Meme Weaver

I got memed some time ago by Al Hsu. Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Just to mix it up, I'll add three lies about myself. The first person to get all three lies right gets a free copy of Deliver Us from Me-Ville.

Seven Facts and Three Lies
1. I'm left-handed.
2. I'm right-handed.
3. I once met music legend Little Richard.
4. I once met music legend Grace Slick.
5. I own every season of 24 currently available on DVD.
6. I own every season of the U.S. version of The Office currently available on DVD.
7. I own four saxophones.
8. I own two guitars.
9. I own one piano.
10. I drive a Hyundai.

I'll meme Heather, Dan, Daphne, Jenn, Tony, Becky and Kami.

Reunited and It Feels So Weird

There will come a day when I will be forty. I accept this. What I'm finding harder to accept is the sheer span of time I've been an adult. That reality came into stark relief this past weekend, when I attended my twenty-year high school reunion. The last time I was a child I was in high school, and I've now been an adult for longer than I was a child. I cannot seem to accept this.

Anyway, at my reunion I was, not surprisingly, reunited with lots of childhood friends of varying degrees of intensity. The first few people I encountered, as a matter of fact, I had no memory of whatsoever. I then helped my friend check people in to the evening event; he knew everyone while I knew nearly no one.

That meant that this weekend was largely a blank slate. The folks I remembered I rediscovered; the folks I couldn't remember I got to know. All of the insecurities I carried with me throughout high school were still there--I'm not going to lie to you--but they were mitigated by this freeing notion that I am not the person I once was, and these others are not the people they once were.

I suppose, then, that "reunion" is a bit of a misnomer. "Reacquaintance" is closer to the truth. And I can honestly say, it was nice to make my childhood friends' reacquaintance.

Spam of the Day: We Deliver!

Today's spam of the day comes from a source I supposedly once signed up for; I think some Christian bought an e-mail list from some other Christian, and so on, and so on, and so on. Which leads me to the following subject line:

Want to eat pizza with LIVING SACRIFICE?

Eeeewww.

Eeeewww.

Which leads me to the question of the day: What toppings would you never want added to your pizza--even if they were on special?

Back Hair

We're taking care of our pastor's two cats while his family is away. We have two of our own, so we're accustomed to feline peculiarities, but one of these two cats does something I'd never seen before. When you bend at the waist--to pick something up off the floor, to pet the other cat, to see whether you can touch your toes yet--the cat walks on to your back.

It's freaky at first, having a cat on your back. Four paws with claws, each carrying the cat's full weight in turn, circumnavigate your spine. Loud purrs surround your head. The chin of a cat pushes against your head and shoulders, marking territory. I couldn't move, because if I did the cat might fall to the floor or dig in its claws out of self-preservation. But I couldn't stay still either, because quite frankly, I still can't touch my toes yet.

I was reminded of a cartoon I saw as a kid. A guard dog adopts an abandoned kitten. The guard dog is worldly wise and sees all the ways a kitten could get itself into trouble, and so the guard dog does what it does best: it guards the kitten.

The kitten, by contrast, is hopelessly naive, freely exploring the construction site it now inhabits, happily embracing the mortal enemy that has adopted it. But naive as the kitten is, it's totally safe, because that dog has fallen hopelessly in love with it.

The moment I'm reminded of takes place twice in the cartoon: the kitten climbs onto the back of the guard dog and nestles in, kneading the dog's back with its paws and claws. The dog cringes and weeps throughout the process. Cat scratches aren't pleasant regardless of how adorable one finds the kitten. But the nestling in eventually ends; the kitten falls asleep and the dog falls in love with its adopted child.

I'm like that dog. I fell in love with that cat while it took possession of my back. So if you run into me today and are shocked by the sheer volume of cat hair collected on the back of my shirt, here's my request: just deal with it.

Get into Me-Ville Free

Quick update on my new book:

My publisher has posted the introduction and first chapter of Deliver Us from Me-Ville on its website. There you can read about the scandal of the spilled coffee on the church carpet, my prideful portrayal of the apostle Peter, my celebrity-studded wedding to my niece, and oh yeah, begin the journey from the kingdom of self to the kingdom of God.

If you've read the book, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it. Feel free to post comments here, or join the Deliver Us from Me-Ville Facebook group and post comments or questions on the wall or in the discussion forums.

Stupid Political Analysis Tricks

I have a new working theory, which came to me in an epiphany while, as is usually the case, I was watching TV. Here goes:

Ahem.

