the green room:

the music of words...

janet fitch is the author of white oleander and she also teaches at usc.  last week in the la times, carolyn kellogg wrote about a recent blog post that fitch had posted entitled, "10 rules for writers" that i found to be quite helpful.

1. Write the sentence, not just the story.                                               

Long ago I got a rejection from the editor of the Santa Monica Review, Jim Krusoe. It said: “Good enough story, but what’s unique about your sentences?” That was the best advice I ever got. Learn to look at your sentences, play with them, make sure there’s music, lots of edges and corners to the sounds. Read your work aloud. Read poetry aloud and try to heighten in every way your sensitivity to the sound and rhythm and shape of sentences. The music of words. I like Dylan Thomas best for this–the Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait. I also like Sexton, Eliot, and Brodsky for the poets and Durrell and Les Plesko for prose. A terrific exercise is to take a paragraph of someone’s writing who has a really strong style, and using their structure, substitute your own words for theirs, and see how they achieved their effects.

2. Pick a better verb.                                                                                          

Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked… One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you.

3. Kill the Cliché.

When you’re writing, anything you’ve ever heard or read before is a cliché.They can be combinations of words: Cold sweat. Fire-engine red, or phrases: on the same page, level playing field, or metaphors: big as a house. So quiet you could hear a pin drop. Sometimes things themselves are cliches: fuzzy dice, pink flamingo lawn ornaments, long blonde hair.Just keep asking yourself, “Honestly, have I ever seen this before?” Even if Shakespeare wrote it, or Virginia Woolf, it’s a cliché. You’re a writer and you have to invent it from scratch, all by yourself. That’s why writing is a lot of work, and demands unflinching honesty.

4. Variety is the key.

Most people write the same sentence over and over again. The same number of words–say, 8-10, or 10-12. The same sentence structure. Try to become stretchy–if you generally write 8 words, throw a 20 word sentence in there, and a few three-word shorties. If you’re generally a 20 word writer, make sure you throw in some threes, fivers and sevens, just to keep the reader from going crosseyed.

5. Explore sentences using dependent clauses.

A dependent clause (a sentence fragment set off by commas, dontcha know) helps you explore your story by moving you deeper into the sentence. It allows you to stop and think harder about what you’ve already written. Often the story you’re looking for is inside the sentence. The dependent clause helps you uncover it.

6. Use the landscape.

Always tell us where we are. And don’t just tell us where something is, make it pay off. Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character. Look at the openings of Fitzgerald stories, and Graham Greene, they’re great at this.

7. Smarten up your protagonist.

Your protagonist is your reader’s portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you’re creating. They don’t have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering.

8. Learn to write dialogue.

This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue–people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.

9. Write in scenes.

What is a scene? a) A scene starts and ends in one place at one time (the Aristotelian unities of time and place–this stuff goes waaaayyyy back). b) A scene starts in one place emotionally and ends in another place emotionally. Starts angry, ends embarrassed. Starts lovestruck, ends disgusted. c) Something happens in a scene, whereby the character cannot go back to the way things were before. Make sure to finish a scene before you go on to the next. Make something happen.

10. Torture your protagonist.

The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, and then we torture them. The more we love them, and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story. Sometimes we try to protect them from getting booboos that are too big. Don’t. This is your protagonist, not your kid. 

as teachers of the scriptures, our job is to write. 

if you're like me, it can feel quite daunting to sit in front of a computer and begin to manuscript a message. you type one sentence, stand up and rehearse, then delete, start listening to jimmy eat world's 'clarity' album, then rewrite, then rehearse that phrase and then delete the whole thing, then you start over, next you need a bathroom break, then walk by a few offices hoping to find some form of creative inspiration, some more praying, then back to writing, deleting and checking email.  this often feels like my weekly ritual - where i realize how hard writing/message prep truly is.  

as you read through this list, which one stood out to you most and why?  are there any that you feel could help you right away as you look ahead to upcoming messages?

