Better late than never....

Wifi is hard to come by at Onething. It's downtown KC. What can I say. You can't even buy a good cup of coffee in this cowtown past 6pm on Saturday. Anyway, here you go - Onething from the wings. Shout outs to God.tv for helping us bring it up a notch.

Tim Cone on the jumbotron....

New Blog in town.

Dave Sliker is blogging. And blogging. And blogging. If you need a visual, go here.

I have rightfully added him to the Illustrious Roll of Peeps.

ha! I found you!

This is the story of a very long search for something that should not have taken this long to discover...

Back in 2001, I was sitting in Steve Sjogren's office for a meeting. It all sounds pretty glamorous (if you know neither Steve nor I) but in reality, not so much. Steve's office was about the size of the one I have now, which means either he was under-officed or I am over-officed, neither of which I believe to be a fact. Suffice it to say it was a small desk, two chairs, a lamp and a killer stereo.

Anyway, at the time, Steve was in the habit of playing the radio during meetings....playing the radio pretty loudly through dinky Bose speakers that generated enough sound to make one want to look for the real speakers hidden in the furniture or something. Most people are monotrack thinkers. A few can think in stereo. Steve is a mental 8 tracker. It takes serious focus to keep track of the track he's on some times.

These are the things I clearly remember about the meeting...

1. It was cool and raining outside - spring, I think.
2. The meeting was a late afternoon meeting and kind of dark in the room.
3. We were both drinking coffee at the rate of six cups an hour.
4. A song with a very clever melody played on the radio.

Two things should be noted - first, that #3 is sort of a no brainer, and two, that I don't remember what the meeting was about. In all likelihood, it was about the same thing we did every day...try to take over the world. Pencil me in as Pinky. Steve would be The Brain, of course.

Anyway, since 2001, I have tried to figure out what that song was. I've heard it dozens of times - on the radio, in stores, even on elevators - but never heard anyone mention the name or the band. At various times I have alternatingly been convinced and dissuaded that it was Aerosmith, but I never gave up. I promise you - I have thought of this at least twice a month for the past five years.

Well, I cottin' pickin' FOUND IT. Allow me to take a moment to give a digital thumbs up to Google and iTunes. Google can find anything and iTunes will sell it to you. I have thought about Googling it before, but how do you Google what you don't know? I didn't know the name of the band, the title of the song, or (apparently) even any of the lyrics correctly. I did have a few fragments, so I tried various combinations of those words and KABAM! There it was, bigger than life.

OK, now I feel like a dork. Turns out the band is from San Francisco. The song spent 53 weeks on the charts and won two Grammy's and I have to go full-tilt Sherlock Holmes to find the stupid thing.

Pheew. I'm glad that's over. Man, after all this time I hope I wasn't supposed to do anything to follow up after that meeting with Steve, because once I heard that song, I didn't hear anything he said.

I resent unused cell minutes.

I remember my first cell phone. It was roughly the size of a cinder block, but less pleasing in appearance and function. I think my first cell contract was $30 for 30 minutes. I'm not kidding. And a portion of a minute rounded up. In other words, you could make fifteen 65 second calls and you were over your limit and getting jacked for about a buck a minute (or portion thereof).

Not so today. Kels and I have a family plan that would allow us to call Bogata for Time & Temperature as often as I wanted. I have more minutes than George Bush has backers right now. Nationwide. Plus free weekends, free evenings and free whenever to T-mobile phones. All that to say I never have an excuse to not make a call any more. Never...

In spite of easy access, I regularly wonder "What happened to..." and "Why haven't they called?"

It hit me the other day that if I really wanted to stay connected with people, I'd come home with a drained phone battery every day and use all my cell minutes. Instead, it's easier to not call. It's easier to not connect, easier not to call, easier to wonder why we disconnected, even though I have their number in my phone and could, at no cost, call them and find out.

Kelsey and I have moved all over the eastern half of the country. We've fallen in love with people only to pack up and move on. Every time we've watched them grow small in the rear window and told one another "but we'll stay connected to THEM. They're like family....". I must have eight or ten people like that, yet quickly, the calls stop (both ways) and we're both left wondering.

