Another thing society has decided

I'm sick and tired of all these stories that suggest "Fat People are costing us all money!" As if somehow this was something that people do out of spite to skinny people everywhere. Its bad enough being ostracized from society, made fun of, and all the rest that goes with being overweight, but to have to take the blame for high medical costs as well?!

Do the math people! If 10% of all health care costs go to fat people that means that 90% of all health care costs don't go to fat people. Skinny people live longer. Therefore they use more medical expenses over longer periods of time. Further, the only reason fat people's health care costs can be quantified (allegedly) is that they tend to develop the same medical problems (heart problems, etc...). Well, by that token we could also quantify how much money is spent on health care for women (maternity and OB/GYN) or Black People (sickle-cell) or Gay People (AIDS) or whatever... Should we decide that women spend too much money on mammograms? Or perhaps we should just let people with AIDS die out since that would save some money there?

Everyone of us will develop some medical condition in our life. Some of these medical conditions will have been avoidable (like broken limbs from skiing, for instance). Some will not. The cumulative effect of all our medical conditions will decide the quality of our life. But to lump an entire class of people together because of one shared condition and then suggest that that condition is what keeps health care costs high is prejudicial and stupid. After all, people who have cancer spend WAY more on medical coverage than anyone else - and scientists have been telling us for years all the things that cause it. So clearly cancer is avoidable as well. Let's start talking about cancer patients as being drains on our pocketbooks and see how far that flies!

Okay, rant mode off. Some things you just have to get off your chest.

Buy Three Miles or One Lego Brick or One Bag O' Rice!

Somewhere in your life, there is money lying around doing nothing. Lazy Money is a problem that affects 99 out of 100 Americans. But fortunately for you, there is a cure.

In the far off land of Kenya there are people who have a very vigorous exercise program for money. You send your money to this program and it will be stretched, used, invested, and put to such good use that you will be amazed at how far your money can go.

For instance: For every lazy dollar you send, three miles of ocean, land, air, and other assorted planetary mass can be traveled over by one intrepid person (me). I should know. So far I have been able to leap over 300 MILES on just pocket change! That's very well exercised money indeed!

For instance: For just five lazy dollars you can buy one Lego brick. Now, that may not sound like much, but 700 of these Lego bricks magically transform into a complete HOUSE in Kenya. 700 plastic bricks = 1 home. That's not something that even Ty can accomplish on Extreme Home Makeover!

For instance: For just forty lazy dollars, you can clear a pad of ground, fill it with nutrients and water, plant seeds, watch it grow, cultivate the rice grains, dry them, bag them and deliver them to starving children in a home on a mountainside halfway around the world in Kenya - thus feeding the children for a short time. When was the last time your dollars even did half of that?

Your dollars are lazy, flabby things. Send them to me and I promise to make them strapping and handsome again! There won't be a bit of fat on them when I am done with them.

So, send your lazy do-nothing dollars to:

Lakeside Presbyterian Church PC(USA)
201 Eucalyptus Drive
San Francisco, CA 94132

Please include a note that says: These dollars are for the Kenya Children Mission Project. And, if you'd like to help send me to Kenya, please also note: For Will Robison's Kenya Travel. Whether this money sends me to Kenya or helps children in Kenya directly, your dollars will not go to waste.

Thank you for listening to my message. I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Lest I get into a rut...

Sometimes your life is about Kenya, sometimes not. As much as I want to go, I have to remember to maintain a fair and balanced life that includes my other interests. For some reason, my mind has wandered in different directions this week. That's okay. It'll come back to Kenya before too long - of that I am certain.

You see, I apply the same sort of lack of mental discipline in all things that I do. I let my mind free to wander wherever it may go. Unfettered it can take me into some pretty strange places, but eventually it gets bored with its wanderings and comes back refreshed and usually with some keen new insight into a former problem.

For instance, I have not applied any sort of rigid control on my brain in trying to figure out the brief synopsis of my second planned novel (of a trilogy). I just sort of let my brain wander. As a result, it has taken some time to get from point A to point Z, and my brain has taken some interesting turns along the way, but it finally produced a conclusion this week. I'm happy to say that the synopsis for novel #2 is done and its pretty good. Now, I let my brain loose again to finish off the trilogy so that I can finally sit down and start writing the first novel. (You see, I kind of need to know the ending of the story before I write the beginning - which is why I need to at least plan out the second and third books of the trilogy before I start writing the first).

My brain has also been distracted with the arrival of my new camera and the impending start of my second film. I've been cramming an entire semester's worth of digital film making knowledge into one week of study, just to get started. This sort of technical knowledge is fascinating and mentally draining - which tends to make my artistic side of the brain wander all the more and further afield (which explains why I am always a mental basketcase at the end of the school year).

So in pursuit of purely intellectual and artistic goals this week I have not had time nor the energy to work on Kenya. But I don't feel negligent, just absent. You see all of these pursuits serve some sort of higher purpose in the long run though I don't always know what that purpose might be - kind of like algebra in high school. Some of the strangest bits of knowledge that I've gleaned on these flights of fancy have proved to be rather helpful on occasion - I even remember one little bit of knowledge that calmed a storm brewing in Naval Intelligence (but, of course, I can't talk about it).

As you can imagine, I'm a big fan of the Beatle's song, "A Day In The Life." Where It will go, indeed...

Have a great weekend!

Countdown to Kenya Antarctica - Day Fourteen

Some people like warm, tropical climates. I mostly prefer cold isolated places. I can't explain it, but places like Iceland, Alaska, and Idaho (in the winter when the fishing is crappy) appeal to me. Perhaps its a natural reaction to growing up in a city full of people. At some point, you just want to get away from it all... far, far, away.

As a result, one of the places I've always wanted to visit has been Antarctica. When I was in the Navy, I even inquired about being stationed there for a six month tour. Being an intelligence specialist sort of kept me out of the loop on that one... not too much need for interrogating penguins apparently. So, instead, as I got older, wiser, and had higher limits on my credit cards, I started preparing for a trip to Antarctica.

My first bit of knowledge - it costs about $6000 on a good day to take a cruise there. That's pretty much where I stopped preparing. I don't mind maxing out my credit cards, but I'd like to do it a little at a time - not on one roll of the dice.

However, my dream of going to Antarctica has never been fully vanquished - not so long as there's a lottery to win. For the past several years now, I've been keeping track of cruise costs in the hopes that they would have gone down. Alas... they've gone the other direction and I'm further from my goal than ever before.

Now that God has made this rather inconvenient request of me to travel to Kenya and I've agreed to go that great tempter, Satan, has really gone out of his way to drag me back over to his camp. Not only has he thrown Antarctica back in my face again, but he's added a new wrinkle that is literally kicking me in the face with desire.

You see, National Geographic Travel sent me a flyer yesterday for their latest two week cruise to Antarctica with an added bonus - guest speaker and fellow traveler, Neil Armstrong.

Neil! Freaking! Armstrong! - the first man who ever walked on the moon - one of the greatest heroes in the history of heroes - will be traveling on a cruise to the place on the planet I most want to visit. I could go there together with this man. I could finally meet one of my most beloved icons and visit one of my touchstone locations at the same time and for the same price.

Of course, Satan didn't contend on one thing more powerful to my soul than even God's command. At heart, I've still got Scottish roots, and the National Geographic Cruise costs $10,000 or more. For that amount, Neil Armstrong would have to be my roommate.

Sorry Satan... Kenya is still my destination of choice.

Countdown to Kenya - Day Nine

My special thanks to Randall Sherman for hooking me on the "Reluctant Memsahib" blog from Tanzania. Anthea is the mother of four living in a far away outpost of Tanzania trying to make ends meet. Her blog is a story of Africa, but also a story of a family struggling with the day to day issues of life. As such it feels so familiar and yet so exotic - which is an incredibly mesmerizing and addiction forming combination. If there is a more perfect antidote for the kind of anxiety I displayed in my last post, I don't know what it is.

One of the issues I've been struggling with this week is the thought of why I am going to Kenya. At our last meeting, I heard the familiar refrains of mission travelers everywhere, "Why go at all? Surely the money can be better spent... blah, blah, blah..." These are the questions of people that have never taken any sort of mission trip, but that would never question spending thousands of dollars to travel to exotic locations on a vacation. The same argument could be made about a vacation, by the way. Why go to all the way to Italy when you could just visit North Beach in San Francisco and save thousands of dollars? However, every time the question is asked of me I still question my motivations.

For me, the answer is fairly clear. I'm going to Kenya because God called me to go. I don't say that like I've got some sort of direct line to Heaven and that God wanted me to go to Kenya specifically cause nobody else can do what I can do. I'm not some sort of savior of Africa. Heck, I don't even really have any idea what I can do there, or if I'm even needed. I might spend the entire time there sick with malaria for all I know. I say it because its a fact. Before God clearly told me to go to Kenya, I really had no notion of going. None. As a vacation, sure, maybe... but it's an awful long ways to go to see some animals in overgrown vegetation. And as far as being a missionary... there are other people way more qualified than I am. But my opinion on this matter doesn't count. God called me to go, and I have humbly accepted the task. What I do when I get there is anybody's guess.

But that lack of knowledge about what I can do in Kenya can really make one question their motives. Is there some secret desire on my part to go to Kenya? Did I imagine the whole God thing because deep down inside I've always wanted to go there? Am I really just acting out some sort of savior complex? Do I believe I'm going to make a difference and save Kenya?

