Jeremy's Blog

Artwork and Scientology

2012-01-16T12:57:00.002-06:00

I’m in Burbank, and yesterday morning I went on a doggie walk with my friend (poor phrasing, I mean we walked her dog). On my way back home I walked by an art store, one that’s intrigued me since my very first visit to LA 15 months ago. I’ve never been sure what to think about it, because on the one hand it looks kinda shady, hole-in-the-wall-esque; on the other hand, [potentially] like a great place to find deals. Because I like art. Or at least, paintings of landscapes and nature. And over the last few months I’ve been longing to buy another piece or two to hang in my living room.

So with nothing else to do this morning (Baby Jesus cried, I skipped church, not having a car to get to the one in Pasadena that I love), I decided to stop in the art store and just check it out, see what there was to see. I didn’t really expect to buy anything, but if I saw the right piece, then sure, why not?

I entered timidly, and cheerfully greeted the guy at the front desk. Michael. He welcomed me with a warm, soothing voice, asked if this was my first time to the store, to which I answered affirmatively. He offered me a drink: tea, cocoa, water; asked if I needed a restroom; then we talked for a short while, him telling me about the store, me describing my love for scenic landscapes, and eventually we made our way into a room with hundreds of canvas original paintings lying in piles around the room. One by one he went through a pile, me admiring each piece, and every now and then I’d ask, “set that one aside” for us to review later.

Before we had started looking, Michael said something that really captivated me: (voice note, so exact quote)

When you look at something, it happens immediately for you…. there’s no thinking involved. If you have to think about whether you like something or not when you’re looking at it, then you’ve spent too long looking. In other words, I’m saying if you trust your judgement, if you trust your own immediate perceptions of who you are as a being, and what works for you, that’s as good as it ever gets.

And as I asked about prices, mentioning maybe I’d need to save my pennies and come back next time I’m in town, he noted that while the store would be here, specific art pieces might not be - if I like it, I should really get it now, even if I have to put it on layaway. “Anything you like, and you leave, there’s a good chance you’re gonna lose it…. Do something about it today, whatever it is.”

Because it’s been on my mind, I found myself drawing parallels between what Michael said about art as being directly applicable to Love. I was moved.

After seeing a hundred paintings, (maybe two hundred? maybe more?), I’d selected a dozen to review: several mountain landscapes, some palm trees on a beach, a cityscape, some leopards, and a still-life of a violin. Then we stepped into their viewing gallery, complete with elegant red recliner couches and chairs for sitting back and admiring the artwork, which Michael carefully taped on a white wall illumined by gallery track lighting. I looked at six paintings at a time, eliminating them from my selection one by one. And during this, Michael brought me a cup of tea and some bread and cheese to munch on while I pondered. I’m not used to this kind of treatment! He explained this is how his parents raised him: when someone comes to your home, you offer them food, drink, bathroom, anything to attend to their needs. It’s how he was raised, and how he lives his life now. I really appreciated that.

Narrowing from 12 excellent paintings down to 1 was not easy. Of the first six (all taped on the viewing gallery wall), I eliminated two right away, not because they were bad, not by any means! But because I didn’t love them as much as the other four I was looking at. But then there were two palm tree paintings, both spoke to me differently. I’ve never been good at art critiquing, but I saw in myself how these two paintings evoked very different emotions. Both had three palm trees on the left side, and both skies were sunset, but the ocean water and land composition was different. One had rough water cresting on the beach, and the water was surrounded by land on both left and right. It made me feel comfortable, cozy, cocooned, wrapped, enveloped. Safe. The other had no land on the right side, just wide open (mostly calm) ocean waves. It made me feel uncertain, almost scared, at the same time exhilarated at the possibility. It was symbolic of my future. It also made me feel brave, like I could dive into the deep and there was nothing wrong with that. It was the same beach, the same palm trees, from two different views. Perspective made all the difference. After a lot of thinking, and mostly feeling, I eliminated the enclosed, safe-feeling one. Time to take a risk.

Michael was clever in how he helped me eliminate paintings. While I agonized over the palm trees, he asked, “well how about this [completely other] one, do you like it better or less than the palm trees.” “Well played,” I told him. Because when asked that way the answer was obvious: I loved the palm trees more, so the other painting could be dismissed. I commented that he’s clearly done this before, and he explained his role isn’t to decide for me, but to help me come to the right decision for me.

Eventually, after some easy decisions, and a lot of hard ones, I narrowed it down to three: two with mountains and the one with palm trees by the wide-open ocean. The two mountains were very similar - same artist and I suspect the same mountain, but one was light, happy (“safe”) blue, daytime colored, and the other red and orange and yellow, sunset colored, more fire-y, more exhilarating. Both were beautiful, both were very “me” and my decor.

At this point, I munched on my bread and cheese while Michael moved these final contenders to the lower half of the wall, and found wooden frames to set in front of each, so I could see how they looked.

They looked beautiful, and I wanted all three.

And while I was VERY tempted to take all three home with me, I forced myself to make a sacrifice, and I turned down the palm trees, leaving the two mountains on the wall. And then I couldn’t prune any more. I decided, if I could afford it, these two would come home with me.

Even before we’d started looking at paintings, Michael had reassured me not to worry about the cost - he described a layaway program they have, and also mentioned there might be room for negotiation on the final price. I knew with the current “liquidation sale” discounts these paintings would all be in the $150-$400 range, plus the cost of framing, so that gave me a ballpark. But in any case, I understood that it wasn’t about the money. This felt very comfortable to me, because it’s how I operate, too.

With the final two paintings selected, my guide through the art world priced them out with the same wooden frame he’d used for the demo. Once I saw the numbers, I asked if there were other framing options - he immediately jumped in, saying if I was worried about the price– I cut him off: “No, it’s not that, I actually want to get something nicer, this frame looks cheaper than what I have on my art at home.” I went into their custom framing room and found a frame that looked similar enough - deep, rich, elegant wooden - to what I had at home, and as it turns out, that choice wasn’t significantly more expensive.

With a final quote prepared, it was a little higher than I’d hoped to spend. On the plus side, because they were billing and shipping to me in Minnesota, there was no sales tax. On the down side, there was a significant shipping charge. I hemmed and hawed a little bit, then, as humbly as I could, because I knew everything was already on sale and discounted (even the framing), I asked if there was any chance they could slash the price slightly more.

Michael said “let me check”, then brought in his manager and described my situation. The manager offered me a $30 discount, which I might have taken, but I asked if he could drop it even more - I named a price, and said if he could meet it, I’d pay the whole amount right there, right then, no lay-aways required. He shook my hand and said “enjoy your art.”

Win. Two beautiful paintings, framed, delivered to my door in Minnesota. Did I mention, original paintings, not prints. Michael wrote my order number and the date on the bleed over edge of the canvas, then handed me the pen to sign my name - point being: when they arrive, I can verify these are the originals I picked out, not duplicates.

He also let me pay with two credit cards, which means I’ve now spent enough on my new American Express card to get a free flight’s worth of Delta SkyMiles bonus points, and racked up a few extra Southwest miles on my Chase Visa, to boot. If I can keep working within the system, I may never need to pay full price for a flight again.

Receipts in hand, I started toward the door. On my way past the front desk area, Michael brings me to a stand with some DVDs and pamphlets, and I see right away the DVD on the top of the pile says “Scientology”. Oh great. Such a great morning, why ruin it with this?

The situation turned out not as badly as I feared, He told me a bit about his background, growing up Jewish, and his conversion to Scientology, and along the way we shared some ill-will toward organized “religion” at large. He seemed more interested in what Scientology teaches about interacting with people, vs promoting the religion itself and trying to “convert” me. My first thought was “this makes me feel uncomfortable”, but then I asked, “Okay God, I’m in this situation, anything you’d like me to say?”

As he talked Michael cited Jesus’ saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” There came a point in the conversation where Michael said, “okay, now your turn to talk and me to listen”. This caught me off-guard, but I latched onto that verse that he’d quoted and said, “you know, Michael, you’ve talked about wanting to make up for past deeds, to earn God’s love, and brother I just want to tell you that price has already been paid; the verse you cited before, Jesus being the way and getting to the Father through Him, stop putting so much pressure on yourself, you don’t need to earn anything. God’s so proud of you, of the man you are, the kind of man who offers his guests food and drink…blah blah blah” I said more, but that’s the gist of what I remember.

I don’t know if it meant anything to him, I don’t know if he truly “listened” or was just humoring me, but he got a little teary-eyed so I’d like to believe it meant something. The words weren’t mine, and they kept coming.

At the end of the conversation I asked if I could pray for him; he consented, I did, and then left. So weird, going from learning about art (and even learning how to appreciate impressionist work), to talking about Jesus in a public storefront, and feeling comfortable doing it. I figured if he was going to “Scientologist” me, I would “Jesus” him in return. Not about conversion. That’s not up to me. It is about reminding God’s children how much they are loved. Being counter-cultural.

Drive-by ministry. This is my Calling.

Goals update for 2011-2012

2012-01-01T22:27:00.003-06:00

Some people call them New Year's Resolutions, but because I work in a school I set my goals in summer. Let's check in and see how I'm doing (considering I've forgotten completely what I had planned to be working on this year)

Play guitar more often, even when I don't "feel" like doing it
Fail.

Learn basic chords on my banjo, even if I do not become an expert
Fail.

Continue working toward my CD album
Fail.

Finish post-production on The Vacationers, Paperclip, and start working again on Far Away
Progress, and hopefully both Vacationers and Paperclip will be done by summer. So, "not fail".

Read at least 1 more book
Well, if audio books count, then I've read FOUR! The Hunger Games trilogy, and the Steve Jobs biography.

Let God start leading and stop trying to force it
Constant battle, but I've drawn back quite a bit and am letting come what may.

Prioritize friends over work
Yes. Definitely done this. To the detriment of myself sometimes, though.

Keep diving straight into deep questions
Hm. I've grown a tad more confident in myself in starting conversations, but maybe not so much in the area of deep questions. I'll work on it.

Explore the wonders of Netflix
Done. I have large DVD and instant queues.

Discern my calling to Los Angeles, and what I hope to accomplish
Nope. Good thing the year isn't over yet.

Be honest with myself
Yes. I am this, if nothing else.

Become a more persuasive speaker
Fail.

Eat healthier and exercise, even if it's "just" going on more walks
I need to get out walking more. I wouldn't my diet a smashing success, but small steps toward progress, perhaps.

EEK. Long way to go in the next 7 months.

The Girl of my Dreams

2011-12-29T13:32:00.002-06:00

I met a girl last night. She had black and blue and blonde hair - mostly black, with a large patch dyed blue on top, dark royal navy blue, and a streak of blonde on the side. We met on a tour bus. It looked more like a school bus, brown non-cushy seats, and it was very crowded. Not smelly or anything, just crowded. I stepped on board and took the only seat that was open, maybe halfway back. Actually I wasn't even sitting on a real seat, I was in the middle aisle sitting on someone else's knee, that's how crowded this bus was.

We drove around Burbank, California. I recognized a bank, some of the shops, and knew approximately how far I was from home (Anne and Brooke's) if I needed to walk back. As the bus turned, I noticed next to me was this blue-haired girl. I smiled cautiously. She returned it. Over the next few minutes I clumsily attempted small-talk. I hate small talk. After a few failed attempts and what seemed eternal seconds of silence, I turned to her and said how I really liked her hair. Then immediately I turned to face front again, giving up, afraid she'd think I was a creep. She didn't. She thanked me for the compliment, and we started talking. Actually talking. I have no recollection what about. But it was "good awkward."

Suddenly the seat to my left opened up, I guess its inhabitants has disembarked. I claimed the seat, and asked her if she'd like to join me. She did. We sat together as the bus pulled on an on-ramp and onto the freeway. She told me she lived in Barclay, California, and was happy I was from the area. I broke the news that I was from Minnesota, and would be going back home next week.

By the time our bus reached its destination we were holding hands. It was really cute. We were really cute.

When we got off the bus we were at a zoo slash amusement park kind of place. There were pools, and I slipped and got wet up to my knees. I was thoroughly embarrassed, she just giggled. We continued to hold hands as we walked.

After we parted ways I was horrified when I realized I didn't have her email or phone number, and had no idea how I'd find her again. I don't know whether a relationship would have worked out or not, but I sure wish I'd had the chance to find out. At least I knew her name, and her town, so I'm hoping Google can help me find her.

Then I woke up.

If you ever meet the girl from my dreams, tell her about me, please? I rarely remember my dreams after waking, so I know she was special.

Pragmatic Christmas

2011-12-28T21:52:00.002-06:00

I lucked out this Christmas - every gift my parents and family gave me was practical. Even including socks, which I'd asked for :)

My parents know me well, I discovered: they bought me a water-proof, fire-proof, theft-proof safe (no seriously, it's theft-proof, because it's super HEAVY). This was not something I thought I needed, so my first reaction was "I don't know how I'm going to use this." After some convincing I realized it will actually be very useful for hard drive storage, protecting all my movie-making footage if my house ever goes up in flames. The best part of the story, though: Dad explained afterward, 'I told Mom beforehand he [me] won't like this at first, he's not gonna see the use for it, and say "I can't use this", but once he gets his mind around it he'll figure out it can be useful'. Which is exactly what happened. My parents know me better than I do, apparently.

Birthday Celebration

2011-12-20T00:32:00.000-06:00

Earlier this month I turned 26, and, as has become tradition the last few years, I invited literally hundreds of Facebook friends to join me at IHOP for a celebration. Amazingly, this year we had really good weather: no snowpocalypse, no ice storm, just plain ol' cold temperatures. In total, 16 friends and family braved the freezing temps to come celebrate.

The IHOP folks dealt very well with the sudden influx of guests - I'd not had a chance to warn them in advance about the large group, but when my family showed up the manager decided to wait on our table personally. Given the numerous comings and goings through the evening, perhaps a wise choice.

For me, the greatest gift someone can give is time, and looking around the table I knew for some of these friends, time is a precious commodity right now. I was humbled for them to spend their evening with me. I was also mildly upset, because as soon as the group grew to a certain size, I couldn't talk with everyone. And by mixing friend groups, I run the risk of people not knowing anyone besides me. This was especially concerning when I looked at the other end of the table and saw many of my quiet, shy friends gathered at that end. Oops. The "get all your friends together and hit the restaurant" idea worked super well in college, where everyone more or less knew each other, but I'm finding it might work less and less well in "real life".

It turned out okay - the shy people were mixed in with just enough extroverts that it worked - and halfway through eating I switched ends of the table to spend time with those friends. But still, I'm not sure if I'll do this again next year. I'd rather spend quality one-on-one time with all these friends, than limit our conversations (both in time and depth) in order to get around the table and see everyone. And I left the evening feeling as if I'd missed out, because no matter who I was talking to, there were other conversations I probably should have been in, too. I feel like I couldn't win.

Time to start brainstorming for next year. Maybe laser tag.

Minnehaha iBand

2011-12-14T13:31:00.004-06:00

Faculty and staff with iPads performed in an "iBand" for the Minnehaha Academy Annual Christmas Musical Variety Show, December 13, 2011.

Inspired by the North Point iBand: http://youtube.com/watch?v=F9XNfWNooz4

Special thanks to Nicholas Freeman for recording and editing.

Life is Good

2011-12-07T23:54:00.001-06:00

At 1:06 a.m. I turn 26. And Life is Good. I say that because my life is going "as planned"? Not exactly the words I want to use. Hm. But to say it's "going well" sounds so boring.

Just got home from a production meeting, where we did our post-mortem on the last movie shoot (not nearly as much name-calling and yelling and gnashing of teeth as I'd expected :) and also figured out roles for the next project. I'll be production managing, and I'm super excited.

Our star from the last movie just emailed me a draft she's written for a sequel. I enjoy reading scripts, and I'm very excited to read what she's done with the character.

Friend Pam took me to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert earlier this week. What a light show. Wow. Great music, too, but really: total techie-drooling over all the cool toys they had.

Work has been busy; boss approved all the projects I want to be working on, as well as the potential of me working remotely from LA for a week every now and then.

I have so much to do that life will never be boring. I need to take time to pause and listen to God's Calling, though, because I'm just going my own way and not really taking the Holy Spirit into account. Prayers for that appreciated. And frankly, call me out on it if you ever feel so inclined. I need the reminders.

Chapel talk last Thursday went well. Lots of folks have commented how it meant something to them. Folks who wouldn't have to say anything; they've gone out of their way.

In my friendships I'm noticing how much I've matured from the person I was a year ago. I'm forcing the relationships less and listening more. Part of it's from busy-ness. Part of it is maturity. Let's pretend the larger portion is maturity :)

At AWAKEN this past weekend the director and her husband (the founder) announced they will be leaving the ministry at the end of this year, in order to focus full-time on their church (he's the pastor). So there won't be AWAKEN next year. The board might find new leadership for the year afterward, they might not, it's a "definite maybe" :) In any case, it's interesting because since October 4 I've been coming to peace with this being my last year in the drama (without knowing this may possibly be the last year it even exists!), and I feel good about it. Again, everything just feels like a natural progression. I'm not trying, life is just falling into place.

Oh, and one more piece of evidence for that theory: I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to hear if school will hire me to work the Madrigal Dinner event in February. I've worked it every year since 2004 (except last year because they took a year off), but this year I resolved that they needed to approach me, I would not go begging for the contract. This is mostly because, in many areas of my life, I'm tired of pushing my way onto a situation, or trying too hard to make something work. I chose in this case to resist that urge. It's been hard, but finally this past week I got the email that the director wants to talk with me, and though I don't want to count the chickens before they hatch, I'm pretty sure they'll hire me. So that's exciting.

One last vague example, I recently chose to do the "right" thing even though I thought it was going to cost me significantly. In the end, it didn't, but I still have the satisfaction of making the right decision.

My conclusion is that God's calling me to live my own sermon: live the Pooh-wei, allow life to happen and don't waste my hours fretting.

And at 1:06 a.m. I turn 26. Life is good.

Chasing the Miracle of Trust

2011-12-02T01:02:00.001-06:00

Speaking in chapel at Minnehaha seems to have become an annual tradition for me. Special thanks to Jeff Crafton for the opportunity, Rich Enderton for videoing (Nicholas Freeman for providing the camera), and Brian Hallermann and Van Donkersgoed for lighting and recording me today. Everything went off with only the very minor-est hitches. I'll take partial credit, for planning ahead, communicating my needs, and having backup plans in place, just in case. In fact, I was complimented by the tech crew for being the most prepared speaker they have all year. We even had sappy "cry music" queued up just in case I broke into tears on stage (which I legitimately thought might happen). The techies set up special blue lights on the black curtain to look like a Stevenote, and my notes about slide transitions and lighting fades must have made sense, because they hit every cue spot on.

The audio in the recording is a little hissy, but my words are legible. Er, understandable? Here's the video from this morning.

Failure

2011-11-30T23:08:00.001-06:00

God's at work. "Failure" is a recurring theme these last couple weeks. Friend and mentor Dan at school counseled me that the best thing I can do right now is take a risk and fail. Because I'm scared of failure. In so many areas of life. It's not something I "do". I need to learn that failure isn't the end. I need to fail at small things, and see that the sun still rises tomorrow (though honestly I have my doubts).

Today my financial advisor encouraged me to take risks with my life. And we weren't even talking about money at the time, we were just catching up on life and she blurts that out.

And it's come up in one or two other conversations over the last week, and on signs and posters and stuff. I can't escape it. Partly Baader-Meinhof, and larger-partly God, I think.

I'm hoping failure doesn't play a large role in my chapel talk at school tomorrow...

Stalking WWDC12

2011-11-29T20:46:00.001-06:00

Today I got the email I've been waiting for since last June: official pre-approval that Title II (government funds for educators' education) will pay for me to attend WWDC again next June. This will be my fourth trip to Apple's annual WorldWide Developer's Conference, a fantastic opportunity to meet the true movers and shakers of all things Apple, from the developers who wrote the apps I use everyday to the engineers who build the operating system powering my laptop and iDevices. Not only meet them, but learn from them, and learn [a little bit] about the future of Apple's software, where they're heading. Possibly, WWDC12 will focus on iOS 6 and Mac OS X 10.8, neither of which has been officially announced, but everyone knows they're in the works.