To be fair, relationship is anchored in two directions - a common history and a common future. That's what you do with friends. You reminisce and you scheme. You look back and you look forward. When you move away, you disconnect with the common future that you thought you might have had at one point...and conversations become a stilted rehash of the last time you got together. The only thing that's worse than not connecting is reconnecting and finding out that you don't have anything to say.

I have no resolve to this, except to say that I wonder what happened to you. Or me. I think of you often and we talk about you on a regular basis, with a bit of sadness in our hearts because of the widening gap between our lives and yours. And cell minutes left on our account at the end of the month.

How moronic is that.

D'oh.

Note to self.

Regarding the coffee pot you got for Christmas. If one is going to leave the house 20 minutes early counting on having a cup of coffee at the office before the 6am meeting, it would behoove one to bring a coffee cup.

Let the reader understand.

Christmas Day

Just because I know you're checking if I'm really blogging...

• iTunes is dirt slow today. Lots of gift card redemption no doubt.

• I assembled a Playmobil castle with no less that 310 pieces today. I am not exagerating.

• Kelsey got me the new Barak Obama book (a gargantuan campaign flyer, I know) along with an older one he wrote in his early 30's about growing up biracial. I'm looking at it with open eyes and mind with my latte colored daughter in my lap

• We're off to the prayer room.

How was your Christmas?

Merry Christmas Eve...

We celebrated our first Christmas Eve with Zoe tonight. All the boys were excited to watch her 'open' a few small presents. She was more excited about a bottle. She is pictured here with 'Uncle John'.

Our Christmas Eve tradition is to open our Christmas stockings. It does my heart good to see the boys get so excited over some very small things - the pure joy of a surprised child. Popular gifts in the stockings tonight were iTunes cards, Chick-Filet cards and Jelly Bellies.

Tomorrow morning we'll tear into the presents proper. Grayson asked how long he had to wait until he woke us up. I told him he could come and get us when he'd memorized Psalm 119. That seemed to satisfy him. Until he looked it up.

Sitting here in anticipation of the chaos to come, the following is on my mind.

• I am grateful for the coffee pot my mom bought for my office...both for the convenience of fresh java at the office and the minutes spared in getting to the 6am meetings.

• We must learn to properly harness swarm theory this Tuesday and Wednesday to get set up for the big gig.

• Allen Hood was outstanding this morning...especially his injunction to not 'mess with Jesus' mom!'.

• I loved the look in my wife's eyes when I gave her those Hosea commentaries tonight.

• Last night, the surprise ingredient in Tracie's chowder was....drum roll please....this stuff. And it rocked. I'm pretty sure it was good for us, too.
  

More to blog tomorrow, because, as a full service blogger, I will be blogging straight through Christmas. This is not some dog and pony show, folks.

late night ruminations...

It's 12:22 by my computer clock and the house is finally settled. Zoe had her bottle, the boys are crashed, and Kels is next to me with her fingernails click-clacking out an email on the keyboard of her macbook. I hear it in muted tones, drowing most of it out with OTR on the headphones.

I need to listen to OTR more regularly. I went on a major kick a few years ago after we moved to Kansas City but found their music made me remarkably homesick for Cincinnati so I put them on hiatus for a while. Enough time has passed now that I can listen to it without pining for Baba Budan's or a sky-way five way, heavy bean, heavy onion. Let the blog reader understand....

Once Christmas clears the deck, we hit the ground running for the onething conference by loading the convoy of trucks on Tuesday. Having jettisoned the "Work Harder, Not Smarter" program that was so unpopular last year, we have aquired smaller trucks this year that will drive directly into the arena for unloading. Wednesday is unload and setup day, then on Thursday it's All Systems Go(crazy). I'm glad our seminars are on Friday, because it means we can dial down after that and enjoy the conference a little more.

I understand that some blogs are taking the next week off. I say baloney. I will be blogging Christmas and the onething conference in realtime with photographs and would include a scratch-n-sniff feature if I could figure out how to do it in HTML. Stay tuned for all the stuff that's fun to blog. You can count on me.

Merchant Band's new drummer...

For all you peeps who enjoy quiet Saturday mornings reading the paper over a steaming latte, this is a Bohlender Family Saturday morning...ZB (5) throws down some hot shugah beats...

extreme nine year old makeover

Optional title: "Did the boy need a haircut?" We thought yes. Grayson had mixed emotions. You be the judge.

