Fun Gig

I'd done a little gig for the asthma drug Symbicort last year. I thought they'd dropped the project completely... until today.

It's a fun, interactive little program that allows you to control my actions as I look for my lost keys.

Go ahead--give it a click and order me around.

I'm unashamedly proud of this silliness of this project (oh, and type "dance" just for fun)!

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August 2009

I've frittered my internet time away on facebook (which I've taken to calling 'fakebook'--seems a 'surrogate' to actual connection, though I know it has it's place).

Freewriting...

Been at my job for about 6 months now. Doing well. Want more creativity, more freedom. The prospect of starting our own business is extremely exciting to both of us. I feel the Lord is preparing us for this by me being in sales/business right now. He's good to set us up with all that we need for the days ahead.

He's good at setting us up.

Period.

He has such purpose to the way He leads. Knowing that there is purpose to each moment in the day, makes each moment a cherished one. It's just a matter of actually REALIZING that truth, even in the hum-drums of life. In the frustrating moments as well as the thrilling moments.

Life is rich and full right now. A bit too much of work, but that's the baby in me complaining about having to be an adult--truth be told, I work about 40 hrs per week.

In the midst of work, play, marriage, friendships, and good food is Jesus holding it all together. He's tangible at times; a holy gravity that attracts blessing and favor.

Bath tubs and life

Create

February 15, 2009

I’m excited about staring a ‘real’ job tomorrow—working in sales for a remodeling company—but I know I need to keep performing.

I need to keep churning that fire inside to keep the brightness alive.

My words will burn with life no matter what the stage or where I am, I will keep growing and I will keep creating.

I will still sing and I will still dance. My body has always been and will always be a living sacrifice for my characters and my character. Jesus knows it best.

Words and song will seep from my pores even when no one has paid the ticket price. Even when there is no camera, stage door, or gaggle of grateful retirees applauding themselves awake for the final bow I will be a creator. I cannot help but reflect and shine with the goodness of God. Even though I know it’s true, it feels strangely boastful to say I’m made in His image.

Most of all, I feel grateful. I feel heaven’s open doors swinging wide.

I see the children inside.
All of them so young in their timelessness.
I see them soaking in the limitless goodness.

And I know that I have that same thing here—on earth—just as it is in Heaven.

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Boy, that was pretty dramatic. But it's true and I liked writing it.

Get a job

I've been auditioning a lot... a lot.

I thought I'd share a recent audition notice I saw that expempifies how crazy this business is:

"I would just like to announce a casting for hand models for Wednesday (tomorrow) January 21st from 10am - 12noon
Open audition, please bring your hands."

I skipped this one...

In other news, I HAVE been writing, but it's just not content that I wanted to post. I hope to get blogging a little more in the days to come :-)

Life and Peace,
AZ

Mark Twain

While working on the Mississippi for four weeks, sans Sarah, I recently enjoyed a little quaintness and breakfast in Hannibal, Missouri. Here is the retelling from that August day.

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August 15, 2008

"Ala Mark Twain"

Hannibal, Missouri

“If your food, drinks, or service is not up to your standards, please lower your standards.”

After seeing this posted on the 1960’s wood-paneled, sun-faded, smoke entrenched diner wall, I felt as though the lights had faded, the curtains had opened, and the show’s overture had begun. I became a fly on the wall. Well, a one-hundred-fifty-five pound fly on the wall—but sans wings—and not on the wall either—more like “a large fly in a booth.” At any rate, the smoking section and the non-smoking section mixed like half-blended pancake batter/ I managed to find a nook near the back that provided me with a semi-smoke free environment as well as an excellent view of the stage—strike that—of the restaurant.

Two waitresses ambled through the time-stood-still Becky Thatcher’s Diner on Third clearing plates, taking orders, and exchanging pleasantries with the locals. All I got was a quick “coffee?” Not that it wasn’t pleasant. It surely was. It just wasn’t:

“You go out on the boat this weekend?”

“Every weekend!”

“Oh, that’s nice. Oh, looks like you’re missin’ one.”

“Football practice.”

“That time already!”

“Hard to believe isn’t it?”

“Coffee?”

“Sure. We’re gonna sell the boat. Maybe get a pontoon instead.”

“Once you have a boat, you’ve always gotta have a boat. Pontoons are nice now that you’re getting older—who needs to zip around.”

The man in the booth in front of me ordered a root beer and an omelet. I suppose everyone has their routines. My wife likes coffee. This guy likes root beer. To each his own. I opted for two scrambled eggs, coffee, and a pancake.

The coffee came first—in a white mug with purple grapes on it. How long has this mug been here—Mark Twain himself might’ve had his burly mustache on the rim. Hmmm. It was good, and I hate to say it, but I liked it better than Starbucks—it was simpler than Starbucks. It was coffee—plain and simple. It was not golden Barrymore cold-weeded, slightly jaded, kosher-prayed-over, Venezuelan coffee. I wasn’t looking to taste twelve adjectives—I was looking for coffee. And boy, my waitress delivered. I bet she thought you know, I’ll put it in that mug with the purple grapes. He’ll like that—he’ll probably think Mark Twain himself had coffee from that mug! But you know what? I’m positive she didn’t think that because I saw her grab the mug off the shelf over the coffee maker and she did it arbitrarily—like a doctor had just hit her elbow to test her reflexes. Naw, she just grabbed the silly mug. Nothing grand.

I guess I was too busy thinking about what she was thinking and forgot to drink my coffee. My waitress came around to give another round of non-Starbucks caffeine to us. “You’re not drinkin’!” She wasn’t mad. No, but if I’m right about her picking the mug out just for me and she saw that I hadn’t bothered to even pick it up much, she might’ve been a bit perturbed. Then again, as I’ve already said, I know she didn’t pick it out for me, but it makes me feel good that there might’ve been a chance she did.

