Mesa.

I found these on the website Ship Of Fools. Cardboard coffins that will compost quickly, designed from what looks like Windows XP wallpaper. You can get anything on your coffin, from your favorite sports team to your favorite vodka. Ack! Noticably absent are any religious themes. But you can get poker or rocks on your coffin or a lame joke. This one hit a little too close to home ...

I must admit, I did like this one...

But I'd rather have the image of Jesus on the coffin. No offense to the fab four ...

The Birthday Party

2010-06-16T05:29:00.000-07:00

Tony Campolo tells the story of being awake at 3am in Honolulu, and meeting a pack of prostitutes, one who's about to have a birthday. I've read this story in print, can't remember where. Someone made it into a short film. But nothing beats the story as Tony Campolo tells it.

Do you go to a church like that?

Thomas Kinkade, painter of light, in a dark spot

2010-06-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Thomas Kinkade was just arrested on a DUI. Bummer. Maybe he can put up a few paintings as bail. That is if they're not fakes. Apparently he's also in trouble for shipping fakes to galleries. Oops. I know some people love his stuff. He never quite did it for me. I found a few of his paintings, tweaked, on somethingawful.com, a site where snarky people do snarky things. Take these Kinkade paintings that have been photoshopped for ironic, snark effect:

Okay so they get a little dark. But the Verizon guy in the bushes was pretty funny.
This one is my second-favorite.

This is my absolute favorite. I once saw it in a fake ad on either larknews or ship-of-fools.

Thomas Kinkade Toilet Paper

Stick the painter of light where the sun never shines.

Come on, that's genius!

What about you? Do you like Kinkade? Did you like him before he got over-saturated? (not soused as in the above-mentioned DUI) I mean, he might be good like CSI or Glee.

Christian Music Recording Session

2010-06-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

A session musician sent this to me.
Whoever made this knows too much.

Outsourced

2010-06-03T05:01:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine told me about this new show, Outsourced, about a guy who's hired to run a Call Center American Novelties, a kind of joint that sells singing trout to fake barf. But the call center gets outsourced to India, so he has to move. It's based on an indie movie made in 2006.

Here's the extended trailer that NBC put up on YouTube. It looks funny. Like a cross between "Community" meets "Slumdog Millionaire." It looks like they're going to tread all over every east-indian stereotype there is. but maybe that's the point. The friend that told me about it IS East-Indian, and she thought it looked good.

Beware of the Doghouse

2010-06-02T05:10:00.000-07:00

This is what you call an extended commercial. They really tell a story, but in the end it's selling a product. Well, product placement is all over network TV and movies. At least this isn't trying to hide it. I think it's hysterical. I know one of the actors in it, I think it was shot in New York.

It was such a hit, they did a follow up.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've seen a lot of war movies: Mister Roberts, Casablanca, Dawn Patrol, et al. I never did see Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket. I know war is hell; The Grand Illusion brought that home. But the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" helped me understand the sacrifice that men and women of the armed forces have made for us.

So, thank you to all the men and women who have fought and died to defend us -- not so that we can go see "Sex And The City 2" and own an iPhone 4G, but so that we can behave as responsible citizens in our world and in The World.

Speaking of memorials, please PRAY we don't end up watching the Gulf die.

Images courtesy of NASA. More NASA Images Here. I'm actually afraid could die. Scientists fear the worst is unseen.

Are commercials gender-biased?

2010-05-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well, let's you decide!

Kid with Aspergers interviews his mom

2010-05-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

Okay this is beautiful. It's from StoryCorps, an organization whose mission is: to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.

This is an animation set to a real interview: a 12 year old boy with Aspergers interviews his mother...

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

I don't know anyone with Aspergers. When I first heard the word "Aspergers" five years ago, I knew very little about the syndrome. I actually wondered if my friend's husband had it, because he's wicked smart and painfully shy. He's also an incredible writer. But Aspergers comes with a web of social quirks, and my friend's hubby is not that. By the way, Bill Gates has Aspergers.

(Added later ) Per a comment below I should qualify the reference to Gates: there are thousands of links on the web that suggest Gates probably has Aspergers. Dr. Temple Grandin, who is autistic, wrote as much here, on AutismToday.com. Only Gates or his doctor could verify that, and I'm sure he has other things on his plate. It does point out how little we know about Autism/Aspergers. Staci, who also commented below, says her father has Aspergers, and he just has some social quirks.

Please read Grandin's article, she points out how a child who is diagnosed with autism often gets removed from special programs, when actually, autistic children can have extremely high IQs. And an autistic child who gets enrolled in, say, a class on computer science, can really thrive.

Organ Hero, from Tripp and Tyler

2010-05-26T05:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, more from the wonderful Tripp & Tyler

Think you've had enough of Guitar Hero? Here comes
ORGAN HERO!

If you have any problems viewing you can also find it here.

Say "YES AND..."

2010-05-25T05:13:00.000-07:00

Last fall I got to do a video interview with Recycle Your Faith. We sat and talked for a couple hours, and they posted one clip a while back. Here's another clip ...

I was talking about a rule in improv: never deny what someone brings into the scene. Don't say NO BUT ... say YES AND ... here's how I try to apply it to faith ...

Just Say Yes from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.

Wonder if this rings true or false to you in your discussions with others, or as you wrestle with your own faith??

Be a Compassion Correspondence sponsor

2010-05-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

As I blogged earlier, I was in El Salvador two weeks ago with Compassion International. It was inspiring to see how the Compassion program works to get kids out of poverty. They give them medical, nutritional and educational assistance; they teach them valuable skills they can take into the marketplace. And they teach them how valuable they are, and how much God loves them. There's nothing blasé or self-satisfied about a church in a poor community. They don't have the luxuries to buffer them from the truth: that we are all dependent upon God. And they humbled me with their faith and love for God.

But it was heartbreaking to hear that some sponsored kids never get letters from their sponsors. In fact, our new friend Alejandro told us he was sponsored for ten years and NEVER got one letter from his sponsor. He spoke about it a few times, and he always choked up. All those years the mail came, and his friends got letters. As a child he wondered what was wrong with him?