Before:

After:

Third edit, slash and burn style.

That's it. I've cut all I'm going to cut. I'll hurry. You hang on.

out on the town

Last night we put the kids in social storage and went out on the town with the Happy Singing John and Tracie Loux. At least that's what is airbrushed on the side of their van.

Or first stop was a Re:verse on the Plaza for dinner. It's decorated with a lot of stamped steel, red paint and trendy, beautiful people smoking. We landed a table against the back wall where Bobby the Slightly Forgetful Waiter brought us food that was not only attractive but honkin' good. Kelsey and I shared a bowl of noodles with olives, peppers, tomatoes, and grilled chicken. I would estimate the size of the bowl to be the same as an overturned washtub large enough to bath a 3 year old child. More or less.

After dinner we wandered out throught the trendy, beautiful people smoking to the street, found the 'burban, and headed back out to the suburbs for cheesecake. Somewhere over the cheesecake, dangerous questions began getting asked and we found ourselves staring at one another, trying to verbalize an answer to "What do you want to have accomplished in five years?"

For a while, we all muttered around the obvious, genuine responses about God, marriage and children. Yeah, yeah, we know. It's all true and we assume it. So what about you?

Moments of awkward silence. Eat more cheesecake. Sip coffee. Think. This should not be so stinking hard.

Finally someone gives it a shot. Then another. In short order, all four were answering, challenging one another in regards to answers, and thinking bigger together than we naturally do apart.

One minute we were four people sitting in the Cheesecake factory, each of us racing towards forty, and the next we were four nine year olds in the tree house whispering "Well, when I grow up, this is what I want to do....".

It felt good to be back in the tree house. It's higher than I remember it, but it feels remarkably solid.

On the first day of Christmas vacation from school...

This is why parents keep them in class. When they get out, they do very strange things.

thursday by the numbers

number of minutes I would teach at VCC: 30
word count of text for one of those talks: 3200*

minutes alloted for onething seminar: 45
word count of second draft: 7220

chances that i will finish as is: 1:100

edit, cut, but do not paste...

*Even at that rate, Alan Fuller once told me "When you're done teaching, I'm tired."

I hear voices. And I like them.

Every night, when I get up to feed Zoe, I hear voices. I don't have faces to put to the voices, but I have grown to recognize them...their cadence, their tone, and the weight of their words.

I started hearing the voices when we started streaming the prayer room all night. My powerbook sits on the kitchen counter and all night long, the refrigerator, the dishwasher and the coffee pot join in intercession along with the IHOP nightwatch. I have reason to believe the microwave is not a believer and am working out my theology on this.

All that to say, I love hearing the voices.

I say: Go IHOP NIGHTWATCH! You guys make all the difference for a very tired dad heating up a bottle for a little girl. I love hearing worship leaders who choose to play at times like 4am. I love hearing intercessors cry out for the community surrounding IHOP, driving back darkness in a real way. I love that this army is young and full of options, yet they choose to do this.

Thanks for living this radical, nocturnal, fasted lifestyle. It matters.

Even to the microwave.

Welcome to the Salvation Walmart.

I am on an Amos kick.

Amos was not a prophet by occupation. In reality, he was a sheep herder. He was less MDiv, more FFA . At one point, he blurts this out as if to say "I didn't ask for this job...". Talk about getting swept up in the purposes of God.

Regardless of his paying gig, he speaks it pretty straight. In fact, factor in the brevity of his work - nine short chapters - and I'm thinking his poke-per-chapter index is higher than any of the other prophets on the major list, minor list or elijah list.

Amos prophecied for a brief period of time when the northern and southern kingdoms were enjoying a false sense of security. Looking at their accomplishments and ideals, none would have imagined that in 40 years, the kingdoms would be desolate and the society collapsed. Just when everything looked rosy, the bottom drops out and people were only left with what they'd stored in their hearts. One would think there are lessons to learn here.

One of the things Amos goes after hard is a false sense of dispensing justice. The second edition of the New Living Translation is my favorite - it says

"You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed."

