Saturday @ the TriHop / JC, TN

Murray and I did the two morning sessions, fully explaining Apostolic Pre-Millennialism with such detail that they were dumb-founded. Or they thought we were dumb. I'm not sure which. Either way, Kelsey is doing the Israel session next, then Deborah will wack'm with the Joel 2 message this evening.

We are having a great time, even as the locals attempt to stuff us with food at every opportunity. I am putting up a valiant fight but I believe Murray has succombed. I'm only telling you that so you can pray. Lunch was at the famous Red Pig, and it was delightful.

day two...

Sitting in the tech booth as Jonathan Mills from ZHOP leads worship. Man, I miss him! I had forgotten how great of a worship leader he is....

Highlights of the morning: Deborah Hiebert's opening session....and my declaration during the second session that the primary difficulty surrounding the abomination of desolation was that it rhymed in English.

Cootie Brown's for lunch. Murray Hiebert on the Millennial Reign on a minute...

More to come....

a good, but long, day...

It was 4:59am when Eric pulled into the driveway to take us to the airport. It was 5:02 when we realized that luggage for seven people would never fit into his truck and he ran home to get his hitch rack.

We flew to Nashville and begged for mercy from the rental car company, who initially told me 'we don't have anything larger than a minivan...' but eventually came up with a 12 passenger van that had room for us, luggage and materials.

The four hour drive to the TriCities was marked by rain, trucks, and more rain....but we got here in time for some killer soup before the opening Omega Session (and Kelsey rocked, if I do say so myself.).

Tomorrow, we launch into the course in earnest. Great crowd - many friends, including our peeps from ZHOP. It's great to be here.

stray thought

I think I want to do the Rob Bell thing and go on preacher-rock-star tour. I wonder if Steve Sjo. still has that big deisel...maybe he could be my driver. We could go town to town...speak in only the coolest clubs.*

I am officially soliciting names for the tour. And corporate sponsorship. Because something tells me t-shirt concession are going to be sorta puny. Leave your suggestions in the comment section/tip jar.


*this is, of course, all a joke....but I really would like to speak in those venues.

This is stunning to me....

While posting that last blog post, I received an email from Dave "End Times Simplified" Sliker that included a single sentence that was, while grammatically correct, an unbelievable 167 words long. Your comments, please....

another hour at the table

We sat at the table much longer than we thought we would last night...lingering over pizza and salad with friends, even as six boys (three of ours, three of theirs) ran through house in all their chaotic glory.

Somewhere around 9pm, I muttered something about getting our boys home and in bed. This, of course, was a ruse. It had nothing to do with the boys. My alarm goes off at 4:50am, so I was more concerned with myself than our guys....but still. An hour passed in a minute, and we were still talking. Still laughing. Still asking "how can we pray for you guys?"

It was good. No, it was great. It was great to completely lose an hour in the company of people who know us, who honestly do give a rip, and - even though we may not spend every other Tuesday night in their living room bowing to the idol of Intentional Christian Community - would go to the mat for us in a heartbeat, as would we for them.

I'm revamping my thoughts on community. I think this makes the fourth rendition in as many years. Right now, it feels like community is being almost fully understood (I don't think any of us are entirely understood by another human trapped in the time/space web as are). Community feels like being understood to the point where one can mutter a verbal shorthand and still communicate. Community feels like not having to tell the whole story if you don't have the energy. Community feels like spending the extra hour with the pizza boxes betwixt us, laughing loudly over the roar of the children....& going home feeling known.

It feels like an extra hour well-spent.

The Call. It's on.

Back in May of 2000, we heard about a gathering scheduled for 9.02.00...a radical gathering of young people in Washington, DC. A huge stage. Hundreds of thousands of people. And not a rock star in sight.

The whole summer of 2000, we watched the website. They were not all that common in those days, but this one had an urgency about it that made it worth waiting for the 56k dowload speed to reveal what we hoped - that thousands of people, young and old, thought that prayer and fasting were worth the price.

A few days before the call, I raced an underpowered RV pulling a refrigerated trailer from western Nevada, across the Rockies, down the Nebraska steppes, through the midwest and into Cincinnati in 40 hours flat. I spent one afternoon getting reoriented from the playa (and teaching a high school class at the Schilling School) before heading to DC the day.

At 5:30am on 9.2.00, I stood on the National Mall watching the sky grow purple and pink behind the capitol. At 6am, a worship band broke tore into an anthem that lasted, in some form or another, for twelve hours. Over 400,000 people gathered that day to fast and pray for the nation. It was TheCall DC, and it was an event that charted the course for our lives. I had playa dust on my Doc Martens and reality in my grasp - the reality that fasting and prayer moves angels and demons.