a simple prospectus

henry luce and briton hadden already owned two publications; but they became fascinated with the title of a small fledgling magazine.  they couldnt care less for the magazine, all they wanted was the name. so for 93,000 dollars, they purchased the rights to use the name of this magazine and began dreaming about what the mission of this publication would be. below is the confidential prospectus for this new magazine: 

THE PURPOSE: To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things – machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man's work – our paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to: the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half of humankind. To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by a new kind of publication, THE SHOW-BOOK OF THE WORLD…  

this new kind of publication is called LIFE magazine.

in 1936, henry luce penned this opening paragraph, inviting the world to see life in new ways.  for those who would never have the privilege to travel thousands of miles away could now see, be amazed and instructed by the realities of life.  i continue to find myself coming back to this prospectus, reading it over and over and imagining the sheer belief that luce must have had in the power of a great photo. 

if you had to write a prospectus for what you want to create, feel called to do, or are currently doing – what would you say?

biz markie + sampling + stolen teachings part V

I remember hearing once that Dane Cook steals his bits from George Carlin.  I'm not sure how true that is; but i imagine this happens consistently in the world of stand up.  So I asked my friend, Joe Anderson to share his thoughts on the subject.  You can learn more about him at www.thecomedyproject.com

So a friend of mine made a REALLY popular video on YouTube spoofing David Blaine's Street Magic. Some of it is really funny and the choreography of the video shoot is maybe even more impressive - timing camera moves so that it looks like a car disappears and reappears. Then Carlos Mencia did a spoof of Criss Angel's Mind Freak and Mencia, who has already taken a lot of heat for supposedly stealing jokes, has been lambasted for this, his latest atrocity. But after watching them both and even having a bias toward my friend's video...I don't think it's that big of a deal. Both basically make the same joke, which is the obvious joke to make, the exact same joke I made the very first time I saw David Blaine's real program. I just never made the video.

It happens in the movies all the time. All the sudden there will be multiple asteroid movies, or animated movies about bugs, or serial killer movies, or movies about strong willed teachers who are going to seriously take on their struggling but inevitably awesome group of kids.

There are themes and stories and jokes and observations and characters that are fairly universal, so when they show up in multiple places, it doesn't really surprise me or offend me.

Now Carlos perhaps most famously and others, in my opinion, probably are actually stealing other people's material in some cases and there is no disputing the level of impropriety. However I never assume that first. Parallel thinking is more often the plausible explanation.

I read the exchange Steve had with another pastor about Steve "lifting" some of Rob Bell's material and was annoyed by the event much in the same way I was annoyed with Carlos Mencia being accused of stealing a joke about building a wall at the U.S./Mexican border. Once again, the joke was good...but obvious. Kind of the essential joke which was to be made about the situation involving the possibility of Mexican workers helping to build the wall.

I'm a big fan of Steve's teachings and in all honesty, an even bigger fan of Rob's if for no other reason than I've been exposed to so much more of it but I'm also a fan of the people Rob "steals" from. Now Rob makes a very concerted effort to cite his references and Steve does too. Neither of them want to take credit for something they didn't create but there's also value in hearing or reading something, wrestling with it, working with it and then mining it for gold that can be repurposed and repackaged. It's a grey area and when people act like it's black and white...accusations fly.

In the mid to late 1800s, Gustav Theodor Fechner was developing something that would end up being called Psychophysics which was entirely based on the theory that...DRUM ROLL..."everything is spiritual".

:)

I'm sure that wasn't the first time that phrase and more importantly that idea was brought up as something essential and vital and life changing but whether Rob absorbed it while reading about, for pleasure, an obscure German doctor (not necessarily unlikely with Rob) or even if he believes he coined the phrase...it doesn't seem to really matter because to be blunt - it's not groundbreaking. It's just a concise way of saying something complex. Just happens to also be something it's good to be reminded of at least every hundred years or so.