Apparently one of the precursers of the destruction of the kingdom was their mishandling of these matters - not only the poor, but how they thought about the poor and what they did to fix the issue. Sometimes, even in fixing the issue, we do things that are fundamentally wrong, tainting the whole process.

Enter Bono and Oprah.

Ever hear about Product (RED)? I've been following this Product (RED) media frenzy for a bit, and I'm thinking it smells like fish. Or slightly twisted justice. Rather than try and explain how it works, I'll just paste in their words from their website.

"As first world consumers, we have tremendous power. What we collectively choose to buy, or not to buy, can change the course of life and history on this planet...(RED) is not a charity. It is simply a business model.

You buy (RED) stuff, we get the money, buy the pills and distribute them. They take the pills, stay alive, and continue to take care of their families and contribute socially and economically in their communities.

If they don't get the pills, they die. We don't want them to die. We want to give them the pills. And we can. And you can. And it's easy. All you have to do is upgrade your choice."

In short, you buy products labeled (RED) and a portion of the profits goes to buy medication for legitimately needy people. It's hard to argue with this. Good will be done here...but I think we have to ask what we're really buying...An iPod or a smug sense that we are a part of the solution?

A lot of hip brands are buying in. GAP. Motorola. Amex. Apple kicks in $10 every time you buy a $250 iPod Nano. Interesting. (RED) manages to congeal our innate desire to be philanthropic with our overarching characterteristic of being self serving. It's a great idea for the Africans - and I'm glad they're getting the mdication - but I wonder what it's doing to our mentality.

Is it really a good thing when a 20 year old thinks justice is best fulfilled by skipping through the mall, chatting on her RAZR, en route to the GAP where she'll smack her AmEx against the upper credit limit?

Is this justice? Or just another way for us to buy stuff and still feel good?

I've probably gone too far...rattling not only Oprah fans, but those who worship at the altar of the foul mouthed irishman. I know that questioning such a (hip) humanitarian endeavor is to risk commiting blogicide, but when the most prosperous people on the planet land on consumerism as the model for justice, it makes me wonder what (really) comes next.

Maybe we've got to do more than upgrade our choice. Maybe we upgrade our motives.

calling it a night...

The clock is tilting towards midnight as I try and decide which I need most: To go directly to bed or to have a bowl of cereal. Right now, the bed is up with 4:1 odds over the shredded wheat. I'd already be asleep if Luke Wood weren't on the webcast playing such a compelling set at IHOP.

Must. Go. To. Bed. 5am comes quickly, particularly when there's a feeding between now and then. In order to make up for my pitiful posting the last few days, I'll toss you a shot of the prettiest eyes in the nursery....

Hey, what's it look like backstage @ FCF?

Well, now you know. Back to your lives, citizens...

Thirteen days and counting...

In thirteen days, we all head to the Municipal Auditorium for onething. Over 10,000 people will descend on Kansas City's downtown area (The six square blocks that time forgot...) and it will be all systems go (crazy).

I have a confession. Due to the Municipal's floorplan (it was part of the 1960's Designed by a Drunk program), for the entirety of the four day conference, I am never exactly sure where I am. I try and maintain a line of site to the restroom and beyond that I'm lucky if I ever find the street or a seat. It's not the arena itself - I love the ugly old bowl - but good luck finding the breakout rooms, and that's important, because this year, Kelsey and I are both teaching breakouts.

We're also hosting the Omega User's Group meeting - if you're using the course or are interested in doing so, come hang out with us on Saturday at 12:30. We want to meet you! We'll have some great info about new resources coming your way, new training opportunities, some freebie schwagg I collected from Forerunner Music and Books, and replacement DVD's in case one of yours went south.

My team recently finished the onething Communicator. The Communicator started some years ago as a little booklet that told you where the potty was and what time the worship started. This year, we're over 70 pages of glossy goodness designed by our own Tom Morse-Brown, featuring what they tell me is a readable map, descriptions of every breakout session known to man, all sorts of new products, interviews with Real Live IHOP peeps, and insider information about how to win the iPods that so many of the internships are giving away.

My role in the Communicator was to stare at the pages and say "I like it" or "I don't like it" and give Tom instruction - so small feat given that I don't know jack about design. I was forced to make up phrases like "It lacks a congruency of palette, neither matching nor contrasting strongly enough to look intentional." People who don't know jack say these things a lot.

success!