But pre-approval was only half the battle. The other half is I actually need to get a ticket. Two years ago tickets sold out in 8 days. Last year, 10 hours. I'm not taking any chances.

Last year I wrote a little script that pinged the WWDC home page every so often and then texted my phone if anything changed. Today I re-worked that script to be quite a bit more robust, and also set it up so I'll get two emails (personal and work accounts) and a text message on my phone as soon as anything changes. Granted, dates probably won't be announced (and tickets put on sale) until February/March/April, but like I said, I'm not taking any chances. I'm stalking that website starting today.

Reading in the 21st Century

2011-11-28T13:52:00.001-06:00

No fewer than a dozen friends have suggested I read The Hunger Games. (Or perhaps not a full dozen, but many, in any case). So earlier this month, with a 4-hour drive to AWAKEN ahead of me, I acquired the audio book from audible.com, and was instantly hooked. In fact, I was so hooked, that I finished the entire trilogy, all 35 hours of it, in under a week. Every spare moment was spent listening, even down to my 3 minute morning commutes. That's probably the most reading I've done since the last Harry Potter book hit the shelves.

And, as always happens, my addictive personality took over and made me purchase more audio books, so on tap I now have the Steve Jobs biography, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Shack, and Mere Christianity.

Call it lazy, but at least, in a sense, I'm "reading", something I never have (or take) time to do otherwise.

Butterflies

2011-11-16T15:52:00.001-06:00

Everyone kept telling me I would love Donna Noble by the end of Dr Who season 4.

That hasn't happened yet, not exactly, but I do appreciate her. And considering how much I... we'll say "disliked"... Donna's know-it-all attitude when I began, that's saying something. (sorry Jessie)

Near the end of the season, the writers throw in what I have affectionally called the "It's a Wonderful Life" episode, in which we see what the Doctor's life, or, more accurately, the Earth's life, would have been like, had Donna Noble not met the Doctor. A simple decision to turn right instead of left, that's all it takes, and the world's a completely different place. I can say that much without giving away any spoilers.

For me, this was a turning point. I now understand Donna's complex involvement in the Doctor's story, how she became, quite literally, the most important person in the world.

And it makes me wonder about the people passing by me every day. About their choices. About my own. About the seemingly simple, presumably inconsequential decisions to turn left or right.

Spoilers

2011-11-06T14:20:00.000-06:00

I'm watching Doctor Who. I feel for him. I feel like him. Putting others ahead of myself. I'm not as noble as he is, but some days it feels kind of like it.

This morning I finished the killer-shadows-in-the-library episodes in season 4 (10th Doctor). In it, the Doctor meets River Song, a woman who has known him for years and years and years, but because of the whole time travel thing, this is the first time he's meeting her. She has a journal of all her past encounters with his future. "Spoilers," she calls them, when he asks to read it.

At the end of the episode, the Doctor has a choice. He has River's journal in his hands. He can open it, and read about his future. Or not.

I wish I had some spoilers to read about my life right now.

Or not.

2008 in Review

2011-11-03T12:38:00.000-05:00

Blast from the past: this post should have been written and published back in January 2009

In 2008, lots of stuff happened.

And every English teacher I've ever had just cringed at that atrociously terrible awful topic sentence.

Quick run-down:

In January I dyed my hair (red) for the very first time
In April my laptop was stolen
Also in April Marissa moved into her very own apartment! She'd lived with me while she got her feet back on the ground after coming back from Japan. After joking about being "married"for so long, we still call each other "honey"
I saw AWAKEN for the first time
In the last few months of college I spent a lot of time with friends, going to Applebees, and doing not very much homework
I achieved my goal of playing in Selah (Sunday night worship group at college) before graduation
I graduated from St Olaf College in May
After graduation I led the worship band at Abundant Life, a church in Northfield, for 5 months
At the end of May I got to be a stand-in for the movie Nobody, a major (but I think still technically indie?) film in town
In June I started working full-time at Minnehaha Academy
Also in June I helped chaperone a group of MA middle schoolers to Italy
I got an iPhone :)
Over summer I developed an online back-to-school forms database for parents to use instead of paper forms
Once a month for the next year I organized a group of musicians for The Mix, a worship service that combined youth groups from many of the Northfield churches
In September I joined AWAKEN for the 2008-2009 season
In October Marissa got baptized
In December was the Wildfire premiere... (read my friend Shawn's blog post about this atrocity)
Also in December my Grandpa Ray passed away

That's most of the big stuff. I did leave a few things out, but this gives a good bird's-eye view of the year.

If only

2011-11-01T02:14:00.002-05:00

If you told me to move, I'd run. If you told me to jump, I'd free fall into your arms. If you told me in plain words, I'd understand.

If only I could read between the lines.

Homeless Bags

2011-10-12T23:27:00.000-05:00

Blast from the past: this post should have been published back in August 2010Do you feel awkward when you drive by beggar with a cardboard sign?I do.In her sermon a couple weeks ago Dawn (one of my pastor's at Jacob's Well) played a video of a woman named Ladonna Witmer speaking years ago, and something she spoke struck me hard:

If you talk to my roommate, Colleen, and you tell her about God's unconditional love, she'll just look at you and say, "well what have you done for the homeless lately?" Because if you can't prove to her that you... can take what you believe about love and show it in your life, then she's not going to pay any attention to you.

In a non-trivial way that was a life-changing moment for me, because I felt, I knew, immediately, that I had to do something about that. And the reality is I can’t help everyone, but I can make a difference in a few people’s lives.Long ago I’d heard from my Mom this idea of making bags of food and stuff to hand out, and keeping them in the car. So I went home and assembled some: gallon zip-lock, a Gatorade, water, and cereal bars. Hardly costs me anything, I buy that all in bulk at Sam's Club. But it’s something.On day 1 I was running late to a car appointment and passed a guy on the corner. I didn't see him in time to slow down, but after driving past felt a niggling feeling, so I double-backed and gave him a bag. He said "thank you", we talked briefly, he seemed educated, coherent, and I felt good about myself. My prayer was, "Okay God, no more people today, I'll get the rest of the bags in my car for tomorrow, I promise". I was convicted that I needed to do more of this. That night I brought the rest of the bags out to my car so I'd be well-stocked and ready.On day 2 I saw another guy, he might have had some mental issues and didn't seem quite as alert as the guy from day 1; but he mumbled a thank you when gave him the bag. He then went back to his street corner, threw down his sign, plopped open the bag and downed half the water right then and there. I guess he must have been thirsty.I realized I would have to make more of these little bags. This is worthwhile.And I've been doing it since, in some form or another. I write this blog post as a journal for myself, not because I want to guilt anyone else into following my steps, nor for anyone to give me praise. I don't want it. If you happened to feel inspired to do something of your own, then that's great! But truly, this is just my own personal journal.

AWAKENing the LCMC, and new season starts tomorrow!

2011-10-07T00:08:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night AWAKEN performed last year's drama for a gathering of LCMC pastors and church leaders in Des Moines. Half our cast was different because not everyone from last year was able to make it back, so there were a lot of subs, and even those of us who'd been in it previously saw changes to our roles. Fortunately for me my changes were minor, but some people had completely different roles to learn!

It was hard walking in to the space during setup and seeing the LCMC logo, just because of my own personal beef with the LCMC. I had struggled with this decision months ago, whether I could in good conscience help out with this performance. In the end I figured I'd be quite the hypocrite if I didn't, passing judgement on those I judge for judging. We're all imperfect human beings, who am I to assume I'm any better? Still, it was unexpectedly difficult being in that space at first.

We set up most of our equipment Monday night. Easiest load-in ever: the convention center had a real loading dock, so Derek backed the truck right up to the building and we never needed to use the lift gate. And the main room was about 10 feet from the dock.

Adding to the "make my life easy", we tied our audio into the convention center's system that was already set up, so we didn't need to set up 4/5 of our audio gear (not entirely true: we set it up, then tore it down when we finally figured out we could use their speakers... don't get me started). For tear-down after the performance this was absolutely wonderful.

The convention center staff stayed extra late Monday night helping us finish rigging our truss and focus lights. Meaning no need for the truss stands. And we used their projector, so we didn't have to set that up, either.

I make it sound so easy. Setup still took 4+ hours Monday night, and then Tuesday we couldn't get into the room until 5:30, performance starts at 7. In that hour and a half we had to set up the entire stage, re-set the floor lighting, test everything and hope it all still works, have the cast run through a couple scenes and then set props and put on makeup. Stressful. We didn't end up starting on time :)

Special thanks to Beth for putting on my makeup!

My role was mostly the same as before, but still, it's been 5 months, so almost everyone was using a notecard. This got awkward because I was borrowing someone else's shorts, and to avoid logos they had to be inside out. So throughout the drama I'd be standing either backstage or in the back of the auditorium digging in my pants trying to find that pocket. Hopefully no one noticed.

The performance itself went splendidly. Not perfectly, but given so many new people, and the rest of us who haven't looked at the script since April, and no real rehearsal in the space, everything went really, super great. We exited before it happened, but I'm told we were given a standing ovation. As Jon mentioned to us, we did more promotion for AWAKEN in that one hour than in the entire 6 years of its history. Because every single person in that room is a church leader with the power to bring AWAKEN to their church. Apparently there were a number of folks wanting a west coast tour: Montana, Washington state, California, and a few others. Who knows if it'll happen, but how exciting that we just got national exposure.

Clean-up went well. Their worship team for the next morning rehearsed while we wrapped cables and tore down. I noticed many of us were singing along, and it was nice to have a little bit of our own worship time after the chaos of the previous hours.

The new season of AWAKEN starts this weekend. Heading to Des Moines tomorrow for our first Attack. There will be many familiar faces: my AWAKEN family, I call them - and many new faces: friendships waiting to be made. Welcome to the adventure. Again.

Lessons Learned from Hannah Montana

2011-09-30T00:01:00.002-05:00

Blast from the past: this post should have been written and published back in January 2009

Before diving into the lessons I’ve learned, I should probably explain why I ever started watching Hannah Montana in the first place.

Around Christmastime 2008 I purchased a DVD named Bridge to Terabithia. Maybe I’d heard a good review, maybe Amazon recommended it to me, I honestly can’t remember. In any case, it arrived, I watched it, and fell in love, an instant favorite. If you’ve never seen it, you simply must.

At the end of Bridge to Terabithia, the first song during the credits is one by Miley Cyrus called “I Learned from You”. Another instant favorite. I’d never heard of Miley before, but I knew I loved this song, and I needed to have it in my iTunes, so I ordered the soundtrack (the rest of which is also quite enjoyable). After further investigation, I also discovered that Miley stars on Disney’s Hannah Montana, and so, for kicks, I thought I’d check YouTube and watch an episode or two.

I highly doubt I’m among Disney’s target audience for the show, and you can judge me all you want, but I enjoyed it. Why? I like the premise: it reinforces the truth that celebrities are normal people, too, apart from the idealistic pedestals upon which the public places them. They have real lives and real friendships; celebrities may live in a different societal world, but they’re still people.

For those not familiar with the show (which I'm assuming is everyone reading my blog), the story is about teenager Miley who leads a double life as pop-star sensation Hannah Montana. During the day Miley goes to school, and no one knows she's a celebrity. She does this because her fans are, in a word, crazy (not like padded-cell crazy, but autograph and picture crazy), and Miley would never have a normal life if people knew who she was. Only her family and two closest friends know about her split personality.

I love the parallel to reality that Miley/Hannah’s life necessitates: the desire to be treated normally, and because of that, the inability to reveal her complete self to anyone but her closest friends. Isn’t that the world in which we all live? Trapped by societal expectations. For fear of judgement, or simply being “treated differently”, we each keep secrets and hide much of ourselves away. Thought of this way, Miley’s story, and much of Hannah’s music, hits home in a whole new way.

Now I’ll grant that, in her rebellious teen years, real-life Miley is not always a positive role model for the tween/teen crowd. Sadly it seems few teen super stars survive the spotlight unscathed. Nevertheless I contend there are valuable lessons to be sought from her on-camera alter-ego. I will grant that many of my observations are eisegetical, meaning I’m reading more into the text, or in this case TV show, than the author intended. I’m okay with that. I believe in a God that speaks in new, surprising, and unexpected ways, and so whether the Disney screenwriters had the same agenda as I draw out doesn’t really matter to me - the lessons stand regardless.

Season 1

Episode 1: Miley worries about telling her best friend about her secret double identity as Hannah Montana. “If she knew the truth, I’d never be just _Miley_ again”. Fill that in with your own name. Don’t we all have those feelings? ‘If so-and-so really knew who I was/what I’ve done/where I’ve been/what kind of person I think I am, they wouldn’t see me as myself anymore, they’d only see that label, they’d only see the headline.’ We’re afraid of being treated differently, which is why we’re scared to open up.

For me, this is where I find the appeal in Hannah’s songs “Just Like You” and “The Other Side of Me”. And similarly, Joy Williams song “We”.

Episode 2: Miley and Oliver are close friends, but Oliver has a crush on Hannah. Side-note, Oliver hates gum. What’s admirable about him: even after learning of Hannah’s disgusting [albeit feigned] gum-chewing habit, Oliver looks past this surface blemish and continues to profess his love and affection.

As someone who too often tends toward the superficial myself, Oliver’s example serves as a potent, however comedic, reminder that no one will ever be “the perfect match”; true love means learning to live with the imperfections.

Episode 4: Miley has a hard time asking a guy out. Typical teenage drama, whatever. Here’s why it hits home, though: Miley is a rock star, used to performing in front of thousands of screaming fans, but a one-on-one conversation intimidates her.

The largest crowd I’ve spoken to in recent times was 600 students and teachers at Minnehaha - certainly not thousands. But speaking/singing/playing in front of a crowd doesn’t freak me out. But one-on-one conversations, man, those can be absolutely nerve-wracking! Especially if she’s cute.

Lesson #2: Lack of honesty can ruin a relationship. Miley’s crush invites her to a Hannah concert, and in typical sitcom fashion her double life completely train wrecks their date.

For Miley, physically being in two places is impossible, and leads to romantic catastrophe. For me, being divided emotionally means a failure of commitment. Being divided spiritually means failure to live up to my potential. A servant cannot have two masters.

Episode 6: Miley’s grandmother comes to visit and gives preferential treatment to Miley's brother Jackson, almost to the exclusion of showing any affection toward Miley. In the end Miley learns this is because she’s always been in the spotlight, relegating Jackson to life’s backseat. Grandma knows this, and that’s why she pampers Jackson on her visit.

There are some deep theological truths here. First, God doesn’t necessarily treat everyone equally. I can identify with the sadness Miley feels over being ignored - how many times have I wished for the blessings others have? How many times have I wished God would have given me that new car, that new job, that new guitar?

The flip side is that I'm not privy to the details of that other person’s life. How could I know the gift I coveted came to them timed exactly to lift them from a financial crisis, a deep pit of depression, or a feeling of worthlessness to the world. That’s God’s business, not mine.

Even when it looks like God is playing favorites (and that favorite doesn’t happen to be me), that doesn’t change His unending, uninterruptible love! Miley’s grandma loves her just as much as she loves Jackson, but *shows* it more to Jackson because, after so many years living in the shadow of Miley’s Hannah fame, *that’s what he needs*.

There’s an object lesson for Miley, too: all the time she felt like her grandmother was ignoring her, all the hurt those feelings brought, maybe that’s how Jackson felt with the entire family’s agenda structured around Hannah all the time. So, the next time I’m feeling like God’s ignoring me, I’m going to try to remember all this. Because it’s not all about me. Maybe someone close to me needs Him more urgently.

Episode 10: Miley's Dad says something like, “Sometimes it’s not about what you say, but having the courage to say something.”

This wisdom was given to Oliver specifically as it relates to getting a date, but I see applicability in more areas of life than that. Namely, simply standing up for what you believe. Even if you’re not well spoken, the act of speaking, possibly disagreeing, says more than the mere words ever would. In college intro psych class I read about a study which affirmed people are more likely to stand up for their own beliefs if someone else in the group does so first. Have courage: be the person who puts themselves out there. Sometimes you’ll find yourself alone, but my guess is, more often than not, you’ll find unexpected allies.

Episode 11: Miley, as Hannah, encourages a girl to ask out Oliver. Later in the episode, Miley sees the girl in the lunchroom with another boy… As it turns out, she’s breaking up with her former boyfriend, but the way her email is worded it’s unclear. It’s a sitcom, so everything works out happily in the end.

Appearances are deceiving, which reminds me how crucial getting both sides of a story is before jumping to a final conclusion. For me, this episode also illustrated the idea that God looks at a person’s heart, whereas people only see the outside (1 Samuel 16:7).

Episode 12: Miley encourages her Dad to go back out on the road to perform. He resists, “But–“. She cuts him off: “But nothing. But’s just a word you use when you’re afraid to try.”

“But” is the story of my life: “I want to do more with my music but–“. “I want to be a full-time filmmaker but–“. “I want to exercise and eat healthy but–“.

Miley’s retort hit me instantly, and it hit me hard. Time to stop making up excuses. Time to live.

Episode 14: Another teen superstar enrolls at Miley’s school, and he milks his fame for all it’s worth. Miley (rightfully) becomes upset.

The deeper meaning may not apply to everyone. Or maybe it does, I’m not sure.

I’ve often dreamed what fame might be like. And as I’ve written about before, my ambition toward that end is my Achilles heal, having previously robbed me of meaningful connection to God through my music. Watching Miley play out the scenario of revealing her Hannah identity helps keep me in check. I don’t like the culture I see looking in on Hollywood, and I don’t relish the prospect of giving up my privacy as happens to the stars. My best plan of action is either to stay anonymous, or, since that’s logistically unlikely (at least on local scales), to seek “background” fame, meaning, a recognizable name, but not necessarily face.

Most of all, I need to learn to accept God’s Call of being satisfied with who I am already, and know that that’s enough. If filmmaking brings me further in that path, great; and if not, if I stay just plain ol’ Jeremy, that’s great, too.

Episode 15: Miley (as Hannah) discovers Jake (the superstar from episode 14) actually does have a normal side hidden beneath his public star personality, and this discovery changes her feelings toward him.

My lesson is a humbling reminder that first impressions are often wrong, or at best, incomplete. How many relationships have I missed out on because my perception was skin-deep?

Lord, help me not to obsess over the things man looks at. Give me your eyes to see past outward appearance and into the heart. (based again off of 1 Samuel 16:7)

Episode 19: Miley's Dad lets Jackson (Miley's brother) win their basketball games, not really out of pity, rather because he likes seeing his happy face when he succeeds. Sometimes it’s not about us.

Not everything needs to be a competition; we’re all given our special talents and gifts.

Season 2

My notes kind of trailed off here, guess I stopped learning. Er... Or stopped writing down what I'd learned.

Episode 3: I personally believe it is okay to aspire to be a better person, but what I learned from this episode is that you ought not aspire to be a different person.

“A Song Sung Badly”: It’s not about how pretty your voice is or isn’t, it’s about the emotion behind it. I apply that to worship and all other areas of life.

“The Other Side of Me”: I maintain an image, I let people see what I want them to see of my life. On the inside there’s so much else going on that very few, if anyone, ever gets to see. Don't we all long to be our complete, honest selves, though?

I enjoyed the whole series, apparently I stopped taking notes mid-way through, though. Oh well. Plenty of lessons here to keep me busy for a while.

Things my kids will never know

2011-09-28T11:58:00.004-05:00

In the past several years I’ve occasionally made note of worldly things my some-day children will never experience or know about outside of history class. Most of my observations end up focused on technology, but there are some other gems in there, too. Here’s the list I’ve constructed so far:

A world pre-Internet (and pre-Wifi), pre-cell phone, and pre-GPS
CRT computer monitors or televisions
CDs or DVDs (in the same way my generation doesn’t really know about vinyl, but we sort of do; I played Fraggle Rock record over and over when I was younger)
Carbon copy (even ask some adults today, they can’t tell you what “CC” means in an email)
Non-optical mouses, and trackballs
Car antennas
Land line phones
the Y2K panic
Postage stamps that had to be licked
Cassette tapes, and rewinding
VHS tapes, and along with this, VHS subscription services, where you’d get one video each month with two episodes of a TV series for $20, and you’d do that every month until you got the whole series, because DVDs didn’t exist, and you couldn’t just download the entire series on iTunes. I bought the entire series of Lost in Space this way from Columbia House when I was younger.