I don't suppose that the fact that I think these questions are absurd clears me entirely. So, for the record, my answer to all these questions is no. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, no.

I'm going to Kenya because God is calling me there. Of my trip, I can say three things with certainty. I will not be able to go without God's help. I have no idea what I'm going to do there. And I'm sure I'll take more from Kenya than I'll ever be able to give back. I expect to be changed. I hope that I can also help Kenya change - for the better. But that's really in God's hands. I'm just going along for the ride.

Countdown to Kenya - Day Seven

A zebra charges Kenya Wildlife Service rangers at a ranch west of Nairobi on July 30, 2007. The rangers are relocating some 2,000 animals, including hundreds of zebra and impala, from this ranch and two other locations to Meru National Park, which has been devastated by poaching.

Photograph by Boniface Mwangi/Reuters

My thanks to National Geographic for this update from 2007. I saw this photo and it just made me laugh. I suppose being chased by a wild animal is not anything to laugh about, but at the same time, the fact that they can be chased by a wild animal, that there are still zebras to see in this world, can bring a smile to my face.

I've been browsing photos for pictures of Meru in particular and Kenya in a broader context. I'm experiencing culture shock in bits and pieces as I try to imagine myself inside these photos. A photo of a bus station in nearby Nanyuki looked so foreign to me that I almost could not imagine the sights and sounds and smells of the place.

I guess I don't want to admit to being a sheltered American. I've traveled, after all, and visited places all over the United States, Europe, and Canada. But the closest I've come to this kind of poverty was in Mexico when I was a kid - crossing over the Rio Grande from El Paso. It was so exotic and third world feeling that I admit to not liking it at all. Give me the sanitized street scenes of Morocco at Disney World any day. Let me marvel at the spectacle of Neunshwanstein in Germany. Pierce my soul with the haunting beauty of the Pieta in the Vatican. Don't let me get dirty in the slums of a distant country. Don't put me in harms way around people that don't look or act or talk like me. And definitely don't make me eat their strange food.

At heart, I guess I'm just an armchair adventurer. I want the thrill and excitement of Indiana Jones without all the muss and fuss of actually experiencing the foreignness of a place. I like Panda Express. I hate Chinatown. I like Taco Bell. I hate the Mission District. I have a hard time leaving my comfort zone. So much for being an anthropologist.

To be fair, it can be incredibly uncomfortable going to a new place and meeting new people. I have actually a fairly good track record when it comes to stepping out on my own and seeking adventure. Through the Navy and beyond, I've lived and worked in many places around the country and I've always adapted to the location that I've gone. My "reaction" to these locations is more a sign of my fear and anxiety about the unknown. Once I'm there and once I get to know a place, I quickly become a native.

I didn't know squat about Hawaii when I arrived (and talk about a foreign country ;) but within six months I was comfortable enough to walk 15 miles from my base to my apartment at night - just to see if I could do it. I may hate change and I may love the known a little too much, but I'm perfectly capable of thriving in a foreign setting.

I look at pictures of Kenya and I see a dirty, dusty, backwards town that scares the heck out of me (somewhat because of how Disney-esque it really looks ;) and then I think of what I'm being called to do and I just know that I will fall in love with Kenya. Fear is always irrational in the end.

Countdown to Kenya - Day Six

Praise God! For He provides all of our blessings.

I have been struggling to translate into words this feeling of inner completeness that I've been experiencing since last week. It flows, in part, out of my discussion on the faith of the disciples on the boat and Jesus's suggestion that they should have just calmed the waves themselves. I realize that that's just my interpretation, but I have found it to be a profound interpretation. I've spent the last week trying to figure out how to calm the waves.

Clearly the Bible is filled with God's miracles. In fact, you might say the entire book from cover to cover is just one long miracle. That the awesome and majestic creator of ALL things should want to have a personal relationship with me is pretty darn miraculous. Heck, I know plenty of people here on Earth that don't want to even give me the time of day. Some of that, maybe, I deserve. And that's the point. If I deserve being ignored by people here, imagine what I deserve in my relationship with God. And yet, He still wants to have this relationship with me - with all of us! That's pretty miraculous.

Understanding that calming the waves would be a miracle, however, doesn't tell me how to do it. Is there a certain flick of the wrist? A tone of the voice? Do I hold up a staff or bang it down on the boat and cry, "You SHALL NOT storm!" in my best Gandalf voice? See, that's part of the problem. My idea of miracles is shaped by Hollywood, and Hollywood's idea of a miracle is that SOMEONE has to do them - thus lending the power of the miracle to the person and not to the actual miracle. You don't get Danny DeVito to part the Red Sea, you get Charlton Heston. But I'm guessing Moses was probably closer to DeVito than to Heston.

So in my best producer like way, I decided to break down the problem one step at a time and I started with a relatively "simple" miracle - God's granting of a son to Abraham, despite his advanced age. I pictured this old man with his old wife (something like the happy couple at the beginning of UP) who have had one break after another and just haven't had a child yet. And God tells them that they will have a child. Abraham must have been thinking, "You're crazy!" but he just nodded and accepted that God could do anything He wanted.

How does the miracle work then? Is it simply faith? Did Abraham believe it would happen, so it did? No. There is no trigger. There is no formula. There are no magic words to make miracles happen, because a miracle is not magic.

When I was a kid and I got in trouble and I knew that I was going to be beaten within an inch of my life, I always found it to be a miracle when my parents would console me instead and treat me with love. In fact, any time where I was certain something bad would happen and instead it turned into something good, something beyond what I could have ever hoped for because it defied everything I knew to be possible, I chalked that up as a miracle.

Abraham and Sarah had a son, Isaac, beyond all their expectations in their old age because God granted them a child. God created the child for them, like He creates all children, out of love. It was a miracle that they had a child at such an advanced age - but the miracle was not in the creation of the child, the miracle was in the gift that they received from God. All such gifts show us that God loves us enough to personally intervene on our behalf. All such interventions are called miracles. Miracles are love just as God is love.

If I were a kid living day by day wondering if I was going to eat that day, struggling to survive in a hot and dusty slum in Kenya, dealing with all the terrible conditions there and not knowing any other existence, it would be a miracle if someone from the other side of the world who had never met me were to just show up one day and feed me, clothe me, and send me to school. This would be a miracle because I would have no expectation that people from half the world away would show such love to me. This would be a miracle because such a thing could not happen without God showing His love to me. There would be no magic words to make this happen. No special hand movements. No dance or song or anything I could do to make it happen. Impossible for me, but for God, its simply showing His love.

That is how I can calm the storm - with love.

Kenya Children's Mission Group Info

By Robert Taussig (reprinted with permission)

The Kenya Children Mission Project Lakeside Presbyterian Church PC(USA)

Mission Statement: We assist poor, downtrodden children and their families in Meru, Kenya, children orphaned by HIV/AIDs, some raised by equally poor, single grandparents without housing or tillage; others living on the street, with no hope of a better life. We are partnering with Meru’s agencies and churches to provide these children with food, school fees/uniforms, healthcare and love, showing that real people care about them.

Affiliation: Lakeside Presbyterian Church PC(USA), 201 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco, CA 94132; member of the San Francisco Presbytery and Synod of the Pacific.

Brief history: The Lakeside Kenya Children Mission Project has been in existence since May, 2008 and is a formally approved mission by the Session of Lakeside Presbyterian Church. The Mission Group was founded specifically with the objective of helping poor, hungry, downtrodden children living on the street or in rural settings without the means to grow up as productive members of their society. The first trip to Kenya was made in Jan-February of 2009 to focus on the township of Meru, about 180 kilometers north of Nairobi, where our mission leader, Karl Morthole, had taught in a ‘Harambee’ (self-help) secondary school from late 1969 to 1972 under the auspices of the UPC(USA)’s Commission for Ecumenical Mission and Relations, the Methodist Church in Kenya, and the National Christian Council of Kenya. During this trip, roughly 15 different groups were contacted and met personally in Meru to determine the extent and capability of their support for poor, orphaned children, and ability to partner.

From that survey, 4 groups were selected as the initial partners, with the understanding as our mission grows and diversifies with additional experience, that we might support additional groups and/or increase the level of effort for those that we had already selected. Our support will be in the form of school fees, funding for food, clothing, and medicine, and for hands-on support in Meru during our mission trips to supply direct nursing assistance, repair of homes, facilities, drilling for water and possibly supplying critical equipment such as computers, photovoltaic cell power systems, batteries, satellite dishes, and vehicles, depending on the urgency of the need.

Examples of how gifts to our organization are used: One hundred percent of all gifts to the Lakeside Kenya Mission will accrue to the benefits of the mission children and their families, and to the activity of our partner organizations in Meru supporting these same mission efforts. Gifts made through our church are tax deductible via our 501(c) 3 status. Our partner organizations are: The MCK Runogone Church, Ripples International, and the street children programs supported by the Methodist Church of Kenya at the Catholic Consolata Mission location in the Mjini slum of Meru, and in the Nkabune area of the Diocese of Meru.
The first mission financial contributions from our Lakeside Church congregation were delivered to each of our four Kenyan partner organizations in June, 2009 to provide funds for food, medicine, school uniforms and fees. Our mission team operating expenses are entirely supported by the mission members themselves. All mission members pay for their own trip costs to and from Kenya, and for their travel-living expenses within Kenya.