Barack Obama's success is owed in part to David Letterman.

Letterman's regular pillorying of President Bush in the segment "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" evoked in the American cultural memory a longing for a great orator, someone whose words could capture the significance of a moment, add meaning to it and rally people around a vision for the way forward. Phrases such as "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," even Reagan moments such as "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" reminded us that great moments call for great presidential speeches, and that it's been at least twenty years (and I would argue that it's been at least forty years) since a president has provided that for us.

There have been important speeches, of course, from the aftermath of 9/11 to the concession of Al Gore in December 2000 to some of Bill Clinton's state of the union addresses. Some of those speeches have been pretty good even; I remember watching Chris Matthews, himself a former presidential speechwriter, fight back tears during the Gore concession speech. But the days of momentous American oration ended, so far as I'm concerned, in 1968 with the deaths of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, which incidentally was before I was born, and I'm no spring chicken. So for millions of us, great speeches have been effectively prehistoric.

Until now. Obama is talked about for a few key things: his ethnicity, his experience, his associations, his oration. Talk of his ethnicity is always equivocal; it shouldn't matter in America. Talk of his experience has been handily countered with talk of the need for change. Talk of his associations is tricky for any of Obama's critics, since they likely have more and less savory associations by virtue of being in the business longer. That leaves his speaking skills, which leaves everyone in awe. I think he leaves everyone in awe in part because he's so dang good at it, but in part because we've been reminded for eight years by David Letterman that once upon a time presidential speeches--really, speeches of any kind whatsoever--could be worth memorizing, studying, discussing, living into.

I'm sure that David Letterman will find ways to mock and tease an Obama presidency, but he will surely have to retire the segment "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches." It won't be funny anymore, it'll only be great.

Friends Are Friends Forever

I began my promotion of Deliver Us from Me-Ville this week with a trip to Indiana, where Thursday night I gave the baccalaureate address to a group of graduating high schoolers and Friday morning I appeared on the Harvest Show. I enjoyed both events, but I learned something about myself along the way: I am my most comfortable when I'm surrounded by friends and family.

I don't think that's an enormous epiphany; probably most of my friends and family could have told me that about myself. But it comes into stark relief when you're having makeup applied to your face by a perfect stranger, or when you're standing in front of a room full of people and you've only met two of them. Every offhand joke or comment was not so much an improvisation as it was a shot in the dark, and every bullet point was not so much a declaration as it was a conjecture.

Public speaking is necessarily unidirectional, I think. I tried on my way home to imagine a conversation involving one moderator and five hundred or more participants, but I couldn't quite imagine it. Perhaps I was too busy imagining a world without tollways and toll authorities, but I digress, which brings me to another point: public speaking doesn't nicely accommodate digression. The offhand comment takes the public speaker off script, and getting back on script in a timely manner becomes supremely important. There are cookies to be eaten, there is punch to be drunk.

The TV interview was more natural for me, despite the makeup and the dress-up, in part because of the give and take in the interview but also because just before we went on air the host remembered that we had met before, that I had appeared on the show to promote the first book. We had a good, brief chat about summer superhero movies that broke the ice and eased us into discussion about Me-Ville.

I look for friends wherever I go--either old friends to serve as a secure base in an unfamiliar environment, or new friends to ease the tension of social protocol. It's not surprising to me, then, that the song Friends has such ongoing appeal, that it may well have been performed at the commencement ceremony of these kids' parents twenty-some years ago even as it was performed last night. "A lifetime's not too long," the saying goes, "to live as friends."

On the way home I listened to Dennis Miller on his radio program, engaging in unrelenting, fast-paced banter with callers and guests, busily one-upping one another with arcane cultural references. Part of the show was a reflection on an interview earlier in the week Miller conducted with his old friend Norm McDonald, who took Miller's place as news anchor on Saturday Night Live. Miller commented that "it took me a while to figure out Norm's rhythm"--which is, I suppose, a pretty good assessment of the value of friendships that are approaching forever.

My thanks to Damon and Mandy, to Kelly and Stefan and Chuck and Mindy and Dave, for making me feel welcome and easing my anxiety about being in unfamiliar environments without pre-established secure bases. I hope you don't mind if I start calling you friends.

Spam of the Day

Who knew spam could be prophetic? Thursday night I received several copies of my new book, Deliver Us from Me-Ville (have I mentioned it?), in the mail. So Friday I was riding high, showing it off to my coworkers, gently caressing it in the privacy of my office, occasionally popping over to Amazon.com to see if it had hit #1 in the sales rankings yet (not yet), and generally feeling pretty self-satisfied. Along came an e-mail into my in-box with a very friendly and vaguely familiar name in the "from" column and one word in the "subject" column: "best."

