silly Pixar movies and deep longings of the soul

The deep longing started in me back in late middle school.  I was becoming more and more committed to following Jesus, and I was also a big reader.  My dad started giving me some of the books that had shaped his life, books from the Joshua series and Mike Yaconelli.  

One book that left a deep mark was Unveiled at Last by Bob Sjogren, which bore the subtitle "Discover God's Hidden Message from Genesis to Revelation."  It revealed God's heart for the world, and how He so much desired to see people from every tongue and tribe and nation come to know Him, much like the Perspectives class does.  

As an eighth grader, I was a pretty analytical guy. "I've only got one life to live.  And if I don't live it for God, it doesn't really count for anything.  And if I want to live for God, I should do all I can to tell people about Him and let them know who He is."  Seemed simple enough.  So from there to sum it up, it's basically been my heart cry that "I want to change the world for the Kingdom of Heaven."  

From there, I started to brainstorm this huge story-arc of my life, where I would get passionate about going to a certain place and doing certain amazing things.  But then as I went on I would find out about something else and decide "oh, this is it!  This is the thing I'm passionate about that I want to go for it and use to change the world!"  After getting passionate about a few different things, I started to instead see my life as a miniseries of adventures.

I wanna do it!  I wanna dream big dreams, go far and deep and wide!  

And God's been dealing with me on that a little bit.  Of course He would use the movie Up by Pixar, should have seen that coming, right? My roommate Chris is getting married soon, so he's been looking for any extra reasons possible to hang out with us.  Dollar theater Pixar movie was a great choice.

If you've seen Up, you'd know it's a surprisingly melancholy tale of love and loss and unfulfilled dreams.  Carl, the progatonist, falls in love with a young wild-eyed girl named Ellie.  Ellie and Carl start their very own young explorer's club.  Ellie shows him a big leather bound edition that has a front cover stating, "My Adventure Book."  She thumbs through the blank pages and speaks of the great and wonderful things she's going to do with her life to fill those pages.  Life fast-forwards quickly with a moving montage of clips.  Carl and Ellie get married, buy a house, fix it up, try and save up multiple times for an adventure, try and have a kid--seeking a doctor's help multiple times, and grow older until Ellie passes away peacefully, but in an untimely fashion.  They never had the big adventure that they wanted.

The movie goes on, and Carl finally sets off with a bumbling 9 year old boy scout and they have the adventure that Ellie had always dreamed and spoken of.  In a dramatic moment about 2/3 the way through the movie, Carl get's out the large volume, "My Adventure Book," to finally fill one of the old empty pages with the long awaited adventure.

When he reaches the final pages that he expects to be blank, a surprise awaits him.  Before Ellie passed, she DID fill all those blank pages that were waiting for lifetime adventures.  But instead of pictures of waterfalls in South America, the pages are full of Carl and Ellie.  Their wedding day, their first house, the times in life where they were the CLOSEST.  

At this point I was a wreck.  C'mon, how can a stupid computer animated cartoon get emotional like that?  After the movie, Chris and I were walking to the car and he lamented that he gets too emotional at silly things like that.  I confessed that I, too, was moved in a deep way.  At that point, we both decided to stop feeling wrong and unmanly about the movie, but let it speak to us.  We went home and worshiped God out of this openness.

With worship music in the background, I found myself on my knees with my face buried in the carpet, getting it wet with tears.  God brought back to mind the "My Adventure Book" from the movie.  I already have a "My Adventure Book," at least mentally.  I felt like He was saying to me, the most monumental and memorable things from your life are not when you accomplish the most, Lance, but when you and I are closest.

wwwwwwwwwWWWWhoooooaaa

Thank you, Jesus.  I love you.  Really, I do want to love you.  Draw me closer to you.

And here's the clip from the movie, what I could find of it on YouTube.  Except the book title is in Russian.... but just know that it spells out "My Adventure Book."

just gotta write these down -- Red Hat at Army Football game

Okay old defunct blog, you ready for some new life? Cuz we're cominatcha like a frieght train. Jesus, you've just been so ridiculous in my life lately that it NEEEEDS to be chronicled. Gotta write it down somewhere, so this is the place. Buckle up, here we go!

It was the last Iowa State home football game against Army, September 26th. Iowa State games are... well, at the risk of quenching the school spirit.... the games are boring. There, I said it. So to spice things up, a couple friends and I prayed together before the game, asking God to direct us in any way he wants. There are 50,000 people gathered, surely someone out there could use a little more Jesus in their life!