We are encouraged that college age members of our congregation are interested in this mission. We plan to bring them as young missionaries to Kenya as soon as it is feasible to do so. An effort is being made to involve other churches of the San Francisco Presbytery in our mission, to bring their special talents to aid these poor Kenyan children. Our hope is, God willing, to maintain our personal presence in Kenya for a month or so each year, and possibly more often, to help our world grow closer together in spirit and fact. We invite and will help to develop longer-term support for this mission in Kenya.

A key purpose of our mission is to support these children in the spirit of Christ and to ensure that our contact with them makes this purpose clear. Each of our partner organizations in Meru is devoutly Christian, carrying forth His message in their daily endeavors and devotions. Runogone Church has recently raised funds for another building on the church grounds to accommodate the increase in mission activity related to the poor children and their single parents or grandparents in their area. Ripples International has recently constructed a Chapel and three story hospital on a plot of land sufficient to provide housing, a vegetable farm and some livestock to increase their capability to care for both the health and the spiritual life of their orphaned children.

We encourage prospective donors to the Kenyan Children Mission Project of Lakeside Presbyterian Church to contact our mission group to get the most up-to-date news and information on this Project. We intend to periodically update this mission information and will list the latest entry date here: July 10, 2009.

Contact Information: Please contact us through our Mission Director, Karl Morthole, by email (karl@morthole.com), by telephone at 415-986-0227 or by mail at Lakeside Presbyterian Church PC(USA), 201 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco, CA 94132 if you have any questions or would like to discuss the current status of our mission activities.

Countdown to Kenya - Day Three

Does it sometimes seem like everything hits at once? Kenya is getting called out by President Obama as needing to reform its corrupt practices. Even in my short time dealing with Kenya, I can see that these systems are in place and will probably need to be navigated around. Fortunately, none of the people we'll be dealing with directly are involved in any of that. But this can be a part of doing business in any part of the world (whether its called outright a bribe or disguised as a legitimate "fee", it still amounts to the same thing... Yes, I'm talking to you BofA!)

At the same time, Kofi Annan, former head of the UN, basically dropped Kenya into a world of trouble when he decided to, more or less, wash his hands of the whole Post-Election Violence investigation. It seems that the Kenyan's, rather than launching a legitimate investigation into the violence of nearly two years ago, had almost managed to get another one year extension on their ongoing investigation. Annan said, "Justice delayed is justice denied," and turned in all of his paperwork to the Hague which has decided to launch it's own investigation into the post-election violence. The Kenyan government is now scrambling to show that its investigation is ongoing and yielding results, especially since the current political leaders of the country will not be exempt from the Hague's investigation.

The same thing seems to be happening to my Friday, though on a far smaller and more annoying scale. Work is difficult... but at least difficulties mean that I still have work, and for that I'm grateful.

Have a good weekend.

Countdown to Kenya - Day Two

So yesterday, I stood in the harbor with my flashlight in one hand, my crown on my head, and a giant marble tablet in the other hand and I cried out, "Give me your tired, poor, huddled old coins yearning to breath free!" I collected all my old used coins, counted them all up, and am now $96 closer to Kenya. $96 down, $3504 to go! Of course, it took me like four years to save up those coins, so... I'm going to have to come up with other methods of raising money.

Now Dave Lamb (aka Pastor Dave... aka Ranger Rick... aka That John Denver Look-Alike ;) had an interesting question yesterday and I thought I'd address it. You all know why I'M going to Kenya, but you probably don't have a clue why WE'RE going to Kenya. So let me back track...

Really, this whole thing begins and ends with Karl Morthole. Back in the day he was a PeaceCorp volunteer in Meru, Kenya, working with a school as a teacher. Though he went on with his life after he left Kenya, Kenya never really left him.

Jump forward a number of years and Karl started going back to Kenya for visits and reunions. While there, he discovered that his former school needed some assistance, so he brought the issue to Lakeside and we generously donated some money for school uniforms and other projects. The Youth Group at the time even sponsored an AIDS Education program out of Meru.

But Karl started thinking there was more that he could do, so he decided to go back and help Kenyan farmers by setting up a coffee exchange here in the United States. Unfortunately, that's a rather tough market to crack.

All of this was going on sort of at his behest and completely on his own. Lakeside supported Karl and his efforts, but they were his efforts.

On a completely different tack, a group of Lakesider's were getting together to study missional programs and the deepening of their commitment to Christ. Out of this group, which included Karl, a number of them got together and decided that they wanted to form a small group Mission Study Group, to figure out if there was a better way of doing mission at Lakeside. After a relatively short debate, they realized that there was one person amongst them that already had a passionate mission going - so they formed the Kenya Mission Group.

I joined the group earlier this year and the very first thing that occurred after I joined was a short fact finding trip by two of the group members. They went to Kenya to find a mission program that Lakeside could partner with. Kenyan people helping Kenyan people with Lakeside helping them. We didn't want to be in charge, we only wanted to assist. Well, the trip was so successful that we had a real hard time narrowing the assistance down to four groups and six different missions.

We are currently supporting four different missions in Kenya. Two of the groups are children's feeding programs located near slum neighborhoods in Meru (and just outside Meru). These programs feed up to 120 kids a day and try to get them school uniforms and into schools. (Kenya has free education for grade school, but not free uniforms). These are the programs that I'll be working with mostly. Another of the programs is the Runogone Church in Meru that has taken a pledge to help up to 200 families in their community that are either in poverty or right on the edge. They are doing much the same as the other groups, but on a much larger scale. And the final program is Ripples International - a Kenyan program with funding from all over that has several different missions. The ones that we are working with are their programs dealing with AIDS Testing and Consulting, Abandoned Infant Care, and Help for Young Battered Women (teens and younger that have often been sexually assaulted).

We are raising funds and awareness for these groups and in less than six months, we will send a team of people to Meru to physically help in any way that is possible - including drilling a couple of wells to help them deal with crop sustainability.

This is an ongoing effort - not one that ends in six months and two weeks - when I return from Kenya. We have no illusion about our ability to completely end suffering, but we are doing what we can to help and God willing that help will go far.

I hope that answers all of your questions.

Countdown to Kenya - Day One

I've been visited today by my alter-ego, Dr. Wig. He is the fun side of my personality - the one who sees everything in a positive light. He's been woefully missing during the last couple of months and it was good to have him back in charge of the ol' brain for a while.

Of course, he's spent most of the day mocking me for my lack of faith on Kenya. He's reminding me of how far I've got to go on this whole faith thing.

For instance, I've always read that Luke passage that I quoted a couple of days ago as Jesus chastising his disciples for waking him when clearly the storm would have not killed them so long as Jesus was aboard. "Where is your faith?" Or to paraphrase, "Surely you didn't think God was going to sink this ship while I was aboard, did you?" But I suddenly realized this week that Jesus was not questioning their faith because the disciples were scared of sinking, He was questioning their faith because they bothered Him at all. "Where is your faith?" I.E. Why did you wake me? Why didn't you just calm the seas?

I've been setting out on the boat journey's of life with a life vest. I've taken my oars. I've remembered my fishing tackle, my GPS, my radio to call for help, my navigational charts, even my flares... but I don't think I've ever packed my Storm Quelling Kit.

It sounds ridiculous until you read the Bible and see what His disciples and all manners of great Biblical leaders were able to accomplish with little more than faith. Imagine walking into a gathering of crazed religious fanatics and challenging them to a duel of the gods. Imagine having them call upon their god to light a Weber Grill and failing... to be expected, of course. But imagine then taking the same Weber Grill, dousing it with water, and calling upon God to light that puppy from Heaven. What do you REALLY think would happen?

Or what if you were commanded to have the Earth spin backwards one day? Or you were being pursued by an entire army down to the banks of an impassable channel of water? Or what if you were commanded to attack an entire army with just a handful of men? (none of whom looked like Gerald Butler from 300 ;)

I think the least of God's troubles would be for me to find a way to Kenya. To Him, this might be the equivalent of worrying whether He'll remember to breathe in the next second. Get Will to Kenya? Got anything a little more challenging?

I mean how small must my faith be if faith the size of a mustard seed can move entire mountains?

See... Dr. Wig is a good mocker and I'm glad he's back inside my head for a while - even if it means more thoughts on my Broadway Musical... ;)

Now, to figure out how to raise $13,600 in the next six months ($3600 for Kenya, $10,000 for the Movie) and to lose 40 pounds. Anyone want to sponsor me to lose weight? $1 a pound! That's a real steal on the normal conversion rate which is closer to $2 a pound right now... All proceeds get me to Kenya... even if I have to walk or swim part of the way.

Thanks for reading.

In Memorium: Oscar Mayer

Sing with me one last time:

Oh I wish I were an Os-car Mayer Wie - ner
That is what I'd tru-ly like to be
'cause if I were an Os-car May-er Wie - ner
Ev-ery one would be in love with me.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Mayer.

Rock The Boat...

Luke 8:22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake." So they got into a boat and set out. 23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.

24 The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown!"

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. 25 "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples.

On Wednesday of last week I had the following thought: "Perhaps I'm taking on a little too much responsibility. I mean, come on, a movie AND a trip to Kenya? Not to mention all the other little projects I've got going on. Am I so arrogant as to believe that I can do all of this stuff? Am I perhaps being a little too much like Icharus? Are my wings on fire?"