Here we are, six years later...and it's about to get very exciting.

Today, we announced that IHOP will be teaming with Lou Engle to help produce another series of Call events - solemn assemblies of fasting and prayer in arenas across the nation. No big names (at least none acknowledged) and no big egos - not a festival, but a fast. Less concert, more consecration. Believing that young people will work for revolution, we are going to issue The Call once again....The Call to a radical lifestyle of prayer and fasting.

Kelsey and I will be leading the operations team here in Kansas City as we work with IHOP and Lou to see The Call come to fruition. We'll have more information available as soon as possible.

We hope The Call comes to your city...and we hope you answer The Call.

laying seige to the woods...

This afternoon, the boys and I loaded the truck with three swords, two shields, a plastic shotgun, a couple of chocolate bars and a thermos of coffee and headed into the woods on an expedition.

Grayson the Brave served as our trail guide, having once before ventured into these woods and successfully slain a dragon. He led us deep into the forest to find a huge oak tree laying toppled into the river.

It should be noted that there were no enemies in sight, but we thrashed about with our swords just in case they were cloaked with invisibility.


Zion the Lionhearted also made the trek. He is shown here in classic attack stance. Careful observers will recognize his camo pants and accompanying ninja-like sandles. The following is a verbatim transcript of part of our conversation.

Grayson: Look - that's goldenrod. And that's thistle.

Jackson: How do you know all this stuff, Gray?

Zion: He weads. Books. Awot.

Sir Jackson ventured to the far end of the log for this photo. He appears quite brave, having left his weaponry on the bank of the river. We had stopped here for a chocolate break - and rest assured, coffee never tasted so good as it did in the open air, surrounded by marvelous comrades such as these.

A great time was had by all, with the possible exception of the mountain biker who raced up onto our troup head-on. The look of shock on his face to find three boys and a grown man stomping through the woods, whacking the brush and talking about an invasion, was priceless.

There are not many better ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Crank up the Wayback Machine

Kelsey and I did back-to-back breakout sessions today at the Children's Equipping Center conference. As usual, Kelsey went first and left me wondering "Why do I continue to follow this act?"

After my session, a fellow approached me with a goofy grin and said those words every public speaker dreads: "Do you remember me?"

Pause for awkwardness...

"uh...where would I know you from?" I asked. Then, having heard a slight accent, I guessed, "North Dakota?"

"Yeah, from back in North Dakota....".

I stared at this guy hard, then ka-boom! I had a flood of memories. I remembered almost everything. We had gone to college together at TBC our freshman year. He lived on the 3rd floor of Kessler - I was on the first. His room mate was Randy Lindgren. He had two vehicles at school - a monster sized 4x4 Ford truck and a Smoky & the Banditesque black Trans Am complete with t-tops and golden screaming chicken on the hood. I remembered that he was from Wisconsin where his dad owned a huge dairy farm. I remembered everything.

Except his name.

Finally, it came to me - Mark Edwards. Twenty years ago, Mark was one of my 3 or 4 best friends my freshman year. He never returned my sophomore year, and by Christmas I'd transferred to CBC anyway.

We had great fun catching up. Since 1986, he's made and lost a fortune farming on a huge scale, conquered a brain tumor, and is laser-focused on ministry right now.

I have been horrible at keeping in contact with people - even people who have been very important in my life. I think I've gotten discouraged when making the phone calls that never get returned and kind of given up. Last weekend I felt convicted over it and called 3 people who I really did care about but hadn't talked to in some time. I'm done waiting. It feels too right to reconnect.

Good to see you today, Mark. Not sure if you read this up in Cheeseland or not. Either way, it was great to see you.

Bob the Tomato Gets Squashed

If this is accurate, then Phil Vischer is among the most naive people on the planet. I believe Jackson was 12 when this deal was inked and he called it back then.

God references quashed; 'VeggieTales' creator steamed

"VeggieTales" creator Phil Vischer, who was responsible for readying episodes for network broadcast, said he didn't know until just weeks before the shows were to begin airing that non-historical references to God and the Bible would have to be removed.

Maybe if they would have made Mr. Lunt a Scientologist...

Speaking Truth Forward...

I left the house this morning as the clock on the stove blinked 5:01, heading out for what has become a several-time-a-week ritual that I am calling the Morning Walk. It involves a couple of short podcasts, a cup of coffee, and about a mile of suburban Kansas City sidewalk. Around 5:10am, coffee still steaming, Garrison Keillor dropped one of those 'this date in history' things in my ears that pretty much shut down the iPod for the rest of the hike.