Well, there's a happy ending: Alejandro excelled scholastically and spiritually, and got accepted into Compassion's Leadership Development Program. Now a new sponsor is paying to put Alejandro through college! (I pray that sponsor writes him.) Who knows why sponsors don't write. Maybe they don't think the child is interested. Or maybe they run out of things to talk about. Maybe the kids don't write back, so they stop writing. Or maybe they don't feel comfortable talking about spiritual matters. In any event, many sponsored children don't get letters.

Well, there are many people can't afford the $38 a month. But they can write.

So here's a solution!

You can be a Correspondence Sponsor, and write to a child who doesn't get letters. They ask that you write three letters a year.

Call the Compassion International Call Center. 800-336-7676. Tell them you want to participate in the Correspondence Sponsorship program, to write to a child who doesn't get letters. Tell them that Susan Isaacs sent you. If they ask, "who the heck is she?" Tell them I'm speaker #111964.

Thanks for considering this. I saw first-hand how much those letters meant to the kids. I've sponsor a girl in Kenya for five years. Of course it's great to assist her financially; and how that I've seen the compassion program at work, I realize how much she needed our help. But the letters I get back are a blessing to me. It's wonderful to see her grow and develop.

If the idea interests you, I know you will love doing it!

A stolen poem by Mary Oliver

2010-05-24T05:46:00.000-07:00

I stole this poem off of Kristin Russell's fabulous blog, Hair In My Coffee. Check it out, she is posting chapters of her upcoming novel, Recovering Ramona.

I first heard of Mary Oliver when watching a CSPAN program about poets. Mary Oliver is Catholic. I'm always delighted to discover someone respected in their field, whose faith hasn't snuffed out their creative muse, or vice versa; but has fired it instead. This poem isn't Catholic or religious even, but it's definitely human.

The Journey
Mary Oliver

One day, you finally knew
what you had to do, and you began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Lost Generation

2010-05-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

My sister in law sent this my way. It's incredibly inspirational. It's a reverse palindrome of sorts.

I wonder: what do you think it will take for such a shift to happen?

El Salvador

2010-05-20T10:11:00.001-07:00

For many years I thought about sponsoring a child. My sister and her husband had sponsored several Compassion kids over the years, and so had other married friends. I saw their photos on their fridges: smiling in their native clothes, holding up the shoes they bought with the birthday money their sponsors had sent. What a great thing to do, I told myself. Once I had a stable income, a husband and kids to share the experience with. At least, I needed my own fridge on which to tape the photos.

But my life never stabilized, I still wasn’t married, and I couldn’t afford my own fridge, let alone a house. When was it going to be a good time, if ever? In a burst of Thanksgiving inspiration, I logged onto Compassion.com. My eyes landed on a photo of a Kenyan girl: teeny, forlorn, wearing a borrowed school uniform five sizes too big. She’d probably wear it for the next six years, if her parents didn’t have to pull her from school. (Per capita income in Kenya is $1700 a year, far above the per capita income for the poor. High school costs $500 a year. Do the math).

It’s been five years since I started sponsoring Helen, and it has been a privilege to watch her grow. Her letters reveal a girl emerging with a sense of herself, her place in the world, and her place in God’s kingdom. One Christmas I was able to give the family $300. She wrote to tell me they bought a cow, a goat, a bed, shoes and jeans for her, and a trip to the hospital for her grandmother. What would that same money have bought me? Three months of cable?
Two weeks ago I got to travel to El Salvador with Compassion, to see how the program works. Compassion seeks out communities in greatest need, partners with a local church, and sets up a center at that church. The program aims to provide physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual development so they can emerge as productive adults.

And that’s what I saw at the centers: children eating a good meal (maybe the only meal they’d eat that day), getting help with their school work, and learning usable skills like sewing, metal shop, and computer literacy. I also saw a lot of lively worship and faces filled with hope. For a child growing up in dire poverty, it’s a miracle for them to dream of becoming a doctor or a teacher or a secretary. If their parents are lucky to work, they make about $5 a day. The cost of living remains high: a can of Diet Coke is 65¢, or 15% of a day’s wage. Can you imagine paying $25 for a can of soda?

The miracle of these children’s hope became all too clear when we visited the homes where they lived. Most of them are built in what look like horse stables. Another was merely an improvised shelter next to a bank of a river.

The first home was run by Miguel, a single dad who was taking care of two sons, a niece, and his mother. He worked four jobs to keep afloat. Sometimes he came home just long enough to glance at his kids before leaving for the next job. Miguel asked what we loved about work. He listened intently, and then told us his dream would be to talk to people about Compassion. He’d witnessed how it had changed his sons’ lives, kept them out of the gang that had congregated across the street. Miguel had been Christian for 22 years. You could see the hardship on his face, as well as the hope. For all his poverty, he was rich in hope.

The dwelling against the river wasn’t as hopeful. There were seven people living there: three adults and four children. The walls made of random pieces of corrugated metal. Box springs jutted up out of the rocks to keep the kids from falling into the river below. There was a grandmother, a mother, and three children present. The mother, Alicia, had just joined Compassion’s Child Survival Program. The CSP will provide her and her baby with food, supplements, regular check ups, and education. Alicia said she enjoys taking her baby to play. You see, most of the women in this community don’t have a clean, safe floor on which to place a baby. Her five-year-old daughter, Graciela, is now old enough to get sponsored but hasn’t been chosen. When someone asked Alicia what her dreams were for her children, she didn’t understand the question. When you live in those circumstances you don’t dream. But as my friend Margot (who was also at the house) said later, if we came back in five years, she will have dreams. I think she will. The CSP program she attends is at Solomon’s church.

Solomon grew up in the slums with no father. But he was sponsored by Compassion. Today he’s a pastor and oversees seven local parishes in the area. A few days before he had no money and no gas to get to his job. “Then a lady from this parish handed me five dollars for gas. That’s a day’s wage.” Someone asked the pastor how he could live with such poverty. A smirk spread across his face. “Poor? My church isn’t poor.”

Here’s something I will never forget: we were standing in a classroom observing some small children learn about Salvadoran Folklore. The building faced out onto a dirt road into the village. The window had bars but no glass, so someone on the street could look in and listen. There were three boys standing at the window, listening to every word. These were boys who wanted to be inside. They wanted to be there, learning. It struck me: they weren’t inside, because no one had sponsored them. I turned my face into the corner and cried.

