I think I might need to turn the heat up in my house

Can I get a blanket, Daddy?

Moonrise Kingdom is coming soon!

I always enjoy Wes Anderson films. They're quirky and deep and painfully funny. So I'm pretty pleased that there's a new one coming out, which from the looks of the trailer will be pretty much everything you would generally expect from Wes Anderson. Should be fun!

 

Of Monsters and Men

I stumbled across this band, Of Monsters and Men, on the radio this week and I thought you needed to meet them.

 Anyone want to go to Iceland with me to catch a concert?

Wonderful Wednesday: my baby drinking coffee

She's even cuter in person. And yes, apparently she prefers Peets.

 

The 300 Pound Pastor: Guest Post from theologian and author, Gary Thomas

Today's guest post comes from Gary Thomas. Be sure to follow him on his Twitter feed. Before I met Gary, he had already had a profound impact on my life through his book, Sacred Marriage, which is the best, most helpful and practical marriage book I've read. I read through multiple of his other books and found them insightful, eye-opening and profound. Then I met Gary in person, when I took one of his seminary classes at Western Seminary. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gary is not only insightful, but deeply spiritual and someone who practices what he preaches. Gary has consistently shown generosity, patience and kindness toward me, and his deep love for Christ is evident to anyone who has spent time with him. This post relates to his newest book, Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul. Enjoy!

The 300 Pound Pastor

When Mark Bejsovec, a youth pastor, saw the scale creep over 300 pounds, he gulped.  During his high school football playing days, he carried just 186 pounds on his six-foot-two frame.  In his early thirties, however, Mark started gaining weight steadily. At first, he rationalized it and even began using it like a tool. It made him seem funnier. He could push out his stomach until he looked like he was pregnant, and the kids in his ministry would laugh: “You look like you got twins!”

When he hit 300 pounds, though, Mark began to sense God speaking to him about his physical condition.

“I looked into Scripture, specifically at the men in the Bible who assumed leadership roles, and wondered how they must have looked. I couldn’t find anyone in leadership who was overweight.”

This wasn’t about vanity, but rather about being a better steward of his body and his calling: “If I was addressing only spiritual issues but not the physical ones, I considered I would be less useful to the Lord in my ministry. If I was going to remain in ministry, I needed to honor God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and also all my body.”

By definition, we can’t be a leader in secret.  Somebody is following us.  And the bodies we are leading with aren’t hidden.

A friend of mine, who works as a senior director for a major Christian development organization, recently shared with me the battle he faces with eating and exercise.  On a recent business trip, he ate twenty-four restaurant meals in a row. He’s concerned about his health habits, and like many, he lives with a constant sense of failure that he could be doing more about his weight. What he doesn’t see are spiritual leaders taking this struggle as seriously as he does.  “We’ve been taught in the evangelical tradition about adultery and lying and stealing and coveting,” he says, “and about lust and alcoholism and smoking and drug abuse. But many evangelical pastors who preach against these things are visibly overweight or obese. I don’t say this to judge them—I struggle with the same thing. But sometimes I wonder. Sure, they may have conquered the online porn, but it seems like they’re ‘medicating’ with food; I get that, because I do the same thing.”

For his part, Mark decided to quit his former eating habits cold turkey. When his weight started coming off, Mark experienced a rush of positive energy. “I started feeling more affirmed, my self-esteem went up, and my relationship with God grew. It’s not that my previous life didn’t honor God, but now it felt like I was living like God designed me to live.”

When I asked Mark what changed most about his life since he lost seventy pounds, he responded, “Let’s be honest: there were times I was discredited because of the way I looked. When I talked to kids about self-control in other areas, they could look at me and understandably ask why I wasn’t addressing my issues with food. But now, when I share my story, there’s an added inspirational element. If I can do it, anyone can do it, and my weight loss has become an effective tool in my ministry.”

As a writer whose most prominent books relate to marriage, I take it as a personal challenge to maintain the integrity of my own marriage.  I can’t write and teach on marriage if my own is falling apart.  As a pastor, however, when I talk to the church about self-control; when I preach on the necessity of personal discipline, good stewardship in all areas of life, and, above all, when I teach out of 1 Corinthians 6:20: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” I am going to completely undercut my message if I’m preaching out of a body that denies this.

It would be convenient if being a leader didn’t require also being an example, but that’s not the case.  Paul writes, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1)

Leaders, let’s ask ourselves, “Is my body serving or thwarting my message?”  If you’re a pastor, you may well have accepted financial sacrifice for the privilege of being in the ministry; if you’re a leader of any type, you have readily accepted the sacrifice of your time, tranquility, and even reputation, as leadership assaults all of these.  But will you also accept bodily sacrifice—watching what you eat, and putting in the effort to get appropriate exercise? Will you recognize that the body out of which you lead can either support or undercut the message that you carry?

I am not suggesting that we pick leaders by how thin they are, or that we make a direct connection between a person’s BMI and his holiness. That would be ridiculous, ignorant, and unfair—some bodies aren’t designed to be thin, other bodies seem to naturally stay thin regardless of how they are cared for or fed, but leaders, we know our own journey, we know whether this area of stewardship is feeding or hindering our maturity and ministry. Don’t all of us feel better, stronger, more energetic, when we’re being faithful in this area?  And don’t we all know that there are negative consequences when we get careless?