It turns out that on this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclaimation. He'd been mulling it over for quite some time, and on September 17, 1862, when the Union soldiers stopped the Confederates at Antietam, it gave him the courage to finish writing and start talking. While he didn't issue the actual order until January 1, today is the day that he came above ground with his insistance that the slaves, were, in fact, free men who deserved the same rights and protections the constitution gave slave owners.

This morning, as I walked up the sidewalk, it struck me that while this was entirely true on September 22, 1863, we're still working out the details on September 22, 2006. Whether or not Lincoln knew it would take this long or not is not the issue. He knew truth and he spoke it, even if making it happen was out of his hands.

Lincoln wasn't just issuing a governmental decree - he was prophesying. He was speaking an unseen reality, knowing that his speaking it was integral to it going from ethereal truth to terra firma reality.

Lincoln had no idea how the Civil War would land when he issued the proclaimation. It was his hope that slaves, bolstered by his decree, would rise up and overthrow the evil system that kept them bound, although he had no guarantees (and ironically, many in his own camp feared this reality). It was his conviction that slavery was wrong, and even though the Emancipation Proclaimation was the farthest thing from a concillitory move, he knew it was necessary if the Union was ever to end the war.

There is an element of Godly leadership that demands prophesying - speaking the truth of God, even when all earthly indicators point the other direction.

I don't know what you're leading - a business, a church, a family- but my guess is there are at least a few earthly indicators that point to the negative side. Perhaps several. Perhaps all of them (been there...). Let me encourage you - prophesy what is true, even if it's not seen. Even if it's not likely. Even if those around you scream for your head on a platter (that happens to truth-speakers on occassion) - prophesy. Call it like He sees it. Whole. Healed. Victorious.

Yogi Berra once said "I never would have seen it if I hadn't believed it." Neither will you.


Step back, ya'll. I'm fixin' to prophesy.

Just because I didn't blog...

Just because I didn't blog doesn't mean nothin's happening. In fact, it often means just the opposite.

Selah on that one for a while.

Closing out the 7 Year Celebration

Today was the third day of our 7 Year Celebration Feastravaganza*

For the third day in a row, we gathered as a family - albeit a 2,000 member family - and ate. And heard stories from our past. And ate. And laughed. And ate. We also had our share of freebies from the IHOP coffee shop in between more eating and laughing. Jackson did a video cast from the parking lot.

A highlight for me was Derek Loux's Acronym Song, preceded by Derek's dead-on imitation of Dave Sliker introducing it. Following the song, Dave took the microphone and announced that his public speaking career at IHOP was essentially over. That may have been an overstatement, but it's certainly going to be tough to hear Dave teach without seeing Derek's version in our heads.

All three days, Mike retold the stories of how IHOP was born, going 20+ years back to prophetic promises that are playing out with phenomenal accuracy. Hearing all this makes me feel like I'm standing chest-deep in fast moving water - some I'm walking, but some I'm being carried along by a force that started far back in history.

Once again, tonight, the chairs ended up stacked as the band rocked and the people danced. Unfortunately, Kelsey suffered a full blown dance injury. Someone came running to me and said "Kelsey fell!" I found her crumpled near the steps of the stage, holding her ankle. We don't think it's broken, but she's in a pretty fair amount of pain tonight Pray for her - she's a busy person and is already trying to figure out how she can drive the truck with her right ankle out of commisison.

*Feastravaganza was not part of the original name, I just like it a whole lot.

From Serve-Others.com

Steve Sjogren's got a new e-zine up and running with Next-Wave's Charlie Wear. They were hard up for writers, so I contributed this month.

"There is an unwritten (and wholly incorrect) rule that says if someone does something outlandish, the rest of us have to ignore it. I try to ignore this rule as much as possible."

7 years for what?

Yesterday began our three day feast/celebration marking IHOP's reaching the seven year mark of 24/7 prayer. Pop psychology says that the seven year mark of a marriage is often a watershed moment. Jacob was seven years into his work-to-wed program when he realized that he'd gotten the wrong woman. Seven years seems like a natural place of reflection.

Hearing that a prayer meeting, worship mixed with intercession, has been maintained around the clock for seven years has a funny effect on people. Many are stunned. Some think they've misunderstood ("24/7? around the clock? EVERY day?") Every once in a while I hear of someone who has a strange distaste for it. ("Seven years....and what do you have to show for it?")

I can't answer for everyone on the Missions Base, but I know what I'm here for.

I'm here by divine invitation. I did not hear the audible voice of God. I did not see writing in the sky. What did happen in the spring of 2003 is that we had a sudden, discernable tug on our hearts towards full time prayer and a fasted lifestyle. How do we know it was God? Well, for one think - it sure doesn't sound like the devil. Also, I personally was struck with a profound, God-given sense of boredom with what we were doing. I knew inwardly that this was what we were for.