I drank.

Of the two waitresses running the show, I preferred mine. I imagine she’d worked there for over thirty years. Or maybe eighty years. She seemed to have everything down to a science. I’ll fill these up with ice just in case I don’t have time later—then I’ll just have to pour water into ‘em and that is that. Now I’ll bring out the bacon to table twelve, clear table ten on they way back, and then take Dorthy’s cash as the register. I wonder how her puppy’s doing? Runts don’t often make it—especially Thom’s—I guess that’s why he gave it to her—but she doesn’t know. And she thought he was being kind! I bet he’s furious that that little pup is still alive. Could’ve sold it for over $100 from what I hear.

You might wonder how I know she was thinking all this. I don’t, but I’m absolutely sure I’m right. To prove it (and I’m not making this up either), she and the other waitress completely left the restaurant. I almost panicked. Who’s gonna fill my coffee? Three servings isn’t enough! She’ll be back. Drink the water. Just drink the water.

I drank the water. Oh, and somewhere in there my food arrived. Truthfully, I don’t remember much about the food other than it’s exactly what I wanted. I was too busy watching the blisteringly interesting action.

After the waitresses left, the cook, evidently on a self-declared break and sitting at the diner’s counter, yelled out after them, “can’t I come too?” Then she laughed the sort of tarry laugh that told me she’d invested in tobacco products for quite some time. I acknowledged (oh my, I just spelled that last word like this: acknowledged. I had to look it up—for shame! Now that I look at that sorely spelled word, I question if I ever learned phonics in elementary school) the cook’s depraved joke with a smile and clever, tarry laugh of my own. Well, I did laugh, but not the tarry kind. I could see the waitresses just outside of the restaurant’s front picture window—they were enjoying something in a patron’s car—a baby? You’d be wrong if you guessed baby. That’s what I thought. No, it was that little puppy. The came back in talking about how wonderful it was, and how cute and all that. I’d never seen anything like this—employees quit working to see a dog, then come right back to work and hand me my eggs. How’s that even possible? I dunno how, but it happened. It happened today. And I loved it.

Thanks Hannibal. I came out for breakfast, and you gave me dinner and a movie.

Grip

Here we are at home.

I’ve enjoyed being home so much that I really haven’t written. It has been—hmmm, let me find an array of adjectives to set my emotions on display: restful, pleasant, colorful, fun, tasty, serene, creative, prayerful, expectant, enjoyable, super-duper, yippie doodle dandy. OK, now I’m getting silly.

Sarah is singing a piece she’s working on for an audition, and the birds outside are whipping out some tunes of their own. With the open windows, Sarah and the tweeters are making a lovely duet. The dog sits to my right, the coffee to my left, the couch hugging my back, and I think I’m just spoiled rotten. I think back to my time in Mozambique—I do this daily—I honestly don’t think there’s a day that goes by when Africa doesn’t cross to ocean and invade my American mindset. I try to reconcile how I live and how billions of others live. It’s almost like these moments of joy are interrupted by the reality of the third world.

And it makes me more grateful. How can it be that I am this fortunate? To love and be loved. To be fed and able to feed. To have such freedom? All this in a time when the news keeps telling us about the housing market plummeting, ridiculous price of oil, and depressing stock market numbers. How does that affect me? How does that affect my brothers—my sisters—in other countries? I’m definitely waxing poetic and melancholy, but there is truth here and I’m determined to find it. What does it mean for Sarah and I?

One of our continual prayers is that we would be ever transformed into a more generous couple. I daresay that second to our prayer of “loving each other better today than we did yesterday,” the prayer of generosity is our most common petition. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite words: generous. Generosity bleeds into every area of our lives. How we treat one another. How we tend to other’s needs. How we listen. How and why we acquire wealth. How we rehearse, work, and perform.

It’s times like these, when I feel and experience the intense generosity of Father God. And I’m grateful. But I don’t want to just feel His generosity, I wanna live with the same generosity.

Eugene Peterson wrote a paraphrase of the Bible called The Message and I love digging into it. In Matthew 5:16 of that paraphrase, it aptly states my heart:

“Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

OK—opening up to others. That’s nice. I can do that. I can open up. Sure, I can share my heart with friends. I can do that. Hmmm. But then, later in the same chapter in Matthew, Jesus takes this generosity idea a bit far—almost uncomfortably far.

“Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere?”

That phrase causes me to stop each time I read it: ‘is that going to get us anywhere?’ It’s a question that begs to be answered. It a rhetorical question—of course that’s not going to get us anywhere. He continues on:

“Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’ hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.”

Do we really know what we’re getting into here. Yeah, we say we love Jesus and then He says something like this. If we say we love Him but don’t live the way He says is a generous way to live, do we really love Him?

Does living generously mean that we’ll be beat up, spit out, walked over. Human-doormat love?

I’m asking Him what it looks like—I’m asking Him that question daily and have been for about two years: “what does love look like?”

Looking at the ultimate example of love, the love of God, I see that He gave up all His rights to see a superior Kingdom come in power— but why? To become a religious superstar? Naw. To grow rich? Certainly not? Why did He do this? Because He loves us.

He gave up His life: ultimate generosity. There is no greater act of generous, unhindered love than to give up one’s life. Right now, in this moment, I feel Him answering some of my questions, and this is what He’s telling me:

This isn’t about letting people walk all over you. I didn’t make you to be a doormat. I made you to display my love, who I am, to others. There are times when you will feel walked on. There are times when you will experience incredible pain. I’m saying be generous always. You ALWAYS have something to give, even if you feel everything is being taken from you. Always give, and you will always receive enough to continue to give.

Give us courage. Courage to believe that what You say is true.

Courage to live generously.