We can organize hundreds of musicians, singers and intercessors to maintain eighty four prayer meetings a week, fifty two weeks a year for over seven years, but good luck with a simple task like finding a light bulb around this place.

Nathan Panke, I owe you .

Blog Post of the Century.

I love my friend Adam. He is a prayer warrior. He will pray for anything. He just doesn't listen too well.

You must read.....

A Shout Out from Shelley...

The ice thawed in Snowcone, Minnesota just enough the other day to allow Shelley Paulson to post some photos from a recent visit with our family, including our first family portrait with Zoe. As you'll see, Zoe looks like she belongs there...because she does! And how did my boys get so shaggy?!?!

Rather than steal her thunder, I'll send you there to see them!

Thanks again, Shelley and Tracy! You guys rock!

Can we please close the borders, quickly?

You may have heard that there is a conference going on right now in Iran calling into question the existence of the holocaust. Not the severity, not the scope, but the very existence of it.

Anyway, David Duke, who Louisiana erroneously sent to the House of Representatives once in spite of his having been an Imperial Wizard of the KKK, is one of the speakers and had this to say:

"The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder,"

Knowing this nut case is currently overseas, can we just all agree to close the borders and keep him over there? If we let him reenter we have passed up the opportunity of a lifetime to rid ourselves of this louse.

Now brewing...

Thanks to Shawn, who tipped me off, I am currently brewing a half pot of Guatemalan from the Crow Valley Coffee Co., Castlerock, Colorado. If it sips half as good as it smells, it's going to be incredible.

Oh, look....it's done. Hold one second while I pour a cup.






Oh. Oh My. Everlovin' coffee bean goodness. It's going to take a few pots to tell, but this just may give my favorite a run for it's money.

standing in accusation

I'm reading this morning from Mark 15, and struck by Jesus' reaction to being railed against by the priests. At one point, Pilate expresses astonishment that Jesus won't respond to the priests' accusations.

"Aren't you going to answer them? What about all these charges they are bringing against you?" But Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate's surprise. Mark 15:4,5

The ability to stand in the face of accusation and not respond is one that I'll admit that I am not able to do yet. I am not entirely capable of refraining from spinning everyday stories to accentuate my own abilities and virtues, omitting my own screw ups and pointing out the flaws of others....how can I hope to emulate this ability to remain close-mouthed while being accused, particularly when being accused falsely? I am too concerned with protecting my own virtue. Perhaps protecting my own pride might be a more accurate phrase.

I'm trying to focus on two things I believe will help me next time I get called on the carpet, guilty or innocent...

Realize when righteousness is being attacked.

Once prejudices are put aside - being attacked for being too short, too tall, to light, to dark, etc - people are essentially attacked for one of two things: Being righteous or being unrightous. It could be that we are accused for being unrightous - having wronged someone or dishonoring a spiritual principle. In that case, the accusation is our friend that corrects us. I don't want to get into the habit of fighting back when being legitimately called out for my own wrongs. I want to take the opportunity to correct them.

Likewise, sometimes, like Jesus, we are attacked for rightousness. When it is righteousness that has our accusers up in arms, we're in good company. Jesus said that those who (joined him in being) persecuted for rightousness sake would have full run of the kingdom of God. It could be that those who are persecuting you in this life are doing you a huge favor for the next.

Remember that no one on earth sees you in your true calling.

Many of us walk with an accute sense of our enternal destiny. God has given us a very true glimpse of who He has called us to be. In the Spirit, we know we are a prophet, priest and king. Unfortunately, to the rest of the world, we're still a dorky annoyance. Eternal destiny does not transform us into the greatest thing on this side of the end of the age. We can be fully destined and fully doofus in one fell swoop.

The high wire of walking out the Sermon on the Mount is suspended by the tension that exists between who we are and who we are becoming. No one - not even your momma - sees what is on the other end of that high wire, so understand when they complain about how close you are to the first tower, hanging on white knuckled with your knees wrapped around the cable.

I'm coming to the opinion that reality for me is better defined by my response to accusation than the accusation itself...that who I am is better determined by my need to lash out or my willingness to endure than it is by my excellent legal defense.

a dangerous phase...