And I do think intent matters. Without devious or malicious motives...things turn grey.

I have a joke I tell sometimes about how at the beginning of church one sunday, we were invited to meet people around us and shake hands and tell people "I'm glad you're here." I offered my hand to the guy in the row ahead of me who offered his fist...ya know...to "fist bump" me.

That alone caught me off guard. I mean, I really don't like fist bumping anyway and I was pretty sure I didn't want to do it at church. But more importantly, I had already put my hand out. I had clearly established that we would be SHAKING hands. So now I was supposed to convert? At church? So, I ended up looking him in the eye, saying "I'm glad you're here" and I shook his fist.

One day after the very first time I told that joke I saw a Demetri Martin special where he told a joke about a relatively similar situation. I knew he hadn't stolen my joke because I think I would've noticed him at my show and I hadn't stolen his because I'd never seen that bit before. The simple fact is that situation was not unique. It's relatively universal as our hand gesture salutations evolve. We both had different takes on it but there were definitely similarities.

When you have pastors, all human, all with human brains and all using the same book as the "umbrella text", the idea that there would be no overlapping of sermons would be more unbelievable than the fact that there is. When you have comedians, all human, all with human brains and human experiences you can expect some of the same things to happen to some of them. Hopefully, because we humans are all at least a little bit unique, the way we describe them and deliver the words will allow different versions of similar stories to coexist.

Finally, if something is knowingly repurposed(let's say "stolen" for effect), it's significance in the "whole" is perhaps the most important to me.

Vanilla Ice and The Verve wouldn't have been sued for sampling Queen and the Rolling Stones respectively if the sample wasn't by far the most memorable and significant part of their songs. I'm sure Vanilla Ice and The Verve also used some words that have been used in other people's songs but that wasn't at issue because their re-use was expected and insignificant and unrelated to their use in other people's songs.

That's my take. On taking.

biz markie + sampling + stolen teachings part IV

 

Happy New Year!

 

I asked Matt Laidlaw, Mars Hill's high school pastor to share his thoughts.  Matt has studied in Jerusalem and has offered countless insights into helping me and many others see the text in it's proper context.

 

I Don’t Care

 

This discussion is interesting, both intellectually and philosophically, but if I’m really honest, at the end of the day, I don’t find it to be especially meaningful, helpful, or practical. More to the point: I have a hard time caring about it.  That said, I’m throwing in my two cents (maybe a few more than two) about this issue because Steve Carter is my friend and he asked me to.  There’s not much I wouldn’t do for a friend like Steve (he’s also my boss).  For him, I’d even consider writing another Matt-ifesto.  So here we go.

 

I really do enjoy teaching in all types of forms and varieties, but I don’t consider myself a teacher in the same way that many who are participating in this conversation might and therefore fear I’m a bit out of my league.  I’ve done a lot of teaching in several different mediums and settings.  I’ve taken a variety of classes, written a lot of papers, and done a fair amount of research.  I will therefore be coming at this from an angle that might be different from those of you who are preaching or teaching every week in front of large congregations or youth groups.  Please be aware of this as you consider my perspective.

 

I never really considered how important conversations about citing resources or stealing teachings are in ministry or academia until my time spent studying in

Israel

.  When taking a class in

Jerusalem

, our professor, Rabbi Moshe, gave an entire lecture on how American students don’t know how to write research papers because they don’t know the difference between legitimate and illegitimate sources, and even if they do, they don’t know how to cite them correctly.  He ended his rant by saying, “Be sure to spend extra time on your works cited page.  As the rabbis say, whenever you give proper credit to someone else for their work you’re speeding-up the coming of the messiah.”  I was floored by this statement and after class asked Rabbi Moshe where I could find this quotation in Jewish literature.  He humbly replied, “I don’t know.”

 

You can imagine how the impact of his rant decreased after this ironic and awkward interaction.  Trust was broken and integrity was tarnished because Rabbi Moshe couldn’t cite the source he was using to make his point, and therefore the power of his point was lost.