One of my new friends, Alejandro, told me a story. Alejandro is 18 now, but when he was a child, he was that boy standing on the outside of the window. He wanted to go to school but his parents couldn’t afford tuition or uniforms for grammar school. One day at church a woman told his mom that she had a vision of Alejandro. He was wearing a business suit. Alejandro refused to give up on that dream. Eventually he was sponsored through Compassion. He excelled in school and at church. Last year, Alejandro and two other boys from this neighborhood were accepted into Compassion’s Leadership Development Program. They have received scholarships to attend university. Miguel is studying law, Nixon is studying computer science, and Alejandro is studying business administration. Here is a picture of Alejandro with his mom and sister. Notice he’s wearing a suit.

It’s been five years since I started sponsoring Hellen. Since then I got married and moved into a house. We don’t own it, but we own the second-hand fridge on which her photo is tacked. We sponsor another boy through Children’s Hope Chest. We can’t afford cable TV, but we can’t afford not to sponsor these kids.

You too can do it. You can take that boy off the street and put him in a classroom. There are many organizations that do this work: Compassion, World Vision, and Children’s Hope Chest: which sponsors orphans exclusively. There are many other groups out there. Check out Half the Sky, a nonreligious group that works to lift the role of women in the world, by freeing them from common abuses such as sex trafficking, forced prostitution; gender-based violence.

Sponsoring a child will change a community, one child at a time. It will change a child’s life. And it will change yours.

The kingdom of God is NOW. What are you waiting for?

Here are two videos. Author Margot Starbuck made the first; it sums up wonderfully how Compassion works. The next is a video inspired by Alejandro and the presentation his drama group gave for us.

Beatle-Activated Corgi

2010-05-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

Oh my, this isn't even MY corgi! But this corgi seems to only respond to a Beatle accent.

Caption Contest

2010-05-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

caption, anyone?

Sunday's Coming....

2010-05-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

You probably saw the great satire video, "Award Winning Movie Trailer." Someone at Northpoint Church must have seen it too; because they took the idea and ran with it, to satirize the modern worship service. Spot on, funny til you realize how true it is.
Preach it, brothers.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

How To Speak Christianese

2010-05-12T05:50:00.000-07:00

This was done by the Bel Air Drama Department. Pretty awesome.

Caption Anyone?

2010-05-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Care to try a caption?

Five Questions with Tyler Stanton

2010-05-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

I got to meet Tyler Stanton at Catalyst West. He asked me some really odd questions

5 Questions You've Never Been Asked: with Susan Isaacs from Tyler Stanton

Glurge Movie Trailer

2010-04-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Okay this is actually really funny. I know you've seen this movie trailer. A thousand times.

Whether Thou Gleest?

2010-04-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

I should start by saying that I love Glee. But I'm not really sure where they're headed. The mid-season cliffhanger left us with some great plot twists. Principal Figgins finally got Sue suspended. Emma Pillsbury gave notice and emptied her desk. Finn found out about Quinn and dumped her.

The show came back two weeks ago, and almost all of the plot twists were undone. Sue got reinstated, Emma is back at her desk. Will's wife Terri is (conveniently) gone. And here's some moments I wanted to see on camera: Finn and Rachel are already "sort of" dating, then Finn backs out mid-episode. The show built up the suspense between Finn and Rachel the entire previous 12 episodes, and they couldn't show the first kiss? Maybe they're saving that for later. Who knows.

Another illogical plot twist happened earlier in the season in the "Mattress" episode. The kids got disqualified from competition for doing a mattress commercial and thus accepting professional work; but Will was blamed for it, because he slept on one of the mattresses, not knowing where they came from. (Easy Fix: Will buys the mattress and no one's accepted anything. But no. They kept him suspended from Glee.) It all defied logic, because Sue was on local TV every night, profiting professionally from her role as a cheerleading coach. The sloppy plotting bothered me at the time, but there was so much more to like about the show that I forgave them.

The show came back with a controversy. Sue Sylvester constantly throws ridiculous insults at the Cheerios. You think this is hard? Try waterboarding, THAT'S hard ... You think this is hard? Try passing a gallstone, that's hard! In the first episode, Sue ridicules her Cheerios as the dumbest cheerleaders she's ever coached, and that's saying a lot, I once coached Sarah Palin. Extreme-right talk show hosts accused the writers of using the show for left winged propaganda, and said TV entertainment shouldn't veer into politics. Well, political talk radio shouldn't veer into melodramatic fiction. So I guess we're even.

Anyway, the second show back from hiatus was "The Power Of Madonna." All Madonna, all the time. The songs were creative and very well produced. But it was thin on plot. LA Times said it the best here.

Given it was Madonna Week, they were going to deal with sex. Three couples were planning on it. It happens in high school; many teenagers are curious and anxious to try it. Many already have, that's the reality. They dealt with the aftermaths of those three trysts in a solid way, I thought. But the attendant "Like A Virgin" video felt like soft porn. It made me sad. Maybe I don't watch enough MTV, maybe this was tame in comparison.

What's GOOD: There is a new plot development: Jesse St James, a guy from the rival glee group Vocal Adrenaline, shows up to steal Rachel's affections and is probably a spy for the rival group. The actor, Jonathan Groff, costarred with Lea Michele in the Broadway musical adaptation of "Spring Awakening." They are great together onscreen. It's a great plot twist that they've planted here. I hope they really use it well. I can imagine where the season finale might go with this homme fatal in the picture.

The Madonna episode informed us that Sue Sylvester had been Madonna-obsessed all her life. She forced the entire school to listen to Madonna for that episode, then got over it. Again, felt forced to introduce that and then eliminate it. However, it did produce my favorite part of the show: they replicated Madonna'a Vogue video, frame for frame, with Sue in the title role. Jane Lynch is always terrific.

Okay Glee writers. We love you. Get back to the story. Let the music work with the story, not upstage it. We can watch MTV for that.

Catalyst West: Tripp and Tyler

2010-04-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

I just had the privilege to lead a writing workshop at the Catalyst West Conference in Irvine, California. I teach a workshop on writing your spiritual memoir. We discuss notable memoirs that work and why; I encourage the participants to write down the stories that shaped their lives. We do an in-class exercise to get story ideas flowing, and they leave with something they can start writing about.