Check this out - the oldest woman in the world died at age 116. I think this is about the third 116 year old death that I've read of in the last eighteen months.

I wonder what makes 116 such a dangerous age? Interesting, don't you think???

RIP BLACKBERRY 7100t Sept-Dec 2006

Is it my imagination or do I go through gadgets like a third world country goes through governments? My eBaynium Blackerium suddenly started crashing, going through the battery in 12 hrs, and generally acting funky. Fortunately I still had a RAZR on the shelf that I intended on selling...

Anyone else have this trouble?

I love my wife...

OK, I do love my wife, but I cracked up typing that headline, mainly because there is a car at IHOP with a bumper sticker that says that and Kelsey and I have always wondered if the guy's wife put it there....

Anyway, took ZB to the library this afternoon, and as I checked out a few books for him the librarian said "You have some books here waiting for you...". She proceeded to toss down three of the books that I had on my Amazon wish list. I was like....blog reader at the library?!?

Turns out my dear wife had the smarts to put holds on them online. It was a great surprise. Here's what I hauled home and why:

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Hardest Journey
Growing up in North Dakota, you hear a lot about 3 people: Sacagawea, Roosevelt and Lawrence Welk. I gravitated towards TDR for obvious reasons. The River of Doubt is about his expedition deep into the Amazon. What fascinates me is that this was after his two terms as President. I'm just having a hard time thinking of any recent president doing this. Can you imagine Bubba or W. heading off into the deep jungle? Not unless there was a Burger King or a bike trail.

Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
I'm a big Jared Diamond fan. He's a relentless researcher with a talent for great titles. I also liked his Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies. I don't buy all of his conclusions but I enjoy how he lands on them. Kelsey also reserved the audio version - all 22 cds! Three words: long road trip

Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things
I'm fascinated as to why we're pleased by the shape or feel of certain objects; why G2 gel pens, combined with moleskine journals, provide the greatest writing experience in the world, for instance. This book looks at big winners and losers in design - and more importantly, why they won or lost.

Not on the list but also picked up today:

All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos.
I grabbed this because I find Stephanopoulos interesting, and I can't quit examining the Clinton presidency, sort of like you look at a train wreck when you know you should look the other way out of respect.

Lincoln at Cooper Union by Harold Holzer.
The question that loomes over every potential political candidate is "are they electable?". There was a day when that wasn't determined by telephotogenics or sound bytes, but by ideas and persuasion. In 1860, Lincoln ratified his own electability by delivering the most important speech of his pre-presidential life at Cooper Union.

A hundred and forty years later, Larry Harvey spoke there. Late one night on the playa, while riding around in the VIP golf cart at Burning Man, he told me that the people who run the green room there tell speakers "We have two podiums. They are identical. Lincoln spoke at one of them..." but never really tell you if yours is Lincolns' or not. He said "I was ready to freak out the whole time...."

ZB Update

Snag the ZB 411 - including a killer picture - right here.

ZoeFest 2006

I'll let Kelsey give you the 411 on Zion's surgical procedure today. Long story short, he is one tough little monkey and deserves a prize!

I'll go ahead and post some Zoe shots. These seem to be my most popular posts anyway! :)

Shoot up a prayer for the Peanut

ZB is 5 and an amazing combination of sensory artist and bare chested pirate-wannabee.

Our Peanut will have a mole removed from the back of his head on Friday morning. Please be in prayer for the little guy. The removal itself is not that bad, but the shots to deaden the area can be a real bear.

His mommy has promised him lunch anywhere he wants once it's finished. At bedtime Zion was leaning here. She was not amused. It could be worse though.

photo by Shelley Paulson

Where goeth the Gun Club?

If it's Gun Club day and no one shows up but me, did it really happen? Whassup, gentlemen? Do we need to open up the roster a little bit?

Now accepting applications for memebership to the Gun Club. See the Ft. Mill Charter. If you're a good fit, shoot me an email and encrypted instructions will be forwarded to you.

image by bill thornbro

improving your stream...

If you're streaming the IHOP prayer room on a Mac, you might want to download Flip4Mac rather than run it on Windows Media for Mac.