 

What’s More Troubling

 

What’s more troubling to me than the debate about stolen teachings is that it’s truly a reflection of what teaching and teachings have become in many of our congregations.  One of my mentors recently told me, “Matt, even though teaching your leaders and students is less important than 90% of the rest of your job, it’s the 10% that people will judge your success on.”  Many people will equate my success as a pastor with the quality of my teaching.  Can any of you relate to this?

 

Sipping coffee outside the sanctuary, in the car on the drive home, and around the Sunday dinner table, what are our congregants discussing? 

“What did you think of the teaching this morning?” 

“Did you like what pastor so and so had to say?”

“Did you think her jokes were funny?”

“Did you agree with his points?”

We feel trapped by the pressure to either a) perform well for the congregation, or b) serve as the negative topic of discussion at supper.  How many of us have complained about this before?  At times we feel that our teachings have become nothing more than a product to be consumed, and nothing could be more troubling to us.

 

But as pastors our hands aren’t clean.  We’re fueling the consumerist feeding frenzy that is experienced on Sunday mornings across the

America

.  As soon as our teachings become intellectual property, products to be purchased online, or chapter three of a future book that people who already heard the sermon will pay to read, we give our congregations the right to become consumers.  As soon as our teachings become pre-packaged talks to be given in multiple venues, opportunities to generate supplemental income, or the avenue through which an individual personality steers the course of a community, we sell our souls to the paying customers.  So our conversations about stealing content, teachings, and ideas are the next step down the wrong path that our views of teaching have been traveling for years.

 

Blah, Blah, Blah-g-ing

 

Some of us like to hear the sound of our own voice.  Some people like to see the look of our own typed words.  Deep down we all want to think and feel as if our insight and ideas are worth hearing.  For some of us in our darkest moments, this is why we’re energized by teaching.  For others of us, this is why we blog.  As innocent and helpful as blogging might seem on the surface, isn’t it also a dangerous venture?

 

In Blog World, our experiences define reality.  Research, resources, and the consultation of others hold little to no value in the eyes of the average Internet surfer or blog reader.  Wisdom and truth are in the eyes of the blogger and the reader, and external verification holds no weight.  Meaning: we really have no idea what truth lies behind the written words, what the real story is, or if the thoughts presented could legitimately hold any water.

 

The nature of blogging allows us to be irresponsible with our ideas and the ideas of others.  We can say anything we want, any time we want, about anything or anybody we want.  There is no authority—not really—holding us accountable if our ideas are ill-conceived, misinformed, or unoriginal.  Blogs run the risk of being nothing more than pooled ignorance, stolen ideas, and vain attempts to prove our talents important and our lives valuable.

 

Blogging allows everyone to become a “writer”.  Not only does this self-proclaimed title carry with it a false sense of worth from a false giver of value; it fuels a destructive and universal self-centeredness.  Now that I am a “writer”, and my “work” is out there for the world to see, I have to keep “writing”.  Now that I’ve created a false audience for my life to be lived in front of, people “need” to know what I’m doing, how I’m feeling, and what I’m thinking all the time. This behavior, whether I find it in myself or in others, must be called what it is: immature, disgusting, and sinful.

 

I wonder how much of this conversation about stolen teachings really comes from that fact that as teachers we find way too much of our identity and validation from our calling.  We search for validation through our teachings and through our words and not getting the-credit-we-think-we-deserve reveals the truth that maybe our motives have been skewed since the beginning. 

 

Let’s Not Forget

 

Let’s not forget that the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.  Let’s not forget there is nothing new under the sun.  Let’s not forget why we all probably got into this gig in the first place.  Let’s not forget that in the beginning, we were all interested in sharing God’s words.