Our prayer time was short, but long enough to hear from God. One of my roomates heard "my faithful" and it was cool because later he was able to have deep discussions with some of his faithful leaders that he's been discipling. Grant saw the pine trees behind the hill we stand on at the game, and a vapor trail circle appear there. I saw two things, the first a blonde woman in a red hat under the bleachers with her back to the game. The second was a dark haired guy with an E on his chest on the jumbotron or something, not totally sure what he was up to. I mean, it's not all 100% science here, people!

So at the game we basically just watched the first half like normal. I wanted to step out and do something risky, but hey, start slow. Finally about half time we were back by the pine trees on top of the hill and my friend Kyle was there. His eye was hecka red, he said he was helping his roommate with a car problem and ethanol splattered in his eye. So we circled around him and prayed for his eye. After praying for a lil bit, we stopped and asked what he was feeling. He looked like there was something tugging on his heart, and said that more than his eye he was feeling God dig at some unconfessed sin in his life. He said a little bit about it, and it was actually something that Grant had just had a new release of victory about in his life. Awesome! So Grant and Kyle went off to share and pray together.

I still had my list of people burning a hole in my pocket. Kendalle showed up and was excited to walk around with me. We did a lap around the concourse, looking around, talking, trying to stay in tune with God. Nothing. I start to review what we're looking for: "well, i have two things on my list, but we could also pray for anyone with a physical ailment." Bam, right then the crowd parts and there is a guy on crutches as I finish saying the "ment" on "ailment." *Gulp* guess that one's for us. We walk up to the guy, ask him how he hurt himself. He tells us the story, really nice and warm guy. We told him that we were praying before the game for chances to pray for people to be healed, and can we pray for him now? He says great, he's catholic and asks for prayers all the time. So we laid hands on his shoulders and prayed that God would heal and reveal himself to him. It was cool. Didn't see the compound fracture in a cast immediately snap into alignment with heaven, but cool nonetheless. He sincerely thanked us and headed back to his family.

With that one in our belt, we were feeling encouraged and bold in the Lord. But time went on and Kendalle and I kept walking around the concourse. And walking. And walking. Nothing. I see a blonde woman under the bleachers with her back to the game, but NO red hat. Three out of four ain't bad, right? I almost walk up to her, but she bolts. Humph.

The game is kinda winding down now by this point. It's midway through the fourth quarter. I ask Kendalle, "do you really think we're going to find a blonde woman with a red hat under the bleachers?" And he says "you mean like that woman over there?" Sure enough, right outside the concession stand was a woman in her concession stand uniform talking on her phone. The hat was red, her hair was blonde, we were under the bleachers! I blurt out:

"Wow, that's awesome! But her back is not to the game."

At that very moment, she walks over to the fence and turns her back to us. And to the game. Okay God, we got it! But now what? She ends her phone conversation and goes right back in the concession stand door. It's obvious that with her red uniform, she is in charge, and she is standing behind all thes people in black vests who run the cash registers. So how do we talk to her? They are starting to close the outside windows of the concession stand, leaving only the middle one open!

Kendalle and I just kinda gawk at the menu and stand awkwardly just out of line. Finally, red hat lady is close to the counter, so we walk up.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

"Well, not exactly..." I mumble.

[awkward pause as we look up at the menu again]

"So you're not going to order anything?"

I finally say, "Well, actually maybe we can help you. This is goinog to sound really strange, but before the game we were praying, and I saw a picture of a blonde woman in a red hat under the bleachers with her back to the game, and just a second ago when you were on your phone, that was YOU."

She is pleasantly surprised. She looked really tickled at the idea, but she didn't know what to say at all. One of the cashiers chimed in, "Are you some kind of forture teller or something?" I quickly replied "No, but I'm a follower of Jesus, and He loves this woman so much that he knows every hair on her head, every hope of her heart, and he certainly knows when she's under the bleachers in a red hat." Okay, it wasn't quite that eloquent, but that general idea.

From there, it came out that these cashiers, and actually ALL the cashiers were volunteers from Christ Community Church in Carroll, Iowa. They do this as a fundraiser for their youth ministries. And the red hat woman, Pat, is the one employee from Iowa State who oversees all of them. One of the cashiers chimed in and said "Ya know, Pat, God put it on my heart a couple quarters ago to really ask you how you were doing. I didn't take the time then, so here we are now!"