I've been running Windows Media and just made the swap today - the video is so much clearer that it's rather amazing, and I don't have nearly the buffering issues I had before.

And it's free, people...

On a side note, one of the benefits of being up in the middle of the night so much in the last few months is getting to see so many worship leaders that I normally never see. It's awesome.

Oh yea - Zack's mom - if you're reading - he really is there every night. I see him.

Sorry, Kathy...

Kathy Wheeler, no, it is NOT Danielle's little Bible, so you can just quit throwing around the accusations, sister. If she's not readin' her Bible, it's not because I have it. :)

Peace out.

This would sell....

Jackson needed a white elephant gift for a party last night, so earlier in the week he asked if I'd pick up a plunger at Walmart. Yesterday afternoon, he painted it white, drilled a hole in the handle, inserted an electrical cord and drew a click wheel on the rubber part.

He stepped back to admire his work and declared it to be the world's first iPlunger.

Stuff I Want to Think About

Last year about this time, I went on a thinking binge. Now, some of you might be able to think at the drop of a hat. Not me. I've got to sort of prime the mental pump. I do this by reading widely - stuff I agree with, stuff that infuriates me and a little in the middle.

In November of 05 I was reading about five good books at a time. Then came December....and we entered the vortex of produce omega / adopt a baby / rehab a kitchen. Wow. It's been a year and I'm ready to dig in again.

I've added the Stuff I Want to Think About section on the right. So tell me, what sort of books are you wanting to read in 08? And anybody read any of these? What did you think?

A new link...

Ok, so Ian, my trusty aide-de-camp, sees my post below and mentions that he's tweaked his web site a little. It looks great, so I email him and ask what he used to build it (expecting to hear iWeb or something even easier and cooler than that because I am old and would not know of such things).

He replies "Uh, I hand coded it."

Uh, ok. You just did it from scratch.

"Well, did you like those cookies kids? I grew the cocoa plants for the chocolate chips myself! How about the invitation I sent you? Yeah, I made my own paper...."

He's holding out on me. He can probably do a BUNCH of junk I don't know about.

Check out their site and his blog. Ian and his lovely wife, Jocelyn, are very cool peeps. In addition to performing various and sundry duties on my behalf, Ian is a student at Forerunner School of Ministry and spends a boatload of hours in the prayer room.

quick update...

I did a quick update on RandyandKelsey.com this afternoon - you can now access a .pdf of our latest newsletter. The link is on the front page for those who are interested.

I hate the sparks, but....

OK, John caught me (see comments). I've been digging the Sermon on the Mount for a long while. I guess it's time to explain why I'm so stuck in this passage.

The clarity of who gets what.
The poor and the persecuted get the Kingdom. The mourning get comfort. The merciful get mercy. So much of our faith walk is just that....feeling along with our little white canes, hoping that's the curb we've found and not a railroad track. Matthew 5, 6 & 7 are real signs with real directions. Those verses are the closest thing to spiritual if/thans that you'll find anywhere in scripture. They're good for pointy headed binary types who want a cost/benefit analysis.

My admiration for the people who I see walking these out.
They're rare and refreshing with how radically they go against the flow. They don't just stand out...they make serious progress up stream, over boulders and up torrential waterfalls. They are that revolutionary. I hear a lot of goofy talk about how Jesus wasn't a modernist - inferring that Jesus was the first both/and postmodern. Hear this: Jesus was a pre-modern. His teaching will set both the establishment and the new young voices on their repective cans with it's counter-intuitive approach. When you see this sermon being lived out, you see how starkly it contrasts with everyone, no matter their age or affiliation.

My own daily struggle
I study these values because I'm not good at them. Were there biblical chapters on how to be critical or sarcastic, I could probably afford to skip them. Not these. The great part is that even though I'm pretty lousy at these, I'm better than I was....and the only way I get sharp is to keep close to the grindstone. I hate the sparks, but I hate dullness even more.

It's not just people who need to do this...it's organizations too. It's Christmas time, which means church mailers, most which will proclaim that their church is biggest, best or first at something or other. My friend says these are the equivelent of shouting "My pastor can beat up your pastor!".