I've led this workshop several times at other conferences. I didn't realize it; but the Catalyst Conference is "kind of a big deal." It's a massive leadership convention aimed at inviting change and innovation in the church. You won't see James Dobson here, unless he's a hipster in a fedora and hair gel. Everything goes to 11. Just go to their websiteThere's so much stuff happening on the website, that they give you the option to turn the background or foreground off, There's a live feed to what's going on backstage; video clips, audio podcasts, you name it. It's an ADHD's dream. This year they had a group of Samoan dancers and a gum wall. It was crazy.

I am cynical and have an overzealous BS detector. I reached a point in my life where I'd seen it all, done it all, experienced every "new thing," (Despite Ecclesiastes claim that there is nothing knew under the sun.") and knew how every New Big Thing turned out. Not always so great. I may be right to hold onto a bit of cynicism, but I have to remind myself that the story isn't over, God continues to inspire people and get them to move on and do new things. That's what Catalyst tries to harness: people willing to plunge into new things. That's who was there.

When I arrived in the main sanctuary yesterday, the band was warming up the crowd with Train's "Hey Soul Sister." During lunch they carried on with Coldplay's "Yellow," some James Brown. And on a tweet dare, they attempted "A Whole New World." It was totally insane. Note: While I was typing this, the live feed went on and I witnessed some kind of snowball fight (with tennis balls) while the band played Britney Spears "Hit Me Baby One More Time." The picture at right was from last year. This year the tennis ball fight also involved confetti. I wasn't in the main sanctuary during worship, I was off doing a podcast. So I can't comment on the real worship. But judging by people's reactions, it "went to 11."

Unfortunately, when you're participating, you don't get a lot of time to sit in on sessions, because you're off in a booth doing an interview or a video clip. But I did get to watch a clip about the Compassion guy who got stuck in the elevator during the Haiti Earthquake. I also listened to Eugene Cho, a pastor of a church in Seattle. He and his wife were visiting in a third world country (I don't know which, again when you're participating you only get to hear snippets) but he found out the average year's wages there was $40. Forty bucks a YEAR. Cho and his wife donated their entire year's salary and started an organization called One Days Wages, where you can donate one day of your wages to a cause. You can even set up your own donation page, choose a nonprofit, and invite friends to donate one day of their wages to your cause. That was probably my Profundity Hightlight of the time I spent.

There were these two guys who did comedy bits in between sessions. I was dreading that: oh dear, Christian Comedy. I did Christian comedy in my early days and it was never that comedic. But these guys were awesome. g Tripp Crosby and Tyler Stanton do live comedy and produce short films. They work for Catalyst but also do stuff on their own. They produced this short film before they'd seen "Devotion" That Tony Hale and I were in. There's only one similar bit in the two clips.

They also just posted their Visit With Don Miller

After watching that I think Don needs to beef up his cameo on Blue Like Jazz, when they make the movie.

I was impressed with these guys, and thrilled that somewhere, the church is embracing a different kind of entertainment and humor. In fact was impressed with the whole event and all the people I met. And I came in feeling wary. I left regretting I couldn't stay longer. Oh sure, all of these great movements that start from these events will experience the same hardship, conflict and disillusionment we all did. But maybe they'll skip some of the mistakes we made. And then a new generation will take it from there.

BTW, I DID see this car in the church parking lot. I don't know who's rocking this particular "Suffering for Jesus" look. They better come forward and explain. Maybe the Hertz dealership had run out of Priuses.

I'm bummed I'm not there today. If you did attend Catalyst I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Easter Vigil

2010-04-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

This is a continuance of my Holy Week observance, the first part is here.

Good Friday at noon I took our dog for a walk. It was fittingly murky outside: neither cold nor hot, rainy or sunny. I found myself counting my steps, praying for Jesus to have strength. Yes, in human time Christ won the victory long before I was born. But in eternal time, I could actually walk the Via Dolorosa with him. “You can do it, I found myself saying out loud. “We are standing with you.” And I could weep.

We attended Good Friday services that evening. Rather than an elaborate sermon, they staged reading of the events. They were short a reader, so Pastor Anne roped me into participating. I got off easy: I read Pilate and the chick who accused Peter of being one of Jesus’ cronies. Poor Larry had to sit in the congregation and shout, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Try reading that and walking out clean.

There was little music to mark the evening. We walked out in silence. It wasn't until we were safely in our car and down the road before either Larry or I spoke. Larry said very little. He only managed to choke it out, "All my life in evangelical churches they never captured it. Tonight they got it right."

Saturday I thought about what it was like for the disciples to have witnessed the previous 24 hours. They were off huddling somewhere in shock. Their leader had been assassinated. All those plans about the kingdom of God coming, arriving, it was gone. All those hopes about justice returning? Gone. And all those moments with their friend? Over. Done. He was dead. We sit from our confident promontory in 2010 A.D., we know how it all turned out. But they didn't know. Not yet.

We attended Easter Vigil on Saturday night. We were told to bring bells. (In what church service can you actually say, "More cowbell?") This is my favorite service of Holy Week. You arrive in darkness. Jesus is still dead. The only light in the church is that of the candle you hold. We read four lessons: The Creation, the Flood, Ezekiel, and Isaiah 53. I don’t know why the Church chooses these passages, but I wondered if it were this: In the midst of this yet-unredeemed tragedy, God reminds us of all he has done up to this point:

Remember how I made this world and called it good? Remember that even when I wanted to wipe out evil entirely, I spared Noah? Remember when you thought you were dead and all hope was gone, that I breathed life back in you? And remember your idea that the Messiah was gonna be a kick-ass rock star? Think again: it’s right there in the scriptures. He’s going to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. For your sins he will be chastised. And by his stripes you will be healed.

At this point the candidates were baptized, and we reaffirmed our own decision to die to Self. Then the newly baptized were presented to us: they stood in a line, in candlelight, at the front of the church.

Then, while the church was still in darkness, Pastor Anne charged out to the front and shouted, like Mary rushing back from the garden: “HE’S ALIVE! CHRIST IS RISEN!” All the lights in the church flipped on; the organ fired up, the choir shouted and we rang our cowbells. The words of Wesley’s hymn never seemed so alive to me.

Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Sunday morning I went to the grocery store to pick up some items for Easter Brunch. I couldn’t help but hum the tune as I was walking down the aisle. As I left the store a woman smiled and said, “Happy Easter!”
I replied, “Happy Easter! Christ has risen!” I don’t know if that shocked her, but it should have. The reality is shocking: Christ has opened paradise. Allefreakinluia!