And here’s my “I’m an optimist” list:

Gasoline
Cars that aren’t auto-driving
checkbooks (and balancing a checkbook)
hard drives with moving parts

There are other lists, too. This one looked good. Looking forward to the future. Feeling a little nostalgic, too.

My Faults

2011-09-23T23:22:00.001-05:00

Blast from the past: this post should have been written and published about a year ago.

To my benefit (I think), I'm acutely self-aware - I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I'm a pretty good judge of my own capabilities. So sometimes, if I want to check my motives for a particular choice I chose, I do a little lay-person self-psycho-analysis. (admitting my conclusions to anyone else is an entirely different matter :)

As I see it, this is a complete, comprehensive list of my faults.

Absolutely kidding. But it is a list of what I consider 'areas for improvement' in my life. If you're a friend, I'd ask and encourage you to help keep me in check.

Addiction
When I start on a project, a friendship, a relationship, a hobby, I have a tendency to go overboard. When I bought my first guitar effects pedal, I didn't stop there, I ended up with an expensive pedal board and enough shiny toys to fill it. When I discovered mixed drinks I ended up buying a rather large supply of alcohol to stock a home bar. And this inability to say "no" is probably why I own three acoustic guitars and a bunch of other instruments. Knowing when to stop is difficult for me.

Argumentation
Probably the reason I did well in high school Debate, I almost enjoy arguing. Or rather, I enjoy proving that I'm right and you're wrong. This likely speaks to a deeper issue of self-confidence. Oddly, I'd much rather avoid conflict, but once I'm in the conflict, I have a hard time backing down. Especially because I'm always right. It's a difficult burden to bear.

Arrogance
I know my own expertise, and I expect everyone else to excel in exactly the same areas in which I excel. When they don't, it's obviously because I’m a better person. Nevermind that the other person excels at different skills, skills for which, very likely, I have no clue or abilities. That's totally irrelevant.

Relatedly, being a religion major, I have a propensity to assume I know more about theology than I actually do. This does not always lead to arrogance, but certainly has more than a handful of times.

Authority
Having authority, even if imagined, plays to my ego, and my ego enjoys that. Also, I have issues with authorities over me - rather than "obey" an order, my gut reaction is to question it. Sometimes that's appropriate, but usually it's not.

Attention
Squirrel!

I'm working hard on listening more than talking, but let's face it, I enjoy attention, and sometimes find myself being an attention hog. My friend Ben has called me on this at least once. Usually this only happens if I'm very comfortable around the people I'm with.

Type-A
I've been an overachiever most of my life. Not 2nd or 3rd grade, I remember being an academically "bad" student then, but shortly thereafter I changed, and most definitely by 9th grade perfectionism had taken over. This is because I know my best, I know what I'm capable of accomplishing, and so I set my standards for myself ridiculously high.

Guilt
Shoot, I had to break my chain of words starting with A.

Either by nature or cultural influence, I rarely feel guilt. I can feign it, but feeling it, for whatever reason (privileged American mentality?) is difficult.

In summary, I'm human, and I have faults. For clarity's sake: I've published this list not because I have a low-self-esteem, but the exact opposite. I know my self-worth, my esteem is quite high, and at the same time I know there are areas in my life that need work. So this list exists in the *hopes* that my friends can continue pushing me forward.

PS: and I slouch a lot.

Blasts from the past

2011-09-23T23:20:00.000-05:00

On my computer I have a folder called "blogs to write", which has accumulated for years. I'm determined to empty it out, so over the next few weeks I'll be posting some "blasts from the past", stuff that I should have written a long time ago, but never got around to it.

I'm proud of my Mom

2011-09-20T13:47:00.002-05:00

Mom just started the school year at a new [to her] preschool as their lead teacher. After over 20 years as lead teacher and director at her former school, the one where I went to preschool as a 3-year-old and had Mommy as Teacher, the church decided to close that program. There were lots of stupid politics involved, I guess no church is immune to those. And in the midst of that loss of her livelihood, Mom went out and applied to other jobs, picking up part time work at the assisted living place where my Grandpa lived, and also at a teacher supply store in... shoot, I should know this... Edina? Somewhere over there. Point being, Mom worked three jobs last year, and on top of that had several interviews for teaching jobs this year.

And by "had several interviews", I mean once she put the word out that she was looking for a teacher job, people were practically knocking the door down trying to get her to come to their programs. Not even joking. I guess that's a huge perk of building relationships with so many other directors over the last 20+ years, many of them knew her and knew how awesome she is, so it ended up that finding a job wasn't the problem, it was choosing which of several offers to take!

I'm very proud of my Mom. I don't tell her that often enough, so it's a good thing she reads my blog :)

Wunderlist

2011-09-20T13:26:00.000-05:00

I love lists. I love making todo lists, and I love crossing things off.

My quest for a viable todo list manager has lasted years, now I finally claim success! Enter: Wunderlist, a free app that syncs between iOS devices (my iPhone and iPad) and my desktop, and if needed, even has a useable webpage front-end. You can create separate lists for work and home, and I've also added lists for several upcoming movie productions.

What's special about this? Previously I had a bunch of text documents floating around with various todos, but what inevitably happened was stuff got buried, and thus, forgotten. With Wunderlist, I can assign due dates to every task, then completely forget about it until that day. When I wake up I see my list of tasks for today, as well as any overdue tasks, and can focus on finishing those without stressing out seeing the hundreds of other upcoming things.

Anyway, I love it.

Should'a seen that coming

2011-09-14T18:57:00.001-05:00

When I was little I built an action-figure-sized Jabba-the-Hutt's barge out of construction paper, then wanted to have a George Lucas action figure to run the paper camera while my other action figures acted.That should have been a clue.

Life's too short

2011-09-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

Last Monday I set out on an expedition to visit as many friends as I could between here and Chicago.

After months of being overworked and overstressed at my job, this week was my chance to escape, to do something actually worthwhile: spend time with the people I love. I even went so far as completely deactivating my work email account on my computer so I wasn't ever tempted to read those messages during the week.

All told I visited 12 friends in person and had phone dates while I was driving with 3 more. The drives were long, but worth every minute. During this week, my various friends and I:

ate many meals together
played guitar
went on walks
picked vegetables
attended Greek class at Seminary
went to a concert by The Giving Tree Band
drank wine* and watched a bunch of episodes of Robin Hood (2006)
had wonderful conversations

Given my lack of real planning in advance, I'm amazed all these schedules coordinated so well. I think it was a God-thing (some of you reading will nod your heads, others I know will shake them; that's fine). Literally, though, everything just fell into place for me. Everyone was free at exactly the right times and it "just worked". Beautiful.

I've pondered how to say what I want to say here, and nothing good is coming to me. I've been thinking a lot about death and dying lately, and so going into this trip I treated it with this mindset: "if I only had months to live, how would I want to spend them?"

My last week was a perfect answer.

* I'm kind of ridiculously happy that my wine-loving friends enjoyed the wine I brought (my new favorite), even going so far as to say, and I quote, "This wine was soooooo good."

Fired

2011-09-11T09:33:00.001-05:00

I feel that today's Dilbert strip really hits home for me. I'll leave the interpretation of that statement up to you.

10 Years

2011-09-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

10 years ago I couldn't imagine a new morning not consumed with thoughts of that one Day.

10 years later I rarely think of it. "We will never forget", I used to say. And I suppose I haven't. But my life, thousands of miles away, is no longer overwhelmed with empathy. I'll cry this Sunday morning, I'm sure. At the same time, we've reached a new normal. Thoughts of planes and buildings stopped consuming my waking hours.

What does one even say after 10 years? The world has changed: iPhones and apps, Google, wars, political infighting, the Harry Potter movies, cell phone ubiquitousness, wireless internet. And I have changed: theology, dreams, health, family, friends - my friends from 2001, less than a handful are still in my life today.

I think change is good. It's scary, it's among my great fears, but it's Good. Finding peace with a new world, and a new version of "normal", is good.

I also wanted to find some perspective here. 3000 people died 10 years ago this day. But in the US more than that die in car crashes every single month. In the US that many people die from cancer every two days. Worldwide that many people die from hunger every two hours.

My intent is not to belittle September 11. That day is permanently scarred in my memory. We will never forget. I will never forget. But the past will not hold me captive.

Vernacular from Pooh

2011-08-21T23:36:00.006-05:00

A side-effect of my newfound addiction for Netflix, recently I re-watched the original Pooh cartoons from the 1970s, and in doing so came to realize how much of my present-day vernacular stems from those cartoons of my youth.

Some phrases I've acquired for use in my (or my family's) everyday vocabulary:

Honey Tree:
"Tut tut it looks like rain" - Christopher Robin
"Noooo" - Rabbit (it's a very pronounced way of saying the word)
"It isn’t meant to be" - Rabbit
"I did mean a little larger small helping" - Pooh
"Days, weeks, months, who knows" - Eeyore

Blustery Day:
"Windsday" - Gopher, Pooh, et al
["Pooh, did you do that?"] "I don't think so." - Owl, Pooh

And Tigger Too
"I am shushed" - Pooh
"I couldn't hear them before because Rabbit would talk" - Pooh

Day for Eeyore
Useful pot - various characters

If you ever hear me quoting these lines conversationally, now you know from whence they came.

Winnie the Pooh Sermon

2011-08-20T15:45:00.004-05:00

My sermon about Winnie the Pooh, part of Jacob's Well's Godflix series, August 14, 2011.

(read more about it in my blog post earlier this week: http://jeremygustafson.blogspot.com/2011/08/winnie-pooh.html)

Winnie the Pooh

2011-08-15T21:21:00.005-05:00

This past Sunday I gave my first ever sermon at Jacob's Well. (for the purposes of this conversation we'll say chapel talks in school don't count) And my sermon was about... drumroll... Winnie the Pooh!

It was part of JW's series called "Godflix", in which we pick 4 summer movie releases and talk about where God shows up, even if they aren't "religious" movies. This year the movies are Captain America, Winnie the Pooh, The Help, and Harry Potter 7 Part 2. After last year's series I asked the pastors if I could help this year, and kept pesterin– er, *reminding* them throughout the year... Originally Greg asked if I'd preach on Harry Potter, and I said I could, but I'd much rather talk about Winnie the Pooh, since there's this new Pooh movie coming out. He was skeptical, but I convinced him to let me have a go at it, and I think it turned out well.

My normal process for writing a chapel talk (aka sermon, I guess) is procrastinate until two days before, write a rough draft, realize it's way too short and panic because I don't think I have anything good to say, then rewrite the day before, throw together the slideshow the night before, and then everything turns out wonderfully, get lots of compliments, etc. Now in all fairness I'm not pulling everything out of a hat two days before, I've always been thinking and pondering for weeks or months and have a fair number of voice notes already recorded, but still, it feels like waiting until the last minute.

Couldn't do that this time. Katy, who puts together the Sunday Papers (like church bulletins, but less "churchy"), emailed me on Tuesday saying she needed my outline and a couple other things by Wednesday afternoon so she could print the papers. Thus my schedule got accelerated - wrote draft 1 Tuesday night, panicked, met with Greg Wednesday morning (met with Justin and Dawn, two other JW staff people, earlier, and ran my outline by them, too), he offered a couple ideas but reassured me I was on a good track. Did a few more revisions then by Wednesday night had it pretty much done, sent the outline to Katy, and relaxed.

Did I also mention, Tuesday night before starting to write I went to the Disney Store and bought a stuffed Pooh bear :) He reminded me to relax and not stress out.

Thursday morning the JW staff meets to talk through the service plan for Sunday, and, if applicable, rehearse the sermon. I was invited and took off work so I could be there, and got to rehearse giving my sermon. Everyone was impressed that I had come with a finished product, because apparently even though it's supposed to be a rehearsal time, almost always they're still brainstorming ideas and haven't written their sermons yet :) Did a couple small revisions, but no major changes.

We also agreed to have bears of honey at each of the communion tables. Cute.

Saturday I finally had time to Google image search some Pooh pictures and send those to Peter, who was assembling my slideshow (since I don't have MediaShout, the presentation software we use). Greg and I had found a couple movies to include, too. I got my sermon prepped on my iPad and ready to go!

Sunday morning by accident I found a different video clip I wanted to use, quick downloaded and threw on a flash drive, and, very ashamed and embarrassed, asked Peter if we could include it. I know how frustrating it is to have people bringing stuff at the last minute, so I felt very badly, but he wasn't angry at all. Whew!

And then it was time to get up and speak! Speaking in front of crowds doesn't bother me, but having Mom in the audience is intimidating :) My friend Matthew was also able to make it, that meant a lot to me.

Everything went well. Which is interesting, because I never had my "everything goes terribly" dream. Whenever I have that dream, that's how I know things'll be okay. Plush Pooh sat up front during worship and my sermon. Sermon went well, didn't stumble too much, and a lot of people complimented me. I'm learning how to take compliments. It's hard for me. One friend in particular came up and something I said must have touched him really deeply, his eyes slightly watery, and thanked me for giving that message. So I know at least one person heard something valuable. Or another way of phrasing that, I know God was able to use me to reach at least one person in the crowd. Maybe [hopefully] more, but at least one.

There is a video recording and I'm trying to get my hands on it. Will post that soon, hopefully.

The Wiz

2011-08-13T12:29:00.005-05:00

Long overdue. Back in May I tech-directed for Hope Academy's production of The Wiz. My former debate coach and teacher from 10th grade now works there as an administrator-type-person and approached me asking if I could help out. The timing was perfectly ironic. Here I was, just finishing AWAKEN tour season, praying, "God, please give me another ministry to pour my heart into", and then Dan emails me. Hope Academy is a private Christian school for poor/underprivileged kids in Minneapolis. He told me up front the job wouldn't pay much, and I knew I was really too busy to add "one more thing" into my schedule, but I also knew this was an answer to my prayer (careful what you ask for).

The Wiz was Hope's first ever musical production, so Dan said the bar was set really low for me :) They rented some basic lights and speakers, I set up all that on my own. Kind of therapeutic, actually, just working alone. For the rehearsals and actual performances I had two Hope student helpers, one for lights and one for spotlight, and then there were also two MA students (who used to attend Hope) who helped out. I ran sound myself, but tried to teach along the way. One of the students was very very excited to learn anything and everything about the sound board, very cool to have someone so excited about learning.

I had no idea what to expect coming in, so I consciously told myself up front I'd be as flexible as I possibly could be. Fortunately I'd worked with all the equipment before in some shape or form, and I got permission to borrow a few light gels from MA. Hardest part was figuring out who was who. I'd not had a chance to read the script, so the first rehearsal was a bit rocky, me not knowing who was coming onstage when, and even when they were on stage, who was who. The students were really soft, too, I'm sure they assumed having mics meant "I don't need to project". False. Constant battle. By the real performances they were doing better.

Director was super friendly and had such a passion for making this production as good as it could be. We talked for a while the first day I was there (only three or four days before the first show!), agreed to add extra rehearsal time for the kids, and she was always ready to answer questions I had about lighting/sound choices. Great teamwork.

The students did a phenomenal job. I mean, they're not professional actors, but given this was the first musical, given the nature of the school, given we were doing this in a gymnasium, given they've never used wireless headsets before, given all these things, they did phenomenal. The girl who played The Wiz character was exceptionally good for a high school production, as were a few other supporting roles. I'm actually proud of them, all of them, because they pulled it off. Wednesday rehearsal if you'd asked me I would have said "this will be a disaster". But by Friday performance, they got there, they did it.

Rewarding experience for me. I'm still way too busy, but it was worthwhile, every minute of it.

Breathe

2011-08-09T12:46:00.003-05:00

I'm stressed. Too much going on at work and personally. I have to do all the things.

No.

I get to do this.

I'm taking a deep breath. And remember that while I breath freely two of my friends are on life support, machines are breathing for them until they're strong enough to breath on their own again.

Breathe. Just breathe. Don't take it for granted.

What do you do when there's nothing you can do?

2011-08-07T19:37:00.002-05:00

I'm not in control. I hate this feeling. My friend's husband is in ICU on life support. He's making progress, they're saying he'll make a full recovery, but as recently as two days ago they thought he would die.

I'm a fixer, I like fixing things, making it better, but what do you do when there's nothing you can do, because you're 2000 miles away?

I've found two answers:

1) Keep praying.
2) Keep the world flat. When my friend sends a text with updates, I've posted those on her FB wall and tagged her husband, so all their friends can read the news. It's not much, but it's what I can do.

This morning during church I found out another friend is sick and was just airlifted to Mayo ICU. I don't know her story, not sure what's going on.

I updated my FB status: "No one else is allowed to get sick!"

Goals for the 2011-2012 School Year

2011-07-31T21:32:00.005-05:00

Last year I wrote up some goals for myself, and gave a progress report midway through the year. Time to do both again.

Goals from 2010-2011:

Become a better guitar player
Was going great, recently not so much. I've really not played much in the last couple months, just haven't felt like devoting time to it. Yesterday I picked up my acoustic for the first time in a few weeks and was surprised how poor my muscle memory was. Each time it comes back quickly, though. That's a plus.

That said, I have made progress. At some point barre chords became not-scary anymore, and transposing on the fly has become easier.

Produce at least one short film project
Check. The Vacationers, a short about suicide, (think It's a Wonderful Life, but darker) is almost picture-locked, down to final tweaks. Also gearing up to shoot Paperclip, a Nancy-Drew-combined-with-Hitchcock style short that I wrote. Casting for that in September and shooting in October.

Record at least one song
Did not do it professionally, but recorded a couple just on my own. So I'm gonna count that.

Spend more time listening and less time talking
Yes. Honest assessment, I think I'm doing well. I can do better still. Certain people are hard to listen to - it's hard to care. That's my current struggle. Others I could listen all day and never grow weary. I seek to find a balance.

Pay off my student loans and obliterate my debt
Did not go as well as I'd hoped. Student loans are gone, but my credit card debt, while manageable, has taken until now to pay off. One more paycheck and I'll have that taken care of. Fortunately I've played the game well and paid no interest (except one month I goofed on one card and ended up paying about $10 interest. Oops). Of course, as soon as I have conquered that, homeowner's insurance is coming due, and that's $1500 I don't exactly have sitting in my wallet. Darn it!

Proactively listen for God’s Call in my life
Fail. Well, maybe that's too harsh. Actually yeah that's too harsh. My own standard is set too high. I have listened, I just heard different answers than for the questions I was asking, which is fine, I'm dealing with it. Slowly. I guess.

Read at least 1 book
Yes! I re-read Harry Potter 7 in the two weeks leading up to the HP7p2 movie so I'd be able to have intelligible conversations about it. I read a couple other books along the way, including the Tao of Pooh, which I adore.

Learn to relax
Better late than never. Great strides in the last two weeks on this one. Took a weekend all to myself, no work, and also a vacation, a few days during which I read absolutely no work emails, not even on my iPhone. This is a HUGE accomplishment for me, I'm such an email addict, it's bad, really. I also have vacations pending to Chicago in September, Los Angeles at the end of October, Washington D.C. in March/April, and at some point St Louis and Denver. And I do actually plan to follow through on every single one of those.

Be courageous, don't fear diving straight into a deep question
I've done decently. In my own mind I view myself as "that guy" who asks some of the hard questions. Again, with some friends much easier than others. I can always do better, but I don't think I did poorly.

Goals for 2011-2012

Play guitar more often, even when I don't "feel" like doing it

Learn basic chords on my banjo, even if I do not become an expert

Continue working toward my CD album

Finish post-production on The Vacationers, Paperclip, and start working again on Far Away

Read at least 1 more book

Let God start leading and stop trying to force it

Prioritize friends over work

Keep diving straight into deep questions

Explore the wonders of Netflix

Discern my calling to Los Angeles, and what I hope to accomplish

Be honest with myself

Become a more persuasive speaker

Eat healthier and exercise, even if it's "just" going on more walks

Legos, Deaths, and LOTR

2011-07-08T16:51:00.003-05:00

When I was younger Dad and I played with Legos. And part of playing with Lego sets involves learning to follow assembly directions.