“It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest
It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief”

            (U2 in their song, “The Fly”)

 

We’ve likely not given God the credit he deserves, yet we’re losing sleep over not getting the credit we deserve.  When you’re sitting in your office, or Starbucks, or the library preparing for a teaching and you get an idea, how do you know if it’s an original thought?  How do you know it’s not insight from a podcast you were half listening to while you were half driving home last week?  How do you know it’s not point number three of a sermon you heard six yeas ago?  How do you know that the student you’re mentoring didn’t somehow actually miraculously vocalize the idea to you sometime during the forty minutes you were explaining your next teaching to her?  You don’t know.  There is no way we could possibly know when we’re having an original idea, and for that very reason, we need to free ourselves from the slavery of figuring out which ideas belong to each person.

 

They don’t belong to any person.  They belong to God.  Let’s not forget the giver of life, breath, and everything else.  Let’s not forget our role in this gig.  We’re servants, not special.  We’re co-creators, not creators.

 

I Want To Be The Kind Of Person

 

I want to be the kind of person what can just let it all go.  Six years ago I was sitting in a hotel lobby somewhere in

Turkey

with a group of people whom twelve days earlier I’d never met before.  Together we’d spent nearly two weeks following an insane man up and down mountains and in and around ancient cities.  From sunup to sundown this man inhaled the thin Turkish air and exhaled more biblical knowledge and insight than anyone I’ve ever met.  It was all day, non-stop, all teaching, all the time.  It was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life.

 

In the hotel lobby we shared communion, our favorite memories from the trip, and the challenges we would all have waiting for us when we would arrive home the next day.  When we had come to terms with the fact that our time together had come to an end, the man we’d been following so closely ended the experience with these words, “Everything I taught you on this trip is yours.  I got everything I taught on this trip from someone else.  Please use it in your ministries.  Teach it to the people in your life.  It’s yours.” 

 

I want to be the kind of person who is eager to give credit where credit is due.  I want to be the kind of person who is eager to begin a teaching by saying, “Nothing that will be spoken from my mouth is my own; it’s the fruit of the men and women who’ve allowed me to sit at their feet throughout my life, and the overflow of the wisdom that creates and sustains our universe.”

 

I want to be the kind of person who wastes no emotional energy on not receiving the credit I think that I deserve.  I want to be the kind of person who can sweat and bleed over ideas and content and then freely give it away to others, because deep down I know and want to know it never belonged to me in the first place.

 

 

biz markie + sampling + stolen teachings part III

the first time i ever learned about intellectual properties and the church was back in college when i attended a small group for 8 weeks that was facilitated by a pastor named Adam Ayers. the whole 8 weeks was not focussed on intellectual properties; but i do remember in a room filled with artists, Adam shared his thoughts that spurred on some really good dialogue. as i was putting together a list of guest bloggers, he was the first to come to mind. 

Adam is the pastor at Faith Worship Community in costa mesa, ca and even though i don't know him very well; he is definitely one of the smartest people that i have ever met. case in point, Adam came one Sunday to rock harbor to speak at all three services, they gave him a verse and he decided to share three different ideas on that verse. so at the 9am he shared one idea. at the 11am the second idea and at the 7pm the last idea...i've never seen anything like it.  All three were brilliant, deeply compelling and also three brand new teachings just for that weekend. Here are his thoughts on our little discussion, I hope they are helpful to continue our dialogue...

I call it “The ‘Twenty-Dollar’ Problem.”

It goes something like this: We believe in the authority of book of First Bolognians.

1 Bolognians 4.11 states the following, “Thou shalt give thine neighbor Twenty-bucks!”

Woo-hoo!! A simple commandment!

Knowing that the commandment is holy writ, I take the scripture in hand and wave it under your nose, “The scripture says, ‘Give thine neighbor twenty bucks!’ I am thine neighbor.” I stretch out my hand emphatically. “Give, bruthah!”

You comply, acknowledging the authority of the text.

The problem? Twenty bucks was taken when it should have been given. You are down net twenty (-20) when you should be up net twenty (+20). In other words, we are forty bucks to the wrong direction on the balance sheet.