I'm here for my kids. My guys are learning the disciplines of prayer and the principles of fasting. Their heroes, the 20-something prayer leaders and musicians, take them to Chipotle and challenge them to grow in God. Their leaders are crazy enough to let them pray and preach and sing, never sure if it's going to be for the breaking in of God or the finding of a hamster. They get to do the stuff.

I'm here in anticipation. Call me crazy (...pause for shouts of "CRAZY!") but I'm believing some stuff in this Book I've been reading. Stuff about God renewing His fame. Stuff about God rewarding hunger. Stuff about a kingdom. I'm certainly not so myopic as to believe one has to be in Kansas City to see any of that stuff, but it's where I'm choosing to be until the day...

So as I understand it...

1) Pope makes comments about the violent history of Islam.
2) Muslims are horribly offended at him and protest his remarks by firebombing unrelated churches.

I see.

Firebombings left black scorch marks on the walls and windows of Nablus' Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches. At least five firebombs hit the Anglican church and its door was later set ablaze. Smoke billowed from the church as firefighters put out the flames.

ignoring the peripherals

I'm working with this goofy new software application called WriteRoom. Without going into technical details, WriteRoom takes my high end 17 inch PowerBook and takes over the screen, leaving it black corner to corner, except for the lime green words that I type. In short, it looks like the goofy interface that I first worked with on an Apple II back in Velva Public High School in the dark ages.

This is the equivalent of driving a Porsche with the dash and steering wheel of a VW Bug. Sure, you could...but why? Because it makes the distractions go away. I can't fiddle with the font. I can't see the email or instant message icon bounce. I can't be tempted to link mid-sentence. All I can do is type in the dark, stopping every few sentences to sip the home brewed Dunn Brothers Guatemalan that sits on the night stand next to me.

I'm a notorious multi tasker. I'm not saying I'm good at it - just that I'm notorious for it. If I'm on the phone with you, I'm probably also checking my email. If I'm checking a spreadsheet, I'm also leaving a voice mail while chatting. Given ten fingers and two eyeballs, it seems like such a waste to just do one thing at a time...except that often I find myself doing three or four things poorly and nothing well.

Tonight, Grayson asked me for a favor. It was simple, really...Dad, will you go outside and play catch with me? I had plenty of genuine reasons to say no. I had things I needed to do. The kitchen needed cleaning up. Did I mention it was dark outside? Pitch black. So we went... We tossed a lumpy, fabric football back and forth in the yard. We didn't catch it very often, and I very nearly broke an ankle on a Tonka truck left in the yard...but we had fun. We talked. We laughed. And I think we made a memory.

Sometimes, it's good to type in the dark. The email icons will start bouncing soon enough.

A Second Opinion.

Sometimes it's good to hear a story from another angle. Check out Jackson's take on life at Camp Bennett. I'm telling you, if you missed it, you missed it.

finding great stories...

I am a huge fan of great stories. I love using stories when I'm speaking in front of a group - they often make the difference between an OK talk and a great one. The problem lies in finding the right stories. Obviously, personal experience stories are great, but sometimes you just need something else. And sometimes, they're tired of hearing your stories!

I read widely - mostly history - and love weaving real-life stories in, particularly telling them in a timeless manner, dropping the date in at the end to put a twist on it. People seem stunned to hear of real life people from the 1700's who dealt with the same relational quirks and petty feelings that they do. Sometimes it works with oddball characters too. I once had a group of teenagers in tears over a kid who had been picked on in Junior High, only to reveal later that it was Timothy McVeigh.

On my nightstand right now, you'll find Harvard and the Unabomber/the education of an american terrorist, and Ghost Ship/the mysterious true story of the Mary Celeste and her missing crew. I'm reading the first one because I think the more we learn about really 'bad' people, the more we realize that they're a little like the rest of us. I'm reading the second because it's an intriguing story that I'll synopsize and use later.

My latest and greatest resource for stories and odd factoids is the huge number of podcasts that are being produced daily. Taking what you hear in a 4 or 5 minute podcast and casually dropping it into a weekend talk makes you sound like a walking encyclopedia.

Here are a few that I regularly troll for stories.

NPR Shuffle
This daily podcast is a 20-minute best-of from several NPR shows such as All Things Considered. All you have to say is "I was listening to NPR this week...", which technically, is true.

Driveway Moments
Published once a week or so, these are the NPR stories that people end up sitting in the driveway listening too. A recent episode told the story of a Jesuit priest who gives gang members a job in his printing press business, "Homeboy Industries". It has some killer quotes about the value of working together.

National Geographic Video
These 4 minute video clips feature stories from obscure places, like the guy who dives into Mexico City's sewers to unclog the drains of branches, trash, and sometimes, dead bodies. Two words: Bad Job. What was really weird was he used to be a teacher and was elated with his new role.