This skill is useful later in life, when, say, replacing a hard drive in your laptop. Which is what I did last week. My giant 250GB drive just wasn't as giant as it used to be, so I bought a 750GB replacement and found the ifixit.com take-apart guide for my computer. After re-assembly, the computer booted fine, but my fans were running continuously. Huh. That's not good. I think I broke something.

Googled, eventually brought my computer to First Tech, and Apple, and back to First Tech. Went home, tried reseating cables and sensors and stuff, still no-go. So Saturday morning I trucked over to FT again (4th time in two days); I know some of the techs from all the times I've brought machines in from work, and when I told them my story the night before one of them offered to check out the machine with me for free, if I couldn't fix it at home that night. That was a $60 diagnosis fee I didn't have to pay. And he also replaced one of my keys that had been smudged. It's the little things in life that can lift your day.

Long story short, he advised me to take Apple's offer and send my computer to Apple's repair depot, a $310 flat fee, and they fix everything. If FT were to do the repairs, parts alone were close to $1000 (because one of the hosed sensors was on the logic board).

Using the Apple Store app on my phone I made another Genius Bar appointment and meandered to the store. They took my machine, and from the sounds of it the repair depot is going to replace the logic board, another broken heat sensor, and the case. This is huge. A couple years ago my laptop took a tumble and got slightly dented; not terrible, but it's not pristine. I never looked into getting it fixed because the last time I tried (6 years ago with my first PowerBook) it was a $600 fix. Apparently Apple's policies have changed, and I might be getting back a sparkling, almost-new computer.

In the meantime I'm using a school machine and have my HD in an external enclosure. It's not ideal, but it works.

There's been too much death in my life recently, all within the last week:

- former teacher's wife, cancer
- friend's brother, killed in Afghanistan
- neighbor, cancer
- friend's mother, cancer

I have no particular thoughts on this, just felt a need to mention them.

In other news, this week my friend Jessie came over a couple nights and we watched the first two LOTR movies (compliments of Dadflix). I've never seen the second LOTR movie, at least not in full, so now I've officially been cultured (the third movie I've seen, at least in parts, a few times). It helped having someone to explain what was going on, too, since I've never read the books.

Lastly, yesterday I finally signed up for Netflix. I've been putting it off for a year, and it was finally time to take the plunge.

Force-decommissioning an Open Directory Replica and setting as Standalone

2011-07-06T11:08:00.005-05:00

I made a whoopsies yesterday - in an attempt to "fix" my Open Directory, I broke it. (modified some of the XML in the OD's /Config settings in WGM).

Fortunately, the brokenness didn't replicate to my replicas. Here's how I fixed everything: (rebooting in between almost every step)

- promote a Replica (computer #2) to become a Master
- demote original Master (computer #1) to standalone
- set original Master (#1) as a Replica of my new Master (#2)
- promote #1 to Master
- restore OD from backup (http://www.macresearch.org/tutorial-backup-your-open-directory-server-using-launchd)
- demote #2 to standalone
- set #2 as replica of #1

Now those two machines are happy.

Oops, I have two other servers that used to be Replicas of #1. But I didn't destroy the OD Replica before doing all the above steps. Now when I try to set them as standalone in Server Admin, it goes through the motions, and even says that the server has been set up as standalone, but then the OD panel still reports the machine is an OD Replica. Gah!

Google helped. And looking at the slapconfig log. And a little bit of carelessness (aka, "it's already broke, I'm probably not gonna make it worse").

Here's what fixed the Replicas:

sudo slapconfig -destroyldapserver
sudo slapconfig -setstandalone

Then recreate the Replica in Server Admin like normal.

Unfortunate side-effect, hopefully it doesn't mean things are broken again: now nothing shows up in my OD Master's Replica Tree. (Replica Status reports all three Replicas are OK, though)

Lastly, although one of my Replicas does still show up in the Replica Status as OK, when I open WGM on that machine the users and groups are non-editable, same symptom that told me the OD was corrupt in the first place. So running the slapconfig commands was still necessary.

California

2011-06-15T21:56:00.011-05:00

In my Christmas video I announced plans to move to Los Angeles in January 2012. After visiting again in February/March, I hoped to move even sooner, perhaps even this summer. I purchased moving boxes, and proceeded to box up much of my life. My parents have continued to be extremely supportive, more than I could ever ask. Though I had not decided an exact date, my departure seemed sooner rather than later.

Two months ago some financial “stuff” came up (an unexpected $1300 car bill being among that), and I forced myself to look at the reality of moving soon. Credit card debt + no tangible savings = not possible. Not if I wanted to give myself a chance at success.

Therefore, while I do still plan to move, I know I cannot responsibly do so for at least another year.

At first I was in denial. Once I reached acceptance, I went a step further, to what my boss and I call the 6th stage of grief: empowerment. Acceptance is passive, empowerment is active. I have the gift of an extra year; what am I going to do with it?

For one, it means I can fully commit to AWAKEN for the next season. I can visit close friends in Chicago in September. I can visit LA again over Halloween (somewhat fulfilling my promise to myself that I would be in LA by that date). I can continue Bad Movie Night with my friends. I can continue making movies with Roo and John and Erin. I can keep spending time with my friends and family in Minneapolis. I might be given the opportunity to attend WWDC12.

In short, I can take full advantage of this gift of extra time. It wasn’t my original plan - I think it will be even better. I have faith. I’m not used to waiting for things - I’m accustomed to the American culture of instant gratification. My forced delay will serve as much needed exercise in patience.

I want to close by reassuring you, my friends, my family, that I do not have regrets. Plans change, realities change, and I’m okay with that. I’m looking forward to this year. Because, when I look back at who I was and where I was one year ago now, wow, what an adventure it’s been. The next year will be no different.

Let’s go.

2011 48 Hour Film Project: "Lilies and Lullabies"

2011-06-15T21:56:00.007-05:00

No typo, "lilies" is spelled sans double-L.

I flew back from San Francisco Friday night, landed at 8:30, my parents dropped me off at home, and I called in to Erin, my co-1AD on our 48 team. We had our genre: horror. Draft 1 was written, she ran me through the story, and confirmed call time for the next morning: 4 a.m. Ugh! I unpacked, went to bed, took a couple hours to finally fall asleep, and then nabbed a 3 hour nap before waking up to meet the day.

For anyone unfamiliar with the 48, brief synopsis: 7 p.m. Friday night is the kickoff - team leaders draw a genre, and are given a character name/occupation, a line of dialogue, and a prop. Teams then have 48 hours to write, shoot, edit, and turn in a 4-7 minute movie.

Saturday morning, woke up at 3, packed the car and got to the producer's house around 4:30/5:00 (I had permission to show up a little late :) Cast was already in costume - victorian dresses and corsets. Poor girls. Crew loaded up equipment into our cars and took off for the location: a beautiful house absolutely full to the brim of antiques, it's as if the entire house came straight from the year 1900. The owners are good friends of Erin, so we were able to tour the house two weeks ago and just fell in love with it.

Around noon we did our first dump of footage from the camera so the editors could start editing. That's right, we had a team of editors trading off throughout the weekend. Well played on our part.

Our crew was phenomenal. Very few interpersonal issues. And a couple people that I for sure want on every single movie shoot I ever do from now on, because they were that awesome. Really, overall, everything in the entire production went very smoothly. It probably helped that our core crew had just shot The Vacationers movie not too long ago, and for sure all our pre-production planning meetings helped us hit the ground running.

Our cast was also phenomenal. Scott, the house owner, stepped into acting at the last minute when another actor bailed. And he blew us away with his performance - he's completely a natural. Best part: we didn't even have to costume him, he just pulled something out of his closet, spats and all. And he whipped up a magic trick that we needed in the script. Our other actors were also exceptional. Considering how uncomfortable those dresses must be for long periods of time, no one complained at all.

We shot all day, wrapped at about 9 p.m. that night. We were all very tired. I went home, slept, and came back early Sunday morning after getting the wake-up call saying we had picture-lock. I brought my computer and did sound balancing, someone else did color, the composer worked on music, and another guy worked on foley. Then we brought it all together late afternoon and burned DVDs to turn in. The non-color-corrected DVD finished burning about 6 p.m., so John and Erin took that and went to the turn-in spot while Andrew and I waited for the color-corrected version to finish burning. It finished at 6:48, I literally ran out the door, Andrew started driving before I was even in the car, then we made it a block away from the turn-in and it was 6:59 - I got out of the car and RAN. I made it. Then we found out the deadline wasn't until 7:30. Which was great, except that my phone jumped out of its holster while I was running, and shattered on impact. Had we known the deadline was later, I wouldn't have been running. Lame.

I'm proud of our movie this year. Even the non-color-corrected version was good, so the fact that we had a good movie ready to hand in even if Andrew and I hadn't made it in time, that was a great feeling. I don't think it'll win the audience award - that almost always goes to a comedy, but our little Victorian ghost/horror story is not too shabby. And I'm usually a hard one to impress.

Sunday night after turning in the movie, our executive team went back to Andrew's house (base camp) and debriefed: a post-mortem analysis of what went well, and what didn't, and what can we do better next time. We did a lot of things well, and learned plenty to work on. I can't wait to shoot the next movie.

WWDC11 - Thursday - Is it over already?

2011-06-09T23:05:00.008-05:00

Tomorrow's the last day. My flight leaves at 15:00. I'll need to skid-addle before the lunchtime speaker is even done. Which is a shame, because I'm pretty sure he's going to be awesome. Not sure I can say his name, but... he was the second human ever to walk on the moon.

Each year a WWDC becomes more valuable to me. Since I actually wrote an app last summer, and with all the scripting I've done on my servers at work, the lessons-to-be-learned here become more and more applicable, and lab times to meet with Apple Engineers more useful. Got a bunch of questions answered yesterday about deploying Lion in my school and what that'll look like. And today, just for fun, got to shake the hand of one of the guys on the Speech team - the folks who make OS X's "Alex" one of, if not the, best computer voice out there. It was an honor.

I’m learning so much. About OS X, iOS, web apps, and even learning about WWDC and how to get the most out of it. Met some good people. Even another guy from MN!

Started re-working my app with the new Xcode beta seeded Monday. Put iOS 5 on my iPad - there are a couple noticeably very-awesome features. Which are NDA so I can’t talk about them. But they’re awesome.

Had a great evening hanging out with my friend Lisa yesterday, and she issued me a standing invitation to crash at their house anytime I'm in SF. I plan on taking her up on that.

Tonight was the annual Beer Bash. Michael Franti & Spearhead performed. They were good, I enjoyed the concert. Food was good, too. (can't comment on the beer - I hate beer)

Tomorrow it ends. Sigh. Not ready. I'm never ready. Why am I never ready to leave anything? Maybe it's a good thing - maybe I love every minute of my life. Maybe it means I'm scared of change. Maybe it means I lack trust.

Maybe I'm busy living in the present.

I found a bug near my code :)

Only at WWDC. The line for the men's bathroom. (while the women walk right on in)

Apple logo.

WWDC11 - Monday

2011-06-06T22:28:00.004-05:00

Quick rundown of the day:

Went to bed at 8:30 last night, slept light (unfortunately) and woke up a little after 4 this morning, before my alarm. Thinking "surely the line can't be that long", I found my first ever use for Twitter: I searched for WWDC to see if anyone had tweeted from in the line. Sure enough, people had, and sure enough, there was already video of the line, wrapped around the block. Dang. I got dressed, ate my breakfast I'd bought to-go last night, and hurried down there. I arrived in line at 5:10, and was physically at almost the exact same spot as last year... when I'd gotten there at 6:20. Bunch of crazies, I tell you! And I was happy to be one of them. The first guy in line apparently camped out since before 7 p.m. last night. I'm glad I wasn't him.

As someone nearby me said, "you [Apple] can't buy this kind of publicity".

About 6 o'clock, the line started compressing, so we moved forward an entire city block, from halfway along the 3rd side of the building past the halfway mark on the 2nd side. My line-mates were very friendly, we all got along well.

AT&T's wireless became slower and slower as the morning progressed, to the point of being near unusable. Not that it's very useable to begin with, but it's even worse when hundreds of other people within a one-block radius are using the same connection.

It was cold, and a lot of standing.

A 8, they opened the building, by 8:12 I was inside. We got to second floor, and had time to eat, drink, and potty. At 9:35 they let us ascend to the Presidio (the giant room for the Stevenote). Photos of that in my other post.

Then lunch, then afternoon sessions (which I can't talk about), then I visited one of the labs and talked to an engineer to get pointed in the right direction on porting my iPhone app over to iPad.

Went to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant I discovered last year (and by discovered, I mean a homeless man actually recommended it to me, and I gotta say, he had good taste). Then meandered to an after-hours unofficial party - there are quite the handful of these all week. Got there early enough to get a free drink ticket, and a cool cup that lights up. But I boogied pretty soon after I finished my alcohol, because it was ridiculously crowded and that's just not my scene. And I didn't feel like waiting awkwardly for another hour and a half before the live music started.

Now I'm back in my room, settling in to watch a WWDC session from last year (on the recommendation of the engineer).

Photos from WWDC11

2011-06-06T15:28:00.004-05:00

Registration (Sunday)

Golden Gate Park (Sunday)

Line outside Moscone West

2nd floor in Moscone, waiting to be let upstairs

Presidio! (before the Stevenote)

Lots of smart people.

Lots and lots and lots of smart people.

WWDC11

2011-06-05T20:16:00.008-05:00

It all began back in March at an Apple Education event: I jokingly asked Corey and Pete when dates for WWDC would be announced, and Corey mentioned that they (Apple) were expecting to sell out within 1 day.

That afternoon I went back to work and wrote a script to monitor the WWDC home page and text my phone if there were any changes. Literally the next week, my phone woke me up, and within an hour I was registered. Less than 11 hours later, the conference was sold out.

Now I'm here! I flew in to San Fran early this morning. I was lucky to have had a seat - when I booked my flight I'm pretty sure I was one of those "overbooked" passengers, since I wasn't allowed to choose a seat assignment; fortunately when I checked in yesterday (all from my iPhone, while on a walk, in nature) I had a seat number, so yay.

Had a wonderful flight. The people sitting next to me were really friendly, we talked more than half the flight, and the conversation didn’t seem forced. This is new for me - usually when I get on a plane my neighbor and I exchange pleasantries, maybe talk for a few minutes into the flight, and then that’s it, end of conversation until we land. Today, nice change of pace there.

Flight was shorter than expected and landed over half an hour early, I got a shuttle right away, no waiting, and was at my hotel before noon. Sporting my WWDC10 jacket, I hurried over to Moscone, snapped a photo, and checked in. Favorite moment: the Apple staff member saw my jacket and said "Welcome back". It's good to be back. Ever since they [finally] announced the sessions and labs on Thursday, I've been giddy. The official app is pretty sweet, too. In a nerdy I-can't-believe-I-get-to-be-here-I'm-so-freaking-lucky-and-happy-and-excited sort of way.

Got back to my hotel, dropped off my new WWDC11 fleece, then Google Mapped a path to Golden Gate Park. Walk two blocks, catch some form of public transportation. Ummm. Is it a bus? A train? A trolley? Uhh. I'll figure it out when I get there, I guess.

Or rather, I stopped in a gift shop and asked the cashier what she thought Google was trying to tell me; she said I could take that bus (ha! it was a bus! figured one thing out...) but it'd be faster to take the train - walk a block, go to underground station, take N train outbound. She even drew me a map, complete with hippies smoking weed in Golden Gate Park.

I don't take public transportation often. Or ever. So this was going to be an adventure. I found some stairs that went into the ground, and, assuming they'd eventually lead me to some trains, I descended. I found a ticketing area, where people were buying tickets. Maybe I should buy a ticket. Oh no. What ticket should I buy? There's a "Muni" ticket and a "BART" ticket. Umm... Oh, look, a sign that has the letter N in a circle, next to some other letters. I bet those are the trains. Okay, buy a roundtrip ticket, charge my credit card, check. Now there are cattle stalls with automatic doors in my way. Wave ticket by logo. This logo? No, not that logo. Not that one either. People going by on either side, I'm standing there waving my ticket all around and the doors aren't opening. Ohh, THIS logo! Wheee!

Down stairs, now there are tunnels on either side of me. Look! A train! Wrong letter. Disembodied woman's voice announcing arriving trains. Kind of soothing. And eerie. Mostly soothing. Wait patiently. Try to blend in. "Double train N-N outbound, arriving in 4 minutes". That's mine! Doors open, step on board, take seat, try and figure out how soon I'll to disembark. If only I knew how to read that map on the wall, I bet it would tell me. After some squinting and quick learning, I figured out how to follow the colored line on the map until it said my street names, and then I knew I was only a few stops away.

Anyway, long story short, I made it to Golden Gate Park, walked around the eastern-most part, saw some flowers, trees, a lake, hippies smoking weed (several offered me some, caught me off-guard). Anyway, weird thing about Golden Gate Park is there are giant ROADS cutting through it. Major traffic all around. At first this bothered me - this is supposed to be a relaxing park! Then after walking an hour and only making it one-third into the park, and Google Maps on my phone saying it was another hour's walk to the ocean, suddenly I understood why there were roads. That place is ginormous.

I never made it to the ocean - too tired, and turned around to start walking back. Grabbed a creep for dinner (they're spelled "crepe" but I call them "creeps" because it's funner), and took one to-go for breakfast. Because I'm gonna have to be up at 4 or 5 a.m. tomorrow to go stand in line with all the other crazies who stand in line for the Stevenote that early.

Waited for the train, found out there's a really really slick website where you can watch the trains live on a Google Map and it tells you how long until it gets to your stop. When I got back I stopped over at Moscone again - there's a bug in my WWDC app that's really annoying me, and since it hasn't been fixed in the two updates this weekend, I wanted to find out if anyone else is having the same issue. The info folks were super friendly, I showed them the bug, they told me they haven't heard anyone say anything about it (until now :), and then one of them filed a bug report for me.

Now I'm here, writing this. Almost everything else that happens this week is considered Apple Confidential and under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), so I might not have many other blog posts this week, at least that are WWDC related.

Archiving/Backing up Snow Leopard Server's Open Directory fails silently

2011-06-03T17:33:00.012-05:00

Technical post ahead

Six hours of my life. That's about how much time I spent chasing this solution.

My Goal

Automatically back up my OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server's Open Directory database weekly, using launchd.

The Problem

I found an excellent script that does exactly what I needed. But when I ran it and looked at the backup folder it created, I noticed the OD archive didn't exist. At first I thought this was a Leopard vs Snow Leopard issue (the directions were a couple years old), but then after I tried archiving through the Server Admin GUI, I found the archive still wasn't created (even though no error gets presented to the user).

Problem-Solving

Googling somehow lead me to this command line:

sudo slapconfig -backupdb /path/to/backup

which as far as I can tell, is what the Server Admin.app GUI (and also serveradmin CLI used in the awesome script) call under the hood.

Well that still failed with this error (which also appears in the /Library/Logs/slapconfig.log file)

Error in backing up keychain -25300
Error: Unable to create archive image as keychain could not be read

It was another clue to the puzzle, but not a solution.

I found this page: http://armagons-isles.blogspot.com/2009/03/od-archive-fails-due-to-keychain-25300.html and tried some of the steps he suggested. My com.apple.opendirectory keychain item wasn't missing, though, so instead I tried renaming it, creating a new one with identical settings, no-go.

Found this page, built a test server (twice!) exactly like my production server, tried copying the keychain item over but couldn't get the system keychain unlocked.

Finally went back to Armagon's Isles site and re-read some of the comments, remembering there were other ideas there I hadn't fully tried. A combination of these two solved the problem for me:

MAY 17, 2010 7:39 AM
Anonymous said...
Same issue, finally resolved. In 10.6.3 I got the same problem as listed above. All efforts to use the above directions failed. After much mind bending, I realized that the server was referring to itself as "blankety-blank.local" in the Server Admin and "blankety-blank.blah.com" in the LDAP reference. Poking into the com.apple.opendirectory keychain showed that it was pointed to the blah.com$ name in Account Name, not the .local$. I changed the Account Name to point to .local$, allowed all programs access, fired it up, and BAM, worked as expected. Yay.