Oddly enough, the totals would have been closer to the bottom-line of the commandment if I had done nothing. At least it was an even sum before I invoked the text over you!

The crux of the issue is where the commandment is located. If I locate the command for me, we stay good. You end-up net 20 bucks to the good. If I locate the command for you we go in the wrong direction very quickly.

I think that the Twenty-Dollar Problem afflicts religious culture. I think that it is a source of much heartache and damage in the Christian world and a point of contention and offense between the Christian culture and the broader secular world.

In my experience, we Christians tend to wield and invoke the commands of God or moral principles as things for others to obey. We locate God’s rules at the other, not at ourselves. In doing so, we make the moral and spiritual ledger move the wrong way. Others feel the injustice but have a hard time pinpointing why it feels so oppressive to them. Often, they just reject the whole system as manipulation.

It’s not the system’s fault or the command’s fault. It’s ours. It’s the way we serve out and apply the commands that causes the oppression.

Intellectual property rights easily fall into this problem.

“Thou shalt not plagiarize!” reads the Gospel according to St. Facetious.

It’s easy enough to defend against. We’re not our own. We’re bought with a price. Therefore all work done by any Christian worker is in essence “work for hire.” The artist who draws Mickey Mouse doesn’t own his work; Disney does. The Christian’s work is owned by Christ, along with the Christian himself. It’s the property of the body, not of the member.

Paul said, “What do you have that you haven’t received? Now if you received it, why do you glory as if you hadn’t received it?” The early church, our example, held nothing to be individually owned but held all things common. We are to follow Christ, who, “(D)idn’t count equality with God something to be held onto but made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant.” Etc. You get the point. The scriptures are plentiful.

From another vantage, it’s a bit humorous that arguments and plagiaristic accusations can even arise between persons about who made a first use or witty comment about a biblical writing or a rabbinic definition. The fact remains that everyone involved is plagiarizing the biblical or ancient writer(s), who don’t happen to be complaining!

We know that “we all stand on others’ shoulders” (a quote that I heard somewhere). Certain kinds of knowledge are ubiquitous and diffused. Some kinds of knowledge are passed on in the convoluted heritage of culture without easy documentation. People even (gasp!) come up with similar ideas from time to time (wow)!

Sermons are given publicly, dispersed quickly and diffused widely through oral repetition in the Christian community. Quotes get garbled and “anonymized” almost as soon as they are uttered. Homilies stand squarely in the mush of compounded millennia of interpretation. Jesus re-worked Isaiah, Paul re-worked Jesus; Irenaeus re-worked Paul. Today, in every sermon, we’re all re-working Paul’s, Jesus’, Isaiah’s whoever’s ancient re-working of some inherited tradition.  It’s like singing the blues; everyone owns the music, while no one owns it particularly.

Still, there’s some uniqueness involved. People leave their personal fingerprints on common cultural property. Artists, scholars, preachers, writers, producers, they all deserve to make a living. A “workman is worthy of his hire,” to borrow a well-worn quote. Little wonder that a publishing company (which makes its living from copyright) would publish a book on the topic.

Hmmm.

Copyright law would ask, “Have you made a substantial change, say 30% or more, so that your work is distinct from another work? Can you establish a trail of documentation? Can you demonstrate previous common-knowledge or available common-sense?”

Ugh. Twenty-dollar problem.

“Love your neighbor as yourself…Let each one esteem the other as better than himself. Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others.”

The question is not, “When has some other person plagiarized and failed to document?!” nor is the command, “You need to give due credit and due compensation!”

The issue is, “I need to have integrity and consideration for the work of others. I need to acknowledge their contributions to me. I need to treat my material as the property of all and rejoice when the word of God is furthered, ‘Whether in pretense or in truth.’ I need to release my rights, lay down my selfishness and honor all those from whom I’ve gained. I need to be Christ-like and make myself of no reputation. That means me, not the other guy. What others do in their footnotes isn’t my business.”