Pat couldn't really think of a reason why God would be getting her attention. The word I had as the tag-along with the details was "God wants to whisper in the silence." So that's kinda what it seemed like here, mostly silence in her life and here we come whispering. She said that her foster daughter goes to Cornerstone, my church. But it seemed like she didn't really have a church home or anything going on in that area of her life.

Well, from there Kendalle and I prayed for her. Just that God would reveal himself to her, and thanking Him that He made this happen. It as neat. We walked off, the, as the cashier who had more of a pre-existing relationship with Pat talked with her more. It was really encouraging. Kendalle and I did a dance for Jesus once we were mostly out of sight.

We were riding cloud nine, but was there more to come? Kendalle pointed out that we didn't have a guy with an E on his chest yet. And Grant said he still didn't know what to make about the word he had about "circle by the pine trees." Kendalle and I said, wait, didn't a circle of us pray for Kyle by the pine trees? Ohhhh yeah forgot about that one! So yeah, I don't know where to end the story really except from there we left, praising Jesus, and encouraged to step out more in His name.

Probably the coolest thing in history

Hello blogging world. I have taken a couple month break, but I'm back and I'll try and stay back for a while. I mostly posted on this blog before when I was either procrastinating from college homework or working overnights at my hotel job. Now I neither have college homework nor an overnight front desk job. So I'll have to find a new rhythm.

And now, to revive this blog to life, I will post about:
THE BEST AND GREATEST THING IN HISTORY

http://www.godrev.com/joy-in-heaven/

Go there. And watch the ticker and the map. You will see certain cities across the globe highlighted, switching from city to city about every minute. What is happening on Godrev.com is this: They are presenting the gospel to people in several interactive steps. Then they are leading people through a prayer for Jesus to cleanse them of their sins and lead them into the family of God. Then, if people pray this prayer, they show up on the ticker. The website reads the IP address of the computer and then the city pops up on the map. On average, someone comes to Christ through this website about every minute.

AS I WAS TYPING THAT LAST PARAGRAPH: Six people came to Christ through this website. Six. They are from: China, Peru, Columbia, Mexico, Venezuela, and France. Oooh, there's another one: TURKEY! Praise God. Yesterday there were 1,946 people who clicked that YES, they prayed to become a Christ Follower!

Now, there's no way to be sure if people aren't just clicking through the steps and saying "yes" just for fun or without their hearts being fully in it. You can read through the FAQs to see just how it works. But still, isn't it cool to have the heavenly view on things? Constant parties in heaven, almost. The angels get to see this unfold, and have a toast with the Lamb Who Was Slain about every minute. Wow.

Oooh: decisions in Ireland, Turkey, and Peru. All these Latin American countries, that's pretty neat. United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Praise God! Are those countries even open to the gospel? This is incredible!

Lord, I praise you for the eternal work you are doing around the globe at this very second! You are so good, God! May we continue to serve you with our technology to your glorious purposes!

We're all in this together

Working in the hotel business has been funny. It's made for the perfect in-between job for me this spring/summer (except for the hours. Nights. Learning experience).

One thing that makes the hotel business go is special events. Few people travel just for the heck of it. Luckily here in Ames we have lots of random things going on. Many times events and conferences are the same every year, so we know to expect this group from such-a-place and they'll want rooms by the pool for so-and-so and cook extra such-and-such for breakfast because they eat lots of those. For example: two weeks ago was the Special Olympics. Last week was this event for smart kids called Odyssey of the Mind. Both had about the same amount of fussy adult supervision. The Olympians ate a lot more for breakfast, though.

Which brings us to this week. We have a full hotel yet again with a bunch of pastors and lay-leaders for a certain state wide Christian conference going on in town. I'm not going to say what affiliation or anything. The problem is, this group of people is notorious for making things just a little difficult for the hotel. Lots of people with particular requests and changes that we have to make.  There are entitled to have a good stay that meets all their expectations, sure.  But something is wrong when your manager tells you at the beginning of the week, "oh no, this is going to be a hard week, I don't like it when this group stays here."

This concerns me.  I don't necessarily have a close affiliation with this particular Christian group or denomination or anything.  It would be easy to bash them and say that they have strayed from the gospel and if only they were on MY team than maybe the world would repent and everything would be made right.  But that simply isn't true.  My team has lots of sinners on it.  Actually, all of them are sinners.  On every team.  Except for that one star player who is on every Christian team.  He bats cleanup and makes every pitch a strike.  The lefty from Nazareth.  Perfection.