The Economist
My friend Steve Sjogren got me hooked on reading his own back issues of this expensive, eggheaded print magazine, then yanked my supply (or I moved away, I forget...). Anyway, hear indepth interviews and economic theory. Even if you don't get it, you can smugly quip "I see the Economist says..." and pointy headed types in the room will suddenly respect you. Just pray they don't ask you any questions.


Obviously, I don't have time to listen to all of these podcasts every day. I currently subscribe to about 10 that I regularly dig into though. Airplanes are great for this, as are the 10 minutes in bed as you wait to drift off to sleep. Is it worth it? Oh yeah, especially when you can pull out a good story at just the right time.

2001 (posts) - A Blog Odysey

Shawn Blanc asked about my favorite posts....I quickly decided that I couldn't sift through the 2000 posts effectively, and even if I could, the new Blogger Beta is not letting me link to individual posts. So....instead I offer "Strange Seasons" - one month chunks of blogging that I found to be interesting times in our live.

Moving to Kansas City - August 2003
VCC to IHOP 600 miles and light years apart.

Blogging the Burn - late August, early September 2004
I like the photos as much or more than the text. Particularly the great shot of the bike riding lizard.

Life at Camp Bennett - January 2005
In retrospect, I make it sound nicer than it was. Seriously. One highlight of the month: the January 7 audiopost I left, feigning optimism as I drive around DC, lost as a goose in a hailstorm. Incidentally, we never even got close to landing internet service at Camp Bennett. I was so hopefull though....

My question to you - what post(s) stick out in your head?

My 2000th Post...

I've been watching this number approach for a few days. This is my 2000th post since I started blogging on October of 2002, meaning I've managed about 1.4 posts per day...holy smokes. Along the way, I have learned the following from the blogosystem (it's really not a sphere....):

Writing is about fluidity.
The more you write, the easier it is to do so. Most bloggers quit. Don't do that. Blog nonsense until lucidity rises to the surface.

Write about what you think is interesting.
Don't try and figure out what they think is interesting. You'll probably miss it anyway.

Write long enough and you'll write something you regret.
That's what the 'delete post' option is for. There is nothing noble about exposing your stupidity longer than necessary. I've removed many a post and never regretted it.

Bloggers are neither as cool or dorky as their blog would indicate.
I've managed to be linked to people in various places - sometimes I follow up on their blogs and even actually meet the people. There is more to a person than meets the RSS feed, that's for sure.

Some people are born lurkers.
I don't know who you are but you never comment. I have no idea why you read this. I find it mildly amusing at times. At other times, I feel like taking out a restrainer order against you. But mostly I like it when you pop in.


Blogging leads people to a false familiarity.
I have literally had total strangers walk up to me and start talking as if they know me. A couple of times it's been a little creepy. I know this is my own doing - it's not their fault. It's just that they're not aware that reading a blog is like watching a tv show. The characters on the show do not know you.

I like blogs of people I disagree with.
I'm highly suspicious of people who only read things that lines up with their perspective. I hope you disagree with me regularly.

2000 posts down. More to come....

Applevasion

I'm as Mac as the next guy, but this makes me nervous...

“Apple’s in your den now, right?” said Jobs. “iTunes on a Mac or a PC. Apple’s in your living room with iTV, driving your big flat-screen TV. Apple’s in your car, with over 70 percent of the 2007 model cars offering iPod connectivity. And of course, Apple’s in your pocket, with iPods.”

“Den, living room, car, pocket. And i hope this gives you a little idea of where we’re going,” said Jobs.

It's speculated that Jobs is trying to form a 10 Nation Coalition to propose a peace plan for the middle east involving a wireless socio-religious syncing of your thoughts, emotions, and soul that will allow you to buy or sell food, water, butter and guns on iTunes.

Maybe Daniele's right. There's a reason there's a bite out of the apple.

One step closer...

A finished kitchen became one step closer last night, as Chuck came over to install lighting in the kitchen. He had already done the two can lights over the stove, so next on the docket were the funky, five inch disk pendulem lights that hang over the island, giving it a sort of Star Trek look.

We did not consider something when we purchased these lights...it never occured to us that they were designed for use on remote jungle runways as a beacon to guide planes safely to the ground. Let's just say they've got 14x the candlepower one would expect from them.

Chuck originally hung them about three feet above the countertop, but the glare coming off the top of the discs caused small children to cower in the corner, shouting "Mommy! Mommy! Make it go away!", so he raised them up another foot, which lessened the effect considerably, although if Adam McArthur (6 ft, 8 inches) comes to visit, he's gonna get an eyeful.