If we do that, then maybe, just maybe, we might get that ledger going in the right direction for a change.

You can quote me on that

…or not.

                             

Could March Madness help college football?

Every year during this time, sports radio shows are filled with angry fans begging, pleading, and demanding a playoff in college football. The problem is that the big conferences do not want to give up the funds that come there way with an automatic BCS bowl game appearance. That money, easily in the 10+ million dollar range is dispersed throughout the conference with a good chunck going to the school in the bowl game. When two teams from the same confernce (like the big ten and big 12 did this year) make it to a bowl game, the payout is simply ridiculous. Why would a president of the big ten, pac ten, big 12, sec, big east or acc want to lose easy money? Every march they watch this happen with march madness...

The big 6 conferences mentioned above do not get easy money during the NCAA tourney. They, like every other conference and school get a cut from what is made during the tourney. So when the public cries out for a playoff in college football, the presidents are thinking strictly business and who actually can blame them. So here is my thought: College football needs a playoff and I believe every college president knows this. Just ask Steve Sample (president of USC) or the president of Texas. You don't think they feel slighted? The best 16 teams should get a shot to be called the nations best. In order to do this, the big six conferences need to talk to the NCAA about changing how the payout works in march madness. They can leverage this, not only to give most fans what they want; but also work to make a similar dollar amount that they currently do with each BCS bowl game. They could be given a specific percentage of the gross that is brought in during both tourneys. if it is comparable to what is brought in now, i can't imagine why any of the big six conference presidents would shoot it down. 

Change march madness to benefit the big 6 and college football gets a playoff.

finish well.

there's this great pastor who lives in Pittsburgh and every once in awhile he sends me an email with something great to think about. recently, he sent me this:

scarter

i was praying for you today and this question came to mind, "what will it look like for you to finish WELL at mars?"  no answer needed just a question that hopefully will challenge you.  

peace

 

i responded with something like "thanks, another question that will haunt me."  i asked if he had any advice on leaving well and he sent me this yesterday:

 

scarter

leaving and saying goodbye is hard. i have learned that i naturally shut off and need to be intentional about closing loops. some questions i try to answer are:

 

is there anyone i need to forgive?                                                                                                     is there anyone i need to ask forgiveness from?                                                                                is there anyone i need to thank?                                                                                                       is there anyone i need to celebrate?                                                                                                 is there anyone i need to confront? 

 

peace.

 

i appreciate these kinds of questions.  they're an invitation to be much more rooted, much more connected and much more healthy.  finishing well is very important to me. i continue to frame this idea in what is most helpful for the church; but these questions made me realize that finishing well also must include what is helpful for me. forgiving, asking, thanking, celebrating and confronting are healthy themes that allow you to enter into this next season much more whole...

 

dad moment part 1.

imagine you're driving home with your wife and son listening to some old pearl jam when all of a sudden a large piece of ice gets thrown at your windshield.  what do you do?  keep driving?  maybe or do you turn the car around, leave your wife and son on the side of the road and begin to chase after some men...

i decided to leave my wife and son on the side of the road.

i get out of the car and see these men running in the snow.  now mind you, it is freezing, snowing and i'm a good two hundred yards from these guys.  but i'm not afraid.  i cross four lanes of traffic.  i start running through a field. i come to a creek, it doesn't look too deep.  i step in and it ends up being very deep, like soak most of my pants deep.  at this moment, i yell, "ahhh hell...hell no"

i get out of the creek on the other side, i'm now only one hundred yards from these heathens as they begin running towards some suburban neighborhood and so i start yelling some more.  "i will find you.  i will follow your tracks in the snow and find you.  the police are on there way.  they will find you; but only after i have found you."  but they keep running.  

i keep chasing, soaking wet and yelling even more crazy things.  at this point, lights are turning on in homes, people are looking out their windows and watching the pursuit.  they enter the neighborhood and they're gone.

