Bacon Chocolate Bar - Review

I love bacon and I love chocolate. I never thought about putting the two together until yesterday. I was in Whole Foods getting a cup of coffee for the road when I came across Mo's Bacon Bar Intrigued by the idea I picked up the bar and read it's packaging which talked about smoked bacon in rich milk chocolate. I could hear my inner Homer Simpson saying "Mmmmm chocolate... mmm smoked bacon". I couldn't resist this novel combination of 2 things I love so I grabbed the smallest version of the bar available (coming in at about 75 cents for a 2 inch wafer of a bar, the regular size ran about 7 bucks) and bought it with my cup of coffee. There's something about buying anything at Whole Foods that makes you feel like you're doing something healthy even when it's bacon covered in chocolate with a side of coffee.

Well once I was on the road I decided to try it and immediately wished I had a larger bar because it took me about half way through the thing to figure out the best way to eat it. I initially started eating it the way I would eat any candy bar-just chew it up. I found out quickly that this wasn't nearly as rewarding as letting it melt in my mouth until I could begin to taste the saltiness of the bacon coming through a bit before chewing it up and getting the final payoff of the smokiness of the bacon. When done this way the experience was quite good. The only thing that seemed a little unexpected was the actual texture of the bacon. I was expecting it to be crispy or crunchy but it was more chewy. That said, I still found it quite good. And, by the way, it went great with the dark roast coffee i was drinking.

My Dad’s a Superhero!

My son Ezra thinks I’m pretty cool. Actually he thinks I’m about the coolest person in the word, and strong too! He’s at that age where I’ve overheard him telling other boys about how I’m the strongest man in the world and how I can run faster than their dads. And this isn’t just hype to him. He actually believes it… and I let him though I get nervous when he’s talking smack to a kid whose dad was obviously a lineman for a college football team (I’m in big trouble if any other dads want to get into some kinds of test of manhood with me).

This mythology of his dad was confirmed convincingly a few months ago we stopped in at gas station in Mississippi for the typical round of snacks, bathroom breaks and gas about an hour away from the place we frequently go camping. As we walked out of the gas station I heard a woman yell something about a truck that was rolling out of it’s parking place. I immediately ran over behind the truck and was able to stop its momentum without too much effort by using what Ezra believed as superhuman strength. However it wasn’t a big truck, probably a Nissan or Mazda that the guy forgot to engage the parking break on, but to Ezra it confirmed everything he believed about me—“My dad’s a superhero!” In his mind he was actually thinking that I could pick that truck up and toss it across the parking lot but that I was just holding back a bit so as not to let folks in on who I really am. When I got back in the car he was pretty stoked at his super hero of a father. I let him believe it because, well, it’s pretty cool to have one person in the world think that you are superhuman even if it’s not true.

Back in May I attended the National Vineyard Leadership Conference. The theme of the conference was Heroic Leadership (no doubt inspired by the book by Chris Lowney with that title). This meant that every speaker over the course of the conference made an attempt at weaving the theme into each of their respective talks. While none of the speakers had a hard time talking about leadership the subject of heroism seemed a bit difficult. One reason that I think heroism is a strange thing to talk about is because the very folks that want to be heroes tend to disqualify themselves just by the fact of wanting to be a hero (there’s nothing heroic about trying to be a hero, nothing cool about trying to be cool either). I think that most folks think of heroism as a manifestation of something in the core of one’s being that tends to arise when it is needed.

At the conference I was reminded of a song I wrote a few years back called Reluctant Hero:

Reluctant Hero
He just wanted a simple life
But destiny drew him into the fight,
He wasn’t looking for a name or chasing fame
Just contentment in the smallest things

In his heart he held his dreams
A woman to love and a family
Sweat and blood
Just to find a home
Some piece of ground he could call his own

But when darkness falls
And tragedy comes near
When the soul it breaks under the weight of fear
When there’s nowhere to hide
Something rises from the inside

This ain’t what you had in mind
You’ll fight the dark until the sun shines
This is how the story goes
Live or die reluctant hero

There you are
I see you under attack
This fight has changed you
You can never go back
Something inside has been released
You can’t stop ‘til you set it free

For when darkness falls
And tragedy comes near
When the soul it breaks under the weight of fear
When there’s nowhere to hide
Something rises from the inside

This ain’t what you had in mind
To fight the dark until the sun shines
This is how the story goes
Live or die reluctant hero

I remember writing that song as I was pondering the heroes from real life and movies. A key trait that stood out to me about heroes, whether in real life, or in film was how none of them really wanted to be heroes. If anything the heroes were just trying to live ordinary lives whether Frodo, William Wallace, or modern day heroes such as those that rescued people during Katrina or who responded courageously by running into the World Trade Centers on the September eleventh attacks to save whoever they could.