I was feeling pretty best at the moment, I freely confess, so despite suspecting that this particular e-mail might not be from one of my old high school classmates but rather from some soulless spamming sleazebag, I defied logic, threw caution to the wind and opened the e-mail to read the following:

Your life is crap.

No links to online mortgage brokers, no recommendation of various low-cost Viagra substitutes, no Russian women looking for love, no promise of a bazillion pounds sterling if I do some foreign luminary a solid. Simply that brief, cutting message: Your life is crap.

OMG! LOL! It's been a long, long time since I've shared a spam of the day here at Loud Time, but that has to be my favorite spam ever. I'm reminded of a story I read once (I don't remember where; feel free to let us all know) of an emperor parading through the city on the way to his coronation. While crowds of his subjects shout loving, effusive praises as he passes by, he's accompanied by a jester, seated over his shoulder, whispering steadily in his ear, "Remember you are nothing."

Next week I'll be addressing a graduating class of high schoolers in Alexandria, Indiana, and I have two goals for the evening. I want to commend them on what is in fact a commendable moment: their completion of high school and their transition into adulthood. But part of me wants to play that jester because I think the jester has an important, even prophetic message: even on the day when we are most confident that we are all that, we are only us. Our best move is to find a quiet place and pray to God the words of Psalm 40 from the Message:

I'm nothing and have nothing:
make something of me.
You can do it; you've got what it takes--
but God, don't put it off.

The Cult of 'Selfism'

Funny what you stumble across. I found in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary on Mark a discussion of Mark 8:34-38, in which the author, the late R. Alan Cole, expands in a footnote on his observation that "the Lord warns all the crowd, not just his professed disciples, that to follow him means to deny all natural inclinations and to 'shoulder one's stake'."

This is why the cult of 'selfism' (self-fulfilment, and the like), much favoured by the so-called 'me generation', is utterly foreign to the gospels, and, in particular to the teachings of Jesus. . . . There is no commendation of self-love [in Mark 12:31, for example], but only a realistic recognition that we do in fact always desire to promote our own good.

The notion that self-love is a default condition is pretty sensible to me; I'd only add that while self-love isn't commended, it isn't condemned either. Inordinate self-love, now that's another story. It's a tragic case when self-love is absent from a person; that person has been wounded, even defeated, by a world that has loved itself to the neglect of its neighbor.

No New Insights Are Good New Insights

I'm just back from the Urban Youth Workers Institute at Azusa Pacific University, one of my favorite conferences of the year. People come from all over the country to consider how youth ministry functions in the urban context, which is important, since most major publications related to youth ministry is produced out of a worldview that is largely ignorant of urban life. The environment of UYWI is casual, relational--almost like a reunion--but simultaneously very serious and no-nonsense.

I managed to supply some nonsense. I was selling books and meeting with authors and other culture-shapers along with my friend and coworker Andrew. We had a good time commenting on all the quirks of Azusa, California, particularly its aversion to hotels and sit-down restaurants. I got to present a book contract to a relatively new friend and his wife, and I had conversations with a number of complete strangers about what they'd like to read or write.

Andrew and I were joined for a good chunk of the silliness by Chris Heuertz, a good friend and author of the soon-to-be-released Simple Spirituality, and Andrew Marin, a good friend and author of the 2009 release Love Is an Orientation.

We had hoped to have copies of Simple Spirituality available to sell, but no such luck; the book is still at the printer for a couple of weeks. I had hoped to have copies of Deliver Us from Me-Ville to give to my friends and save myself some postage, but that too didn't quite make the deadline. Bummer. I drowned my sorrows in Cap'n Crunch Shakes from Carl Jr's and consoled myself in the company of very goofy friends. We danced on the edge of making a waitresses night and getting ourselves kicked out of a Thai restaurant--the best food within walking distance of the campus of APU, even though we didn't walk. I watched two of my friends/authors get to know one another and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I have no new insights coming out of UYWI--oddly enough, between selling books and meeting with people I caught only about fifteen minutes of the conference itself--other than the insights I gained over coffee or saki or Cap'n Crunch shakes or leaning against a post talking to a complete stranger. All in all, I'd saythe conference was a success.

Pentecost Sunday

Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—-and the things that are not-—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
--1 Corinthians 1:26-31