Morning Latte

I'm substitute teaching today...which means I'm up a good 2 hours earlier than normal. (So this is how the other half lives.) As I stammered in to Valley High School, I found two things waiting for me -- a vanilla latte and a link to the 3/4/09 Daily Show. Before we got rid of cable / dish TV, my evening routine consisted of The Daily Show at 10pm, The Colbert Report at 10:30, and SportsCenter at 11:00. Since then (going on 2 years next week) I haven't seen a single episode...until this morning.

Enjoy the opening segment

Nice to see that Jonny hasn't lost his edge, as you can see by his crucifixion of CNBC.

"If only I had taken CNBC's advice, I'd have $1 million today...provided I had started with $100 million."

Podcast Ramblings

Over the course of the last 7 days, I've been exclusively in two locations -- church and hospital. I've also found myself awake quite a bit in the middle of the night (rarely by choice). The wee small hours of the morning are the perfect time to dial up a podcast or three. It's like having another person to make small-talk with when the rest of the world is sleeping. Or, if I'm trying to get work done, I turn the volume down almost so low that I can't hear anything, and I pretend that I'm working at a coffee shop during the daytime. I'm not really trying to overhear the conversation going on at the table next to me...but, when I do, it's often a helpful distraction.

Here are a few things I found interesting...

• 57% of Americans have high-speed Internet
• 3 billion people have access to the Internet
• Adam Corolla left "LoveLine" because he got paid 1/3 what Dr. Drew did
• Jesus' three-year ministry was mostly to, for, with, and about religious people
• "What happens when Christianity isn't big enough for God?" ~ Rob Bell
• Mysticism and awe are central to orthodox Christianity
• "If everyone lived the American Dream, we'd need 4 more planets." ~ Shane Claiborne
• The U.S. consumes 50% of the world's resources with 6% of the world's population
• 1 in 8 African-American men will be in prison at some point in their lives
• Philadelphia is preparing for welfare cuts by building 5 new prisons
• Lazarus is the only person mentioned by name in Jesus' parables
• "The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world, but also the most lonely, medicated, and depressed." ~ Claiborne, again
• Michael Jackson is doing a series of concerts in London this summer
• The Dallas Cowboys took a $9,000,000 salary cap hit to get rid of Terrell Owens

More Than 11 Songs

Don Miller offers intriguing insight into the creative process a superband (in this case, U2) must enter into when putting an album together. For example...

Go ahead and speak your spiritual themes, but don’t get too Christian. It’s uncool. Really uncool. Not that you care but you do. Walk the line between expressing the powerful redemptive themes in your work and translating those themes to a western audience that puts those themes in the box of absurd anti-science and judgmental condemnation. Make people who know Jesus think you’re talking about Jesus but don’t talk about Jesus. And do this with a clean conscious. And mean what you sing.

I downloaded No Line on the Horizon last night, but haven't listened to all of it yet. So far, it's worth the $3.99 Amazon.com was charging.

New Orleans Hoops

This article (and others like it) make me excited to be a part of 36,000+ people that are hoping to make a "Lutheran footprint" on the city of New Orleans this summer.

"I think the only reason you are able to talk to me right now is because of sports," says Ward McClendon, a close friend of one of the residents who watched curiously as we measured up our initial photo opportunity. "I think, without the sports in my life at the time, I would either be dead right now or spending my life in the penitentiary."

Ward McClendon is a hero in this neighbourhood, born and raised in the Lower Ninth. On the recommendation of a stranger working diligently to repair his home, we tracked him down to talk about a project he had been working on.

With the help of over 4,500 volunteers in its first year alone (and as of Feb. 2009, not a single government dollar) the Lower Ninth Ward Village blossomed into a charitable organization capable of getting things done.

Portrait of an Auctioneer

We had a great Youth Auction last night. Fantastic food...great items...generous bidders. It was a wonderful community event for the nearly 100 people who crammed into our Fellowship Hall.

The highlight of this bi-annual event is an older gentleman (we'll refer to him as Pete) who calls the Live Auction. Not only has he mastered the art of quick-tounged "auction-speak", but, by virtue of the fact that he has been a member at the church for 40+ years, he can get away with a lot of good-natured heckling of those gathered. He's a hilarious good-old-boy who wants two things to happen -- 1) raise money for youth trips, and 2) make sure people have a good time.

What made his contribution to the Auction even more meaningful is that he has been making regular trips up to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for the past few weeks. His son-in-law, Mike, has been diagnosed with a brain issue known as an Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM). He had brain surgery a few weeks ago, and was given a 50% chance of full recovery. In the days that followed Mike was slow to regain speech or use the right side of his body. On Thursday, his progress was further delayed when he needed emergency open-heart surgery to remove a 6-inch blood clot (and over a dozen smaller clots) in his heart.

Pete took Mike's oldest two boys up with him on Thursday night; maybe to say good-bye, or maybe just so they could see their dad when he came out of surgery. That's the thing about life-threatening conditions - the family is never quite sure what to do. For my part, I was told to make a contingency plan, in the event that Pete couldn't get back for the Auction. I didn't hear anything from him all weekend. By Saturday night, I was worried.

I got to church early Sunday morning, selfish enough to be nervous that we were going to sans Auctioneer. As I entered the church, I caught a glimpse of a short guy in a choir robe walking up the stairs. Sure enough, there was was ole' Pete getting ready to warm-up with the choir. He hates singing at the early service...but he was there, faithful as ever, anchoring the bass section. Devotion. Committment. Accountability. Honor. These are things that define men like Pete...attributes that are as scarce as a Honus Wagner baseball card.


Mike is in stable condition right now. You can read more about his recovery on his blog. I'm told it will be several weeks - if not months - before Mike is home. That's the best case scenario.

Mike is the pastor of Crossroad Evangelical Free Church in Earlham, IA. My wife used to teach piano lessons to one of his kids. He and I have crossed paths a few times over the last six years. Although he and I are not always theologically akin, I know him to be a devout husband, father, and pastor. His medical condition is severe and scary. If you're the praying type, please consider asking God for healing, patience, and strength for Mike, Karla, their five children, family, and congregation...and thank God that Mike is surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses that are nursing him back to health.

(And thanks, Pete, for making time to call the Auction. We wouldn't have come close to raising $8,000 without you!)

Luthermergent Survey

If you're Lutheran and have an opinion about the Emerging Church conversation, please take a few minutes to click here and offer your thoughts.

Sports Fan Barry

My centrist, fence-sitting, moderate heart is happy when I see a picture of my President watching a basketball game, drinking a beer, sitting next to a fidgety little kid. I feel a sort of kinship with this man; not because he and I would ever hang out...but because I've done the same three things on multiple occasions. Good on ya, Prez!