MAY 18, 2010 1:47 PM
Thomas Orona said...
My server already had the keychain entry and was already set to allow all programs.
I ran hostname and compared entries. In my case the case was wrong in the keychain entry.
hostname: SERVERone.company.com
keychain: serverone.company.com
Once i changed the keychain to SERVERone.company.com everything worked.

The Solution

In Terminal I ran hostname and confirmed my server is named with a capital letter, so I needed to rename the keychain item's Account from servername.domain.com$ to Servername.local$. Then I ran the sudo slapconfig -backupdb /path/to/backup line and IT WORKED!!! Now I'm documenting it all in case this can help anyone else.

Of course, it'll probably all change when Lion lands. Now to go pack for WWDC :)

Happy Apocalypse! See you Monday.

2011-05-22T22:22:00.004-05:00

We can know. That's what they claimed.

So on Friday my coworkers and I jokingly quipped, "Happy Apocalypse! See you Monday."

While driving around this weekend, though, I did ponder: What if? What if Jesus did come back? Or, less eschatologically, what if I died that night? What if my tomorrow never came?

First reaction, "thank you, God, for this amazing life, for the blessings You've poured out unto me, for the opportunities, the family, the friends, everything." Gratefulness.

Second reaction, after reading my friend Lynnea's blog post, "have I lived up to my Calling?" As she asked, if Jesus came back today, "would you be coming back for me?.... Or would you pass me by?"

As time went on more and more Facebook statuses confirmed the Rapture had, in fact, not come (or if it did, heaven apparently has wifi). This leads me to believe the sun will probably still rise tomorrow. Yet in my mind the questions remain pertinent.

Yes, the crazies of the world give us something to laugh about, and doomsayers will always live amongst us. Instead of brushing them off, I will choose instead to heed their warnings as a reminder for introspection.

Incomplete

2011-05-19T22:06:00.004-05:00

Easter happened. Came and went, fading too quickly into distant memory. A thief in the night. I feel robbed.

I feel robbed because I wanted to mourn. I wanted two and a half days spent in utter despair, tears free to flow. I wanted to feel. I wanted to put myself once more in that dark place I felt approaching the cross as Peter in AWAKEN. My friend, hanging on a cross. Buried in a tomb. My life once again mundane, tedious, hopeless.

I wanted to spend two and a half days praying. Crying out to God. Pouring my heart into private and corporate worship. Gathering with friends in our own [metaphorical] upper room.

Instead I feel cheated. The Triduum, historically my favorite series of church services in the liturgical calendar, cheapened Easter for me this year. We didn't crucify Jesus until Friday night, and then barely 26 hours later, Saturday night, we rung bells celebrating resurrection. Easter. I was not ready.

A month later, I'm still struggling to cope.

Overwhelmed, and finding Peace

2011-04-28T21:24:00.001-05:00

I have too much to do. At work. In my personal life. Maintaining relationships. Discerning theology. Too much on my todo list.

So tonight I took a walk with my iPod and worshipped instead.

Imagine

2011-04-27T15:42:00.005-05:00

Imagine how much Good the Church could accomplish if we stopped wasting time arguing about gay marriage, evolution, abortion rights, which politicians are "Christian" enough, who's in, who's out.

Imagine if the Church focused on Love instead.

What a novel concept.

AWAKEN: The Final Weekend

2011-04-22T18:34:00.004-05:00

AWAKEN season 6 ended last weekend with performances in Woodbury, MN and Story City, IA.

I miss it so much. I’m not ready to leave this chapter in my life. At the same time, I’m looking with great anticipation to discover what’s next. Where am I Called now?

I learned lessons of servant-hood. I learned to be flexible. I learned that what’s best for the ministry, what’s best for Jeremy, and what Jeremy wants, are not all mutually exclusive. I learned how to mime, how to channel emotion into my role when I cannot use words, how to take criticism knowing the love with which it’s given. I learned how to sit still and let Lynnea paint my face :) I learned to be less inhibited and just be me - if I feel like jumping as part of my worship, then I’m going to jump. I learned that I need a ministry like this in my life, something that makes me come alive, something I spend my entire week longing for, checking each day, “is it Friday yet? Do I get to go to AWAKEN yet? Do I get to see my family yet?”, and something after which I'm exhausted, but I feel good about having given my all.

Certain friendships were deepened that frankly I had never suspected would. Acquaintances became real friends, people with whom I will now choose to hang out and keep in touch.

Some of the Gospel characters came alive for me. I played Peter 4 times, and each performance I learned something new about him, putting myself in his spot, trying to feel what he would have felt. Maybe he’s my favorite apostle now :)

I also played an angel in those 4 performances, plus this past weekend. I got to participate in Creation, announce the birth of Jesus, and at the end, help welcome our humanity character into Heaven. The physicality, running around, adds to the excitement, gives me a small glimpse to how the angels might feel.

In the final two performances, I played a pharisee, standing on the opposite side of the stage from Peter. It felt out-of-body. I got to see the aftermath of what I [as Peter] had run from.

Of course my parents and friends from home thought I did a good job. What else would they say? Yet I’m convinced I did, because there are friends in AWAKEN who do tell me the honest truth, and would have told me if I screwed up. The director being one of them. For those people in particular to tell me I did well - that meant a lot.

Switching roles between weekends was a combination of mildly amusing and mildly confusing: as an angel, one week I was 3rd in line, the next I was 4th; very similar role even though I was subbing for a completely different person. Then I’d have to remember, “no, I’m not getting the whip, I fly over to the side and get the hammer and nails instead.”

Logistics of last weekend: Friday night five of the Ames crew drove up and stayed at my house. I felt so domestic hosting them: I had brownies fresh out of the oven when they arrived, plenty of snacks and drinks, sheets and blankets and pillows, I’d vacuumed (for the first time in longer than I’d care to admit), I’d cleaned, and most importantly, I loved being able to open my home to my friends.

Saturday we started setting up at the church at 9 - we had to be done working by 4 so the church’s band could prep for their 5:17 evening service. Some of the team (myself included) attended the 5:17 service, which was a Palm Sunday celebration. And their band played Hosanna (Praise is rising), which just happens to be our Palm Sunday song in the mime!

Several of my friends from church, and several friends from movie-making, came to see the drama that night. I was so happy to see them. There were others I really wish could have come, I longed for them to experience this Story. I can only do so much, I can’t force anyone to come.

Saturday night I hosted Jesus (Matt) and his wife at my house. Sitraka (our tech director) locked his keys in his car that morning when we left my house, so he had to break in through his window that night. Jesus stood in the street with a flashlight to help him. That's just fun to say :) I came out and ate a brownie while I watched, hoping to mollify any neighbors' suspicions about the apparent car-jacking.

Sunday morning we drove to Story City. The cast traveling in the 15-passenger van met at the church at 7:30. The four of us leaving from my house didn’t have to leave until 8:30. Beautiful :)

I did something really stupid on the way down: stubborn me kept saying I’ll have enough gas to make it to Albert Lea and fill up at my favorite gas station/plaza there. Well, we did have enough gas, but I think I was literally down to fumes - I pumped more gas into my car than I knew the tank actually held. Oops.

Our timing arriving in Story City was perfect: everyone had just finished unloading the truck when we walked in the building. Lunch. Then set up.

The school where we performed, two years ago we performed there, as well. And two years ago, on that very weekend, that was when my Crohn’s symptoms returned after 43 weeks off Remicade treatment. I was spiritually broken that weekend, my miracle had ended. Despair. And yet I knew God was somehow still there: of all the random fundraisers, this school was fundraising “coins for Crohn’s”. What on earth. Signs all over the hallways. That’s not your typical fundraiser. Not in a high school. God was present.

Two years later I’m back again, and I reflected on my faith journey over that time.

When I played Peter in the mime, I keep my eyes closed during the resurrection, Jesus comes to find us a few moments later. This night, this final performance night, I was not Peter, I was in the back ready to fly out as an angel in the next scene, and so I resolved: I’m sneaking into the doorway and watching the resurrection tonight!

Tear-down was hard. Emotionally. Last time. Last time to wrap cables, lift down the speakers, disconnect the audio board from Houston (our control center), wrap the audio snake, load the truck. And as that happened, people were leaving. I said goodbye to friends, and I won’t see them next weekend, I won’t see them for at least a month (post-season party), but some of them not even then. I don’t know when I’ll see them again. That’s sad.

In Gierke family tradition (my Mom’s side of the family), I was one of the last to leave. Sitraka agreed that he wouldn’t mind staying to help unload the truck into the storage locker, then we stayed with Blair and Tyler and Tanner, prolonging the weekend into Monday morning. (I took Monday off work, and didn’t read a single work-related email until Tuesday morning).

It rained when we unloaded the truck. Fitting. I didn’t cry, not at that particular moment. I didn’t need to. Monday afternoon, though, I had my sob-fest. Alone. Just me and God. I felt better afterward.

I’m not ready to be done. I keep listening to the AWAKEN soundtrack over and over. These songs will forever have meanings attached: creation of humanity; setting the stage for Jesus’ birth and lift; the Call of the disciples; walking on water; Palm Sunday; the Last Supper; prayer in the Garden; the Crucifixion and burial; the RESURRECTION! And HEAVEN! Once an AWAKEN song, always an AWAKEN song.

God, your servant is ready. I'm ready for the next adventure. Please don't make me wait too long :)

Day of Silence

2011-04-15T13:50:00.001-05:00

Last night before bed I spent some time playing guitar, and ended that time by praying out my voice for the following day.

Today is the Day of Silence, a national "movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies."

For me it's been a long process "coming out" as a straight ally. Being that more than half of my closest friends are GLBT, though, I can think of no other way to live my life consistent with my experiences, relationships, and faith.

Many practicalities prevented me from being truly silent today: I still have to work, I still have to get my job done and interact with people. As much as possible I limited myself to digital communication only: emails, text messages, and typing notes on my computer when there were people in the office. Even this felt like cheating, but I accept the compromise. A couple times a student would come in and ask for help - when my coworker was in the office with me I could get away with gesturing (he understood me), but once he left I did have to break silence. I minimized my talking. The entire day, I've tried to listen more.

This morning I asked God to help me learn some lessons today. I was perhaps inspired by a TED talk I've seen of a man who stayed silent for 18 years, not in protest of anything, rather to learn without hindrance. I hoped to learn something.

I learned I was afraid. I feared being discovered, as it were. Yet why else would I have chosen to be silent today if not to make a social point? Perhaps I only wanted to prove something to the administration. Yet sitting in my office, I feared interactions, because... I feared judgement? I feared having to speak? I don't know.

Originally we were to meet with the principals this morning about technology decisions, but the meeting was postponed. I lament that, I wonder if I thought that was my one chance to "stick it to the man". That sounds harsher than I mean it. What I mean it, my school is not a safe space for GLBTQ youth. It's not. I myself contributed to that oppression when I was a student. It saddens me. Last year my friend was not hired for the sole reason that he's gay. I was forced to remove a "Safe Space" sticker from my office door because "it might send the wrong impression [that other parts of the school aren't safe".

So today if I felt unsafe as an "out" ally, I can't imagine the real deal. What if I was gay? What if I were still a student? Yes, there are many teachers here who share my beliefs. But institutionally, the school does not.

What else did I learn today?

I learned how to type quickly. And to mime computer stuff. Click here, type your password, don't do that, do this instead.

I realized just how much I normally talk to myself during the day. My head was strangely quiet today.

I realized how much I love singing with the radio in my car. Or humming along with my music at work when no one else is in my office.

I felt support from friends on Facebook who commented or liked my status. I appreciated my coworker who wrote "Okay. I will simply wave at you today. No 'Hello, JG!'" We smiled when we bumped into each other, waved knowingly, and carried on.

Someone else wrote

Thank you for posting this Jeremy! I often tell my friends of faith that they really aught to show love to folks who are LGBT, because as far as I am concerned, God doesn't make mistakes... who are we to judge the way his children find love?

As someone who aspires to follow Christ, today I feel I was called to nothing less than silence.

I miss my voice.

Misconceptions

2011-04-12T10:34:00.003-05:00

I long for this day.

Here's the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

Peter

2011-04-07T14:11:00.005-05:00

I played Peter again this past weekend for AWAKEN.

On Sunday we added something: after Peter's third denial, I held up three fingers, calling back to earlier in the drama when Jesus held up three fingers and told me I would deny Him three times. Simple action, it caught me off guard when I actually did it. I held up my hand, I realized, I looked Him in the eyes, and I ran for all I was worth. I wanted to keep running. I almost ran into a wall once I was outside the sanctuary. I didn't want to stop. I thought of all the time I've spent denying God, not often because I was afraid and wanted to be cool, moreso my years-long struggle to figure out who Jesus was. How much time did I waste? Impossible to put into words. Suffice it to say, I felt a small glimpse of Peter's emotion.

Sunday was an adventure. Our man who plays Satan was injured (concussion and a couple cuts on his forehead) during rehearsal, and he took out the projector as well. This on top of having one cast member sick, one still recovering from illness, another out of town. Then half our lights started malfunctioning.

There's a happy ending, it all worked out okay, but my first thought was: who's coming tonight that the real Satan doesn't want to be reached?

I'll probably never know that answer, and that's okay. It was just my first reaction.

Rehearsal was over then and there. We waited patiently as they tended to Alexander's wounds. We prayed as a group. This is where AWAKEN shines: we are a family.

Our executive director, Tiffany, took on the role of Satan. Rather than rearranging any of the other cast (we already had three people subbing in this weekend!), leadership decided she knew the role best. I think she needed to do it, too - as she put it, "I may or may not have some emotions to put into the role".

And Blaire and Sitraka and I fixed the lights - it took over an hour swapping out dimmer packs and cables to narrow down the TWO, not just one, bad DMX cables. We finished about 30 minutes before the doors were supposed to open. I ran and ate dinner, the church graciously kept the food warmed even though everyone else had already eaten. I changed quickly, put in my contacts, and then tried to calm myself as Lynnea painted my face.

It was stressful pulling double duty: crew and cast. I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I knew I was doing Good. And that's worth being exhausted for.

On Saturday Kelsey, our director, shared with us the story of the woman in the temple, who gave her two copper coins to the offering. She asked us to ponder, what are our two coins that we're bringing to God?

On Sunday Lyndsay, our tour manager, shared the same story, completely without knowing Kelsey had shared it the day before. She shared with us about a little boy who saw Saturday's performance, and how enthralled he was, and how, at the end during offering, he emptied his pockets of the few dollars he had, and then said "I wish I could give more".

I spent a lot of time thinking about what my copper coins look like. In the end I think I decided it was my body: bad eyesight, incurable Crohn's, pain in my foot every time I walk (injury from last weekend's performances and heavy lifting, I think). But I gave AWAKEN everything I had - I gave God everything I had. When I laid down in bed Sunday night, I was exhausted, in a good way. Physically draining, AWAKEN remains life-giving. Hearing my friend say he was bawling the entire show. Hearing the story of that little boy. Knowing the difference AWAKEN has made in my life, both as past audience member and as current crew/cast. Those stories make it worthwhile. Those stories make it worth giving my everything.

Reflections on Awaken - Part 2

2011-03-30T15:07:00.007-05:00

One post apparently wasn't enough for me. So much more came to mind as soon as I hit "Publish".

The physicality of AWAKEN caught me off-guard: lots of running during Creation; a sword fight, swinging around a not-at-all-light-weight sword; running away from the roman guards, and so on. Definitely helped get me into "the zone".

To be a witness and participant in the majesty of Creation - how awesome and amazing and exciting and so many emotions for which I do not even have words. How beautiful to see the promise of Heaven, to be an angel welcoming "Our Gal" Home. Chris Tomlin's Glory in the Highest brings me instantly to tears, it will forever be inextricably linked to these emotions, to the promise of life after death.

My role last weekend as Peter - I deny Jesus three times, I stare into His eyes, then I run away. At the Cross after He dies, have I ever thought what the disciples were feeling? AWAKEN brings that story alive to me: what were those emotions?

Courtney gave me the suggestion, think how you'd feel if your best friend had just been killed. Well. I think I caught her off-guard. Not my best friend, but I told her about Katherine. Courtney had heard her story, and actually because of it, she's brought friends along when she goes to interviews from Craigslist. That detail struck me.

When I, as Peter, approached the Cross, I saw Matt hanging there, but in my mind I was thinking of Katherine, putting myself in that dark place, and the sniffles and tears were real, that wasn't acting.

AWAKEN needs to be experienced, it is beyond words, beyond description. Being a part of the team, how humbling, how incredible, to help tell a Story so much bigger than me.

Called to Ministry

2011-03-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

Not seminary. Lesson learned in LA a couple weeks ago: I can't sit in a classroom, not right now. 10, 20 years from now, seminary might happen. But not now. I'm called to ministry now.

What does that mean? What does that look like?

I have some ideas, I don't have answers.

I miss playing guitar. I don't get to play at church, I don't get to play at school for chapel, and I miss it. And I can honestly say, I don't miss it because of selfishness: I miss it because I know that's supposed to be a form of ministry, a gift God has given me and I'm to use responsibly, but nevertheless I am supposed to use it.

When I was in LA, when we were hanging out in Santa Monica, Bernadett said to me "when you get out here, I think we should grab our guitars and minister to the people, like these street performers". That was the best idea I've ever heard. Especially because it came from someone else - not me. That removes my fear of "am I doing this just for myself?"

And this year I'm in AWAKEN. How can I bring that to LA with me? Because I'm not ready to leave it behind.

This weekend in the mime I played Peter, and my big scene, my "time to shine" as the director put it, is telling the story when I walked on water. I set the scene, I illustrate that I'm in a boat, I look out over the sea, and I stop, I see something; jumping to the other side of the stage, I point at Jesus, and then I mime Him, calling me (Peter), gesturing, "come to me"; "me? no no no you've got the wrong guy"; "Yes! You! Come to me!". Cautiously I step over the edge of the boat. I take a couple steps! Excitement! I'm doing it! I stumble. He catches me. It was all by His power.

The power of that scene didn't hit me until today. My friend Dan stopped by my office, something was wonky with his computer. Then we talked. I shared my story. He pointed out to me the passion he heard in my voice as I told him about AWAKEN. And then I don't even remember the context, but he made a similar beckoning gesture that I used during the mime, and I realized "Oh my. God, maybe there's something deeper here?". Maybe God's beckoning, gesturing for me to step out of my comfortable boat, walk on water. Not by my power, by His. I already know anything I would do to bring AWAKEN, or something similar, to California is so beyond my power. But not beyond His. And as Dan pointed out, even when you walk on water, and fall, there's a hand reaching down to grab you and pull you back up.

Trust, Jeremy.

One of my friends from AWAKEN two years ago is living in California, not too far from LA. Yesterday I posted on her FB wall, what would you think about starting an AWAKEN ministry in CA? I admitted I don't know if that's what God's Calling me toward, it's just an idea. For now.

She said that's the best idea she's ever heard.

I know I'm called to ministry. Counseling friends, that will never get old. I can do that anytime, anywhere. And that's enough. Or is it? Is it a stepping stone? What's next?

I don't know.

But I'm excited to find out.

Awaken - My first experience as a mime!

2011-03-29T15:32:00.000-05:00

I was a mime this weekend!

You may recall I bought contacts two months ago specifically so I could be a mime in AWAKEN, but then that particular performance was cancelled because of weather.

Last week one cast member had to withdraw himself from the drama, and another one fell ill. When I read that email, I admit my hopes soared that I'd be getting a phone call later that day, since the leadership team all knew how excited I'd been to be in the drama last month. Sure enough, a text message came that evening: "Hey Jeremy. I have a question for you, would you call when you have a sec. Thanks!" The phone conversation started with me saying "If your question is what I think it is, then the answer is 'yes, I'd love to'". She laughed, and asked if I'd like to be in the Awaken cast. I affirmed, yes, I'd love to. At that point they didn't know exactly which role I'd play, just that I'd have a role.

On Friday I found out I'd play Peter. Tiffany graciously typed up notes for me about each important scene, and I was able to read through those before leaving home.

The Minneapolis crew met at my house at 7:30 Saturday morning, and we arrived in Waukee, IA at 11:40. Lunch. Then unloaded the truck and began setup. Once I had audio up and running, I excused myself and started writing my cheat sheet note card to keep in my pocket during the drama, combining my notes from Tiffany, the script, and the other cast members I was sitting with.

