Paging Simon Cowell

Seriously, where is Simon Cowell when you need him!? This video has exploded on the internet and it might be the worst sounding/filmed/edited music video ever. Hands down. If nothing else, check out the wailing guitar solo at 2:08.

"Shine" by Final Placement from sharity world on Vimeo.

Joy Through The Cancer

Please check out the new blog of my college friend, Jason Norton. He recently found out he has stage c3 cancer and will be blogging his journey on his blog. Jason is a Godly brother and has a great perspective on this cancer. He and his wife, Mary, are also expecting their first child, a daughter, in July!

"Obviously, not a trial I planned nor wanted to ever go through, but I’m fortunate enough to know that God the creator has an even better plan for my life here on earth, no matter how long that may be. This blog is truly not to bring more attention to myself, but ultimately to proclaim the name of Christ and how He uses situations like these to reveal His grace and His greatness. I hope to use this as an avenue to share, not only my battle with cancer, but how the Lord is growing and strengthening me during this trial."

http://consideritpurejoy.wordpress.com/

An Update Buffet

This post will be a recap of an assortment of recent happenings:

Books:

I read John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men last weekend and really enjoyed it. I consider it to be more of a story than a book, just because of its brevity. I've never been so caught off guard by a book's final sentence in my life.

I started reading A Thousand Splendid Suns on Wednesday. It's the second book by Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner - a book I

thoroughly enjoyed reading last year. I had intentions of reading ATSS while still in Michigan, but I never got around to it (my apologies to Rachel Moen). Hopefully I can have the book finished by the end of the weekend.

For church, I'm reading Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion and Alexander Strauch's book, Biblical Eldership. These books will take a little longer to read than the fiction ones.

Piano Jazz and BJU:

On Wednesday night, my small group was canceled so I ended up hanging out with Alyssa and her friend, Seth, for a couple hours at a local piano jazz venue downtown. Seth went to Bob Jones University and we discovered that we have a few mutual friends from there. Small world.

Tiger's Apology:

You can watch the full apology here or read the transcript here.

I want to give Tiger credit for his public apology yesterday. He was thorough, accepted personal responsibility for his actions, spoke highly of his wife and children, and emphasized his priority of keeping many of the specific details between him and his wife. Here is part of the apology.

"The issue involved here was my repeated irresponsible behavior. I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did is not acceptable, and I am the only person to blame.

I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in. I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself. I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn't have to go far to find them.

I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I brought this shame on myself. I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother, my wife's family, my friends, my foundation, and kids all around the world who admired me.

I've had a lot of time to think about what I've done. My failures have made me look at myself in a way I never wanted to before. It's now up to me to make amends, and that starts by never repeating the mistakes I've made. It's up to me to start living a life of integrity."

As far as apologies go from non-Christian people, I think Tiger apologized well. I was, however, disappointed that Tiger believes Buddhism to be a large part of the solution to the problem. This didn't surprise me, but it didn't give me a great deal of hope that Tiger will be successful in this life-change. I am pleased Tiger is taking steps to get his personal life in order. Few athletes would step away from the game in their prime in order to save their family. I give credit to Tiger for having his priorities in the right place.

Real Conversation Between Me and a Student at Work:

Me: So, what's up with you and [insert girl's name]?

Him: Nothin'. We're just friends.

Me: Oh ya? What do you think your girlfriend would think about that?

Him: I don't have a girlfriend.

Me: Who's that girl that's always all wrapped up in your arms after school? Would she say she's your girlfriend?

Him: (awkwardly) Yeah.

Me: One girl at a time, man. One girl at a time.

Don't Give Up

A promo video from Churchill's concert at Cornerstone University. Some random guy at the show made it and I think it's incredible!

churchill Promo from lancemokma on Vimeo.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

I completed Donald Miller's newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, on Saturday. The book definitely has Miller's unique writing style but relays a more mature version than his readers have seen in the past. Miles is the 5th of Miller's books (you can read snippets of them here) to be published and I have read every one. It's weird to me, but I think he's the only author who I've read every book by. That sentence seems weird to me - probably because I ended the sentence with a preposition. Sue me.

The basic premise of this book, as I seem to remember addressing in an earlier blog post, is Miller talking about his learning to view his life as a story, and in the process, realizing that his life was really boring. He came to believe that if people had watched his life in movie form, they would have either fall asleep or left the theatre early. As a result of that realization, he set out to radically change his life, and thereby writing a better life story. In Miles, Miller teaches about what makes a good story and then shares experiences from his own life that exemplify successes and failures in his attempt and making his life into a good story. Some parts of the book are educational, others are hilarious (although the funny parts are few and far between, in contrast to some of his past books), and still others are utterly heart wrenching.