Why We Call This Friday "Good"

2010-04-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the Lutheran church. Easter Sunday was wonderful, but by the time we got to church, Jesus was already alive, up and at 'em. When I was in high school I attended an Easter Sunrise service. The coolest thing I remembered was getting up at 3:30am and eating eggs at Denny's. Since then I celebrated Easter Sunday on Easter, waking up with the good news already on my mind.

Four years ago Larry and started attending an Easter Eve vigil at an episcopal church in Beverly Hills. it blew us away. Tried as I might to keep it together, I always ended up weeping. Two years ago we joined a different episcopal church near where we live. And we are ready for Saturday Night.

The Anglicans know how to take you through Holy Week. If all time is present to God, then they walk you through the week as it's happening. It's like the Lectio Divina in 3-D. You are THERE.

Last night we went to Maundy Thursday. One of our pastors walked us through that last meal. Jesus had thought about what he wanted to tell his friends on the last night of his earthly life. "This bread is ME. Take and eat it. DO IT. Love one another, that's how the world will know you are mine." Then our pastors washed out feet. Talk about humbling. When it came time for communion, the same pastor who'd given the sermon, gave me a swatch of that bread, pressed it firmly into my palm and said with deliberation: "Susan: this Christ's body. TAKE IT and EAT IT." It felt like I was there at that table with the disciples. Only I now knew what it meant, that bread.I knew what it was goign to mean in less than 24 hours.

The choir continued to sing, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, Let All Mortal Flesh keep Silent. No jaunty triumphant songs. Not yet. Then pastors stripped the altar. Episcopalians have a lot of stuff up in the front of the church. Banners, doilies, candles, flowers, and of course the cross. But they stripped all of it, washed the altar (our pastor Anne reminded us that this was to signify getting that altar ready for a dead body to lie on it. Yeah, no jaunty easter eggs just yet). And then they left. The choir vacated their place up front and sat in the pews. We sat there staring at the entire front area of the church, totally bare. Totally barren. Bereft. Jesus was off getting arrested by now.

Suddenly ALL the lights in the church went out, the heavy wooden door into the altar area was SLAMMED SHUT. It sounded like a gunshot. It was shocking. We sat there in the dark. Silent. There was the sound of tears somewhere off behind me. And some in front of me. And next to me. And mine.

I forget what it was like for the disciples, and Saturday night. They were huddled somewhere in shock. Their leader had been assassinated. All those plans about the kingdom of God coming, arriving, it was gone. All those hopes about justice returning. Gone. And all those moments with their friend. Over done dead. We sit from our confident promontory in 2010AD, we know how it all turned out. But they didn't know. Not yet.

We will attend Easter Vigil this Saturday night. Waiting in the dark. Of course we know it ends well. We actually bring our cowbells to ring. In what church can you actually say, "More cowbell!"
We will.

But for now it's Friday.

Here's a poem I discovered this week. They sang it in church, set to Thomas Tallis' Third Tune. Ralph Vaughan Williams composed "Fantasy On A Theme By Thomas Tallis, which you heard if you saw the movie, Master and Commander.

If you can, play this mp3 file and hear it over the words below.

To Mock Your Reign

To mock your reign, O dearest Lord,
they made a crown of thorns;
set you with taunts along that road
from which no one returns.
They could not know as we do now,
that glorious is your crown;
that thorns would flower upon your brow,
your sorrows heal our own.

In mock acclaim, O gracious Lord,
they snatched a purple cloak,
your passion turned, for all they cared,
into a soldier's joke.
They could not know, as we do now,
that though we merit blame
you will your robe of mercy throw
around our naked shame.

A sceptered reed, O patient Lord,
They thrust into your hand,
and acted out their grim charade
to its appointed end.
They could not know, as we do now,
though empires rise and fall,
your Kingdom shall not cease to grow
till love embraces all.

Protect Your Privacy

2010-04-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

Totally unrelated to Lent .... my cousin sent me this info about this creepy site. spokeo.com collects info about people from all sorts of sources, and then publishes it online. I went there and looked up my profile and YIKES, people. I saw all sorts of personal data about myself: financial, personal, hobbies, activities. It was creepy. In an age of identity theft, credit theft, and fomenting social unrest, this is not what you want hanging out for anyone to see.

Go please go and search this site to see if your information is out there. If so, here's how you can remove it.

1. Go to spokeo.com: http://www.spokeo.com
2. Type your first and last name in the search bar at the top of the page
3. Locate your profile and click on it (the names are separated by state)
4. When your profile appears, copy the URL from your browser address bar
5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the screen and locate “PRIVACY” in the bottom right corner
6. Click on the “PRIVACY” link
7. Paste the copied URL in the text box
8. Enter your email (you’ll receive a notification email with further instructions)
9. Enter the captcha code displayed to the right of the text box
10. Click the “REMOVE LISTING” command button
11. Go to your email and follow the instructions to confirm deletion

Please pass this info along!

Desert of Doubt

2010-03-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

I met Erik Guzman through Steve Brown, the former Voice-Over personality and Marlboro Man spokesman, turned pastor and theology professor. Erik works for Brown and has a good blog in which he calls himself "the Merry Monk of Love." (merry love monk..ey?)

It's Lent, and Erik/LoveMonk has a great post about the "Desert Of Doubt." He is in that desert right now. Not knowing if what he's believed is just a bunch of dookey, or if it's really true. It's a very difficult place to face that existential crisis. Maybe we made it all up: peace, love, God, etc. What proof do we have aside from our own subjective experience? I remember being in that place. And in a way, I miss it: Miss that time when finding those answers was more important than food or housing or friendships. Anyway it's a great post. Check it out here.

Have you been through that desert of doubt? Did you get any answers? Are you still in it?

Star Trek meets Chick Tracts?

2010-03-22T05:40:00.000-07:00

My friend Allen Lulu alerted me to this. All I can say is, "wow."

So did your church's drama department ever veer this far off the captain's log?

Eat Pray Love, the Movie

2010-03-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

I had a love-hate relationship with Elizabeth Gilbert's book, "Eat Pray Love." I loved her journey in Italy, liked her stint in India, and hated Indonesia. I was ambivalent about they way she finally made peace with her ex-husband .... in a cave in India, alone. Sure, she felt great settling accounts in a cosmic space, but the real husband wasn't there to respond.