Less than half an hour later, my boss called me into a meeting about various different things and let me know exactly that with tough times might come tough measures - including the possibility that I might not have a job in the near future. Needless to say, in these economic times, this news did not surprise me. But it did shock me a little. Its one thing to suspect things are coming. Its quite another to hear them spoken out loud.

My immediate thought was, "There goes Kenya." Even if I were to find a new job, and one that pays quite a bit more than what I'm making now, the odds of any new employer letting one of their brand new employees tromp off to Kenya for two weeks in January seems extremely remote. I also came to the immediate conclusion that if I didn't get outside money for my movie, it too was not going to fly.

As the week progressed and I alternated between moods of despair and hope, I wandered around lost. My mental ship of state had taken a wallop of a storm wave and was just swirling around and around like a canoe in a whirlpool.

Finally, I grabbed hold of myself and said, "Where is your faith?" The first storm wave had come along and I had let go of the tiller and just drifted - like a rookie seaman.

I knew that raising $3600 to go to Kenya was going to be difficult in this economic climate, but I guess, deep-down, I suspected that I might still accomplish it. See, I'm something quite special and I have amazing powers and... God had to rid me of that suspicion. There is NO WAY I am going to Kenya without His help. He will get me there and all power and glory to Him.

It is not Moses getting his people out of Egypt. It is God. I am not going to Kenya. I am being sent. And when I set foot in that distant land, I will rejoice and know that He has made it possible.

(That's assuming I don't drown in debt in the meantime ;)

$5.75 Closer to Africa!

I Made A Whopping $5.75 at my garage sale this weekend. It took me two hours to sort through my stuff, haul it downstairs, and arrange it in the driveway. I sat there from 8:45am all the way to approximately 3pm (so, roughly 6 hours). And then it took me another hour, or so, to clean up. So... that's approximately $.67 an hour!

Wow!

I am completely underwhelmed!

Clearly I either need to get better junk, or I need to rethink my finance strategy. Then again, I thought for sure that there were several interested buyers who looked at my stuff and started calculating the financing and how to afford such rare artifacts, but then this glassy film spread over their eyes as God hardened their hearts and they turned and walked away. If God makes getting me to Africa too easy, it will not serve to glorify His name! ;)

(I'm hoping sarcasm isn't a mortal sin... Nope... no lightning bolts!)

No, but seriously, Saturday was fine for what it was. It was absolutely gorgeous outside and my house was in the shade for the first five hours. I could sit out front on my garden chair and hang out with my family and talk to my neighbors and friends like Andy who stopped by. It was almost too nice to have a garage sale. And after the garage sale I had a very lightly attended Burrito Night which was about as successful as the garage sale, in both ways - disappointing by results, but absolutely wonderful for what it was. The food was awesome and the company was great. Sometimes we have to look beyond what we hoped for and just enjoy what is.

I figure $5.75 pays for the gas to the airport. I can't check bags yet, and I can't get past the security checkpoint. But I can at least watch everyone else fly off to Africa. Only $3594.25 left to go! Whoohoo!

Politics - Where We Part Company, Mr. President

This is where I part company with President Obama. I believe that his proposed Universal Health Care idea is deeply flawed and potentially disastrous - not as a matter of concept, but merely as a matter of execution. He should realize that he doesn't quite have the solution yet, and back off on it until he does. A truly good solution will find supporters on both sides.

The problem, as I see it, is that by in essence creating a governmental overlay on a deeply flawed system, you are not encouraging the system to be corrected - you are merely enforcing its flaws and making them worse by throwing tax payer money at it. The problem with the health care system is not the doctors or the technology. We have the finest health care system in the world. But we also have the most expensive. Making health care mandatory doesn't make health care more affordable, it makes it less affordable by driving up the costs of basic goods and services. Don't agree?

Let's look at what government backed student loans have done for college tuition fees over the last thirty years. When tuition was high and college was seen as an elite luxury for the upper middle class and wealthy, the US government started guaranteeing student loans. As more people were able to afford college, the attendance increased, and the costs increased as well. The more people who went to college, the more expensive it got, and the more watered down the value of a college degree became. Its to the point now where parents have to save almost all their lives just to insure that their children can attend a college in order to get a degree that has become mandatory and increasingly worthless. The only ones profiting from such expansion the college system are those who finance them. We've taken a system that was designed for those who could afford it and we've guaranteed with tax dollars that everyone could receive it without first creating a system where we could control the costs, and as a result, the costs have skyrocketed.

If the government guarantees medical coverage by offering government backed insurance, then there will be no one to stop medical companies from raising their costs. The only thing keeping medical costs in check now is that the costs have to be somewhat realistic in terms of supply and demand. With guaranteed money out there, the medical companies can raise their costs and expect that the government will cover any difference between what you can afford and what they charge. Where's the pressure to keep costs down? There will be none because all of the money will be guaranteed by Uncle Sam.

And this lie about letting everyone keep their current insurance coverage? Sure, you'll be able to keep it. Until the costs for that insurance sky-rocket and you're forced to go with the cheaper government option because that's all you can afford. So, in the end, the system will right itself and those that can afford good medical benefits will get good medical coverage, and those that can't, will not. How is that any different than what we have now? Well, the major difference is that with this new plan, medical companies will become rich off of tax payer's money.

Let's face it, any plan for universal health coverage that doesn't also include some way to control high medical costs is a disaster waiting to happen. And that's why I can't support the President on this program.

He needs to go back to square one.

Give a man a fish...

I learned something this weekend. Give a man a bowl of macaroni salad and he'll eat for five minutes, but let him make his own macaroni salad dish, and it'll last fifteen minutes!

Apparently, I'm something of a Macaroni Salad Savant. While other kids my age were going to Seven Eleven (a convenience store like AM/PM or Circle K) to buy Big Gulps and Nachos and Dorito's, I went to the store for a container of Bob Ostrow's Macaroni Salad. I've always loved Macaroni Salad and can eat an entire bowl of the stuff myself - no problem. But until this weekend, I'd never challenged myself to make it. I've never had to.

In our neighborhood growing up there was Herb's Deli that made the absolute best Macaroni Salad (very creamy with loads of pimento)... okay, second best, cause the first best was at this deli called Bill's Deli in West Portal that, unfortunately, closed about six months after I discovered their mac salad. Anyway, for most of my life, there was Herb's as number one salad. But a close second (third?) was my step-mom's recipe. When Herb's closed (and Bill's), my step-mom's recipe became the number one recipe. However, convincing her to make Mac Salad is a hard thing to do. She makes it about twice a year and not always with the same gusto - so you might get a really good batch once a year. It was good enough, though, to satiate me for an entire year.

However, as I've been preparing recipes for a potential Hot Dog stand, I decided to try my hand at creating a serviceable Macaroni Salad that I could cook. It wouldn't be as good as my step-mom's, of course, but I thought if I could make it close, it would help the hot dog stand.

So, after putting out the bowl yesterday, I watched as my brother, sister, and Mom ate a bowl of the stuff. Their reactions were tepid and even though the salad had tasted okay to me I thought maybe I had a dud on my hands. Not wanting to get stuck with an entire bowl of salad, I told my family that I didn't want any leftovers and to help themselves. Ten minutes later, the salad bowl was empty.

Either I've created the pasta equivalent of crack cocaine, or else I just hit a macaroni salad nerve. Either way, I was very encouraged by the response. But since I'd siphoned off a little for myself for lunch today, I was even more encouraged by the fact that the leftovers were just as good as the original batch. This stuff rocks!

I will be hard pressed to keep from making Macaroni Salad now whenever the desire hits me. And already, I'm contemplating a way to raise funds for my trip to Kenya - one crackalicious bowl of Mac Salad at a time.

Speaking of Kenya and food and feeding, my Kenya Children's Mission Group sent off our first donations to the various programs in Meru last week. I just finished reading the responses from these very happy and thankful people and I am hooked. Not because I feel like some sort of hero for doing this - on the contrary, I am frustrated that I don't have MORE to give - but because I was allowed to be a part of God's great plan in Africa. Hearing that response was the same to me as when I finished five days of work building a monster playground and got to watch the kids run around on it. The kids didn't need to thank me. Their smiles and shrieks of laughter and total excitement was more payment that I could ever hope to receive. To Him be the glory, now and forever!

All this is preamble to remind everyone that this Saturday at my house is the Fifteenth Annual Burrito Night! Every year, on one special day, I host a Burrito Night Foodraiser! The task is simple. You come. You bring a topping. You eat Burritos! And eat. And eat. And eat! The COST of admission, however, is what makes the event special - a Food Donation for the San Francisco Food Bank. Because Nobody Goes Hungry on Burrito Night! (And that includes my dogs who look forward to this event all year! ;)

Like each of the last three years, my brother is running the grill and he's like a grilled meat savant. He can do amazing things with steak, chicken, and sausage. So, as usual, we'll have steak, chicken, sausage, beef and (maybe) shrimp, as well as all the fixings, sides, and wraps you can imagine. Please come by, have a burrito, and go home stuffed!

Oh, and please bring a donation for the Food Bank!

15th Annual Burrito Night
Pacifica, CA
(write for directions)
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
6pm - 8pm

Pre-Production Begins on Dane!

This morning I received the final pages of the Dane script. For the last month or so, Andrew Navarro and I have been writing up a storm as we've taken the synopsis and fleshed it out into a full fledged script. We've had some stumbles along the way, but nowhere near as many as we did on the Twelve Step Jedi script. Overall, this is one heck of a good script. Can it be improved? Sure. And we've got five weeks to do that. But, in the meantime, it's good to go. And I can't wait for you all to see it on the screen.