In reading the book, the writing hit a brief lull for me sort of early on, but then steadily gained momentum before blindsiding me with one of my favorite "book sections" I've ever read. It was at this point that I Facebooked my feelings of excitement of almost being done with the book, but also being sad because it meant the book was almost over. I got a much larger response to that post than expected (20ish comments), so it was encouraging to know I'm not the only one who experiences that tension.

I've included below some of my favorite quotes and paragraphs from the book. Read them if you'd like; if you plan to read the book, I suggest avoiding the long paragraphs I quote because what Miller says will be more powerful if you read them in the context of the book, and I don't want to ruin any huge moments for you. I could have written more quotes, but these are more than enough for one entry. Plus, I'm not sure about copyright laws and I don't want to get sued for copying the whole book onto my blog.

People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain. (p. 100)

A general rule in creating stories is that people don’t want to change. They must be forced to change. (p. 100)

Fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life. (p. 108)

The main way we learn story is not through movies or books; it’s through each other. You become like the people you interact with. And if your friends are living boring stories, you probably will to. We teach our children good or bad stories, what is worth living for and what is worth dying for, what is worth pursuing, and the dignity with which a character engages his own narrative. (p. 160)

I think this [referencing a story is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can’t see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story. (p. 179)

Before this, I couldn’t understand why a person would commit suicide. And while I now have the perspective that only comes from distance, and the perspective always comes, I know the power a lie has to shrink time into what seems the eternal end of things. It is a true miracle I survived that hour. I wasn’t numb anymore. I was allowed to feel the brunt of it. The bones penetrated my chest in a sudden rip, emptying a body of blood down my shirt and onto my lap. The blood pooled in the lap of my pants and seeped into the carpet in my hotel room. I clasped my hand over my heart and knelt between the bed and the television and rolled onto the floor and cried out to God a lamenting demand that he would come and save me from the sorrow that, for the immensity of it, I could only attribute to him in the first place. I didn’t want to learn whatever it was he wanted to teach me. I cried out to him an angry petition for rescue. I doubted him and need him at the same time. God seem to me, in that moment, a cruel father burning a scar into my skin with his cigarette. And yet I knew he was the only one with the power to make the pain go away. (p. 195).

I don’t mean to insinuate there are no minor climaxes to human stories. There are. A kid can try to make the gootball team and in a moment of climax sees his name on the coach’s list. A girl can want to get married and feel euphoric when the man of her dreams slides a rin on her finger. But these aren’t the stories I’m talking about. These are substories. When that kid makes the football team, he is going to find out that playing football is hard, and he’s going to find himself in the middle of yet another story. And the girl is going to wake up three months into her marriage and realize she is, in fact, still lonely, and so many of her issues haven’t gone away. And if both of these people aren’t careful, they’re going to get depressed because they thought the climax to their substory was actually a climax to the human story, and it wasn’t. The human story goes on. (p. 202-203)

We don’t know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending. (p. 223)

:: Donald Miller, himself raised without a father, started a mentorship program called "The Mentoring Project" for fatherless boys in America as a result of his desire to live a better story and help others. The program has gained a great deal of attention as evidenced by that fact that Miller has had several meetings with President Obama regarding fatherlessness in America. Miller blogs here and you can follow him on Twitter if you so choose: @donmilleris.

ESL XII CCM UFC

Current Listening: Ampersand - Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken

This week has been a true delight. As mentioned in my last post, Tuesday night was the first night of ESL for the spring semester. Class went without a hitch and it was fun seeing some of my students from last semester again. After class, Calla (my friend and fellow ESL teacher) and I went on a spontaneous excursion to Twelve Restaurant for a late dinner and to say hi to my neighbors who work there. I was lucky enough to try seared foie gras (fwah - grah) for the first time as our appetizer. Foie gras is a protein rich method of serving up duck liver that tastes like an oddly enjoyable meaty balloon. It was a unique experience that will find a role as a pleasant, once in a lifetime memory more so than as a regular part of my diet in the future.

Skip Wedesday. It was rather mundane.

Thursday night after I got home from ESL I realized I had left my lap top out on table in a classroom at work. This was most unfortunate because students would be using that classroom the next day and I didn't have to work. I sucked it up, hopped back in my car, drove the 15 minutes back to work, grabbed the stupid laptop (for which I am deeply grateful and under any other circumstances would never refer to as stupid), and drove back downtown to meet some friends. Crisis averted. Personal patience tank running on low. Then I was dumb and put enough money in the parking meter for an hour and a half even though parking was going to be free in a matter of minutes. Tank on empty.