Once all the equipment was running and the entire cast had arrived, we ran several scenes as a rehearsal. Didn't have time to run the whole show, though.

Before each performance, the cast gathers and we pray out our voices - during the drama there is no talking, even back stage. The first time I heard about this (two years ago) I didn't really get it. This year, I've come to appreciate the spiritual discipline of surrendering one's voice.

As best I could, I tried to honor that. However, because I was new this week, Tiffany explicitly told the cast before rehearsal, "If Jeremy talks to you during the performance please talk back to him, don't try to mime it, it's okay". I appreciated that. Fortunately, for most of the drama, I just needed to follow the "J-Train" (Jesus and the disciples) and "react" - this mostly consists of looking astonished every time Jesus did a miracle. But there were a couple times when I got backstage and had no idea where I was supposed to go next - at those moments the cast was incredibly gracious. Courtney and Jacob both went above and beyond to look out for me (both before and during the drama), and every single cast member lifted me up with encouragement, I can't even name specific names because I'd have to name the entire team. I know people always say that, it's cliché. I actually mean it. I literally cannot think of a single person who did not go out of their way to encourage me.

That's what makes AWAKEN different from theatre. It's a ministry, not only to the audience, but to our team, as well.

A few lessons I learned: I have a new appreciation for glow tape. I never knew how hard it is when you're in full light and then all of a sudden, complete blackout and you can see nothing. There is one moment in particular when I run full-steam from stage to the back of the venue, and there's a point 2/3 down the aisle when the light stops and I can't see anything (even with contacts :), just keep running and hope you don't hit anything.

I learned what it means to be a servant. Sort of. I mean, I really wanted to be in the cast, I was really excited, but at the same time I don't have control over what role I'll play, I needed to surrender myself to what the leadership determined was best for the ministry, not for Jeremy. (I don't believe those are mutually exclusive) Doing both crew and cast meant I never got much of a break. And I was a driver. So here was my day: drive 4 hours Saturday morning, help unload the truck, set up audio, learn my role, run through rehearsal, set props, change clothes to cast, eat dinner, get face painted, do the drama! change clothes back to techie, strike, load truck, drive to host home (1.5 hours). Sunday, breakfast, church, unload truck, help with set up, switch to "cast mode", rehearsal, dinner, face paint, drama, strike, load truck, drive 3 hours home (arrive home about 1:15 am).

I loved every single minute of it. Except the driving, I could have done with a few less hours of that. Otherwise, loved every. single. minute.

Also, I learned face paint is really hard to take off. Unless you're not trying. You never know how much you rely on being able to itch your face, blow your nose, take a sip of water... until you can't :) Huge thanks to Lynnea for her amazing face-painting talents. I was very sad when it did come time to wipe away her artwork.

And this story is perhaps the epitome of AWAKEN: things won't go as planned. Saturday I nearly fell off a ladder when I was an angel (apparently it was only noticeable if you knew what that scene was supposed to look like), and then Sunday we had to carry Jesus by hand because the stretcher prop was missing. Improvisation. Oh, and Sunday's venue had an elevated stage, so we had to contend with steps and slightly different staging for the fight scenes. It all worked out well, just more lessons learned that I wouldn't have really paid attention to as crew.

After each drama, the cast gathers again, and we pray our voices in. I can't describe in words, it's a humbling experience. God, thank you for my voice. May it be an instrument of healing, reconciliation, and outreach, not just to Your Church, but to those who've been rejected, who've not experienced Your Love.

My heart is once again torn. I'm moving to LA soon, but before I made that decision, I pondered delaying my move until June 2012 for the sole purpose of joining AWAKEN next year as cast, not crew. That's why the opportunity to join cast mid-season this year is so perfect - I get to fulfill all my dreams. This ministry means so much to me, and it will forever continue as part of my heart and soul. I do not feel I can delay my move another year, but the thought is very tempting. I'm asking God for discernment now on how I might bring His ministry to California. Am I Called to start a "new" AWAKEN on the west coast? Is there already a drama group out there that I can join? Is there a way of bringing AWAKEN out there all the way from Iowa? These questions are so much bigger than I am. Good thing they're not bigger than God.

Not ready to leave the Adventure

2011-03-28T22:50:00.002-05:00

Awaken season 6 will be over in less than 3 weeks. I'm not ready. It's too soon. This ministry fills a void in my life I never knew I had: a passionate yearning to show the world what God's incredible, crazy love looks like. God, please lead me forward, please guide me to new opportunities for outreach, especially as I move to California. May the flame that Awaken has ignited never burn out.

Going to WWDC11

2011-03-28T18:27:00.003-05:00

For over a month I've stalked Apple's web server, lurking in wait for any news about this year's Worldwide Developers Conference. And by "stalked" I mean I set it as my browser's home page, and also wrote a script on my server that checked the WWDC home page every 20 minutes, then text my phone if there were any change in the source code.

Over the last week the script had a couple misfires, and then this morning, my phone woke me up a little after 8 with the same text message. Sigh. Roll over. Open a web browser on my phone, pull up the page. Blink. What? Could it be? WWDC11? Adrenaline rush. Throw back covers, run to computer, yes it's true! Call work, verify I have approval to purchase the non-refundable $1599 ticket, approval confirmed, hang up, glance through some of the pages on the WWDC site, then BUY MY TICKET! Woohoo! San Francisco here I come!

Last year the conference sold out in 8 days, and they're expecting this year to sell out even sooner. Which is why I purchased my ticket literally within one hour of when they became available. Score.

First Bumper Sticker

2011-03-11T15:43:00.004-06:00

My St Olaf alumni window cling being the exception, my car has never sported bumper stickers. Until two days ago. Now I proudly bear an HRC blue and yellow equality sign.

Back from Narnia

2011-03-11T15:04:00.003-06:00

Two weeks in Narnia was enough to captivate me. I flew home from Los Angeles earlier this week, very nearly covered in my own tears - it was an emotional struggle, coming back to Minneapolis. My heart is divided. As a friend aptly put it, "welcome back not-home".

The Tao of Pooh

2011-03-01T12:15:00.002-06:00

I get super stressed with worry trying to figure out my life plans. A couple months ago my friend Lynnea recommended this book to me, and since reading it I am trying hard to take life each day at a time, not stress about making complicated plans, and just relaxing and trusting God to guide me. I am calmer these days.

So Close

2011-02-28T13:42:00.003-06:00

I came so close to being a mime last weekend. I bought contacts (and learned how to poke my eyes), reviewed all my notes from the dress rehearsal last month, prayed, even got to run through Saturday's afternoon rehearsal, and then... Sunday's performance was cancelled due to icy weather. That was the only performance Emily will miss, she's here every other date. My one and only shot. Bummer.

I was really excited, too - running through that last rehearsal with costumes and props and everything, it was fun! Like, I could see myself doing this. Maybe I need to apply to Awaken again next year - as a cast member...

My Qur'an

2011-02-17T22:47:00.008-06:00

Today I was gifted my first Qur'an. From my optometrist.

Sincerely interested to learn about Islamic belief in the matter, I broached the topic of miracles (more specifically, miraculous healings) during my eye exam. Some how fasting had come up in conversation, so why not bring another theological matter into the mix?

A year later (this past August), pupils dilated and waiting patiently in the eye-chair, I asked if he could recommend a quality English translation of the Qur'an. Recently before that I recall hearing a sermon about how "if we want them to read our book, maybe we should start by reading their's". That's a poor, poor paraphrase for the depth of the sermon, because it wasn't about evangelizing Muslims. Had it been, I probably would have walked out. No no no. The sermon was about cross-cultural understanding. This is a major issue for Americans, and particularly Christians who think they have all the answers, and who think they have the only answers. Islam has it's extremists, and so does Christianity. I think ours might be worse, honestly.

Anyway, this sermon piqued my curiosity. I enjoy learning about God, and I'm starting to enjoy learning about other people, other cultures, hearing stories. So the one statement from the sermon really stood out, and I knew I desired to acquire a Qur'an. Since my social circle is sorely lacking of Muslims, my eye doctor was my best chance.

To my amazement, Dr Monzavi not only recommended a translation, he said he would send one to me. I gave him my card, and then waited patiently.

Well the package never came.

Then last week I went in to get fitted for contacts (which I'm getting used to now - got both in on the first try yesterday!). I mentioned I was still interested in a Qur'an, and mentioned I'm happy to buy one myself, but he insisted that he would send me one (and apologized that he'd not yet had the chance to do so). He still had my business card tucked away in his wallet, so I know he didn't forget about me.

This morning I got an email. He needed an address to ship to. Excitedly, I typed back that I was coming in to pick up my contacts prescription today, so I could save him the postage.

Lenses paid for, he heard me talking with the nurse and brought out his gift to me. A hard cover Holy Book that I will treasure. In it as well, a post-it note with some scholars I could email if I had deeper questions. We talked for a few minutes, briefly discussed the Qur'an's history, how it was written, cursory overview on how to read it, and then I left, clutching the Book tightly.

I look forward to reading it. I'm anxious to gain significantly deeper cross-cultural understandings that not many "Christians" ever take time to dive into. I desire to learn more about how my Islamic brothers and sisters encounter God. And perhaps most importantly, I'm excited to learn more about God. I know many Christians will disagree with this statement, but, Christians, Muslims, Jews, we all worship the same God. Yes, we have some different understandings of who God is, how God manifests in the world, etc. But if you look back we share a common ancestry, and One God. That's why this Book is Holy to me, as well.

I'm not out to "convert" anyone, and I'm not out to be converted myself. I remain a Christ-follower. I remain dedicated to living out God's love as best I know how. This is another step along that journey.

Christmas Letter 2010

2011-02-09T12:15:00.002-06:00

Christmas and New Year's came and went, so I realize this "Christmas letter" is a little late. In my defense, I did tape it during the 12 days of Christmas, but it's taken this long to edit, find backgrounds and graphics, create the motion graphics, sync sound, work with the composer, color correct, render, export, encode, upload, and now finally post. I'm sort of proud of it. Enjoy.

Mimes don't wear glasses

2011-02-07T23:52:00.005-06:00

Or at least, AWAKEN mimes don't.

Our first performance weekend is two weeks away, and for one of those performances, I'll make my debut as a mime, subbing in for one of our actors who can't be there.

Here's the rub: AWAKEN mimes don't wear glasses. So I have two choices:

Go blind (two other actors do this)

Get contacts

I've never had contacts before, and my eyes water at the very thought. Nevertheless, the fear of tripping over a pew or a person while stumbling blindly in the dark is unappealing enough that I broke down went in to get contacts.

Trip #1 was unsuccessful. I was already at MOA to get my hair cut, so afterward I confidently strolled into a glasses store, spectacle Rx in hand, and asked the kind man to explain this whole "contacts" thing to me.

"Well," he said, and I'm paraphrasing greatly, "you can't do that here. This is a glasses prescription, you need to get fitted for contacts, and we'd have to charge you for a full exam to do that."

Who knew?

This morning, I called my normal optometrist, (because really, it's such a fun word, why would you not want to call someone called an "optometrist"?) explained my situation, and snuck in for an afternoon appointment.

I sat cautiously, nervously awaiting the inevitable poking of my eyes. My optometrist came in, we exchanged pleasantries, and he put these... things! in my eyes. Blink blink tear cry sniffle. There's something in my eye! Oh wait, but I can see... and my glasses are in my pocket? Wait a second... This is so weird!

For whatever reason, my right eye didn't like the first lens he put in, so he threw it away and tried a different brand. Odd, because my left eye has the stronger Rx, so I would have thought that one would like it less (thicker lens?). Anyway. Second attempt now of prying my eyes open while they watered and squinted, and he got the lens in. Blink blink FML blink blink. Maybe going blind is a better idea. No, no. I made it this far, I'm paying them to do this. I'm paying to be tortured? There's something wrong about that...

Next step: I have to do it on my own! Eek! They brought me to the special chair in the special room with the special mirror, and made me feel special. Here, take this little flexible plastic thing and shove it in your eye! Poke prod blink water cry, lather rinse repeat.

Over an hour after I arrived, I had succeeded in removing, placing, removing, and re-placing my little trial lenses. I drove home. I drove without glasses. For the first time ever. I've had glasses since 7th grade. I've never driven without glasses.

Two hours later I took out the contacts (per my instructions, I'm supposed to build up a tolerance - 2 hours today, 4 tomorrow, 6 the next day, and so on).

The nurse kept insisting contacts would grow on me. I remain skeptical. But at least I'll be able to see for AWAKEN. As long as I don't poke an eye out before then.

Listen

2011-02-02T21:41:00.003-06:00

Fraggle Rock holds special memories from my youth, and so several weeks ago I started through the entire series on DVD; tonight I watched, and re-watched, an episode called "Mokey and the Minstrels".

Cantus: Being a minstrel is enough hard work for your whole life.
Mokey: My whole life? Oh, well I didn’t know about that part.
C: You didn’t need to know until now. Why Mokey Fraggle, you could be a minstrel, if–
M: If. If I left home. And Fraggle Rock, and all my friends, and everything I love. No. I can’t do it.
C: Oh but you can. And maybe someday you will.
M: Someday? How?
C: Good question. Answer it.
M: No. I already have answered it. I’m going home. Back to my friends.
C: Yes yes, but what will you do there? What must you always do?
M: Uh… Listen?
C: I said you weren’t a failure!

At first I was attracted to Cantus's line, "Good question. Answer it.", because I long to use it as an answer to any number of daily tech questions at work; immediately, though, I knew there was something deeper here, and I'm still sorting through it - let's "unpack" this together (hey, if I ever do get ordained, I gotta learn how to "unpack" things - gah, I hate that word).

Last week I had a minor/major meltdown: what am I doing with my life? Moving to LA? No way! I won't succeed, financially stupid idea. Maybe I'm supposed to apply/enroll in seminary this year instead? God, please. Help.

Questions faded to white noise, ever-present, but irrelevant; in their place, peace, comfort with the uncertainty, dare I say even an embrace of the unknown, because I Trust Him. And because, like I've told to so many other people, I'm the only one who expects me to have it all figured out, and not knowing the future does not equate to failure.

Here's where I'm at: I know I'm Called to ministry. Period. I don't know if that means "officially" (as in, MDiv), or a lay-person within a church setting, or simply as a friend - and I'm okay with that. Because I have faith. And I have trust. Some days more than others :)

Cantus Fraggle spoke to me tonight: no matter where I go, what will I do there? What must I always do? Maybe some day I will go to seminary. Maybe some day I won't. My Call remains: Listen. To God, to friends, to all. Ministry, in whatever form, will follow.

In Heaven Now

2011-01-28T11:58:00.004-06:00

I wrote this song on December 25, 2008, a few days after my Grandpa Ray passed away, and was privileged to play it at his funeral.

I can’t imagine what it’s like running down those golden streets
Seeing saints on either side of me applauding all the way

And I can’t imagine what it’s like finally crossing the finish line
Entering those pearly gates just in time for Christmastime

But I know that you’re okay

Cause you’re in heaven now
In heaven now
Seeing Jesus now
Dancing with angels now

I can’t imagine life without you in this world with me
But your life still goes on living inside our memories

And somehow we will find our way through the darkness through the rain
Cause you’re never really far away, you’re still watching over me

And that’s why... I know we’ll be okay

Cause you’re in heaven now
In heaven now
Seeing Jesus now
Dancing with angels now

Adventures from Dressing Room 4

2011-01-21T11:09:00.012-06:00

Through what might be called sheer dumb luck (having the right connections at exactly the right time), I was hired to wrangle a crowd of extras at the Rascal Flatts concert last Friday, as well as their video shoot the previous night. What an awesome experience!

On Tuesday I met briefly with the producers (Steve and Michael) to discuss basics of what they needed and what would happen during the week. At first I freaked out a little on the inside when they said we'd be dealing with 1500 contest winners on Thursday (I was only hired to wrangle 50 extras!), but played it cool and it all got sorted out. As it turns out, we only needed to look through the crowd and select some of them to come to the front-of-stage area, we didn't have to wrangle all 1500. Whew! And if we didn't find enough folks on Thursday to fill the pit the way they wanted, my friend Matthew (through whom I got the job in the first place) would do extras casting and pull in talent from the outside for the real concert on Friday.

On Wednesday, I showed up for a 4 p.m. production meeting, which got pushed back to 6 p.m., and then finally at 8:45 got to meet with the director myself. During my time waiting for that meeting, I got to hang out and chat with other folks in the production office (set up in Xcel's dressing room #4), as well as meander through the Xcel backstage areas, and watch the lighting and sound rigs being assembled. Really cool. And I LOVED sitting in on the big production meeting - just a fly on the wall (or guy in the corner) while all the department heads talked scheduling and figured out details for the shoot. Inside I was freaking out a little, because I realized that now I'm playing with the big boys. But a façade of confidence goes a long way :) And really, this isn't *that* much different than the stuff I've produced (movies and theatre), just a lot larger scale. The basic concepts are all the same.

Thursday got exciting. Over 1000 radio contest winners showed up to watch the Rascal Flatts rehearsal. While the crowd was still waiting outside the gates (apparently some people got there at 9:30 a.m.!), the producers and I started wandering through and picking out folks to come to the "mosh pits" at the front of the stage. And of course, as soon as you give one person a wristband, everyone near them wants to be picked as well. Which creates very awkward situations when the other people either don't fit the demographic, or are just plain demanding and pushy.

Human behavior confuses me in this situation: everyone there on Thursday night was already a winner (from the radio contest), and they were already getting in FOR FREE to watch the rehearsal (twice!), so essentially it's a free concert. But as soon as someone saw me handing out wristbands, a sense of entitlement kicked in, and then they got angry when I couldn't give them a wristband. I wasn't prepared for that. I got used to it, but it definitely caught me off-guard at the beginning.

On the other hand, there were some people I wristbanded who were absolutely ecstatic. As in, I'm pretty sure getting picked was the highlight of their year. That was an awesome feeling for me, to know that this *gift* was truly, deeply appreciated. Those are the kind of people you want to help out as much as you can, because they weren't expecting anything, and then were overjoyed to be chosen. Seeing those reactions made my night.

Once we had the pits filled, I chatted with a couple Xcel security guards, heard some great stories, then went backstage to meet with the producers and chime in on headshot selections for people to fill in the pit on Friday.

I waited while one of the producers finished his phone call. It was a very emotional conversation, a recent death in the family, and how he was dealing. When he hung up I swallowed my fear and asked if I could pray for him. Relief visibly washed over him, he said yes, and so right there in the production office, I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed. I said Amen, and he gave me a huge hug. I had no idea words could have such power.

I got to help pick some of the people for Friday. In that, I pointed at a couple pictures, and then the producers either agreed or disagreed. Then I went back out to the side of the stage and watched the concert. The guys on the stage were cool, but my heroes, the folks I really wish I could have met, were the techno-jib and techno-crane operators. Because I'm a nerd, deal with it.

When rehearsal ended, we asked a few people to come back again Friday night and gave them a wristband that would let them in. The very first group I approached were absolutely delighted - again, the kind of people I loved being able to give something to, because it made their day.

So on Friday, I showed up early, we walked through the holding location and path from there to the stage, then set up a check-in table outside the ticketing area. A small crowd of our talent was already there waiting for us. The next two hours were mostly "hurry up and wait" for the rest of our people to show up. But Steve and I had a good conversation about faith, so time well spent. And it was exciting to see familiar faces from the previous night as they showed up. In case there was any doubt how useful my iPhone's hands-free headphone/microphone thingy is, it was dispelled quickly, because I took quite a few phone calls from talent who were either running late or looking for the right door, etc.

The concert started, and a bunch of people were unhappy that we were keeping them in a holding area (the Xcel's press level, up high but you can still see the stage) rather than down on the floor. The rationale being that we needed them to remain energetic for the Rascal Flatts' performance, because that was the only one being taped. There was literally nothing I could do about it, though, so I let it all roll off my back. As long as I was doing my job (wrangling), that's all I needed to worry about.