So here's the simple plea: How about all of us Christians strive to be the kind of people that a hotel staff would enjoy to have stay at their hotel.  The rest of the hotel staff knows that my other part-time job is at a church.  And they know that the particular group that stayed and made problems was from a bunch of churches.  And they aren't impressed.

Yet.

There's still time.  Jesus, You are the faithful witness (Revelation 1:5).  Come do your "redeeming" thing.  Right now we still look like dirty empty pop cans, so could you turn us into shiny nickels once more?  

"The Girls High School State Tennis Meet" or, "How to Make Sure You're Not Creepy"

Thursday I had the amazing opportunity to watch my little sister compete at the State Tennis meet. A huge honor just to make it. And she's just a freshmen, and her doubles partner is a sophomore! So it doesn't sting that they lost both their matches in a row. They competed at a very high level and proved that they had earned the invitation. Look out for next year (and the year after and the year after...).

Okay, now that we got the mushy proud big brother moment out of the way, let me completely hijack this post into something else. The last couple posts here have been too heavy, time to totally wreck the mood. Fasten your seatbelt:


So my Dad and I were enjoying $3 hot dogs courtside at the tennis meet. It happened to be next to the merchandise table. Roughly 2/3 of my wardrobe is composed of t-shirts that commemorate some event, usually family vacations and sporting events. But as my Dad and I squinted at the memoribilia table, we realized that, although a nice gesture to go with the moment, we could never really wear t-shirts that say "Iowa High School GIRLS TENNIS State Tournament." Do you really want to walk down the street later and advertise "I went to, and wish to remember and commemorate, a High School Girl's __(fill in the blank with event)__." Just doesn't really work.

Usually, as a upper middle class white male, I walk in aloof confidence about my place in society. But musing about the slippery message of the t-shirts with my Dad made me realize that I was one of the only twentysomething males in attendence to the tournament. And I began to wonder if people were wondering about me. "Who's that creeper from the college who came here to ogle athletic high schoolers all day? Sicko!"

Which brings me to a helpful guide for today, should you ever find yourself in a similar situation. I present to you: The STOPLIGHT of Males attending Young Female Sporting Events

RED LIGHT
Don't do these. Ever. It's for your own sake and the sake of the people around you. You could have some public servants jump out of the bushes and read you your rights.
YELLOW LIGHT
Proceed with caution. You can get away with it... but... everyone will be thinking things. Things that you don't want them to think.
GREEN LIGHT
Go ahead and try these. Couldn't hurt. It'll throw people off your scent for sure.

RED: talking to girls you're not related to.
YELLOW: making eye-contact with girls you're not related to.
GREEN: staying within 10 feet of a relative, keeping your shoulders and probably your hips turned toward the family relation at all times

RED: wearing a trenchcoat and a mustache
YELLOW: wearing reflective sunglasses
GREEN: wearing a bike helmet

RED: Dressing in a suit and slicking back your hair
YELLOW: Dressing like an Express model, complete with brooding pouty facial expressions
GREEN: Dressing in a windbreaker jogging suit in bright school colors and carrying a clipboard

RED: telling the person running the concession stand you'd like to buy a gatorade for "that blonde on court 4, tell her it's from Rique."
YELLOW: buying candy from the concession stand and saying "I probably won't eat all of it, maybe I could just give some of this candy away. Everybody loves free candy!"
GREEN: smearing ketchup all over your face while you eat your hot-dog from the concession stand and leaving it on your chin until your mom wipes it off.

RED: sitting alone in the back of the bleachers with a telephoto lens
YELLOW: sitting courtside with a camera and saying things like "oh that's going to be one of my favorite shots" or "can you do that again, but flip your hair the other way?"
GREEN: periodically grabbing unsuspecting relatives and taking self portrait photos with your cell phone camera and the victim that's related to you

There you have it, folks. Keep these guidelines in mind and you'll be sure to make the next event in no way awkward and in every way a family favorite. We're pulling for you.

Neil Anderson daily devotion

I subscribe to Neil Anderson's daily devotion, simply called Daily In Christ. It was an amazing devotion today. I thought I would copy and paste it so that I could have an amazing blog post. The ironic thing? He didn't write it either, he's referencing somebody. You can go ahead and reference my blog to keep the cycle of friendly plagiarism alive. Here we go:

DO IT ANYWAY
Galatians 6:10 While we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith
After I had driven home the point that nobody or nothing can keep us from being what God wants us to be, one of my students gave me this nugget of truth from an unknown author.

