Category: hmm… thoughts

  • Office Adventures: Moses saves Ben’s life, part 1

    This is the opening shot to a film. Write the first scene.

    Go!

  • Kicking Fat Adam to the Curb

    5:30 AM comes early on a Friday. I look at the time on my phone, “You’re kidding me, right?”

    Tired, groggy, and not feeling it I roll out of bed.

    It’s time for my run. Three days per week for the last 6 weeks. Meh, this isn’t fun anymore. Stoney is the only one stoked about this morning routine. He’s having the time of his life with all of this running.

    A few early morning demotivating thoughts cross my mind as I tried to find my shoes in the dark:

    1. I’m not a role model for health. Why don’t I just go back to bed or make some coffee and find something better to do.
    2. I’m not getting much faster or running any further. The same mile and half hurts just as much today as it did May 1st.
    3. I could just walk. Not like anyone will know or care. For that matter I could walk to Starbucks and no one would know or care either.

    Then I walk by the mirror. And that puts a few motivating thoughts in the mirror:

    1. I am a role model to my kids for health. A big reason they want to play inside and do nothing all day is because that’s what I like to do.
    2. Where did those extra 40 pounds come from? Seriously, that’s not cute.
    3. My running clothes barely fit any more. The same is true with all of my clothes. My shirts are a little less full and I’m pulling up my shorts all the time. I’m kind of digging that.

    Fat Adam yells at Skinny Adam every day. For too long he has won out. It’s time for Skinny Adam to stand up for himself and leave Fat Adam behind.

    Next goal? Stop talking about myself in the third person.

  • 2 Truths and a Lie

    Two truths
    1. Bigger isn’t better.
    2. Wider doesn’t make things deeper.

    A lie

    Bigger is shallow, deeper makes things smaller, our way is best.

    Axiom

    There are good systems used for evil and evil systems used for good.

  • The Crossing

    We must dare, and dare again, and go on daring. ~ Georges Jacques Danton

    photo HT to Likecool

  • When your kids go adrift

    For those who don’t know what drifting is… here’s a video.

    For those who have ever watched a kid go adrift in his life– You know the parents typically just sit there with the camera running rather than doing anything.

  • Get up!

    Three thoughts

    1. Who in the world takes their kids to see the birth of a giraffe? I mean it’s cool and all. But that girl in purple was like a 3rd grader!
    2. I’d like to see a giraffe do the limbo.
    3. There’s a life lesson here: To eat, to live, to survive– you’ve got to get up. Mom can only kick you and lick you for so long.

  • 5 Birthday Quotes That Made Me Giggle

    Today, I officially got my “Middle-Aged Man Card” in the mail. I knew I was getting close to middle-age when conversations shifted amongst my friends from ambition, early married life, and comparing/contrasting theological themes in movies to longevity in ministry, vasectomies, and how much the movie rating system has changed since we were in high school.

    Seriously– These are the things 35 year old men talk about over a cup of coffee with friends. I shudder to know what I’ll be talking about in 15 years.

    Rather than fill today’s post with sentimentalities of what I’ve done and/or hoped to do with my first 35 years, I thought it’d be more fun to share 5 quotes about birthday’s that made me giggle. (Or think. But not too hard since I haven’t had my coffee yet.)

    1. May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine. ~ Frank Sinatra
    2. You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.  ~ Ogden Nash
    3. I am sixty years of age. That’s 16 Celsius. ~ George Carlin
    4. I’ve never looked forward to a birthday like I’m looking forward to my new daughter’s birthday, because two days after that is when I can apply for reinstatement. ~ Pete Rose
    5. Youth is a wonderful thing.  What a crime to waste it on children.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

  • Run Your Moobs Off

    Yes. I just went there. Seinfeld jokes never go out of style.

    Moobs – Unsightly man boobies.

    Forget all of that Biggest Looser emotional stuff about being fat. “I don’t want my kids to know their dad is fat. I want to live longer. I need a new strart.” Yada. Yada. Yada. That’s all just TV psychobabble to me. If it works for you, awesome. But that show just makes me hungry. I love that there is a commercial during the weigh-ins so I have time to refill my ice cream bowl.

    One thing I hate about being out of shape is where all of those extra candy bars, slices of pizza, and cheeseburgers end up. The belly, the butt, and for me… my upper chest. Blech.

    And since I have the kind of friends who aren’t shy about pointing out my moobs I figure it’s probably time to do something about them.

    So the last couple of weeks my running mantra has been: Run your moobs off.

    Sure. It’s a bit crass. And surely it’s not Oprah approved. But it’s silly and makes me giggle and work hard at the same time. Right now, I’m about halfway to my initial goal of running a 5K without stopping and with just 5 weeks to go… I have many more hours of running my moobs off to go.

    No easy way out

    Whether I’m around professional golfers or big-time Christian leaders– one thing has been clear: It’s not merely that they are talented. It’s that they took a little bit of talent, a golden opportunity, and out-worked all of their peers to become the best.

    The same thing is available to all of us.

    Some people look at successful people with jealous eyes. They think, “Surely, they just got lucky.” Probably a little bit. But they also took the good fortune of an opportunity and made something out of it. Whatever their specialty is they have worked harder and smarter than you have.

    So?

    Whatever your goal is… there’s no easy option coming.

    For me, right now, it’s to run this 5K. For you? I don’t know what your goal is. But I do know this one fact:

    You’ll just have to run your moobs off.

  • Caught between two religions

    If you are a fan of storytelling, and chances are good that you are, you need to subscribe to the Moth podcast. The Moth is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of live storytelling. They put on live storytelling events where members of the audience get a few minutes to tell a story, live and without notes, on a theme. The best stories make it onto the podcast. It’s 13 minutes I look forward to downloading each week.

    The story I’m linking below is poignant for a couple of reasons. First, it’s great storytelling. Jen pulls you in. Second, because the content of her story is just a little too close to home for a lot of my friends. Jen is caught between two worlds, Evangelical Christianity and selling Mary Kay. In the end she isn’t sure which one she is selling anymore.

    1. The Moth Podcast- Jen Lee – Targeted     

    (Note to RSS readers – you can come to the site and listen to the audio)

    As a communicator, storytelling is one of the things I wish I were a lot better at than I am. I’d kill to have a group of friends who regularly got together and practiced telling stories. Some ground rules, some themes, and some live audience feedback to refine the craft. Because ultimately, we need to tell stories that matter!

  • The weekend ahead

    I’m looking forward to a fun and crazy next 5 days.

    We’re going to Disneyland!

    We might be the only family in Southern California who has never been to Disneyland. And that’s all Megan wanted for her 10th birthday. So today, after school, we are going up to do just that. We’ll be in Anaheim tonight through Sunday. I’ve actually never done anything at a Disney park, either. So we’re all pretty amped up about it and a little nervous, too.

    Sunday morning, I’m getting up at the butt crack of dawn to leave Disneyland and come back down to La Mesa to teach at Encounter. My talk is called, “So I’ve been thinking about how to be good news in my neighborhood.” It’ll be all about unleashing your creativity to be good news. (I’ll post the notes in the free section.) After church, I’m back to Anaheim to hop in the pool and then drive everyone home.

    Monday afternoon through Tuesday, I’m off to Chicago to help out my friend Andrew Marin. He’s working with a publisher to produce some training materials for his smash hit book, Love is an Orientation. Actually, I’m not 1000% sure what my role is in that. But I know that I’ll be speaking into the youth ministry portion of the content, helping youth workers practically minister to adolescents in matters of sexual orientation.

    I’d appreciate your prayers for this whirlwind 5-days.