Part-way into the second opener we divided our group into two sides, then brought them downstairs into a hallway on the stage level. Once the second act finished, we had only a few minutes to bring our people up to the front and place them for the cameras. Fortunately that went very smoothly. The producers and I hopped onto the stage and started pointing at people and moving them around, handing out glowsticks, and filling in the gaps. The whole evening had been a constant back and forth: do we have enough people? Too many? Turns out we needed a few more, so Michael handed me a bunch of wristbands and sent me on a quest into the audience to grab more "pretty people". That was intense. "You! Who are you with? These 4? Do you want to be at the front of the stage? Okay, here, take these wristbands, go to the right side, and hurry please!"

Somewhere along the way I'd learned the tickets for the pit area sold for $113 a piece. Now granted, we were only putting our people there for the Rascal Flatts performance and not the opening two acts, but still, that's quite something when you realize you're handing out these wristbands for free. Not that I want to tell people, "be grateful!" But you'd hope they would be if they knew how much they'd just been gifted.

We finished placing bodies, and then we were done. My job was done! I'd survived! And in retrospect I realized something else really really really cool. Years ago, at a concert at the Xcel, I distinctly remember saying "some day, I'm going to be on that stage". Now at the time I meant as a performer, and that may or may not ever happen. But tonight, technically speaking, I stood on that stage for a couple minutes. Cool.

During the show, Steve took me back to the production trailer - I got to see all the live video feeds, watch as the director called out different cameras to switch between, listened to the lighting/FX guy talk about dialing down the haze, talked with the audio guy as he monitored recording levels, etc. It. Was. Sweet.

A little later I spent some time chatting with the craft services lady, Dawn. With 65 television crew, we had our own dedicated craft services lady, and she made/brought in delicious meals and snacks. And she was super friendly. She's local, so I hope one day to hire her for one of my movies.

I took a couple photos during the show, but unlike what I saw many people doing, when I was out by the stage I tried to look at the sights directly, rather than through my camera's lens. The pictures I took were to prove I was there, but the memories are more precious.

There are so many "best" parts of the entire experience: I got paid to do something I love. It's a great resumé item for me. I saw much of the Xcel's backstage area and one day even got to park in the loading dock. I saw how a "real" production works from close up. But I think most of all, I met some really amazing people along the way. I'm convinced God orchestrated those meet-ups.

One other cool story: I was in awe to see Tsvi, the production coordinator, take off at sundown before the show started. He's Jewish, as in, really kosher Jewish, and so at Friday sunset he sabbaths - he took off and I didn't see him again. Seeing someone that high up in the production putting faith above work was inspirational to me.

Once the concert was over, about 50 stage hands rushed into the arena from both sides of the stage, pushing crates, coiling cables, cleaning up. And I mean immediately. As soon as the last note was played from the stage, the crew was already tearing down. I've rarely seen such efficiency and teamwork! And then I realized I was in the way, so I skid-addled.

I said my goodbyes, then took off for Des Moines (Awaken weekend - I was technically supposed to be there Friday at 6:30, but they were understanding). Very glad I planned ahead and parked right by the exit in the parking ramp, because even at that it took me over 15 minutes to get out.

Oddly, after only a few days working for this concert event, I still felt some post-production depression as I drove. It took me a while to figure out why I was so sad all of a sudden. But knowing I was heading to Awaken helped, as did the fact that pretty soon I was too tired to feel sad anymore!)

Wow. You really can't buy an experience like this. :)

Woof

2011-01-10T20:16:00.002-06:00

Everyone knows I'm scared of dogs.*

But what happens if I fall in love with a dog-lover? Will I be forced to overcome my phobia?

I think I've found the solution: You see, I recently started re-watching episodes of Fraggle Rock, Jim Henson's television series from the 80s. In addition to re-living the childhood memories, I've fallen in love with the dog, Sprocket. He's adorable. He understands english, and he doesn't do all the silly things real dogs do, he's endearing. Because he's anthropomorphized.

So if I ever have a dog, I wish for a dog like Sprocket. Too bad he's a puppet.

*though again, not as much as I'm absolutely terrified by worms. Still, our four-legged furry friends are right up there.

Cruise Control

2011-01-10T20:14:00.000-06:00

As 2011 begins, I would like to go on record and say that I think by 2020, less than ten years from now, we will have commercially available cars that drive themselves. Like this Google car:

365 Days

2011-01-01T11:46:00.002-06:00

I move to LA in one year.

I'm not ready.

Good thing I've got a whole year to figure it out! Here's to a happy, productive, restful, and worshipful new year.

Goals Update

2010-12-26T21:19:00.002-06:00

In July I wrote down some goals for the 2010-2011 school year. Time to check in on how I'm doing:

Become a better guitar player
I'll give this one a thumbs up. I've been privileges to play at church a few times now, and because our worship leader picks a lot of more complex songs, I've been forced to learn a bunch of new fingerings. And I learned how to use a cut capo. Which is sweet. And feels like cheating.

Produce at least one short film project
Working on it. More to come in January.

Record at least one song
Currently working toward recording a 7 track CD, hoping to start recording in Q1 2011.

Spend more time listening and less time talking
*Most* of the time doing well. Still working on this, though. I guess I always will be.

Pay off my student loans and obliterate my debt
Student loans are gone. And my credit card debt will be gone by 11:59pm on December 31st, 2010. Debt to parents (will never be repaid, but speaking in strictly financial terms) I'm aiming to pay off by May, if not sooner.

Proactively listen for God’s Call in my life
Oh yeah. Rocked that one a few months ago. Backsliding a bit now, but working my way back up.

Read at least 1 book
...

Learn to relax
Hm. I don't know. I haven't really thought much about it. I'll say I've made progress, but have plenty left to overcome.

I'm going to add one additional goal to this list. Because I hate small talk:

Be courageous, don't fear diving straight into a deep question

Never give up, never surrender!

2010-12-26T21:18:00.002-06:00

Much as I love Galaxy Quest, that's not actually what this post is about, that quote just happens to be the first title that popped into my head.

I saw this quote on my friend Jason's Facebook wall tonight:

‎"Never give up on something that you can't go one day without thinking about."

No idea who said it originally.* Doesn't matter. This quote simultaneously puts words to questions I've pondered for... days? weeks?... as well as answers them. Questions about people, relationships, projects, careers - I'm amazed just how widely applicable this mantra might be in my life.

*The Google appears to corroborate its anonymity. And also, as one might expect, plenty of sites propose a slightly modified version: "Never give up on someone..."

Friends

2010-12-24T16:37:00.005-06:00

Months ago my friend Suz shared some ruminations on friendship, giving me a new perspective:

Friends are truly a blessing from God. I don't have this many friendships because I'm an awesome person, but because God had put these relationships into my life.

Sometimes I forget myself and assume it's all because of me. It's not.

Trust. Again. Because that might be what Christmas is all about.

2010-12-24T12:37:00.014-06:00

Impatience is my best friend, tempered only occasionally by fleeting moments of clarity and peace. Blame it on an American culture of instant gratification, call me a Veruca Salt, or you can say I'm ambitious and highly motivated; impatience can play both fault and virtue, depending on context.

As a virtue, impatience makes me get things done. For fighting apathy, that is a powerful ally.

As a fault, I think my impatience boils down to trust. Trust in God, specifically. Or lack thereof.

My situation is thus: there are several relationships in my life that I would desire to be deeper. And that growth may very well happen. In time. But my impatience demands immediate results, rather than trusting God to mould those friendships in Her timing, rather than mine.

Why I would mistrust God in this particular regard is a question beyond me. Yes, I'm perpetually arguing with God over theodicy, but as regards the people in my life, my friendships, my family, God has always worked gifts and miracles beyond my comprehension. In this area of my life, I have no reason to doubt. So why do I still?

Christmas this year, for me, is a story about trust. I choose to believe that something resembling Luke's Gospel narrative took place. And therefore I'm in awe of the trust of Mary. Being an unwed mother was... a bit of a bigger deal in the ancient times. Joseph could have elected to have Mary stoned. He could have disowned her (he was about to do so, in fact). Yet Mary trusted God. Well, she's human, she must have freaked out a little at some point! Yet we are told she had faith, she trusted her well-being to a God that, in that time, was not known to humanity as a personable God.

Who am I, that I think myself greater than Mary, to not trust God?

Education is the antidote to war

2010-12-17T13:26:00.001-06:00

From Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, on the creation of ideas as viruses to effect positive change in the world.

Education is the antidote to war.

Minnehaha Puppet Pals

2010-12-14T21:31:00.005-06:00

For the 2010 Annual Christmas Talent Show at my school, a re-enactment of the Potter Puppet Pals' "Mysterious Ticking Noise". (see the original at www.potterpuppetpals.com)

True Love

2010-12-13T21:52:00.004-06:00

Wuv. Twue wuv. Universally embraced by songwriters, filmmakers, novelists, story tellers of all kinds. Love is a cross-cultural standard to which all humanity can relate. And with that universality comes the reality that everyone defines love uniquely.

I've long lamented English's poor choice of words for the matter (ancient Greek has at least 4), and so to define love in all its forms would prove impossible, or at the very least, beyond the scope of this blog post. What I'm focused on at the moment, quite simply, is marital love: the love shared by two persons (of any gender) who have committed their lives to one another. And more specifically, I want to draw out one aspect of that love: "for better or worse".

It's easy to love when life is peachy. True love, and I believe only true love, perseveres through hardship. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) I find my absolute favorite scenes depicting this deep and powerful love. Charlie Bucket's house is in shambles, there are gaping holes in the roof, his parents have Charlie's 4 grandparents, as well as Charlie himself, to care for, and then Mr Bucket loses his job. Mr and Mrs Bucket have every right to lose faith in the world and in each other. Sadly, were they a real-life couple in modern day America, one might expect the next chapter in their story to be divorce.

Instead, Mrs Bucket reassures her downcast husband that they will persevere. Their love transcends their adversity, and hope exudes from their very beings. I tear up every time I watch those scenes, honestly.

For me, the Buckets represent an epitome of true love. Unconditional. Unreserved. Unabated. It's beautiful. Some day, when I'm married, that is the kind of spouse I desire to be.

Story Time with Jeremy

2010-12-12T21:33:00.005-06:00

After the snowpocalypse this weekend, my neighbors invited me over for dinner. We had a delicious chili and enjoyed time relaxing inside, tired from all our shoveling (they had it worse than me - they had two cars to dig out, in addition to shoveling the sidewalks).

As bedtime crept closer, their 3-year-old daughter handed me a couple books and asked if I’d read them to her. This intimidating query caught me off-guard.

Anyone who’s known me more than a few minutes knows that children scare me. Not as much as dogs or worms, but kids are right up there in the top 5. With that being said, since I actually know my neighbor, she doesn’t scare me as much. I’ve still had exactly 0 experience reading bedtime stories, so I suspected this might be some sort of adventure. But how do you say “no” to a 3-year-old?

I said okay, and opened the first book, a story abut Hanukkah. And as I read it, I kept praying there wouldn’t be any big words that I couldn’t pronounce. I’m a good reader, my vocabulary is decent, and I was always the ‘Hermione’ in my grade-school classes when it came to reading out loud, but still the pressure’s on, and I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of a 3-year-old! (or her parents!)

So book one was kind of survival mode, flying by the seat of my pants, “don’t suck”, however you want to phrase it.

Then we opened book 2. The Night Before Christmas. Ah. Now this one I know. You know you’re off to a good start when you’ve got the first page memorized :)

What surprised me about The Night Before Christmas was the vernacular - I looked it up, the poem was first writ (or at least, published) in 1823. Aha! No wonder it contained such unusual words. As an adult, I appreciated the skilled craftsmanship of each stanza, though I wondered how much my neighbor understood of it. I mean, what's a sugar-plum? And what is this window "sash" that he opened? People don't talk like that anymore (I say, with a slight tinge of sadness to my voice).

For all its high language, this poem slips pleasantly off the tongue, making it easy to read aloud. And so as I settled into a rhythm with the words, my mind raced elsewhere and I realized: I can do this. Not just reading a book to my neighbor, I mean, as in, someday, when I have kids, I can do this. I'm soooo not ready to have kids yet, but I have a small sense of peace that, when that time comes, it'll be okay. The concept of being a "Daddy" isn't as scary as it used to be.

I know that reading a story when the child is in a good mood is but one tiny portion of what parenting requires, and the more pleasant portion, at that. I've heard the screaming and temper-tantrums when the Little One isn't in a good mood, when she's not as cute and cuddly, and I'm not quite ready to tackle that part yet. But for me this one small step feels like a huge victory. The idea that I could ever be comfortable around a child, that's encouraging.

And I'm sure that makes my Mom happy to hear :)

Storm of the Century

2010-12-11T18:39:00.010-06:00

I grew up hearing tales of "The Halloween Snowstorm of '91". I don't remember that storm, I was 6. However, today's Snownami / Snowpocalypse / Snowmageddon I'll probably remember, at least for a while.

My Mom sends me emails of "oral history", stories from our family, usually events long before I was born, occasionally things within my lifetime. Here's an excerpt of what she wrote today:

Oral History in the making...

Believe anything you hear about our blizzard. We're closing in on 16" of fresh snow and the winds are virtually "blizzard" qualified, even if not literally so. The airport runways were all closed down for the first time since the Halloween snowstorm of 1991. Mall of America is closing early. The U of M is closed. Those three places rarely close, so that's a measure of conditions, here. The buses were pulled off the roads early afternoon, after 1/3 of them got stuck. Downtown Mpls. has 10-ft drifts from the blowing snow. The Holidazzle Light Parade downtown was cancelled for only the 10th time in 19 yrs.

And from MnDOT:

Mn/DOT is advising no travel in the Twin Cities metropolitan area due to difficult road conditions.

That's significant, because this is Minnesota - we know how to deal with snow. When MOA closes, public transit shuts down, and MnDOT says stay off the roads, you know it's serious.

I spent over an hour and a half this morning shoveling. Usually I skip my driveway, knowing I can just drive over the snow. Today not so much - with a solid foot of snow, there's no way my car would make it through that. And of course I haven't had my snowblower tuned up for a couple years, so it didn't start. This necessitated hauling / throwing a lot of snow by shovel. My arms and shoulders hurt afterward.

And then it kept snowing all day, so by evening I needed to do everything all over again. My sidewalks acted as if I'd never touched them in the first place - all that time spent earlier in the day seemed for nought. (I'm sure tonight would have been loads worse had I not shoveled earlier, but it sure didn't feel like it) My neighbors were out shoveling, as well. We talked briefly, then spent another hour shoveling out their van from the driveway.

Some photos from the day:

Backyard

Front yard, facing neighbors

MSP Flights Cancelled; Photo from Bruce Bisping, startribune.com

January 2012

2010-11-14T13:07:00.009-06:00

This is post #2 of 2 about my trip to Los Angeles.

Three weeks ago I flew to LA. My objective: hang out with my friends and have a fun vacation away from work!

I never expected the trip would change my life forever.

Though I didn't advertise publicly, part of my purpose in visiting LA was to determine whether I could see myself living there as a working filmmaker. I went in more or less assuming "no way! Too big, too scary", yet tried to maintain an open mind just in case.

And so, from the moment Brooke picked me up at the airport, to the final car ride with Anne back to LAX, I asked questions. Lots of them. Trying to get at people's experiences, from practicalities like cost of living, to their emotions about leaving home and re-establishing a friend-base in a new city.

Every answer I heard reinforced one central theme: making "the move" is possible.

I began contemplating, how exactly would this work? What would happen to my house, where would I work, what about health insurance? And I prayed a lot.

Finally, on the car ride to the airport, I had my moment of clarity: "I have to do this. I don't know how it's going to work, I just know it's what I need to do."

Coupled with my friends' encouragement (or "insistence" might be a better word), I resolved that I will make the move to Los Angeles in January 2012.

In my mind that's a long way off. Everyone I've told so far, though, insists it will fly by, and the most common reaction has been "you're moving so soon?"

However one looks at it, I've got 13.5 months to get my life in order. Or something like that. So over the next year, I will:

- pay off my current debt
- pay ahead in my house payment, as well as find a future renter(s)
- save enough to survive for several months after the move without a steady income
- record my first CD project
- write / direct / and/or produce one more short film

I remain hopeful that I'll maintain part-time employment at Minnehaha, since most of the web and database stuff I do can be done from anywhere in the world. And I want to keep my foot in the door for possible summer-time employment, when business around LA is quieter.

I could get a job at an Apple Store when I move, but I'm saving that as a last resort, because in my mind it kind of defeats the purpose: I'm moving to LA to work on movies, not sell in retail. I have to allow myself time to give filmmaking an honest shot.

This feels like the right time to make this change. One of my greatest fears is, years from now, reflecting on my life and asking "what if...?". One of my coworkers actually told me a few months ago, "if you're still here in 5 years, I'll be disappointed in you". So it's time to take a risk, and see what happens.

My parents are supportive. I gave them the two-minute version when they picked me up from the airport, and then a few days ago we were able to sit down for a longer conversation. The next year may be nerve-wracking as I try to accomplish everything on my list, but I am indescribably happy to have a solid goal toward which I'm working.

409 days, and counting.

Reflections on Los Angeles

2010-11-14T00:10:00.012-06:00

This is post #1 of 2 about my trip to Los Angeles.

Three weeks ago I flew to LA. My objective: hang out with my friends and have a fun vacation away from work!

I've traveled to California (San Francisco) twice, but never Los Angeles. Thanks to hyperbole from television and talkies, I partly expected a martian landscape, red rocks, devoid of familiar terrestrial lifeforms, and perhaps covered in smog.

Well, let's back up. First, boarding my flight was delayed almost two hours because... drumroll, please... the pilot's windshield wiper was broken. No joke.

My delayed landing actually worked to my advantage, though. Originally, my friend Anne was going to pick me up, because her roommate Brooke (I would be staying at their apartment) was in meetings all day. But with the flight delay, Anne had to get to her night class and wouldn't have time to add in a round trip to the airport and back, so Brooke picked me up on her way to dinner with other filmmakers.

Which means, my very first night ever in LA, I...

experienced freeway rush hour

drove on a mountain (okay, Brooke was driving, but it's boring to say "I rode around a mountain")

ate dinner at a deluxe, Harry Potter themed restaurant in Beverly Hills

met a bunch of filmmakers / actors / writers, including the writer of Zombieland

tried to wrap my mind around the florae

Seriously, it's not just the palm trees that caught me off-guard, they have legitimately entirely different species of trees in California. Which is weird to me.

What was also weird: nearly every day we drove by the WB and Disney backlots. That's a new "normal" to which I never quite acclimated.

And almost every day we saw grip trucks parked around town and production signs posted on street corners. Brooke always called out "look, they're shooting a movie there", and that's just part of normal LA life. I could get used to that.

On my second night, Brooke and Anne hosted "Bad Movie Night". A few months ago, I started this tradition in Minneapolis after an abysmally awful local independent film came out on DVD - I gathered my film friends, including a couple folks who'd worked on the movie, and we mocked it MST3K style. Anne and Brooke caught wind of this and insisted I bring the DVD with me to LA. We had a blast. In attendance were also Rachel (Brooke's business partner, whom I knew only vaguely previous to this trip; I think we worked on the Prairie Home extras casting team together a few years ago), Nathan (my lead actor in my "Harry Putter" movies), Matt ("Draco" in Putter 1), and Anne's new LA friend Bernadett (one of the sweetest, most humble people ever; meeting her is a story unto itself). Awesome night, with a group of truly awesome people.

Other miscellaneous stories:

It rained overnight one night. Otherwise, hardly ever a cloud in the sky, and stable temperature (cold at night, just right during the day). And aside from the tractor race outside my window Thursday morning (aka, a lawn mower and weed whacker), the city was quieter than I expected. Traffic was not as terrible as I'd feared. Nor were prices - Targét was more or less consistent with Minneapolis. Gas was about 30 cents more expensive.

How do you spot the tourist from Minnesota? I was the only one who always forgot to bring sunglasses. Thank goodness Brooke and Anne started reminding me.

Anne and Bernadett were in a Halloween one-act - Anne played a possessed girl who gnaws on her own leg, whom Bernadett wants to kill her in order to protect their other friend. And that was only the second one-act of six. Very uplifting evening.

Bernadett's birthday happened while I was in town, we took her out to breakfast to celebrate (and obviously didn't let her pay!).

One day Anne took me to Griffith Observatory, a space/science history type museum on top a hill. Awesome place. I want to go back when it's dark sometime, the view of the night sky must be breathtaking. The views of the surrounding valleys also were spectacular.