So now begins the process called pre-production. Over the next five weeks we need to cast the movie, crew the movie, find locations, get costumes, get money, get equipment, figure out the logistics, etc... so that we can start shooting on the weekend of July 24th (one year to the day since we started shooting Twelve Step Jedi).

Because we have many different locations on this particular film, we won't have a single long shoot of 10 to 12 days, but will have to spread out the shooting over several weekends. Every weekend, we'll try to shoot at as many locations as possible - though certain locations may take more than one weekend to finish shooting. We're going to start breaking down locations to determine what exactly we need, but if any of you know of a wide open space that nobody is using and would be perfect for set construction, please let me know.

While I don't have an exact number of pages yet, the film looks to be between 80 and 90 minutes long, and has a fairly decent sized cast made up of mostly small (single weekend) parts. But there are a small group of characters who are in just about every scene. We're locking those actors in now and will start looking to fill the other parts later.

For my part, I need to lock down the script, then break it down logistically, then budget it, then get it funded, then find a crew, then actually prepare to make the film. There's a lot of work ahead for me, but I'm not worried because I can already see the end product in my mind... and Dane is going to kick some serious booty!

On Turning 40 - Part Two - "Letting Things Go"

I've decided that I will never be a professional baseball player. As things go, this was a relatively easy decision to come to. I've also decided that I will never compete in a grueling Eco-Challenge. Unless things drastically change, I will probably never climb Half-Dome, nor Mt. Kilimanjaro (though there is still hope of summiting Mt. Kenya) - and I don't know why that hurts.

Through much of the first 20 years of our life, our perception of the length and breadth of the world is controlled by our surroundings. If we come from a well-off family, our perception might include skiing in Vale, yearly trips to Europe, and a boarding school on the East Coast, but probably doesn't include slums. If we're middle -class and well traveled, we might have a more pedestrian view of much the same things, but we probably had to work harder to see that world. If we're poor, often, our view of the world is limited to an area around where we grew up.

But once we become "adults" our perception of the world changes and at some point, we realize that the only boundaries on our world are the ones we create for ourselves. I know people that have literally traveled to every single corner of this globe. But beyond travel, our perception of opportunities also open up. We feel that there is no reason why we might not some day walk on the moon, or climb Mt. Everest, or learn how to scuba dive, or swim with dolphins.

Of course, the hard realities of growing up is that those things cost money, and time, and dedication and there are other resources in our life that clamor for those things as well. As much as we'd like to do them all, reality tells us that we will have to pick and choose... or delay.

I've always felt that eventually I would get to those tasks - that I would gain that adventure - someday. But 40 has made me start to reevaluate my life. Odds are that I only have another 40 years or so to go, and I want to make the most of those 40 years. I don't want to wait for adventure to find me, I want to seek it out.

Kenya is part of this, to be sure. But so is making films. One of the things I said about making the film last year was that no matter what, on my 40th birthday, I would be able to look back and say, "Last year at this time, I was making my first movie."

So looking for things to do and then doing them is part of this equation, but there is the other part of it as well. Looking at things that maybe I once thought about doing and have always kept in the back of my mind as possibilities, and letting them go. Fwoosh! Goodbye...

No more Ultimate Sequels, Andy. ;) Probably never going to be the full fledged President of a major studio. Will likely never work for Disney. Not going to ever run for President. Losing all desire for ever having kids (but will certainly work to make sure all the abandoned ones are loved and taken care of).

And also, saying goodbye to things in my past. I sent a Happy Birthday notice to my ex today and made sure to note that it would be my last communication with her. Goodbye. High School was fun, but it ended years ago and I have little desire to see anyone from that era that I don't already see. Goodbye. Youth Group... time to let the younger people figure that one out. Adios.

So, its time to embrace the new and throw out the old. I'm going to get to a serious cleaning of my attic this weekend. I'm getting rid of all the old books that I have yet to get around to reading and never will. I'm throwing away the nostalgia that means nothing to me now (if it ever did) and all the little knickknacks from years past that are doing wonders clogging up space in my closet. If I can figure out a way to convert these things into cash for my trip to Kenya, even better. If not, then hello recycling center or Goodwill.

I'm not going to throw away my past, just unclutter it. With all that junk taking up space, I just have no room for new things. And I've got another 40 years of stuff to accumulate - adventures, relationships, and memories.

Goodbye past, hello future.

When is funny, not funny...

I have been fascinated by this Letterman/Palin thing since the beginning because I'm still not entirely sure what it all means. In my heart, as a cynic, having watched Palin's pathetic attempt to turn herself into a media darling, I believe the outrage to be mostly political in nature. Palin saw an opportunity and has exploited it. But having been on the Letterman end of that outrage before, I can't ascribe to that position completely.

When I was in High School, a female friend of mine and teammate on the swimming team suddenly started giving me the cold shoulder. I was completely perplexed. Using the High School grapevine, I tried to find out why she was behaving this way, only to discover that all the women that talked to her also started giving me the cold shoulder.

"How could you say that to her?" They would ask me.

"What?"

"You know what you said!" They would reply.

Now, I knew these people and knew that they weren't trying to gain an upper hand or anything in some sort of strange High School Politics game. They were genuinely outraged by some comment or comments I had made about this female friend of mine. I racked my brain and racked my brain, but for the life of me, I had no idea what I'd said. And no amount of pleading my innocence gave me any inroads. No amount of trying to pass it off, or letting it lie, made it go away.

Finally, I did the only thing I could think of, I apologized to the girl and begged her forgiveness. "I don't know what I said to offend you, but I never meant to hurt you. Please forgive me."

We eventually went back to being friends, and to tell you the truth, to this day I have NO idea what I said - but apparently it was received the wrong way.

Letterman got it right last night on his show when he said that he realized it was all about perception. A joke is only funny when both parties think its funny. If the other party perceives it as an insult, no amount of saying, "It was only a joke," will ever work to mollify that party. The only thing to do at that point, no matter what your intention was in the first place, is to take ownership of the comment and apologize for having said it.

Still, I have to say, this rabid "protest" that has been going on with people organizing protests and calling for Letterman's head, strikes me as a somewhat civil version of organizing the masses for post-election violence. Our side was offended, our side was hurt, therefore let's get the rabble-rousers out there to stir up trouble. We have got to get past this witch hunt mentality in this country. There are too many more important things to worry about.

P.S. I did just have the thought that Palin's camp was in trouble earlier for demanding the firing of a former ex-husband of someone in the family. And when that firing didn't occur immediately, allegedly, newly appointed Governor Palin had that person fired. So, perhaps the calls for the head of David Letterman fall into this camp. I don't know. Just a thought...

And then I rested...

Yesterday, I delivered a sermon at my church. My hats off to anyone who has to do this week in, week out. I've been writing since I was in second grade, and that was easily the second most grueling thing I've ever written. I can't imagine trying to do this every week. Though I think the sermon went well, God willing, it'll be my last.

Okay, I'll amend that last statement... if I do another sermon, it really will be a Sing-A-Long sermon.

I chose to write a sermon about the various journey's we all take in life and how God likes to throw obstacles in our path so that he can challenge us, but also so that we make tighter bonds with one another and also with God. It began with a brief overview of various family vacations before it went on to discuss the various aspects of a journey - the call, the preparation, the departure, the setbacks, the arrival, and the aftermath. As I spoke about the various steps of the journey and how they've affected my own sojourn through life, I used illustrations from the Exodus to make my point. So, for instance, in the call, I talked about how God called Moses to free his people from Pharoah, and then I explained how God called me to join the Navy. In Preparations, I noted how God used the plagues to not only punish the Egyptians but also to prepare the Israelites to leave. Then I deftly explained how the 1983 Youth Group of Lakeside used their preparation for the trip to Alamosa Colorado to get to know one another better. So on, and so forth... In the arrival section, I used an illustration to explain timing - how the Israelites rejected the Promised Land at first and had to go back out into the desert for 40 more years of seasoning - and then noted how I'd also been sent back out into the wilderness for some twenty years before I was allowed to finally go to Film School.

Some of the comments I received afterwards were rather nice - one woman telling me how she felt touched at a particular section as it illuminated a similar section of her own life. Many were especially moved by my concluding section, which explained how I'd been called to go to Kenya (as already related here at ICON a month ago). I never once was able to practice that section without feeling the Spirit flow through me and I felt it again as I read it in church. Since it deals with hearing the call of God in your own life, I was rather hoping that it did move other people to listen to God's call. If I had any part of that, God used my sermon for His purposes.

Ironically, after nearly four weeks of preparation, thought, and writing, I think the thing that I liked the most was the last thing I conceived that morning - my very simple prayer that opened my sermon. Lord, not my words, but your words; not my thoughts, but your thoughts. May the people hear you in all that I say here. Amen.

Amen, indeed.

LOST

Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Unemployment, Global Warming, Health Care, Corporate Greed, Foreclosures...

On the other hand...

Bad Taste Jokes, Potentially racist statements, torture is okay, half my party isn't conservative enough...

Is it any wonder nobody's listening to the formerly grand party? Have they really descended to such a level of inane blather? And are there really people out there not only listening to them, but agreeing with them?