I tried to get a photo of these for you but the glare renders any camera useless. Never fear, readers - we have landed on an answer. Two words: Dimmer switch.

Five Years Later...

Well, we're five years into the post-9/11 world. I told myself last week that I was not going to mention it in this space as it will likely be the most blogged topic of the day elsewhere. I woke up this morning, looked at iCal, saw the date, and realized it probably should be the most blogged topic of the day everywhere.

I have no poignant tribute or pithy summation...just the following observations.

I'm appalled at CNN's decision to rebroadcast the 9/11 events in realtime this morning. The crassness that must predicate this decision is unfathomable. As one person commented "I wonder if they'll provide a printable coupon for popcorn too?"

On 9/11/01, I was teaching a first hour class on Current Events at the Schilling School. Sometimes I wonder what happened to those kids - most of them in their twenties now, and can barely remember a time when we weren't at war with terror. And against terror. And in terror.

On 9/11/01, if you had told me that five years would pass without another major attack, I would have thought it impossible. On September 11, 2006, I still think another attack is inevitible, but most of America won't notice because they'll be watching a reality show on TV. TV is a little like pot in that it makes most people dumber over time. Should this earth continue to spin another few thousand years, they'll uncover our subdivisions in great archeological digs and announce "Surely Panasonic was some sort of god....".

Having started this post at the kitchen counter, I've now moved to the prayer room, where we're closing in on our seventh anniversary of 24/7 prayer. I'm struck with sobriety today....a sobriety of contrasting perspectives that I must embrace.

On this five year anniversary of that horrid crack in time, how does a timeless spirit-being, enveloped in a physical body, respond to physical terror? On one hand, we will soon be liberated from this body of death. On the other, we are tasked with utilizing and stewarding it to the best of our ability. It's as if God Almighty gave us a pouch of dust and told us 'Watch this for me..." to see if we would do it...and in waiting for His return, we've become convinced that the pouch is full of pure gold.

Give her credit...

I don't know Valerie Wilson, but I've got to give her credit - she's pretty sure of her standing before God. Different people determine those sorts of things a myriad of ways - some feel close to God when they sense Him near. Others, when they're arround their family. Valerie feels close to God when she wins the lottery. Again.

It turns out she won a million dollars back in 2002. She's no lottery diva. Not a ton changed for her. She bought houses for her children and kept showing up for work at the deli. What's really funny is that she just won the lottery again.

Apparently the State of New York will be forking over the cold hard cash one more time, and Valerie couldn't be happier. In the news article, she says:

"The first time I couldn't believe it...This time I said, 'God's on my side."'

So, there you have it. And to the thousands of others who bought tickets over the years and haven't won....well, you're going to need to find God somewhere else. Anyone for bingo?

Saturday @ the Bohlenders...

It was a workday today.

I began the morning in the kitchen, which incidentally, is looking more and more like a kitchen. The task was assembling the four new counterstools (chairs, really) to go around the bar. It was the best - a bonehead easy job, a fresh pot of Yukon Blend, and catching up on NPR Podcasts.

Like most assembly jobs, the first one took forty five minutes, the second took twenty, the third took fifteen, and by the time I got it down to ten, I had run out of counterstools.

Meanwhile, Kelsey was painting downstairs - we're prepping a room down there that will allow Jackson to move down, leaving us room for the new little girl up near our room. A while back, we walled off a portion of the basement to make this new bedroom, and it's looking really funky, with glazed, off-gold walls. (Danielle, if you saw what your old room looked like, you'd be tempted to move back!)

This evening, we did the floor, which (this part is totally true) involved ripping pieces of paper-bag style paper into ragged chunkes, coating them with a mix that I dubbed "Troll Snot", and smacking them down on the floor. Next, we stain it and polyurethane the whole mess.


While doing all this, we solved one of the mysteries of the universe: Namely, how did Kiwi the Black Bear Hamster end up in Jackson's room last week? Kiwi's cage is in the basement, and he's been known to make a break for it...but when he freaked Jackson out by running across his toes and Jackson was sitting at his desk, we assumed that ZB had put him upstairs and let him go. Zion flatly denied it, but with a grin that said "uh....Maybe."

Anyway, tonight I headed up the stairs to find something, and enroute, found Kiwi, halfway up the stairs and climbing. Fast. Hamster-ninja style. When confronted, he admitted wrongdoing and was quickly behind bars. No shots were fired.

In the "Great Minds Think Alike" Department

thoughts on God's extravagance...

The free market has hard wired us to associate value with supply and demand.

In our earthly lives, value is determined by availability. There is not much gold in the earth, so it is deemed a precious metal. This is why we use it to make jewelry rather than build houses with it. Dirt, on the other hand, is found everywhere, and in many places you can have as much as you want simply for hauling it away. Gold is hard to find. Dirt accumulates. Gold is priceless, dirt is...well, where did you think the phrase dirt cheap came from?