And while we were at Griffith, I glimpsed "the" Hollywood sign on a faraway hill. Surreal. And a bit smaller than I'd imagined :)

On November 1st we went to the beach, just for the sake of saying, "It's November 1st, we're at the beach!" Granted, the ocean was a bit cool for swimming, but we dipped our feet in and drew in the sand. Fun.

I didn't make it to an official church service during my stay, but I experienced some truly amazing late night worship and prayer time, just on my own, me and God, with an album from Jesus Culture playing softly on iTunes. It shouldn't surprise me that God was there, too, so many miles away from "home"; nevertheless, our conversations came as an unexpected and pleasant surprise, and I felt a closer connection with Her than I have for a long while. He and I had some really good conversations.

This spiritual high, along with constant and uplifting encouragement from my friends, allowed me to leave inspired, with some clear life goals to achieve in 2011. Those will be covered in part 2, coming in a couple days.

Old song, new message

2010-11-11T14:00:00.002-06:00

“Lord (I Don’t Know)” is one of my favorite Newsboys songs. I listen to it when I’m depressed, sad about the world, when something awful has happened, when one of my friends has died.

“Lord, I don’t know where all this is going
Or how it all works out.
Lead me to peace that is past understanding
A peace beyond all doubt.”

This morning the song sprung up in a new light: joy, excitement, anticipation, a genuine and overwhelming feeling of looking forward to the future and "all that is to come". Same song, completely new message for me.

What's holding you back?

2010-11-07T21:34:00.006-06:00

Ate a delicious Noodle-y lunch with one of my best friends today, and a variation of this question came up. The context was: some people don't want to grow, don't want to see what their potential has in store. They're stagnant. Satisfied, perhaps, yes, but unmoving. We were specifically discussing this in terms of faith, but it can applied in almost any area of life.

At another lunch, a few weeks ago, with one of my pastor friends, I raised a similar question: what, if anything, is holding us back from taking that "next step" (whatever it may be) with God? I told him that was our homework for the next time we dined together.

And as is pretty typical, I've been avoiding my homework.

After it came up today, though, I've been thinking. What is holding me back? Am I being held back?

Aversion to anything "Bible" is definitely one area in my life. Everyone who's ever had a theological conversation with me knows how much I despise "religion" and "the Church", because I've seen the Bible used as a weapon too many times. But a couple nights ago, I actually picked one up and read something 'for fun' (well, I didn't actually pick one up, I picked up my phone, because there's an app for that). And the verses I read were inspiring. (1 Corinthians 12)

A single session of reading does not a Bible-lover Jeremy make. But it's a start.

Another area for growth is related to that passage: applying my spiritual gifts. It's easy to "talk God" in certain contexts, like Sunday mornings, or church small groups. It's more difficult to remember to use that gift outside of those situations. Like at work. Or spending time with family. It's not that this is "holding me back", per se, I'm just identifying it as an area for improvement.

Aside from those, well, maybe 'trust' is another holder-backer, but even that I'm growing, making progress. So I guess really what I've learned is that the next step for me is open that darn book. Shoot. Fine Holy Spirit, you win this round. But I don't have to be happy about it!

What's holding you back?

Gift-Giving to Jeremy for Birthday/Christmas

2010-11-03T22:43:00.002-05:00

To my family and friends, if you’re planning on sending a gift my way for Thanksgiving / my birthday / Christmas, then this post applies to you. Yes, you!

I'm trying to reduce my collection of random "stuff", so I'd rather not receive material gifts this year. Truly, your presence at any celebrations is more than enough. However, if you still feel inclined to give me something, please consider these alternatives instead of a traditional gift:

- a handwritten or typed note about our friendship
- a donation to AWAKEN, Heifer International, or ELCA Good Gifts.

Seriously, I don't need or want any more "stuff". Let's see what kind of good we can do in the world instead!

Felix Felicis. (or, moving as the Spirit calls)

2010-10-30T21:59:00.003-05:00

My friends and I are watching Harry Potter 6. In the latter half of the movie, Harry uses a magical potion, Felix Felicis (aka "liquid luck"), in order to gain valuable information to aid Dumbledore in their fight against evil.

I love how Harry's entire demeanor changes when he's "high" (for lack of a better term). He's entirely confident - not arrogant, but 100% sure in his actions, even when they don't make any logical sense.

Professor Slughorn: Harry! I must insist you accompany me back to the castle immediately!
Harry: That would be counterproductive, sir!
Professor Slughorn: What makes you say that?
Harry: No idea!

And so it struck me: maybe that's what it's like to live and move fully "in the Spirit". Here's aspiring to that.

Down to Earth

2010-10-29T12:07:00.001-05:00

In June one of my friends obliterated his Facebook account (http://friendshipobliteration.blogspot.com). But before committing social suicide he sent me this message:

When I first met you in high school, you were the preeminent “audio/visual” guy. The teachers looked on you with respect, and many of us in the grades below you beheld you with awe. It was surreal, seeing a student who was well-liked enough among the faculty to be treated with such veneration. If anything, I was inspired. As a freshman, I assumed that this sort of prestige would have made you into kind of a diva; so it surprised me when I talked to you for the first time and discovered that you were a pretty practical and easy-going dude. I haven't seen you in a few years, but your Facebook page seems to indicate that you continue to be both a technological exemplar and a down-to-earth kinda guy. Neat.

I’m still speechless.

Pride and humility have definitely been stumbling blocks for me. It’s hard to remain humble, yet also acknowledge my own skills and abilities. Whether true or not, I feel as though I fail more often than I succeed.

My high school self apparently had it all figured out :) This encourages me. In addition to helping me re-focus, knowing that, at least at one point in life, I seemed to be doing well, gives me hope for my future in this life-long struggle.

Trust

2010-10-25T09:32:00.003-05:00

I was in Ames over the weekend for AWAKEN, and to visit friends. Saturday night I was feeling mighty contemplative, so I stood outside for a good 15-30 minutes admiring the light show of a distant thunderstorm.

The word that kept coming to me was "trust". With so many questions about my future (specifically wondering which people will and will not be a part of my life), the sense I got was simply: trust. Trust, not in a flippant "it will all work out", but in a sincere, holy, "God's got my back" kind of way.

I'm a worrier. It's stressful. And I think I need to give that up.

Adoption

2010-10-21T22:21:00.001-05:00

Children scare me.* And yet I imagine some day having my own. Presumably my perspective will have changed by that time.

While driving recently, children were on my mind. And so was adoption. It's probably the first time I honestly asked myself the question, could adoption play a role in my future life?

I think it probably could.

*though not as terribly as worms; children do not generally evoke the same girlish screams of terror, full-body tremors, and irrational dread of stepping on them. Not usually, anyway.

Watering the seed

2010-10-19T00:28:00.002-05:00

Over the last two weeks I’ve had opportunities to speak into people’s lives words that *I think* God wanted them to hear. I’m learning to trust my heart more than my head (NOT an easy feat), and along the way doing my best to take those baby steps toward discerning God’s words from my own.

What’s remarkable is the times that someone has replied, “that’s exactly what I needed to hear”.

Wow. Really? Like, what I said just then, it actually meant something?

Cool.

What’s also notable, though, are the times with no noticeable reaction. Maybe I was speaking from my own head, maybe I wasn’t “channeling” “properly”.

Or maybe, God’s working in those times, too.

I was talking about this with my pastor and his wife tonight, and the image of a seed in a pot popped into my head. I think it’s a useful illustration:

- sometimes we are called to plant the seed.
- sometimes we are called to water it for the first time.
- sometimes we are blessed to see a plant poking through the soil.
- and sometimes we get to see the flower emerge.

Greg expanded on this, noting that rarely do we ever know what kind of seed we’re planting, what kind of plant it will one day become. Teachers must deal with this all the time. Or at least, teachers of younger grades: they teach the same age over and over, year after year, without ever getting to see the end result. The high school teachers, the college professors, they're the ones who see the finished product, YEARS after that Kindergarten teacher planted the first seeds. (I'm thinking of you, Mrs Brandon :)

So while sometimes there may seem to be no results, maybe that just means I’m not privy to see that part of that person’s journey. And that’s okay. I don’t need to know. All I’m called to do is trust. Isaiah 55:11.

Pride and Passion

2010-10-18T22:59:00.004-05:00

I was blessed with the opportunity to speak in chapel at Minnehaha earlier this month. Here's the video.

Special thanks to Jeff Crafton for the opportunity, Rich Enderton for video taping, and Brian Hallermann for lighting and recording me.

Learning to channel. Or, how I'm learning to shove my brain out of the way.

2010-10-13T23:35:00.002-05:00

It's JD's fault.

Over the last two weeks, my approach toward other people has been fundamentally (and I hope irreversibly) altered. It's a journey that began years ago with a tiny blue string from DaveO's sermon at FCA (about how people are important, and a chord of three strands is not easily broken).

The journey may have begun longer ago than that.

My Grandpa Stan died when I was not even a toddler. Mom and Dad always tell me how similar we are; I wish I'd known him. Yet I'm inspired by their memories. Mom tells me Grandpa could talk to anyone he met, anytime, and carry on meaningful conversation. He had a gift.

It's easy to talk to people I like. Or find attractive. Or share common interests. I suppose it's a starting point. Training myself not to discriminate, though, that's the challenge. And finding legitimate interest to hear what they're saying, another challenge.

But somehow it's not *quite* as challenging anymore. I've learned I love to learn, and I've learned I can learn from almost anyone. And the best way to learn is to identify, and then ignite, someone's passion - they'll talk your ear off.

There's more to the story (the part that actually explains the title of this post, I guess). If you want to know, ask me.

Compassion

2010-10-02T23:22:00.000-05:00

God put this word on my heart tonight.

I know I have struggles ahead. I know specifically what at least three of them will be. And I know re-training myself to default to compassion is the first step.

After a cursory glance through an online concordance, it looks like “compassion” is a prelude to reconciliation and healing (Luke 15:20; Matthew 20:34; Mark 1:41; Matthew 14:14; et al.) Reconciliation is the challenge I’m least looking forward to.

Let the journey begin.

Constitutionalism

2010-09-20T21:00:00.001-05:00

On September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States was adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

When learning about the Constitution in US History courses, well, I never really cared. The long-forgotten arguments about loose vs strict constructionism, three-fifths compromises, even the Bill of Rights - to these all seemed hopelessly lost to the past, not particularly important in my world today.

My opinion has changed.

As I’ve grown more politically aware (at least of some of the politics within my own country, if not so much globally), suddenly some of those remount shards of knowledge seep back to the surface, ready to become applicable in “real life”. And I’ve grown a tremendous respect for those early politicians whose jobs were to craft this document destined to become “the Law of the Land”. How they predicted some of the issues that would arise, it astounds me. Their foresight in establishing an amendment process, their vision that their 13 states would one day be joined by more, and a three-branched government to provide balance of power; these astound me now.

The Constitution was written by humans (like everything else on earth). Yet somehow, it is holy in its own right. It is indeed “set apart”. It is, indeed, worthy of my respect, as were the men who first signed it 223 years ago.

Give me pills!

2010-08-29T16:51:00.002-05:00

August and September are notoriously unpleasant for those of us with allergies. Every year around this time, there comes a day when I find myself absolutely miserable, eyes watery, kleenex massacred all over the floor, breathing becomes a chore.

Thank you, Autumn.

Most days Zyrtec keeps my allergies in check, but last Thursday life was unbearable. Unable to focus at work, I called the nearest clinic and explained I needed an appointment with any doctor, and I needed it as soon as possible, because I needed prescription-strength allergy pills.

Going to the doctor's office is usually not high on my list of "fun things to do". But I've had allergy prescriptions in the past, so I knew there was a solution, the only thing yet between me and relief was getting the Doc's signature to bring to the pharmacy (okay, electronic signature, but you get the point).

Meanwhile, going through my mind was, "yes, Doctor, I weight 145 pounds, I don't smoke, no fever, just give me the pills!"

Don't worry, Mom, I was nice about it.

In reality it was under and hour (though in "I'm-not-feeling-well-give-me-pills" mode it felt much longer) and I was on my way home with an Rx of Fexofenadine, a nasal spray, and a steroid to help kick-start the feeling-well-ness. I'm pretty sure the steroid is what gave me a nasty headache yesterday, but at least I can breathe again and don't look like I've been crying all day. So I think that's progress, right?

I fought the caulk and the caulk won

2010-08-26T15:28:00.001-05:00

Who knew my Mom had super-human strength?

Well, it turns out she doesn’t, but she knew a secret I didn’t: caulking one’s bathtub goes much much easier when you use a caulking gun, rather than struggling to squeeze caulk from the tube by hand. Which is how I started my weekend a few Saturdays ago.

It was a bright and sunny day, the perfect day for being productive. I retrieved the tube of caulk from downstairs, found a scraper thingy (technical term) to help remove the old caulk, and went at it. Several hours later, most of the old caulk was gone. Mostly. Sort of. It’s harder than it looks! (or I made it harder, one or the other)

And then the real battle began. After a couple more hours squeezing the darn tube with limited success (except bursting open the back end of the tube), I finally broke down and called Mom to ask what she knew that I didn’t.

That’s when she told me about the gun.

Now, I can’t claim life was “easy” after that, but at least I could make progress.

The caulk is done now. Lumpy, kind of jiggy-jaggy, and varies from paper-thin to burrito thick, but it’s done.

And I will never be hired as a professional plumber, I can tell you that right now.

I Look Different!

2010-08-20T22:43:00.004-05:00

For several weeks I've desire to dye my hair again. A couple years ago I went red (and pulled it off rather successfully, I might add), so this time I decided to go the opposite direction: blonde!

My Mom's hairdresser Denise did a fantabulous job crafting my hair into a golden marvel. I didn't know exactly what I wanted, but this turned out better than I expected! Only once so far has it caught me off-guard seeing my reflection.

The best part, though, is probably the reactions. Here is a sampling of some more colorful thoughts from Facebook friends:

What happened? Did your shirt crawl up and take over the top of your head?

Auditioning for Ronald McDonald, or just preparing by getting in the mood for the big movie screening on Saturday? :)

Is this from all the [computer] re-imaging? Some kind of waves coming out of the machines? This sounds like a workers comp claim.

WHOA!?!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

wow! the new party look!!

That's quite an iPhone app!!!!

KILL IT WITH FIRE Oh it's just your hair?

So yeah, I'm enjoying blonde life.

The next hair color (after this) will either be orange, or be put to a vote on Facebook.

First time in Jacob's Well band!

2010-08-15T22:43:00.004-05:00

Today I played in the Jacob's Well band for the first time! Trial by fire, but I'm pretty sure I didn't completely suck...

I've served as a sound engineer at JW since February, at least once or twice a month, and in that time been blessed to meet most of our wonderful musicians (the worship team has over 30 people who rotate each week). Over the months I've asked if I could eventually slip into the band rotation, and this week I was invited to trade in my headphones and join them up front.

I mentioned today was "trial by fire". I had several factors working against me today:

- No mid-week rehearsal. Normally the band rehearses on Tuesday night, giving plenty of time to work through any kinks or trouble spots in the songs. But Nate, the leader, is a brand new Daddy, so there was no rehearsal this week (quite understandably!)

- Ears. I've never used in-ear monitors before. They're sweet, but the Aviom console to mix what I was hearing in my ears had no labels, so it was hard to figure out which channels I needed to turn up to hear what I needed to hear. (Nate graciously ran through the list slowly so I could write it down before we got going too far).

- Click. I've also never played to a click. Though now I don't know how I'll ever play without one. So this isn't a bad thing, it's just "one more new thing" thrown into the bag.

- You've Got a Friend In Me. Jazz? How the heck do I play jazz? And the song's in Eb (half a step lower than standard guitar tuning, which makes it much more difficult to play). Fortunately, I have a "backup" performance guitar, so I re-tuned that and then switched between the two guitars between songs. Made life much easier. Relatively. Not only are the chords crazy, but the changes go crazy fast.

- Most importantly: I haven't played in a band for a long time. It's been well over a year since I played publicly with a band. I don't get stage-fright, the audience doesn't bother me, but anticipating keeping tempo with 3 other instrumentalists had me worried. (unnecessarily so: that click is awesome)

So I survived. I have room for improvement (always will), but I didn't suck, so all in all off to a good start. And it means I can continue breaking a stereotype by crossing the boundary between tech and musician. Frankly I think it makes me better at both jobs, because as a Tech I know what the musicians need/want/expect, and as a musician I have a solid grasp on what the tech may need me to do.

Not User-Serviceable

2010-07-29T23:10:00.006-05:00

My Dad gave me one of his old computers tonight - the hard drive was toast and needed to be replaced, though other than that, a perfectly operational 17" Intel iMac. Sweet.

Some quick price-comparing on internal 2TB hard drives yielded comparable results between Micro Center and Newegg, so I ordered on Micro Center's site and selected in-store pickup. Literally 5 minutes later I received an email saying my hard drive was ready to be picked up.

When I got home I started disassembling the iMac using these instructions from iFixit. Half-way in I discovered I lacked two of the important screw-drivers: T6 and T8 Torx. Shoot.

Never fear, Dad (as always), is here! Well, not literally, he wasn't at *my* house, but I called and asked if he had those tools; of course he did - Dad has everything. And a Spudger. I'd never heard of that either, but he had one.

So, a couple hours later (I'm sure the pros are MUCH faster, but this was my first significant take-apart, so I'm cutting myself some slack) the iMac had a new hard drive, and I had 0 parts leftover after reassembly! Even better, the machine still starts up!

Here are some photos from my adventure.

Goals for the 2010-2011 School Year

2010-07-27T16:57:00.006-05:00

Yes, I've already graduated college, but I still work in a school, so my calendar still revolves around the school year. That's really just a convenient excuse to do a mid-year New Year's resolution. Of sorts.

(Actually it's all my friend Joanna's fault: she wrote a blog post back in May listing some of her goals for the year, so that made me want to do something similar. And my friend Matthew has always encouraged me to write down my goals, so here we are.)

Goals for 2010-2011:

Become a better guitar player

Produce at least one short film project

Record at least one song

Spend more time listening and less time talking

Pay off my student loans and obliterate my debt

Proactively listen for God’s Call in my life

Read at least 1 book*

Learn to relax

*Confession: I'm a slow reader, and college really turned me off from reading. So reading a book for pleasure would be an accomplishment.

Network Logins Failing on Snow Leopard Clients

2010-07-20T13:39:00.011-05:00

Two issues resolved today. Issue #2 is more interesting than Issue #1.

Issue #1:
Open Directory accounts are unable to log in to OS X 10.6 client machines, but are able to log in to OS X 10.5 clients. The login window accepts the username and password and expands, briefly showing the username and icon, but then fails to complete the login and shakes.

Apparent Cause:
In my case, Snow Leopard choked because my users' "Home"s in Workgroup manager were set to /dev/null.

A Solution:
Set the user's Home in WGM (or NFSHomeDirectory in the inspector view) to /Users/shortname, where shortname is the user's shortname (given in the Basic panel in WGM).

Issue #2:
When logging in to a network account, OS X 10.6 clients are prompted for credentials when connecting to a share point on the Open Directory Master. This defeats the point of single sign-on, since the credentials are the same. (OS X 10.5 clients connect to the server successfully without prompting for a username and password.)

Apparent Cause:
OS X 10.6 clients do not create a Kerberos ticket for network accounts until the user's second login on the client machine. (OS X 10.5 clients create a Kerberos TGT immediately on first login)

A Solution:
Modify the /etc/authorization file as described in this article from Apple's KBase:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4100

Locate this key:
<key>system.login.console</key>

Add this string at the end of that block:
<string>builtin:krb5store,privileged</string>

Note:
This solution says it is for Active Directory users, but it successfully solved the identical issue for Open Directory accounts.

This is who I am - Ladonna Witmer

2010-07-18T18:10:00.003-05:00

Jacob’s Well watched this today. Powerful. True. More eloquently than I ever could, Ladonna expresses how so many from my generation, myself included, feel toward “the church”. And I think this acknowledgement is one that more people, from both sides of the generational gap, need to hear. Need to truly hear.

youtube.com/watch?v=KWKedCKJOsI