but i've watched cops before.  i know what to do. questions are running through my mind like, "did they enter a house?" or "did they cross over into another field?"  i survey the land, check the tracks and see that they lead up to a house a few doors down.  i roll up to that house, lights are on and ring the door bell.

older man comes out and says, "can i help you?"  i say, "yes, by chance did you see two adults run by about 30 seconds ago?"  he then replies, "adults...no; but my 6th grade son and his friend just came in huffing and puffing...why?"  "well, i think they through a huge chunk of ice that nailed my windshield as i was driving..."

so dad shakes his head, walks inside and calls for his son and his friend to come down and explain themselves.  they walk outside and immediately confess and say they're sorry.  i look at them both and say, "here's the deal...you totally freaked my wife and i out; something bad could have happened; but i have to say, it was a really good shot."  as i walked away, i heard the dad start yelling at these two kids and i started to wonder, "maybe i'm not doing so well.  maybe my grandpa's recent and unexpected death is weighing on me.  maybe countering back and forth with a potential buyer is stressing me out. maybe saying goodbye is harder than i ever could have imagined. maybe the dad should be yelling at me..."    

it was a strange walk back.  i came to the creek and decided not to step in; but tried to jump it instead.  i almost made it. soaking wet i realized this was my first dad moment.  you know those moments, when you think you're protecting and doing what's right; but it's just a cover, an escape for something much deeper.  i don't want to be that guy.  i don't want to be that kind of husband. i don't want to be that kind of father.  i don't want to be that kind of man.  i realized at that moment that Parker Palmer was dead on when he said, "true self, when violated, will make itself known. sometimes even at great cost until we honor it's truth."  

 

nashville nywc recap

this past weekend, i had the chance to head down to nashville for the NYWC.  first off, nashville is great city where one local told me that through the months of september and may there are upwards of 120,000 college students present.  there were a number of great coffee shops i wanted to check out, iron and wine played right next to the convention (bummed i missed that show) and a number of great things happening throughout the city that weekend like the titans losing their first game...

there is something beautiful about walking into a room filled with interns, key volunteers, and student pastors of all denominations.  you get this sense that the majority of them breathe a giant sigh of relief that they can just spend a weekend learning, laughing, resting, growing, listening, and worshipping together.  the venue was amazing, much better in my opinion than pittsburgh because they were able to contain the space and create an environment in an arena that felt very intimate.

everyone i talked to could not stop raving about Francis Chan's talk.  i picked up his book, crazy love and am half-way through it already.  a couple of things that really surprised me was the number of practical contemplative books that were available at the conference.  i flipped through a few books, one by Lilly Lewin and Dan Kimball called sacred space that looked fascinating.  i didn't buy the book because ys doesn't allow you to purchase books during a session; so when i came back the next day it was already sold out.  so i'll order it on amazon today...

yesterday, Corrie Boyle and i led a breakout on creating a junior high ministry that believes students can change the world.  as i sat there and listened to the questions many pastors and volunteers were asking i realized again how important having the right kind of volunteer is to having a ministry that believes in students.  

this weekend to me is all about conversations.  some that are continuning between pastors and volunteers, starting between various leaders, and deepening between God and self.  i loved walking back to my hotel and watching a number of people engaged in conversation that seemed genuine and honest.  whether they were laughing together, huddled around praying for one another, or comparing notes from breakout sessions you could see many were maximizing each moment of this weekend. my prayer is that these kinds of conversations continue to be fostered because we deeply need them in ministry. 

biz markie + sampling + stolen teachings part 2...

this topic really has connected with some people.  i love the thoughts that were shared in the comments section and also from those that emailed me directly. it forced me to begin thinking about what if more people could weigh in on this issue?  so i sent a few people that i deeply respect and admire (only 2 are pastors) and asked if they would share their perspective on this topic.  my hope is to have seven guest bloggers share their thoughts in the coming weeks...

i've already received from one of them their piece and it's simply amazing!