Here’s the paradox….love, as described by Paul the Apostle, is vast and inexhaustible, yet innately, we realize it is the most valuable thing – I Corinthians records it as a commodity greater than either hope or faith. How can it be both freely available and priceless?

Only God could orchestrate a relationship in which there is plenty of that which is most valuable.

In the Ask Your Mother Department:

"SO ISN'T THAT ADULTRY? I MEAN IF THEY ARE GOING TO MATE WITH MORE THAN ONE BEE, ISN'T THAT ADULTRY OF THE BEES?"

If you're ending a fast...

Let this be my humble recommendation. My three compatriots went cheese-only. I ordered mine full-on loaded. Be it noted that by the time it was over, they were snitching.

Art for Adoption!

Thanks to many friends far and near, we've raised a significant chunk of our adoption fund. We're about $6,000 short of the goal and hearing weekly about potential adoptees, so we know we need to land the last part soon.

Our friend Lyne Willis has graciously offered one of her original paintings for auction to help raise funds!


Titled "Mary", the painting is on paper, 27x35 with mat and frame. We have an unpublished reserve for the painting because my blog is not well read by the fine arts crowd, but wanted to put it out here first.

For the winning bidder, we will put it behind glass or plexi (your choice). Auction winner pays actual shipping charges.

It is flat gorgeous and would look great on your wall! Auction will run 10 days, until noon of September 16th, 2006.

Email your bid to me (rbohlender at gmail). If by chance, you're below the reserve, I'll let you know so you can scare up a few more dollars.

Bid amounts will not be announced, so give it your best shot!

What a difference a door makes....

The Today Show had it all wrong with their tagline "What a difference a day makes....". It's not the day that makes the difference, it's a door.

I now have a door.

You kind of have to understand IHOP to realize what an amazing thing this is. Offices - particularly solitary offices - are hard to come by. I have been working out of a cube for a year, and a meager cube that that. It was fun to shout wisecracks across the cube at those working in my area, but it was horrible for actually getting work done. Answering email became a group activity. Working a spreadsheet? Almost impossible. And heaven help the fool who's trying to write in there, with three sets of computer speakers blasting out tinny renditions of three different styles of music.

All this shifted recently in a flurry of two by fours and drywall. My cube was obliterated in the Office Destruction Act of 2006. The resulting shuffle of office space (not unlike those little tile games where you move squares around to make a smiley face appear) meant that some people moved to new offices while someone (that would be me) scored an older one. I took it and was happy.

Now that I see the new ones, I'm elated. The older one, even with it's frightful green and brown paint job, is infinetely superior to the new ones. I have a window. I have a counter/top desk. And I have a door. Oh, blessed door, thou swingeth on hinges, too and fro. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

I also have plenty of plug ins, a couple of leather chairs, and because no one else spoke up, a pretty killer Brother printer. I will now be a picture of creativity and productivity. Because I can shut the door.

Uh, I guess I'd better get to work.

on being 39

Having just read the post below in it's entirety, I realize it is likely one of the more stream-of-consciousness posts I've ever written. I was tempted to delete it for it's incoherence, but I decided not to, because I think months down the road, perhaps I'll understand it...and if I understand it, then that's good enough for me.
---

A few weeks back, I turned 39. This had little to no effect on me at the time, although in the last few days, I've been thinking about what I want to feel at 40. It was a teaching my Mark Driscoll that got me thinking this route.

I like Driscoll. I don't agree with everything he says, and some things I agree with but would say differently, but given the chance to have a latte with Driscoll, Malcolm Gladwell or John Quincy Adams, I'd have to think long and hard to make the choice because I find them all so fascinating. I think I'd like to talk to all three at once. Driscoll on the left, John Q on the right, and of course, Malcolm in the middle.

Anyway, back to the teaching by Driscoll and the impending arrival of my 40th birthday. In the talk, he suggestings picking what you want to be doing at a future date and back-engineering the accomplishment...in other words, "On Sept 1, 2007, I want to ______" and then figure out what you should be doing now to get there.

Of course, this is not brain surgery. Driscoll is not the first to suggest it, nor will he be the last. He's just the one who got me thinking. Understand, I like my life. I am very happy with my now. But if my now is my then, then that means this is that and this is not all that great.

I started jotting dreams in my journal recently. Not the eyes closed type of dreams. The spirit open type...the blow the lid off, what if, no caveat sort of dreams that my cynic heart finds it's way to once in a blue moon. I have even been brave enough to speak of them a little. In a joking way, the way you want to speak of things if you want to be able to back off and insist you were kidding.