The truth is that we don’t have super heroes in our modern world but we do have plenty of everyday heroes. I think a hero is simply someone who cares enough to do something. A hero is someone who just can’t sit by because his heart won’t let him.

I have written a good many songs in my life. I wrote some songs because I was inspired and some for the sake of the art. But occasionally I write songs because I find myself frustrated with the songs out there, that there is not a song that says what I am feeling. I feel compelled to write a song because the world needs a song that says something different and so something in me just rises to the occasion. I know this is nothing heroic but to me it is something of what heroism is like. A hero is not looking to be a hero but rises to the occasion because he or she can’t help it. It’s not premeditated or even a goal. It’s as if a certain threshold within is crossed and the person cannot just sit passively by hoping that things will get better, that someone out there will do something. Action is called for and the heart of the hero responds not because he wants to but because to not respond would be the worse form of cowardice that no person could live with.

Truth is most of us insulate ourselves from the very things that would prod us to action that would compel us towards the heroic. We turn the channel. We look the other way. We look for some kind of distraction, and hope that someone else will do something because action is messy, because caring can really hurt, and we have all been burned before when we’ve loved or cared or done something selfless. We don’t want to get involved because we don’t really think that we have much to offer. But sometimes in spite all of our efforts to ignore what’s going on around us or to minimize what we could actually do in response, we can’t and we have to do something—damn the consequences! In these moments whether epic or obscure we step into the heroic, not because we have any desire to be heroes but because we just can’t keep still or silent anymore.

My son thinks I’m a hero, but I know the truth. Most of the time I’m a pretty selfish guy who wants to take the easy way out of things, who wants people to like me, who doesn’t particularly like rocking the boat, who would just assume live a comfortable and quiet life watching movies about heroes rather than actually getting up and doing something that might make a difference. While I like being a hero to my son, I don’t really much care for what it takes to be heroic in reality. As long as we keep ourselves distracted, as long as we don’t really let ourselves feel the pain of the world around us, as long as we are insulated from reality and isolated from others we need not worry about stepping into the heroic for that threshold within will never be crossed.

Observations on Adulthood from My Six Year Old

Last night I’m laying down on Ezra’s bed (my 6 year old boy) as we were having our usual round of closing thoughts on the day. Normally the conversation is about something along the lines of how he thinks Star Wars is real but none of his friends at school believe him, or what kind of cool thing he found out while playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii. But last night he told me that he doesn’t want to grow up. When I asked him why he observed that adults seem so bored. I was a little insulted but I asked him why he thought that. He said that it was because we were always doing stuff and not listening to him. He didn’t say this as if he was trying to make me feel guilty or shame me for my actions. He was just kind of matter-of-fact about it. And that only made it worse. It’s as if he was just kind of resigned to the idea that adults are just like that, that they don’t really want to listen to kids or be bothered by them much. Ouch! I really couldn’t offer much of a defense. I just agreed that being a kid was probably better than being a boring adult who is too wrapped up in “important” things to notice the simple pleasures of just being silly at any random moment of the day.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years - Review

Back in January 2008 I came across an MP3 of Donald Miller speaking at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids from November 2007. The title of his talk was Story, in which he discussed some of the lessons he learned about life and faith as he had been working with two friends on coming up with a screenplay for his book Blue Like Jazz which they were trying to adapt to a movie. I have to say that his talk was very insightful and that I have revisited it many times since. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life is a much more in-depth fleshing out of the premise he set forth on that talk.

A Million Miles begins with Don being approached by a filmmaker named Steve who wants to turn his now famous memoir Blue Like Jazz into a feature length film. Miller takes him up on the offer and then the work of getting the story right begins in earnest as Don, Steve, and a cinematographer named Ben spend many days and nights in front of white boards in Miller’s living room struggling to adapt ideas from the book into a story that will work on screen. Miller doesn’t initially realize what he is getting into and just how painful this process will be as it begins to reveal his own insecurities about himself and more fundamentally the story he has settled for in his own life.

For all intents and purposes Donald Miller was living a good life. He had seen great success as a writer with Blue Like Jazz and several other books he had written since and yet as he started studying about the elements of great stories and characters he came to the conclusion that he wasn’t living a very good story. This epiphany began to eat at him as he realized that he had settled into a life that lacked any kind of ambition for anything larger than his own comfort.

A Million Miles is the story about how he began to find his heart again, of how he began moving towards living in a bigger story that is not simply about comfort and security but of connecting with others and doing something good with his life. The book chronicles various “practice stories” as he calls them from hiking the Incan Trail in Peru to connecting with the father he hadn’t seen in over thirty years to a bike trip across the country. Miller calls these mini-adventures practice stories because he realizes that there is still a greater story that he is being called to live in, but with each practice story and all of the accompanying physical and emotional pain that it brings something happens within Don to make him into a better character within the story.