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for the underdog anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you've got and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

Prayer: Lord, I purpose today not to listen to my detractors or look to the left or the right, but to stay on the clear, sure path You have set before me.

Aaron Weiss

Tomorrow marks the release of mewithoutYou's new album. The title is:

it's all crazy! it's all false! it's all a dream! it's alright

which can be a bit of a mouthful. I'll no doubt have a review coming soon on the blog. My dear friend and companion Matt Van Maanen introduced me to the band about 3 years ago when he wanted to use one of their songs for a video we were making. It was the track "Bullet to Binary" of mwY's first album, [A->B] Life. I thought it was horrible. The grumbling dissonant guitars, some guy half yelling half talking saying "let us die, let us die." Blech.

Thankfully, Matt didn't let up. His next piece of propagana was the music video to the song "Paper Hanger." What made me pay attention was how Matt could re-enact the entire video on the blue fluffy carpet of our dorm room. More precisely, he could re-enact every naive facial expression and daisy-in-the-wind dance move of the lead singer, Aaron Weiss. The song contained some of Weiss's genius:

"Not one motion of her gesture could I forget
The prettiest bag lady I ever met....
....If I was a basket filled with holes
Then she was the sand I tried to hold"

And so, after walking to Matt's dorm room across the hall and seeing him watch the video every day at 4pm sharp, it started to grow on me. There was something to the madness of these mewithoutYou guys. An acquired taste, not sweet and sugary, but lumpy and crusty and at times bitter, but always leaving a good aftertaste.

The center of the madness and the genius is Aaron Weiss. He officially has social anxiety disorder, I believe. I have a friend who was at one of the early shows where he saw Aaron have a little bit of an anxiety attack and he tried to leave the stage. His brother Michael, the guitarist, stopped him and talked to him and got him to at least finish the show. But that was just part of the beauty and mystery of the band. Who knew if they could hold it together. While they did hold it together, Aaron crafted amazing lyrics and performed them more like spoken word poetry.

The angst and the poetry and the genius was real. But over the progression, you could see Aaron grow and mellow out and put deeper roots of faith in the Lord. The first album, downright scary and angry. The second album, more tempered, yet still edgy and on a journey. The process is even chronicled on that album in the song "Tie me up, Untie me" with the lyric

"She's like the hot cloth on a fevered head,
And like a needle she leads me (while I follow like thread)
But you untied me... didn't You untie me, Lord?
And now I haven't even thought about killing myself in almost five months"

Some of the most unnerving encouraging lines you'll find.

The progression continued on the next release which was called Brother, Sister after the a poem that I believe is by St. Francis. In this, much of the angst was expressed in agrarian themes, such as

"the books are overdue and the goats are underfed
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead"

The music mellowed out significantly, adding accordians and harps to some songs. They still had the good guitar work, but it was the turning point from being an angry hardcore-ish band to being makers of interesting music.

And so, I come to the whole reason that I sat down to write this post in the first place:
This new album looks to be a step even further in the progression of being less angst ridden and heavy, and more agrarian folklore. Which, as I said, makes for interesting music that is more accessible.

But here's the rub: Aaron is not so angry anymore. He's not a tortured soul, wondering if he's going to make it with himself another day. I dunno, maybe this full album tomorrow will surprise me, but the 3 songs that have been released so far lead me to believe that the shrew has been largely tamed.

Should I feel bad for being a little disappointed? Weiss was fiery, he was intense, he was masterful. His genius shone in the midst of his dark valleys. In some ways, I feel triumphant walking into tomorrow to buy an album that looks to be the top of the summit; Aaron's ascent to a full and victorious life in Christ. But is it okay if I miss the old Aaron, just a little?

The album will still be good. But I think it's the beginning of the end. Some of their old followers will start to loose interest. Hopefully the more accessible horn section and piano ballads will open the door to more fans. I dunno. But already I feel they're becoming a different band entirely.

Hats off to you, Mr. Weiss, for overcoming the inner demons and walking more toward the light. Sorry if I treated you like a side show spectacle at times. Thanks for letting us enter your pain. And thanks for continuing to point people to that light, as you said in "O Porcupine":

"and all I ever want to say for the rest of my life
is how that light is G-d,
and though I've been mistaken on this or that point,
that light is nevertheless G-d."