Nevertheless I was grateful for how she wrote. I read EPL while I was writing my book, and she gave me permission to write candidly and conversationally. Thank you Ms Gilbert.

Now comes the movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem.

I think will see this when it comes out. It's directed by Ryan Murphy, creator of GLEE, so at the very least, the music will have to be terrific.

What do you think? Did you like the book? Will you see the movie?

Male Bake Off: The Cake of Foreskins

2010-03-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

I really do love the blogosphere. My friend Bryan Allain emailed me to tell me his friend Kari Bauman had read my book and blogged about it. Kari had actually emailed me just a few hours before. It was a very kind post indeed. What I really loved, is she mentioned that she and her husband enjoyed the part in my book when God and Jesus were snickering about the hill of foreskins (and they say there aren't any jokes in the bible?).

The previous year her husband entered a Male Bake-Off at her church. Every Super Bowl Sunday, the men show off their creative baking skills before the kick off.

Her husband baked a cheesecake with peanut butter topping and chocolate shavings, and called it the Foreskins Hill cake. He won the award for "Most Biblical." I wonder what won the following year? I mean, how could you top that?!

Thanks to Mike and Kari Bauman for letting me post this picture. Visit her blog to find out more.

Dreams and Coincidences

2010-03-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago I had a dream I was in a room with a bunch of people who shared my birthday. We were all gathered around in a circle, looking at each other. And saying, "hey we were all born on the same day."

That's all I remember about the dream. I would not have even remembered that, except that an acquaintance who shares my EXACT birth date, emailed me the morning after the dream and said, "I don't have anyone to celebrate with, want to fly up to Canada and celebrate?"

Two nights later I had a fragment of a dream about the "the two Coreys," Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. I don't even remember anything associated with the dream except the phrase, 'the two Coreys."

The morning I woke up, I found out that Corey Haim had died.

This got me thinking to a very dramatic dream I had probably 15 years ago. I dreamt I was on a plane heading to the Telluride film festival. I'd gone a previous year with a bunch of people from church. They kind of used the festival as a way to corner people at parties and talk to them about Jesus. I didn't like they way things were done, and I never went back to the festival. Not with them anyway. But I had this dream I was on a plane heading to Telluride with other Christians. I was sitting next to film director Sydney Pollack. he was sharing some difficult moment in his life, and I really wanted to talk to him about god. except I was afraid or embarrassed, or didn't want ot be "one of those" people who introduce Jesus like an Amway product. So I didn't say anything to Mr Pollack in my dream.

I woke up from the dream and that afternoon, a small plane crashed near my apartment in Santa Monica. Sydney Pollack's son had been the pilot, and he died in the crash. It was so freaky. Not long after that I had a terrible, abusive thing happen at my church that sent me running from God for a while. The church had been very involved with prophecy and dream interpretation. I closed the door on all of that mystery, maybe to my detriment.

These past few weeks in Lent I have thought about the silence and the mystery. Perhaps I cheated myself out of some important ways that God communicates with us. After all, those dream fragments of the past few days. Perhaps if I spent more time in silence, more time writing down my dreams, what else might I discover about God or myself?

Facebook Jesus

2010-03-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

When I first joined facebook, I added "Jesus" as a friend. I Ddin't know who had put up the Jesus profile, but I figured anyone who wanted to get Jesus on facebook was probably a cool cat. I soon discovered that the person behind this Jesus had very different idea than I did. "Jesus" posting some vitriolic statements and flaming out others as heretics. It made me uncomfortable, so I defriended "Jesus." My friend Kara Lee emailed me: "I read your news feed, "Susan is no longer friends with Jesus." Fortunately facebook no longer puts "defriends" in my timeline.

I recently met a talented young author named Renee Johnson. She just published a devotional called "The Faithbook of Jesus." She wanted to title it "The Facebook Jesus," but she would have faced copyright infringement.

Renee is full of energy and excitement. And she will tell you this didn't come from life always going well. Even at the ripe old age of 27 she's got her own bag of craptastic moments from which to share. But she's turned it into gold.

Renee has been blogging for six years, where she created an online devotional for twenty-somethings. There aren't any devotionals out there written for 20 somethings by an actual 20-something. So Renee's book is unique and will find a new audience to add to those who've already become part of her blog community.

Here's a brief Q and A with Renee.

Q: Please share a little about yourself!

A: I am an author and speaker to 20-somethings, but my tagline says "spirited." This is an understatement which I'm sure you can attest to after meeting me! I love Jesus. And, I don't just say it--I live it. I recently graduated from Biola University and for the past two years I've had the pleasure of working with talented speakers and authors at Outreach Events. Just this year I decided to take my writing and speaking full time and fill in the gaps for 20-somethings where the church left off.

Q: Your new devotional book released last week called "Faithbook of Jesus." Tell us more...

A: I've put my heart and soul into this project. Since 2004 I've blogged devotionals on http://www.devodiva.com, and just recently I was discovered on Twitter by my literary agent and publisher, NavPress. Not to mention the devotionals I've been saving for the past 7 years. I'm honored to have written the first daily devotional for people, ages 18-35. No matter what age you are though, it will make you laugh, cry at my story (I hope anyway), and enjoy getting to know more of Jesus' daily.

Q: In some of your devoitonals you seem to have some "angry conversations with God." To which I can relate. What brought bout yours?

A: Well, for the past 14 years I've struggled with all kinds of health issues from severe eczema (a skin rash) to anxiety (from the skin rash). I've learned to put my faith and trust in Jesus because without Him I wouldn't be here. I love writing how I feel-and sometimes how I feel is ANGRY. If Jesus is God and He can heal me instantly, then why does he wait? Or why am I still single? Those are probably where my most angry conversations with God happen!!

Q: Can you share a sample devotional you think my readers would like?

A: Sure, I hope your readers will love this one...

Week 25: Wednesday, page 152
Evidence of Blessing

I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. — Job 10: 1-2

Job is angry. No, he’s pissed. He’s not hiding it anymore. In fact, if he were standing in front of you and me today, he might drop a curse word or two. The poor man was clearly suffering. Sometimes we feel like that, too.

In the New Testament we’re told to rejoice in suffering, and in the Old Testament we see suffering for what it is — tough. Our body’s natural reaction is to fix whatever is wrong and to not experience pain. Pain hurts. It’s uncomfortable, and sometimes it’s too much for us to bear.