While I don’t want to spoil the book by revealing many of the parts in detail, I will say that this book was a truly inspirational read. I almost hate using the word inspirational because it reminds me of Hallmark cards and Christian book stores and this book was certainly not inspirational in that kind of way. It was inspiring for other reasons though. Miller’s struggles, of which he is very open, without slipping into self-absorbed narcissism, are the kinds of things we all struggle with- love, work, being authentic, and wanting to do something good with one’s life. He doesn’t deal with these struggles as someone who is trying to fix himself, or others for that matter but as someone who is simply trying to head in a better direction. His writing is very accessible with an ability to connect with folks in a number of different situations. Miller writes as one who has come to terms with his own smallness and yet who has seen a vision of a better place in which the journey is not contingent on talent, or money, or fame but a simple willingness to put the remote control down and get off the couch and start living. It is this simply accessible idea that makes the reader want to join him because the on-ramps are right in front of each of us.

As one who loves to write and create myself, I found that reading this book made me not only want to live in a better story myself but to start writing more. Reading this book had the same affect on me that I’ve noticed when I’ve been to concerts by a select few bands over the years. While there are plenty of great bands to catch live there are very few that make me want to quit everything I’m doing for a bit to start playing music and writing songs. Miller’s book had this effect on me concerning writing. Reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years was the type of read that makes me want to write.

How our world needs more books like this that hit on faith and life from a different angle than that typical of theologians and Bible teachers. Donald Miller doesn’t seem to be trying to teach anybody anything or even make any grand theological statements. He is just sharing a bit of his story of trying to live a better story with us, but as he points out in this book—a story, a good story, is a very powerful thing indeed.

Free Falling

It’s been many years since I watched Jerry Maguire. I figure the last time I caught that movie must have been around the time Dina and I had just got engaged, which certainly provided a different frame of reference for that kind of movie. We no doubt applied the lines “You complete me” and “You had me at hello” personally with all of the accompanying feelings of butterflies in the stomach that you get in those spring days of love.

However for some reason I have been bumping into Jerry Maguire a lot in the past week. I used the infamous “Show me the money” clip when I was speaking last weekend and now for the last 2 days I keep catching different parts of the movie as it is in heavy rotation on TBS. Yesterday I was ironing some shirts for work, when I caught the last part of the movie, the part where most of the romantic elements come together. I couldn’t help thinking of how I could have never imagined in my bachelor days that my future would include not only being married, but spending a Saturday afternoon ironing shirts while watching Jerry Maguire (alone by the way, which adds a bit more a pathetic spin to the scene.) So I watched it and it was certainly better than the infomercials and reruns on the other channels and when I was done I put on one of those freshly ironed shirts and went to work.

This morning as I was trying to wake up I turned on the TV at 7 a.m. and low and behold Jerry Maguire was on yet again. But this time I was catching the story a bit earlier into it than yesterday. I was picking up on the story just after Jerry left his job with the talent agency to step out on his own and follow his heart as a solo talent agent.

What follows is that Jerry goes to meet with an upcoming football player who will be his biggest client if he can close the deal, a potential number one draft pick. If he can land this client his career is set. It’s kind of a big deal because this guy is one of two sports players that he is courting and certainly the most promising of the two financially. He meets with the young football player’s father, rehearsing his sales pitch as he is walking into the guy’s living room. Jerry knows that everything will rest on this one meeting and his ability to talk the father into keeping Jerry as his son’s agent even though he has left the larger tallent agency. Surprisingly the meeting is very short. The father tells Jerry that he made up his mind that if Jerry showed up he would keep him as his son’s agent. The father then tell Maguire that he doesn’t believe in signing contracts but that his hand shake is stronger than oak. And with that he offers his hand. Jerry shakes his hand and then hugs him and then just about loses it because he is so excited. This was tremendous news!

The next scene shows a very happy Jerry driving down the highway elated at the success of his deal. He did it! This kid is going to be his bread and butter! All the thoughts of self-doubt are just trailing in the wake behind his car. Maybe he wasn’t completely crazy to follow his heart and leave the talent agency after all. He’s not a looser! He is going to make it and maybe even make it bigger than he had ever dreamed!

So there he is celebrating in the car scanning through songs on the radio for something that might capture the emotion of the moment. He needs a song, and not just any old song will do. He tries a bit of a Rolling Stones song. No that’s not it. After a brief pause on “Just Call Me Angel of the Morning” and a lesser-known country tune he finally lands on “Free Falling” by Tom Petty. That’s the song! He sings it like an anthem giddy with delight over closing the deal, “Yeah I’m freeeee!”… “Free fallin’!”