The Democrats are not a perfect party - far from it - but they seem to at least take the job seriously. I suggest the other party kick out all those who refuse to do the same and reclaim some of their not-so-far-past glory.

We're in too much doodoo to listen to people who are offended by talk show hosts bad jokes. Be offended. Then move on. Quit trying to distract the American people from their real problems.

Hypocricy in San Francisco? I'm SHOCKED! ;)

Boo to the San Francisco Supes yet again for completing their hypocritical journey this week with the reinstatement of the JROTC in San Francisco.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm actually for the JROTC in San Francisco and always have been. As a voluntary program in our High Schools, the JROTC program allowed some people to take military training over good old fashioned PE classes. I was never a member of the JROTC and had no desire to ever be in the military when I was in High School, but I certainly didn't begrudge anyone else that choice. I knew plenty of good, fine, outstanding young Americans and people of conscience who served in the JROTC. These kids weren't sheep and many of them did not end up in the military following High School.

Also, to be clear, I think George W. Bush will clearly be identified as the single worst President this country has ever seen - and that's with full knowledge of the historical record of all past presidents (I've taken US History about five times now - I could practically teach it).

That said, I was a little miffed during the height of the Bush Presidency when San Francisco decided to kick out the JROTC programs because they feared they were being used to "recruit" kids into the military. The knee-jerk decision to end a long lasting and respectable educational institution because of a bad war in Iraq and a bad President in the White House was akin to spitting on drafted veterans and calling them baby killers because you were against the Vietnam War. Though the San Francisco Supes protested that this was NOT a knee-jerk reaction to an unpopular war, the action was clear for what it was.

So, Now I'm even more dismayed that they would change their minds just four years later and reinstate the program. Clearly, the military needs recruitment even more now than it did in 2004. Do the Supes now think that the JROTC will no longer recruit the kids like they were five years ago?

Of course not! This was never about the kids. This was all about national politics. Bush was bad and this was a way to punish him. Obama is good so there's no need to keep punishing. The Supervisors of San Francisco have proven themselves to be every bit of the naive short-sighted political hacks that they were upset about in the White House.

Its good that the JROTC is back... but for five years, San Francisco lost one of its great educational tools because of stupid politics.

(Now as an addendum, I should add that San Francisco politics has always been way too far out there for most San Franciscans... and yet, they keep voting for these hacks. At least, its entertaining. Most San Franciscan's, believe it or not, are moderate blue collar types. The difference is that we tend to have a very real laissez-faire view of the government intruding on our lives - hence the reason you can have an active JROTC program and a very active Code Pink club in the same high school without any sort of friction. Its weird, but pleasant, once you get used to it. We always tend to say, "Not my cup of tea, but you go for it if that's what you like." The only thing we don't tolerate are Dodger fans. :)

Brother of a Beach!

Yay! I made it a whole week without blogging!

Oh wait... Doh! This isn't Facebook!

Actually, I just wanted to welcome back my wing man and brother from another mother, Andrew Lie, whose blog A Mile From The Beach ought to be back online and kicking and screaming by the time I get back to the cyberverse on Monday. Welcome back, Wingman!

Don't ever leave me again!

The rest of you have a good weekend. That's an order!

Mischief

You remember the line from Risky Business... "Sometimes you just have to say what the heck." Or something along those lines... ;) The last two days I've been feeling the spirit of mischief sweeping over me and telling me to do things and say things that I've been keeping bottled up for a while. This is dangerous. These are the sorts of paths that once you start down them, you don't know where they'll take you. Some might take you in good directions, some in bad. I read on Facebook today that an old friend, David Johnson, was going "All In" in pursuit of his career. That's the sort of feeling this is - that reckless kind where you take a flyer on your life and let the chips fall where they may.

This morning I was reading of people standing in the middle of the street protesting the California Supreme Court's ruling on Prop. 8 and they were being arrested. And I suddenly thought, "Why am I not being arrested?" Nevermind the fact that I'm not that overwrought with emotion on either side of this issue, the feeling was, "Why can't I get that passionate about something that I would be arrested for it?" Why am I not committing acts of social justice? Reckless thoughts... thoughts that interfere with my normal life.

I'm constantly amazed at the faith shown by Ariel Vanderhorst over at Bittersweet Life. Straight out of compton (or Seminary, whichever...) he started up a new Church Plant in Downtown K.C.. And after all this time, its roots are finally beginning to find solid soil. Granted, this is God's doing, but to have the faith to take up such a challenge with a family and kids, is simply wonderful.

I'm also profoundly jealous of the wisdom of Randall Sherman over at Hinterland. Though we might not always agree in life, I can never fault his logic nor his wisdom. I admire the fact that he keeps reciting his beliefs in a straightforward and logical way that makes my responses sound foolish or shrilly emotional. I find myself agreeing with him even when I don't want to and I strongly suspect that he's right more often than I am. I remember in boot camp when I first arrived and the recruits in the final week looked at us and universally offered us encouragement, "You can do it! If I can make it, you can!" When I finally reached the final week of boot camp, I found myself offering the same advice to the new recruits. I see the esteemed Mr. Sherman as my final week boot camp advice. I may not understand it yet, or agree with it, but I know that in a little while, I'll be parroting it back to others.

Maybe these feelings shall pass. Maybe I'll quickly return to a point where I am in control of my life and continue to proceed cautiously. But in recent weeks I've thrown in my hat for a trip to Kenya that I can not afford and have agreed to preach a sermon without any concept of what I'm going to say. Today I dropped a reality bomb on my Director and then I requested a new friendship with an old flame on Facebook. None of these things make any sort of logical sense. Everyone of them is rocking my boat and sending me down uncharted paths.

And I don't care... I'm tired of being in control. I'm ready to take this life for a spin and see where I end up. Fear is still there, but for now, mischief is in control and I've no idea where its taking me. All I know is that if I can have the faith of Ariel and the wisdom of Randall, I should be okay. If not, there's always the shrill and the emotional. They've worked so well for me before!

The Sermon Part Three

Everything is going perfectly. I spent the entire day not thinking about the sermon at all. My brain, which has been a bit of mush the last couple of days, is resting.

The resting of your brain is an important step in the writing process. This is the part of the process that in cooking would be the equivalent to sitting on the couch watching TV while the water boils. It's a chance to kick your feet up and think happy thoughts about the work yet to come. Usually, in the writing process, I use this period to think about other projects while I let my ideas simmer. Eventually, I'll ease my brain back on to the subject and it'll usually smell delicious and almost ready to eat. Then I know I'm ready to write.

But more importantly, its just a chance to let your brain lie fallow for a few days. You can visit people, see movies, share a laugh or two, and not constantly be thinking of some project in the back of your mind.

So, no sermon news today. Just me and the latest DVD of MI-5 from Netflix to occupy my cavernous and breezy mind. Good times... good times!

The Sermon Pt. 2

When I write a novel, I find that I know the story and all the events that go into it long before I really hear the voice of the main character. Sometimes I can go three quarters of the way through the story before finding that voice. And then, of course, I have to go back and rewrite everything. I'm expecting this to be much the same.

There is a certain voice that needs to be heard in this sermon. Its not my voice. Its not your voice. Its God's voice. When it comes down to it, my journey is about finding God and I must make it clear that it was God that was leading me the entire time (not that I was smart enough to always follow him - NO, WILL, YOUR OTHER LEFT! ;) I have now written the opening paragraph of my sermon about 100 times in my head in four days. None of these paragraphs worked. They were all well written. Any one of them could have been the beginning to my story. None of them, however, had the right voice. Indeed, the hardest part to writing anything is finding the right voice. But when its a novel, I'm just looking for a certain point of view, a certain manner of narration, that matches the story I'm writing. In a sermon, I'm looking for something infinitely more wonderful.

Hearing that voice is never easy. Can you imagine the author that was given the task to write something in the Bible? I mean Paul had it easy. He was just writing a letter to another church. That the letters turned out well can be seen in the fact that they're in the Bible. Can you imagine if someone were to approach you and say, "I need five pages that we're going to put in the Bible." I'm sorry, but that's just a little pressure there. Yet, whether its five pages for the Bible, a letter to the early church, or a ten minute sermon, the voice is always going to be the same. The hard part then is not the writing, but the listening.

God has a tendency of dropping subtle hints to me (probably because anything more abrupt would fry my precious neurons). I've at least finally learned to keep an open mind that things that don't make sense, or thoughts that seem bizarre to me, probably have a deeper meaning that I haven't yet considered. I store these thoughts and observations in the back of my mind, much the same way that plot threads and bits of character dialog tend to collect back there. The back of my mind is the attic of my brain. Eventually God will drop the big bombshell on me and suddenly, like a fresh ray of light into a darkened tomb, all of those little pieces that I've been storing back there will be illuminated and I'll finally figure out some new little piece of the puzzle.

So God has been challenging me lately with trying to come to terms with Jesus's divinity. And then I started having thoughts about how I was getting tired of reading all of those "notes" at the bottom of my Training Bible and was ready to just enjoy the Word without the expert commentary. And then a while later I thought that perhaps I'd finally reached a point where I was sick of "learning" about the Bible and that maybe I was ready to experience it. Then I had a vision of me walking in Kenya, which led me to realize that I was going to Kenya, which started to galvanize all these pieces together (I'm a lot slow on the uptake) which finally led to this invitation to deliver a sermon... and like the Get Behind Me Satan, Peter, I still stood there with a blank expression on my face and a look of incomprehension - "Who? Me?" until God finally delivered the message all non-challant like, "Maybe you could, I don't know, talk about your journey or something... wink... wink... wink!"