The amazing thing is that if we got half-good at the beatitudes...not even mastered them, just made an honest attempt and got a little bit of traction...our churches would turn upside down, our marriages would smooth out, and we'd suddenly be scheduling new converts classes six months out as people would clamor to get into whatever is happening to the group.

Blessings are never tied to slickness or even relevance, although I'm a proponent of both if you can pull it off and look natural. Access to the Kingdom is always tied somehow to the poor and persecuted. I'm not sure what the advertising campaign looks like for that. I suppose it doesn't do much good to advertise it. People either buy it or they don't.

All that to say I confess to trying to live out this message. I just pray that now that I've confessed, I'll be convicted as charged. And yes, the pun is always intended.

It would help me if Jesus weren't quite so clear.

Some time ago, a small Bible was abandon in my office. I'm not sure where it came from, and in fact, it may have joined my collection of books several offices ago, but having searched it completely for a name and finding none, I have declared it my own according to the spirit of adoption.

It is burgundy leather and just about the right size to slip into my pocket. The binding is a little loose but the whole thing feels like a well worn wallet and I just love it.

Except for page 824.

OK, I even love page 824, but that's the portion that I find most disconcerting right now. 824 might be Habbakuk or Philemon or even the maps in your Bible, but in my little adopted tome it is Matthew 5 - the sermon on the mount.

The first twelve verses of this chapter have haunted me, particularly in the last eight days. I have scoured it for loopholes or excemptions and found none available. It would appear that humility, mercy, and a hunger for righteousness are the signposts on a progressive walk with God, and any path without those markers just loops around back to the picnic shelter we call life as usual.

I'm tired of looping around on that path to find the same empty picnic table, covered with squirrel poop and the initials of those who have circled around before me. I'm tired of staring at "Billy loves Suzy" carved into the wood, knowing that had Billy loved righteousness he might not be on his way back to the bend again in the next fifteen minutes with Lila or whoever. Billy needs to read page 824 and move on.

Me too.

I dreamed last night of a large house. No, a huge house...so big that it actually encompassed what I thought were two houses. It sat on a lot up a steep hillside behind our house, in an area we used to live in. The owner of the house was getting ready to sell it, and I had the first chance to look at it. As we walked through, I marvelled at the size and the two huge garages. In the dream, I told Kelsey "Let's buy it." That's highly uncharacteristic of me, but I was ready to sell our house and buy this one on the spot.

This morning while shaving, I got to thinking about how odd it was that I was willing to jup on the chance to buy it, but also what a phenomenal house it was...in that moment, I heard an inner voice say "you can have it if you want it, but you'll have to come up higher to get it."

I'm learning what that means, and I'm also well aware that the big house isn't riches or fame, but something far more valuable. It's up there. I want to go after it.

Somethin' 'Spicious goin' on...

Did I mention the new microwave makes a weird sound? Watch the boy rant about it.

Remember when....

Kelsey was out running errands this evening, but she got home around 9pm and somehow we ended up plopped on the couches with all the boys talking about "remember when....", remembering times from our history. Of course, with children, history is always a relative thing, but it was awesome...some highlights:

Our first Christmas as a married couple...December 18, we started a new job at a Boys Home, having coasted into town with three dollars cash and a quarter tank of gas. Our first night at work was the staff Christmas party and we got a hundred dollar bonus.

Jackson's favorite Christmas gift at 4 years of age: Rolls and rolls of masking tape. He would build these intricate webs all over the room.

Grayson remembering "the time I fell down the stairs at the house on Wood Trail. I was holding that little toy phone!"

Even Zion got into the act, announcing his favorite Christmas gift last year was the hamster that Grayson got! (It's hard to reminisce when you're so young - Zoe was absolutely silent....).

We must have talked for nearly an hour...quite the feat for a family with four children. They loved it, and so did we. When it was over, Zion asked "Can we talk about that stuff again?"

There's something about reaching backwards that anchors the present. Shared experiences establish identity, and identity helps us relate to the here and now. It settles our heart when we wonder "is it going to be ok?", because down through the years, it always has...and it will be again, in due time.

On a side note, shout out to the Cornhusker Towing Company for tugging me off the ice when I stranded the Suburban like some broken down Zamboni today. I will see to it that you get Sacred Trust credit for good deeds done dirt cheap.