But I am not kidding.

I mean some of this stuff. Deep inside, I mean it. I'm life and death serious on the inside. I'm moving toward saying it without the caveats.

I stuck a sticker on my moleskine journal this morning. That makes three. No biggie to most of you, but this is the first journal I've stuck stuff on - the first several journals remained funeral-home black on the outside, with all the color and text and dreams on the outside.

I think that subconsciously, the stickers on the outside of this one signify something. Maybe it's time the creativity moved to the covers instead of the inner pages of my heart.

furniture for sale. long term payments.

Kelsey came with me to the 6am this morning, and enroute talk drifted to someone who'd recently been in the news. "Weren't they married to ________", I asked? Turns out they were. That got me thinking about how sad a world it is where those that we'd wish we could call roll models have been married four times and are the first to admit they don't know jack about relationships.

With that on my brain, I found my place in the prayer room and opened to the book of Proverbs. Chapter 24, verses 3 & 4 jumped off the page at me.


By wisdom a house is built / and through understanding it is established

through knowledge its rooms are filled / with rare and beautiful treasure

It's always a delight when truth is also good poetry. I love the rhythm of those two verses. The cadence in which I hear 'rare and beautiful treasure' has stuck in my heart.

Making a life together...marriage and family...really does reflect the process of building a house and outfitting for life. I've been in some homes that were beautiful on the outside and yet had been decorated horribly. I've seen others built under tenuous circumstances, yet quite cozy inside. Even in redecorating this kitchen of ours, I've seen how the best of intentions can go awry if you don't think every step through. (Can you say 'fridge water line'? :) )

The thing I am doing that will have the longest range impact right now is building my house. Determining my foundational stones. Selecting where I'll put the doors. Deciding which way I want the picture window to face.

Even more importantly, God has given me rooms to furnish. Rooms with names. Rooms with dirt on their faces and fashionably shaggy hair. Rooms with souls. It's my hearts prayer that I furnish each of those rooms with rare and beautiful treasure.

Now THIS is marketable...

We've all been there...standing in line at the Genius Bar, ready to have our problem diagnosed and BAM! We get booted by an Apple ProCare member.

Jackson had this idea...check out the perks on his blog!

In the "This is not right" department.

I simply offer the link. Go and see it for yourself. You'd never believe me if I told you.

A Blatant Rip Off

Every once in a while, I've done one of those "who are you?" appeals and generally have gotten nowhere, which leads me to beleive that four of you are checking this blog fifty times a day. Yesterday, however, the good Reverend Hodge did the same thing and got a great response, so I am assuming it's my approach that's failing.


In true creative fashion, I am ripping his post off word for word, for my own purposes.


Pretend I look like Scott. Pretend the picture is mine and I wrote the words below, then respond by giving me your who and where, no matter if I know you or not. (plagurizing begins now...)

_____________

Ok, I need everyone's help with this because I'm finding myself intrigued by how many people are visiting my blog on a regular basis. You people are from all over the world!!

I'm dying to know who you are and where you're from.

So please, do me a favor. Leave a comment with your name and where you're from.

C'mon, humor me! I am really interested!

___________
If it worked for Scott....it can work for me.

Pray for the Farmers

Scott and Amy Farmer, missionaries here at the International House of Prayer, just had a beautiful little baby girl, Olivia Anne. The are asking for our prayers - Olivia's heart has not formed fully.

Please read Josh's well-written synopsis and pray like she was your own.

Good Morning from our SUV

Dear Mr. Dunn and Mr. Dunn,

I write this message while balancing my computer on my knees, sitting in my truck outside your coffee shop. This was not my intention.

You see, I have a 7am appointment inside your coffee shop, and figured that I'd come about 30 minutes early to spend some quality time with the coffee before having to break the silence and talk about who knows what with the church planters who have sought me out (and what a sorry lot they must be for doing so....). I cannot adequately express how disheartened I was to discover that your shop does not open until 7am on Saturdays.

What kind of a coffee shop doesn't open until 7am? Do you not understand that the very nature of coffee drinkers is to be up early? This is crazy.

The rebel in me wants to walk across the parking lot to the Phillips 66 station and get one of those 99 cent cups of swill and come back to drink it on your patio in rebellion. The coffee snob in me tells me to sit and wait in hopes that you're serving Organic Peru again this morning, in which case I will forget all transgressions.

Twenty minutes....twenty minutes......

Oh man.

OK, once in a while, I read a blog post that just about makes the Yukon Blend come out my nose. That was the case this morning, thanks to IHOP's Bookstore Baronness, Kristen, who starts a recent entry with:

"hit another possum...This time I didn't turn around, I just gunned it and smiled. Clearly it had been one of those days. "