The hardest part of our pain is not getting angry at God. From the very beginning, Job’s wife urged him to curse God and die (see Job 2:9). He never did. Job had too much class. In the midst of losing his children, material possessions, health, and sanity, he somehow kept it together.

This verse is one of my favorites in all of Scripture because it shows the appropriate response to our trials: vent to Jesus. He already knows anyway. Tell him. Complain to Jesus. Charles H. Spurgeon said, “Could this not be the reason God is dealing with you? Being left alone by Satan is not evidence of being blessed.”

Like Job, your trials could be the direct result of being in Jesus’ will and the evidence of his blessing.

Dear Jesus Who Blesses: Don’t let Satan mess with us. When we feel we can’t continue, remind us that there is a blessing waiting for us at the end of our trials. Amen.

If you're looking for a devotional like this, check out her book's website. You can also click on
“Community” to share your stories with Renee's community.

Change Your Life! official trailer

2010-03-11T22:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the official trailer for the mockumentary, Change Your LIfe, that I filmed a couple of years ago. It's a Christopher Guest style mockumentary exposing the multilevel marketing industry. It stars Tony Plana (Betty's father on Ugly Betty), Ada Maris, Wayne Thomas Yorke, Catheryn Brockett, Time Winter and myself.

It will soon be available on iTunes and DVD. Here's a link to the Change Your Life website. You can sign up to get an alert when it's available.

Lent

2010-03-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

One March afternoon in my first year of college, I stopped at the school’s theater box office to buy tickets to some nihilistic bucket-o-blood experimental theater production. I had to see it for class credit. I noticed the woman behind the glass had a black smear on her forehead. Maybe she had to do scene painting for class credit. So I kindly informed her of the schmutz.

“It’s Ash Wednesday,” she glared.
“Oh, yes of course!” I apologized. I may have added that I was Lutheran and was on her team. She kept glaring. Maybe she was a staunch Catholic, and viewed my Lutheran people as The First Defectors.

Still, I left feeling elated, knowing there was at least one other Christian in the theater department. One person who was bold enough to say, “Screw you, nihilist bucket-o-blood theater majors! From dust you came and to dust you shall return!”

Growing up Lutheran, we didn’t give up things for Lent. We just thought sobering thoughts. When I reached adulthood, I joined a non-denominational church, threw off the old liturgy and embraced total formless freedom in Christ. I immersed myself in God’s love, disappeared into long rock worship sets, attended healing conference and hung out with Jesus. It was awesome, as my hippie pastor said.

But as I got older, I started to miss the liturgy. (Besides, the non-denom did have a liturgy: 45 minutes of rock music, followed by a 45-minute sermon. It’s still a liturgy.) I wanted less spectatorship and more participation. I wanted to recite the creed. Most of all, I wanted to take communion every week. I would gladly cut 25 minutes out of a 45-minute sermon to make room for communion. So many of those 45- minute sermons only had 20 minutes of content anyway.

Two years ago my husband and I landed at an Episcopal church. We observe the liturgy and the church year. The rectors wear robes and swing the incense ball. We read the appointed scriptures and the pastor preaches on the appointed text. (It’s not all scheduled stuff: we pray for each other, the Holy Spirit shows up, and God is moving on our little parish). Church isn’t always an earth-shattering experience. Sometimes the hymns are dull, dull, DULL! But for some reason – maybe it’s the Age, or maybe it’s my age – the liturgy is working on me.

I started observing Lent a couple of years ago. Lent is the forty days before Easter when we honor the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness, and we do this by giving up or adding something to our life. (I’m not really sure how they count the forty days of Lent. I think they skip Saturdays and government holidays). In any event, I decided to go with the liturgical flow and see how Lent would work on me.

This year I gave up facebook and twitter. It was a selfish move, really. I was getting too many updates and the notifications were clogging my email In Box. And facebook sent me four emails for every single event that occurred on facebook that it was getting insane. Besides, I didn’t have time to trade useless factoids or Farmville animals or Monty Python dead parrots. I've already blocked Mafia Wars for cryin' out loud. Anyway, I needed to spend that time on important things, like writing, my husband and God. Facebook and twitter had to go.

The first thing I did with all that free time was to catch up with “30 Rock” on Hulu, play online scrabble with a friend, and check craigslist for a used IKEA day bed. I also thought about the things I was supposed to do with my free time. (In my defense, my husband was busy updating his status on facebook. All he gave up for Lent was Tostitos Lime Chips.)

Time with God still eluded me, or maybe I eluded time with God. Nature abhors a vacuum, and maybe my human nature abhors silence. But I know better. Whenever I’ve spent time alone with God, I’ve loved it. I’ve even gone on a few silent retreats. The first hour is always excruciating, but by the time the weekend is over, I kinda don't want to start talking. I like the silence. Well, Lent is not yet over and I hope that I can master some time alone with God.

But there’s something else I feel called to abstain from: righteous anger. When it comes to Fight or Flight: I get my dukes up. I recently kicked a BMW SUV when it knowingly barreled through a crosswalk I was walking in. Yeah: It slowed down, saw me, and then sped up and right through. (The license plate was GRNYMAE. If you know Granny Mae, warn her never to drive through Pasadena. I’m looking for her.) But even if the driver was jerk, it’s not a good idea to attack a moving piece of machinery.

It’s easy to make a vague promise like “turning the other cheek.” That is until God gives you a specific person to whom you should turn the other cheek. I recently got a specific person. Our dog. Well, Wally doesn’t want to be my dog; he wants to be my husband’s dog. He’s a 9-month old corgi, and corgis are stubborn. In the past month and a half, Wally has decided he needs to push me out of the pack. Because Wally has decided to hate me.

My husband says that’s not true. Wally is a dog; he’s not capable of feeling human emotions like hatred.

“Well,” I reply, “What would you call it if the dog you’ve been feeding and walking and praising and loving on, decides to growl whenever you come near? If he lavishes affection on complete strangers but ignores you? If when you try to pet him he recoils at your touch?

"That's because he picks up on your anger and sees it as a threat," Larry suggested.
“I thought you said he doesn’t feel human emotions!”

Larry suggested I praise him and treat him even more. But that’s what I had been doing all along! Besides, someone told me that dogs can interpret your kindness as weakness, and then try to push you out of the pack! And the Dog Whisperer said I needed to act like The Boss. Which Wally interprets as threatening.