BOOYA! OH, NOW I GET IT!

I'm in good company when it comes to spiritual smarts. I figure St. Peter and I are definitely going to get some fishing done whenever I join them in Heaven (catch and release, of course ;) We'll probably drink a beer or two and talk about our love of the stooges. Of course, I'll be talking about the film stars, he'll be talking about the other apostles ;)

Anyway, I'm a little slow on hearing God's voice, but I've at least learned to be patient. He'll continue to drop pieces in my lap and let me sort through them at my own pace and eventually I should be able to do a reasonable facsimile of God's voice in my sermon. And then, when I deliver it, there will probably be a spiritual brother or sister out there who might hear it and have a tiny little thought implanted in the back of their brain, or even, God-willing, a big BOOYA moment of their own.

In the meantime, ears open, brain clear (as if that's hard) and I'm off to trying to hear God's word for me.

The Sermon Part One

Last Thursday, my Pastor took me aside and asked me if I'd be willing to do the sermon on June 14th. Now, normally, at this point I'd probably say something like, "Sure." After all, I'm asked all the time to read scripture or sing or play bells or help set up chairs or make coffee or deliver a message or run an ice cream social - tons of things. And, beyond that, I've been writing steadily since second grade. So no big deal. No sweat. I'll just whip that puppy out and... I just stood there, my eyes bugging out, my head breaking into a sweat, and a nervous laugh escaping from my mouth. ME? Seriously? A sermon? What the heck would I say? What the heck would anyone want to hear from me?

"We've noticed that you've had quite a journey the last year and we thought you might want to share it."

Hmmm... well... there's that. I mean, in the last twelve months I've been to Reno on a business trip, Alaska on vacation, Mississippi on a mission trip, and Idaho on a fishing trip. I've written, produced, edited, and premiered a film. I've stopped being a youth leader. I've served my final year as a stat man for basketball. I've finished my second go around with school. Um... pretty par for the course for me, but to others, it might seem like quite a bit of living in 12 months.

Still, what would I say about those things? A laundry list of deeds is one thing, meaning behind that list are another. I told my Pastor that I'd think about it and then I went home.

By the time I'd gotten home, I was filled with this giddy sense of adventure. God was calling me to write a sermon knowing darn well the sorts of things I like to say! It was like proof that not only did God exist but that deep down at heart, He was a geek just like me! I immediately began to brainstorm ideas.

Songs popped into my head first, as they always do when I'm thinking of God. I have a tendency of thinking in terms of cultural references - movies, books, songs - and when it comes to religion, I will just burst into song, "Great is the Lord!" or "Holy, Holy, Holy!" or "Jesus is the rock and he rolls my blues away!" (Okay, maybe not that last one ;) I know some people experience music as this holy devout way to connect to God and therefore they have very strong opinions about the kinds of music that should be played in church. I experience music the same way today that I experienced it as a kid - COOL! I'm sorry. I just love to sing. Any song. Anywhere. If it gets caught on my tongue, its going to get sung! And since most of the songs that I know off the top of my head happen to be Christian songs, that's mostly what I sing on a daily basis.

So, my first thought was to do a sing-a-long sermon. I'd make a point and illustrate it with song, getting the entire congregation to sing along with me on these tunes that we all know and love - like a campfire sing-a-long. I'd like to say that I quickly nixed this idea but I still think it holds a certain amount of fascination for me.

My second thought was that my journey was some sort of epic adventure leading me ever onward in a quest to find Jesus. Closer to the truth, perhaps, without quite so much epicicity. I imagined breaking out my bullwhip and entering the church to the sweeping refrains of the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme song. If Adventure has a Christian name, it must be Yahweh! Williana Robison and the Christian Path! Now playing!

The various ideas tickled me and I had a big smile on my face for a good twenty four hours. Finally, I decided that clearly something that made me this happy could be nothing other than heaven sent - a well received command from God. Despite the fact that I still don't have a clue what to say or what anyone would want to hear from me, I have gone ahead and agreed to do the sermon on June 14th.

Tomorrow, I'll discuss scripture, as my ever expanding quest for a decent sermon continues.

Beach Blanket Pacifica

Ever since a certain Beach closed up shop for a technological time out, strange things have been happening - unnatural things. First, Manny Ramirez gets caught for drugs and gets a 50 game suspension. (How do you even manage that in this day and age? That'd be like a Credit Card company going bankrupt because it forgot to raise its rates...) Second, a new Star Trek comes out and completely alters the entire Star Trek universe - a universe that has survived everything from conquest by Twitter fiends (or as we fans like to call them - The Borg) to a dearth of whales. Yet, hand the reigns over to the disciples of Rimbaldi and wham bam thank you bad robot, everything is changed lickety-split. And third, LOST manages to implode and explode my brain at exactly the same moment causing me to see white where there was once only black.

Is it just me, or does the Universe need to have its balance restored? Is it my destiny to get Andy to start blogging again? Do I need to travel back in time and blow him up before he starts twittering thus preventing this whole need to take time off from blogging in the first place? I don't know... but I wrote down the answer in a journal and I'm going to consult that right now...

Wolverine vs. Watchmen

You probably already know what I'm going to say about this... and you'd be wrong. Watchmen is the single greatest comic book series in history - in fact, its one of the single greatest works of fiction of the last 100 years. Wolverine is a great comic book character, but the writers of this particular movie, will be lucky to not be nominated for a Razzie. And yet... and yet...

When I saw Watchmen earlier this year it was naturally with a bit of curiosity. How had they translated one of the greatest stories ever told into the movie? A dense multilayered look at the psychology and need for superheroes and supervillains in our society and what, realistically, might have happened had they ever been real - did not translate well onto the big screen. Changes that were made to shorten the complex narrative didn't work, and as they related to the end of the film, that meant that the end of the film didn't work. And the Ultimate truth of film is that you can't have a film without an ending. I didn't hate Watchmen, but I did feel that the exercise of making it had been in vain.

Wolverine, on the other hand, has been kicked and dragged through the mud by pundits and fans alike. Essentially an origin story for our favorite adamantium clawed mutant, Wolverine delves into his past and tells his story. There are flourishes and gusto and battles and soap operaish moments and, overall, Wolverine as a film is like a comic book. And, as such, I actually dug it.

There were moments in Wolverine that didn't make any sort of film sense - like the part where Wolvie and a recently introduced hero fight (ostensibly because of a misunderstanding over who Wolvie was working for). If this had been a film, I would have pulled out my hair and said, "That doesn't make any sense!" But as a long time reader of comics, it made perfect COMIC sense. Heroes fight each other all the time. Nobody gets hurt because really the writers and artists just want to see what would happen if Spiderman and Captain America took each other on, for instance. Things like this would be excised out of a good movie script. But not in Wolverine. One gets the impression that the writers of this flick not only understand comic book writing, but embraced it for this film. The scenes, as written, convey that feeling of the panel and the dialog bubbles and even the dramatic lighting and posing. There's not a single frame of this movie that you couldn't snip out and paste directly into a comic book.

So, really, for a change you could skip the film and just read the comic book adaption and get the same thing. And yet, here again is one of the reasons I dug Wolverine. No comic book would have ever told such a straight forward origin story for Wolverine. This was like someone taking and editing five years of comics into a single coherent storyline and selling it for the same 99 cents as any other issue. When I was a kid reading comics and imagining the great movies that could be made from them, this was more in line with my thinking. I wasn't thinking, let's make an artistic masterpiece like last year's Dark Knight, I was thinking, "Let's take this comic book that I'm reading and make it bigger, longer, and more complete." That's exactly what Wolverine is... a bigger, longer, and more complete comic movie.

And the winner is... Wolverine... almost.

I have to knock them for one of the all time worst endings ever! Not the ending you see in real time, but the ending they tack on to the end of film after the credits roll (I understand there are two different versions, but the one I saw was bad enough for both of them). Last summer, Marvel Films made a great move by tacking on extra endings to Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. These endings were there to introduce the idea of SHIELD and the AVENGERS. Great ideas and well executed. In Wolverine's ending, we see our hero (sans memory) in a bar in Japan. The waitress asks Wolvie if he's drinking to forget and he replies, "No... I'm drinking to remember." Huh? WTF?! That was the whole scene. Not only did it not make any freaking sense, there wasn't any damn reason to wait through all the credits for it. It added NOTHING! NOTHING, DAMN IT! So, Wolverine loses a point for having the worst ten seconds of film in history and then tacking it on to a place of geek film honor - after the credits - so that all of the character's die hard fans can be fully exposed to it. Someone needs to go back to editing school.

In the end, I'll have to give them a tie. Niether film will I watch again. Neither film will I buy on DVD. But I mostly enjoyed the experience of both films. I just enjoyed Wolverine a lot more... until the very end.

I'm Not LOST At All!

My mind is just getting battered this week and I wanted to share some quick thoughts with you on the things that are beating me senseless.

