Hell

I don't think hell is a fire-pit with a trident-wielding devil. I think it's an eternity of having to watch this drunk guy manage his sandals.

L-O-L-A

For the past five years Leah has wanted another dog. For her lap. We've never been able to agree on a breed. But we knew if we ever came to an agreement we wanted to rescue one because Oprah told us to. So last week Leah sent me pics from this blog and said she wanted a basset. The combination of Miss Jackson and a basset hound seemed pretty hilarious, so we asked Google if any bassets needed rescued in Cincinnati. S.A.A.P. had four puppies. The story goes, the mom was a basset and the dad was a rolling stone (maybe a beagle?), the owners didn't approve and gave the pups up. And, it just so happened that S.A.A.P. was taking a batch of homeless dogs to a Cricket store down in Florence, Ya'll. So we went to "just check it out." We left with Lola. I vowed to never go thru the puppy thing ever again and his dog made me a lying liar.

And so I'm quite confident this decision will have numerous consequences. So far, the biggest is that our home has been invaded by obscene levels of cuteness. It's pathetic, but nearly everything she does is mesmerizing. And I think this is a universal truth. When we walk her, cars slow down, point and smile. I'm thinking we could convince terrorists to quit it if we just sent them a box of puppies. Bewitch them with floppy, clumsy, cuddly, and extremely needy agents of mass distraction.

Riding Bikes with a Bishop in Development Hell

I got new pedals on my bike for my birthday. They're the kind that require funny-looking shoes with cleats that snap into place. They're awesome. So awesome that I'm not sure why it took me this long to get them. They're so much better than my old way of doing things that I almost feel silly for waiting until now to switch. I loved riding the hills of Cincinnati last year with my old pedals. Now it feels like a whole new world. The hills are still hard as hell but the new pedals help.

I've been reading a lil' book by a clever Bishop. It's awesome. So awesome that I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it. His way of looking at the world is so much better than mine that I almost feel silly for how I've been operating the past half decade. I've loved God for awhile. But now, it feels like a whole new world. Faith is still hard as hell, but this new theology helps.

I've been stuck in development hell with my screenplay for over a year now. I just learned this term in the recent months. It's when you have a script and people other than you keep telling you to FIX IT. It's been extremely hard but awesome. I've learned so much about myself and writing in the past 16 months that I almost feel silly when I think about what I thought I knew years ago. I loved the screenwriting process back when I was first learning how to even use the software. Now it feels like a whole new world. Crafting a compelling, three act story is hard as hell, but the knowledge I've acquired in development hell helps.

What's crazy but true is that someday soon I'll get some new thing for my bike, read some theologian's new book, write some new script that gets shredded by peers and I'll feel silly looking back on this moment. That's my growth process I guess. Do stuff, learn new way to do stuff, feel silly for a short spell, do stuff better and get more out of it, learn even newer better way to do stuff, feel silly, rinse and repeat.

Pump

How He Loves vid

Here's a video we created for Easter this year. It's a good example of how important good locations are. This attic room belongs to my friends down in Clifton Heights. I saw it a year ago and filed it away in the "someday we'll shoot a video here" folder in my brain matter. Isaac Stambaugh did an unbelievable job directing. A local artist, Collin Rowland, gave us most of the photos. Charlie Hines and Sarah Kelly led the band and the choir was led by the one and only, Hope Milthaler. It was a highly collaborative project. The good ones always are.

Pandamonium

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Surprised by Hope

You ever gone to a restaurant and had something so delicious that you can hardly stand it? The kind of dish that with every bite you and your date stare dumbfounded and excited at each other and just nod (mouth full) at its deliciousness. Something so good you want to punch the chef with a happy, I-can't-believe-you're-so-amazing-at-cookery haymaker to the ear. Or maybe you've heard a new song from some new artist that just knocked your socks off and changes the way you feel about music as a whole. Or a 3D movie that melted your brain and you spend the next two weeks saying, "Have you seen....?"

I feel this way about N.T. Wright's, Surprised by Hope. I haven't been this excited about a book since perhaps the first literature class I took in college that sent me on a path I'm still on of chasing after the written word and figuring out a way to be a part of it. I can say without hesitation that Wright's words have changed my life. I feel like a doctor has joined me for coffee every morning and diagnosed why I'm so bored with cultural Christianity. I don't have the time or ability to articulate all the reasons why. I beg you to go out and buy the book today.

Here's an article in Time that kind of summarizes what some of the book is about.

Here's a video of Bishop Tom.



Here's a quote from the chapter I read this morning. This happens nearly every morning, that I read something and just sit back and try to pull my brain back down from outer space.

"Part of the role of the church in the past was-and could and should be again- to foster and sustain lives of beauty and aesthetic meaning at every level, from music making in the village pub to drama in the local primary school, from artists' and photographers' workshops to still-life painting classes, from symphony concerts (well, they managed them in the concentration camps; how inventive might we be?) to driftwood sculptures. The church, because it is the family that believes in hope for new creation, should be the place in every town and village where new creativity bursts forth for the whole community, pointing to the hope that, like all beauty, always comes as a surprise."

I have more hope than I've had in a long long time because of the knowledge Dr. Wright is dropping on me. I want to slug him square in the jaw with a happy haymaker then share a pint with him at the village pub. I can think of no other way to thank him.

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Hi. I'm a bunny.

Pretty much the only reason I'm posting this video is for the first line. After that it's just ok. But that first line is good stuff.

O.G.