So I met up with some friends from church downtown to hang out and ended up running into three other friends of mine, two of whom (Brad and Josh) are in the worship band Gungor - who I've mentioned on this blog before. Evidently they were just featured on the cover of the newest CCM magazine and their new cd comes out in the next couple weeks. Congrats to them. So I was with the aforementioned church friends at The Celtic Tavern until around 11:30 at which time we headed over a few blocks to the Meadowlark for a late night Churchill show. The show was totally worth staying up late for as they played one of their best shows to date and impressed some "important" people who were in town to check out the band. Next week the band will be on a week-long midwest tour, including shows at both Cornerstone University and Taylor University, so I'll be flying solo for a few days. I anticipate feeling a bit like Kevin McCallister in Home Alone while they're gone. Bring it on Harry and Marv, I'll straight up own you with a staple gun and ... shoot, does anyone have a staple gun I can borrow?

Friday I slept in and spent the day reading and prepping for the all night church prayer meeting that went from 10 p.m. - 6:00 a.m. I had the opportunity to lead the singing for the meeting and do some brief teaching from the book of Ezra for a section as well. For part of the meeting we walked a mile to the capitol building at about 2 a.m. in order to pray for the city and its leaders. While standing on the front steps, we witnessed a car crash at the corner intersection so some of the group ran over to check on the drivers while one guy called 911 to notify the police. No one in the accident was hurt, just a little dazed and in shock.

[The Denver capitol building.]

So I just received a phone call from my friend Dwight inviting me to go watch the UFC fights tonight. I can't really say no to that. I could, but I'm not going to. Peace out peoples! In my next update I hope to talk about the book I just finished reading today.

Fu Man Chus and The Great Peanut Butter Cookie Conundrum

Thursday night was an elders meeting for church. I've been able to attend the last couple meetings as part of a group of guys who are looking to begin an "elder-in-training" type internship. This would involve reading various books and presenting summary papers, attending elder meetings, and getting heavily involved in various ministries. It's kind of a discipleship on steroids for guys who want to be elders in the church someday.

Friday I went to the aquarium for a field trip with the kids in our after school program. Sometimes my job is really tough - driving a school bus and then dissecting a squid and walking around the Denver downtown aquarium. I totally got to pet/touch/momentarily graze my fingers on a live sting ray. Unlike Steve Irwin, however, I survived the encounter.

[This was the original shark who tried out for the lead role in Jaws.*]

[The Goals group in front of the shark tank.]

[Some of the students and I attempting a group shot in front a unusually long fish laying on the bottom of the tank...too bad we blocked most of it.]

Saturday I did some reading and prepped for leading music at Providence on Sunday. This was my first time getting to lead the singing and I really enjoyed the opportunity. Because Saturday was such a beautiful day (around 50 degrees and sunny), I went for a walk downtown after dinner. I popped in my headphones and listened to a sermon and a half during my walk. I can't wait for the weather to really warm up because a couple guys had set up an artwork booth on 16th Street, and they told me that when the weather warms up they are there quite often along with a bunch of other vendors. Their paintings were cool - a unique combo of bright colors, robots, and planets. Upon reading what I just wrote, I guess you'll just have to take my word for it; the paintings were cool.

On Sunday, the message was about prayer. The meeting place is really starting to fill up on Sunday mornings and some guys had to set up some extra chairs so everyone could have a place to sit. I guess that's a good problem to have. After the service, a bunch of friends came over for lunch before heading out to the Genghis Khan exhibit at the history museum. They all, girls included, wore felt fu man chu mustaches to the exhibit. One of the guys, Jeremy, had actually shaved his goatee the night before so he was rocking a legit, home grown, fu man chu. For the record, I didn't go to the exhibit, but Greg helped me fix my car hood after everyone left so not going was totally worth it.

[Genghis Khan. The great father of the fu man chu.]

I did have a couple free movie passes so Mike and I went and saw a movie that turned about to be a cross between "The Bourne Identity" and an old Bob Jones University movie about smuggling Bibles that I saw in high school - I don't remember the title. Eh...

Tonight was dinner and a movie. Greg cooked up his famous chicken bruschetta (I just spelled that word correctly on my first try. Raise the roof.), and I made the peanut butter cookies. I even pressed the criss-crossed fork grid pattern into the second batch so as to make them look official. Why do we do that? The pressing of the fork so as to create a criss-crossed fork grid pattern on peanut butter cookies. I think we should stop. It makes me feel like I'm eating fattening pieces of graph paper.

Tomorrow is another day of work and the first day of ESL for the spring semester! I can't wait! I love teaching ESL. And I'll get to see my friend Calla again who also teaches ESL. I haven't seen her since before Christmas. Twill be fun.

Hasta luego y buenos noches.

*Not true