First - LOST - I'm really enjoying the heck out of this show. This season especially has played right into my wheelhouse of pleasure - time travel. Before I became an uber-blogger, and before I attempted to write my first novel, I spent three years writing short stories around one theme - time travel. In that time I probably spent the equivalent of months bashing through every possible time travel theory you could invent. So when I see a complex and compelling time travel story, I just get all gooey inside. Its like having all the fun of writing a really complex time travel series without any of the work or headaches. Much more enjoyable to let someone else try and figure out all that continuity and keep it straight. So for me, LOST is awesome. My Dad, on the other hand, is completely... well, LOST. And I don't blame him cause I'm guessing that the average person might find some of the show hard to follow. Not me, though, I've already been there and done that.

Second - Novel #2 - which I'm really enjoying the heck out of writing because... yep, you guessed it, its all about time travel! It's a complex and compelling time travel story with tons of continuity to keep straight. But for those of you who might assume that I'm being somehow inspired by LOST, I've been trying to write this story for years. But last summer I finally found the piece of the puzzle that I'd been missing and its all finally falling into place. I just finished the final reveal chapter last night, so the only thing left is to wrap up the synopsis and begin the actual writing. I can't wait!

Third - God - Aside from the Kenya trip which weighs on my mind constantly, I have been having a hard time associating with God lately and I finally figured out that my intellectual stumbling block is based on a Character trait that I can't wrap my brain around. In many depictions of Jesus that are not Biblical in nature, we see Jesus as a caring, loving, guy - a leader of men who also happens to be the son of God. So, in my mind, I'm picturing the sort of guy we all like to hang around - only better. Take your best friend, scrub out all the swear words, drinking, and carousing, and add a touch of humility, kindness, and compelling leadership, and that's basically the Jesus I depict. That Jesus is easy to see walking around the Holy Land with a group of 12 guys doing their thing, joking around, bonding, etc... But then, there's the other Jesus - the one who is the son of God, the Most High, the revered and worshiped and praised! The Jesus that bends every knee and collects every hallelujah! Its not that I can't picture Him... I can. Easily. Its that I can't reconcile the two together. I can't picture a guy swapping jokes with his friends one second and being the object of total submission and praise the next. Anyway, this is something I need to work through, but this stumbling block has been on my mind a great deal lately and its something I'm trying to reconcile... whenever I'm not traveling backwards or forwards or sideways in time, that is.

The Road

"What I want to know is what's next? If I do this, how far do I go?"

Profoundly deep and personal questions asked of no one in particular on a journey down a long road by a good friend of mine. The answers, I suspect, will come in due time. But the timing of these questions of concern over a path whose end cannot be seen came to me right as I stood at a crossroads in my own life, and right after I had finally gained the answer that I knew I would find.

When I reached the end of my last path it was March of 2000. I had been with Century Theatres for nearly 9 years by that point and knew that I could no longer bide my time with them any longer. Without having any clue what I would do next, I wrote out my two weeks notice and handed it in. At that time, I had only a vague notion of the God that would walk with me over the next part of my journey.

Within a week I had a new job - one that afforded me weekends for the first time since I'd left High School. I decided to go back to church, having existed in that gray area of the unchurched for far too long by that point. Soon I made a commitment to myself to start reading the Bible - something I'd never done before in any meaningful way. I committed to one chapter a night. I wondered to myself if I'd ever be able to keep that up. After a couple of months, I found myself being drawn to the Lakeside choir and to bell ringing. I'd had no intention of doing either ever again. Then there was a new opening in the previously well staffed youth group. I volunteered to fill it. I had no idea what I was getting into. A few months after that, I was asked to sit on the church's governing body. I considered it carefully, but eventually accepted the position.

During the three years I was on the governing body, my church was rocked with scandals, three clergy people and one music director left before we were able to call a new minister, and I found myself not only assisting the youth group, but actually leading it. I was tempted to leave many times, but I stuck with this rocky road because God had called me to it. It was three of the most difficult years in my life.

My leadership of the youth led me to some special relationships. Two of the youths approached me and wanted to make a movie. I said, okay. We made a movie. It sucked. So I went back to film school to figure out a way to make the movie better. Three years later, I finished my first film and have plans to make more.

After seven years as youth leader at my church, I finally felt called to lay down the leadership of the youth in order to go in a different direction - where, I didn't know. This January, I joined fellow church members on a mission trip to Pearlington, MS to help rebuild homes and lives left devastated by Katrina. I ended up gaining so much more than I gave. When I got back to church, I knew I couldn't wait another year to get involved again. I looked around and found another group that was planning to help street children in Kenya.

Kenya? What the heck did I know about Kenya? Wait just one second here... what's next? If I do this, how far down this road will I go?

I went to the meetings and watched the movies. I tried to figure out what it was that I was supposed to do here. They needed someone to film something... okay, but it didn't feel right - not my calling. I jumped at the opportunity to help plan the trip to Kenya by a small group of volunteers. Trip planning is something I'm good at and something I enjoy. Why, I'm planning three trips of my own over the next three years to Florida and Europe and... what's one more trip to plan? Was this what God wanted me to do? Was this going to be a short journey after all?

Less than half an hour before I heard those words uttered yesterday, I had a vision. I was walking down a dusty road. People were passing me on both sides - women carrying large jars on their heads and men dressed in loose cotton shirts and wearing shorts and sandals. I had a group of small children running in my wake carrying a soccer ball. And I knew that I was in Kenya and that my heart was full of love and peace and understanding.

No, my dear Will, you do not get to stay home and help others go to Africa. You must go to Africa and feed my sheep.

So, sometime next January or February, I will board a plane for Kenya. I don't have a darn clue how I'm going to pay for it. I don't have a darn clue what I'm going to do there. I don't know what this means for my job or my plans or anything else. But I've seen it happen. I will walk that road because that is where I am called.

When Networks Attack!

Here is the problem with this country in a nutshell. You know those commercials on TV that show the guy with his Cell Phone network walking around (Verizon, I believe)? You know, everywhere he goes he allegedly has about ten million people following him because he's connected to them all through this mythical network. While that seems like a fantasy, in some cases it can be very real, and that's the problem.

Miss California apparently discovered that the hard way. She was asked a question about Gay Marriage. She responded in the way that she believed. Everyone in her "network" immediately jumped up and said, "You Go Girl!" Everyone in the other "network" immediately shunned and vilified her. The two "networks" then started attacking each other. Words were exchanged. Then fists. Then it was a carnal blood bath of Biblical proportions like a giant media fueled dog fight. At the center of it all, one young woman expressing her opinion like she's done a million times before, who probably had no concept that her network was standing behind her, rabid, and itching for a fight. Nor that the other side was hiding in the shadows waiting for the exact same thing.

Its easy to see how most people in this country are a little gun shy about expressing their real opinions when large networks roam around ready to take the fight to them at any second. Every turn of phrase, every opinion expressed, even well conceived arguments for or against any subject out there is likely to set one or the other network off causing mass catastrophe over the simplest of words.

What started as a spot on parody about the rabid nature of Americans on South Park has unfortunately become a reality. Discourse is now a blood sport.

To be fair, a pageant contestant isn't exactly hiding herself from world opinion. She shouldn't be naive enough to assume that every word she says and every gesture she makes won't be immediately analyzed by the people that seem to care about this stuff. But having a rabid argument over pumps or high heels is a bit different than starting world war three because of a beauty queen's opinion on gay marriage.

Seriously, President Obama needs to have a giant Bong-In for the entire country and just tell us all to Mellow Out Already! That would be a great way to spend our stimulus money! (Oh... and it wouldn't hurt the California economy either ;)

Important News!

Skinny People To Blame For Global Warming and High Medical Costs - (TAC)

It has been clearly proven in a study that athletically skinny people are to blame for most of societies ills, not overweight people as has been reported in the past.

"It's just a case of the blind leading the blind," says Dr. Knotso Fast, lead investigator of the study, "Skinny people clearly want to see the world through their eyes and therefore anyone not like them must be to blame for all of societies troubles. This is clearly the worst miscarriage of scientific justice since the scientific community tried to claim that smoking pot lead to violent crimes."

In this study, it was clearly shown that an increased range of activity such as skiing, snowboarding, skydiving, skateboarding, wakeboarding, windsurfing, bungee jumping, strenous excercise, bicycling, etc... actually lead to more accidents and deaths, and higher doctor's bills, than the combined effects of diabetes, heart disease, and other illnesses related to obesity.

"Its worst than that," Dr. Fast added, "Because these people tend to live longer and thus generate all the medical bills of geriatric people as well. If they were to develop a fine case of heart disease, say, they'd cut off at least ten years of medical costs at the end of their lives."

In addition, the study clearly proved that while obese people need more fuel to move their added mass around, thus increasing their impact on global warming, their lack of movement in general more than offset the cost of the additional mass.

"These people just don't move... that's the whole reason they're obese in the first place," Dr. Fast explained, "They don't hike or swim or play golf or soccer and, therefore, they don't drive to all of those locations. Generally, the fitter you are, the more active you are, and the more active you are, the greater your carbon footprint. Clearly this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black."

As well, the fact that obese people tend to die younger means that their lifelong carbon footprint ends up being much smaller in the long run and doesn't add to the problems of over-population.

"If you were to read those other reports, you would be left with the conclusion that the best thing for Planet Earth would be for everyone to be fit, young, fertile and blessed with an overabundance of opportunities to procreate - and that's the worst possible scenario for earth. Believe it or not, obese people are doing us all a favor by dying young. We should encourage more obesity, not less."

Clearly, Dr. Fast's study has not been received well by the 90210-ish scientific community, but he's not concerned.

"Someday my research will be regarded as visionary."