Maybe it’s my place in life or maybe because I saw the other part of the movie yesterday and know what really happens next, that he’s not going to be this kid’s agent after all because he didn’t get the father to sign a contract and his rival is going to scoop him up behind his back, but this scene on the highway is just brilliant! Jerry is singing “Free Falling” obviously identifying with the free part of the chorus but I know, because I saw the other part of the movie yesterday, that shortly he will be identifying with the falling part.

It’s scary business following your heart, stepping out, leaving your place of comfort and security. Sometimes it feels like freedom and sometimes it feels like falling but most of the time it’s a mixture of both. Six months ago Dina and I made a decision to step out and do some things we feel God put in our hearts. The decision involves leaving our jobs, our home, and breaking the rhythm of a way of life that we have come to really enjoy and moving across a really big lake to start a new chapter. Back in June I felt compelled to buy 3 Tom Petty CDs because they seemed to be the songs running through my mind. They seemed like they would provide the right kind of soundtrack to this season in our lives with songs like Running Down a Dream, Learning to Fly, I Won’t Back Down, and most of all Free Falling. As I watched Jerry Maguire this morning I couldn’t help but connect with that scene of Jerry driving down the road singing, celebrating, not really having a clue what turns await him in the story he’s living in.

The Need to Feel Small Part 2

This is part 2 of a series of blogs called The Need to Feel Small. Read Part 1 first here.
When I was in my early teenage years I remember occasionally going to the local First Baptist Church youth group. The youth group was a standard youth group with a very common approach to evangelism. This meant that one was likely to hear the words “if you were to walk out of this room and get hit by a car and die tonight where would you go?” quite frequently. So, as with many of the other teenagers, I found myself praying the sinners’ prayer often just to cover the bases because one can never be too safe with one’s eternal destiny. But this was by no means the only kind of appeal to get the kids of the youth group to respond to God. Another evangelistic argument that was used just as frequently as more of a positive motivation went something like this, “God loves you so much that even if you were the only person on planet earth Jesus would have died for you.” This certainly put things into a bit more of a positive light than say, getting hit by a car when you walk out of the room tonight, but I can’t help but thinking as I continue my faith journey, just how small this kind of thinking is.

The problem with this kind of thinking is not God’s love or for us but that it is so focused on the individual with no greater context other than being forgiven and going to heaven when you die. While the argument was compelling in the moment it certainly didn’t seem to connect with my actual everyday life very effectively. So I was saved, but for what, some kind of disembodied state of bliss when I die? (Bliss, by the way, always seemed to be defined in these contexts as a never-ending church service in the sky which wasn’t all that appealing to me as a teenager and I can’t find it that appealing at this point in my life either.)

I needed to know God’s love for certain, but I needed to feel small as well, not in an insignificant way, but small in terms of being a part of a much greater story. When I responded to the evangelistic messages of the youth group as a teenager the story that was communicated to me, rather unintentionally I suspect, was that I was the story, that I was the point of it all. It’s no wonder that it failed to really affect my real life that much. Perhaps we need to realize that we as individuals are not the point but one of many points in a much larger story of which we are invited into by Jesus to be a part.

I can’t help but think of the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings. They were small both physically as well as in their place of prominence in the world. Yet Frodo and company found their purpose in a much larger story of overthrowing evil and bringing freedom and peace to middle earth. In the story of Lord of the Rings there was no lead character, it was an ensemble cast, a fellowship where everyone involved played a part in overthrowing darkness. It simply wouldn’t have worked if any of them had had too large of a view of themselves or of their particular place in the world. The fellowship worked precisely because they understood they were each a part of something much, much larger.

God loves me and God loves you but He is not simply after setting his kids up for a great retirement community in the here after. He is actually calling each of us to be a part of something much bigger, a fellowship in a much larger story than we have likely settled for. Perhaps we need to take a step back and see the story in it’s epic glory. Perhaps we need to feel small again.

For further reading on this subject I recommend checking out Christianity Beyond Belief by Todd Hunter

Further Exploration of 5 Notes that Changed the World

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Luke posted a link to this video on the last blog called Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain With the Pentatonic Scale (thanks Luke). Bobby McFerrin is one of those geniuses that really gets music not in a cerebral way only but intuitively. This video is an amazing illustration of how there is something in the human experience which seems hard wired to get the simplicity of the pentetonic scale. This is very cool. Enjoy!

Speaking of 5 Notes that Changed the World

Last month I posted a blog entitled Wiley Pitman and 5 Notes that Changed the World A friend sent me a link to this compelling Youtube clip which further illustrates those same 5 notes changing the world from a different angle.