(There are other mobius strips of rationale in the Dog Training world. Like: “Don’t punish a dog. They don’t remember what they did five seconds ago.” VS: “If you punish a dog, the dog will remember that about you and be scared of you.” Which is it? The dog remembers or the dog doesn’t remember?! The dog wants me to be nice or the dog wants me to be tough? Which because I can’t figure it out!! I can’t win. I am a wimp or a threat!)

This insanity sent me into fits of righteous apoplectic anger. Which in turn sent my husband recoiling from me as well. So everyone hated me. I wanted to hate everyone right back. Which made me hate myself. If there is anything I am ashamed of about myself, it is my anger. Anger wasn't modeled well in my household. My father got angry at everything, and when he cursed it felt like I was getting battery acid thrown in my face. Needless to say I don't like getting angry. But people get angry. And I'm a fighter. So when I get angry, it feels like it swallows everything else in my life. I hate it and then I hate me.

Amazing the amount of drama and self-loathing, launched over a teenaged dog.

The Dog drama did get me thinking about God, in a palindrome kind of way. I wondered how God must have felt when I complained he was neglecting me, or when he brought something good my way and I feared it was a trap. I shuddered to remember the times recoiled from God altogether. And yet God never banished me to the proverbial service porch, as I had done to our dog. or squirted me with a spiritual squirt gun, as I was told to do to the dog to stop bad behavior. (Come to think of it maybe God had leveled me with his cosmic squirt gun. Exhibit A: The year 2003. See also opening chapter of Angry Conversations.)

Two weeks ago, before the Wally Debacle hit its peak, we attended the Ash Wednesday service at church. It was my first Ash Wednesday service. I’d never had ashes spread across my forehead. It took me by surprise when the pressure of my pastor’s thumb on my forehead and the words whispered to me made me cry.

“From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.”

To dust I will return. I will not be here forever. It felt like a sobering call to duty: to go out into God’s world and do what he’s called me to do. Go out and live a big story, as Don Miller says. Do something bold and risky and remarkable. Like blessing Granny Mae when she sideswipes me in her car. Or continuing to love a dog that isn’t loving me back. Or something even scarier I haven’t begun to imagine.

But I couldn’t possibly do those things. I wasn’t capable! I was the jerk in my own story!

The other part of the sentence came to mind: From dust I came. I thought of Psalm 103: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” He has compassion because he knows how weak we are.

If only I could extend that compassion to Granny Mae, or to our dog. Or to myself when I get angry.

My husband scheduled a private session with a trainer at PetSmart. I resented it. I had cleared my Lenten schedule to do important things like write (and watch Hulu). How could I take time to see a private dog trainer?

But I went. Well, I protested by spending the day at the library, and met Larry and Wally at the last minute. I was shocked when Wally greeted me with a wagging tail. The trainer said it was because we were meeting on neutral ground, where we’d had no history of acrimony. “Wait until we get back home,” I muttered.

She asked me to remember how much I loved Wally up until a month and a half ago. I wondered just what Larry had shared with the trainer. Did he come in crying, "my wife hates my dog! This cute adorable corgi!" I wanted to protest to the trainer, "hey I don't hate this adorable dog! I love him! But when I thought of how much heartache he'd caused me, I had to stop and think back on how much I truly did adore him before he turned into Iago. It was hard not to remember how much I'd loved him. If I’d never loved him I wouldn’t be so upset over it.

“You can get that happy relationship back,” she promised me. “Just forget what happened before.” I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think Wally would forget. I didn’t think I could forget. Or maybe I couldn’t forgive. Or maybe I couldn’t get over my emotions.

In one hour, she identified Larry’s and my behaviors that sent Wally the wrong message. She told me what to do instead: to react to his growl by staying confident and calm. (Really, squirting him with a water bottle made him more scared? Who knew.) She taught me a new bonding game to play with the dog (Really? So “Let’s Get Ready To Rumble” encouraged competition not bonding? Who Knew.)

I tried her suggestions at home. Wally did react differently. I didn’t want to get overly excited, this would take some time. But Wally had begun to change, and so did I.

Not long after that, we discovered Wally had some smelly open sores on his tail. He’g gotten some flea bites and just chewed his skin raw. We trimmed back his fur, applied antiseptic and some anti-itch cream, and then Larry snapped on the “Cone of Shame” to prevent him from biting. It really is a shaming cone: Wally hung his head, tucked his tail and sunk into a corner. I came over and sat down next to him. And he let me stay there. He buried his nose against my thigh. Isn't that the way: we have to reach total humiliation and pain before we let Someone get close to us.

“There, there Wally. We aren’t going to kick you out of the pack. Don’t be ashamed of your weakness. We love you even more.”

He stood up, crawled up into my lap, sighed, and plopped his head across my legs.
I sat there petting him for a good long while, until he drifted off to sleep.

Video From Jubilee

2010-03-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged much. I'm trying to hunker down and get some much needed writing done. But I thought I would share this. A young woman who attended the Jubilee Conference last month captured the first part of my show. Here it is if you are interested.

SNL like it used to be: Good

2010-02-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

My apologies for the lack of original posts lately. I have one juicy blog post coming. Meanwhile, enjoy a clip from a recent SNL and remember how good it used to be.

New TV and Film Demo

2010-02-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

I just re-edited my TV and Film Demo Reel. I don't have my Parks & Recreation gig on that yet, it doesn't air until March 4. I also don't have my commercial reel on this. That will come in a separate file. But here it is. Enjoy.

Hey Brother

2010-02-04T14:12:00.001-08:00

"Rejected by eHarmony" on Fox

2010-02-04T03:23:00.000-08:00

Finally! I got a hold of the footage of a Fox Morning show I did last year. They interviewed me on the fact I got rejected by eHarmony three times.

Enjoy

A Video Interview: is God Good?

2010-02-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

A month ago I had the pleasure to meet Craig and Sara Spinks of Recycle Your Faith. They are traveling the country, meeting people and taping interviews about all sorts of spiritual matters. When they stopped to interview me, the subject got around to one of those super easy questions: Is God Good?
Watch to see what I said ...

God is Good? from Recycle Your Faith

If you have trouble viewing this clip, check out the link at Recycle Your Faith.