So, in a spirit of encouragement and grace, let’s admit that this is something we need to start talking about. Just as we seemed eager to denounce the opulent affluence and money-raising scandals of the 1980s televangelists, let’s not be blind to our own contemporary challenges at the dawn of the 21^st century.

For more on this topic, check out Gary’s book Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul.

Happy Valentine's Day to Me

My 2 year old (M) hardly ever says "I love you." I've heard it a handful of times, most often when I am leaving for work. Maybe once when I put her to bed. She'll repeat anything else I say, including a recent favorite, "HOW DARE YOU!" which is what I say to the kids when I'm pretending I'm upset with them.

But, this weekend Krista started to tell M all about Valentine's Day. She said, "Valentine's Day is a day when we tell each other how much we love each other and we eat cookies."

M looked over at me and with the sweetest little voice she said, "I love you, Daddy." It was the clearest I've ever heard her say it. Then she gave me a hug. Then she said it again. I couldn't believe it. I gave her a hug and told her I loved her, too.

Then she looked at her mom, and back to me.

She looked me right in the eye and said, "Cookie now? Where cookie?"

Sometimes when you wish for a ukelele you get what you wanted

These guys are having a lot of fun covering Adele's "Someone Like You." Enjoy!


 Via John Scalzi

Wonderful Wednesday: God Save the Queen

My Aussie friend Steve, who lives abroad, sent me a note this morning and told me to check out the Queen's Christmas speech, saying, "It's a ripper!" It certainly is. NOTE: To all my American readership, that's not "My Country Tis of Thee" playing in the beginning. That's "God Save the Queen." Those darn colonials and their propaganda!

WHAM! presents, "Last Christmas"

Today as we were driving in the car, Krista said, "This Wham! song is getting played constantly right now. Why is that?"

Because it is Wham!'s Christmas song, of course!

Here it is:

I am reminded now why we did not need bicycle helmets in the 80's. Our hair provided a cushion, softening the impact should our heads hit the ground. Beautiful. Anyway, this set Krista and I off on a tangent. What was the name of that other guy in Wham!? And what had happened to him? George Michael we know, but what became of (as Krista said) "that dark-haired guy"?

 So, thankful for the powers of the internet, I set out tonight to learn more about That Dark-Haired Guy who was once part of Wham!

His name, my friends, is Andrew Ridgeley. And if you are too lazy to click on that link (not that I blame you for your laziness! This is the internet!) you will discover that Andrew (after a brief stint in Monaco as a Formula 3 race car driver) went on to eventually record a solo album, which wasn't received all that well, and now he spends much of his time in semi-retirement, playing golf and hanging out with his girlfriend, who is a member of the band Bananarama. So there you have it. He seems to be a rather nice guy.

Somehow, we never thought this would embarrass us.
It's a slogan for the entire decade of the 80's.

Dreams: The next Muppet movie

Last week I had a series of dreams in which I was asked to write the next Muppet movie. Every time I woke up, I would think, That was a weird dream. Then I would go back to sleep and the dream would pick up where it left off.

It started with me being asked to write the movie after I somehow came across a group of men debating the plot at a coffee shop. They were so impressed with my input that they asked me to take over as head writer. I got the feeling that they didn't really want to write it, anyway, and they were glad to have someone else take over.

So, I started writing a story called "The Muppets: Going Home."

The story started with Gonzo finding an unhatched dinosaur egg in a cave. In New York City, of course.

There were quite a few vivid scenes. Here are some of my favorites:

1) Gonzo gets a time-travelling bicycle from Bunsen and Beaker so he can take the egg back in time to find its mommy and daddy. But because he gets tired while riding he often has to stop in different eras to catch his breath.

2) In the middle ages, a group of pigs steal the egg and Gonzo enlists the help of a bunch of birds to get it back, by launching the birds on a giant slingshot against the walls of the castle until it collapses.

3) Gonzo destroys his own timeline by releasing a particularly hungry carnivore back into the wild, which means that Gonzo returns to a bleak future. Determined to go back and convince himself not to hatch the egg, he goes back in time only to find hundreds of Gonzos from different timelines all trying to convince themselves to do different things, including "JUMP YOUR MOTORCYCLE OVER A POOL OF OATMEAL!"

4) In the earliest days of New York City, Gonzo meets Statler and Waldorf (the old men in the balcony) as young men. They are just as cranky and mean-spirited as youth as they will be as old men. Now that I'm awake I think this could be funnier if they were kind and encouraging as young men, always talking about how they wouldn't turn out like the old people around them.

Of course all the main Muppets appeared in the story one way or another. And there was a funny scene where Gonzo attached a bike cart to the time travelling bike and pedaled the entire cast into the past, straining to go fast enough to trigger the time travel device.

All in all, it was fine dream and was pretty much the equivalent of watching a Muppet movie that hasn't yet been made. So, my thanks to Mr. Sandman for the movie/dream. I hope you all get to see it one day.

Ridiculous Reviewers on Amazon: Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol

Ahhhh, Christmas. The lights are lit, the bells are ringing, the children are singing, the average weight of adult Americans is creeping upward thanks to the cheery glow of the cookie-filled ovens. It's a wonderful time of year.

And, as if to make it more wonderful, it's time for another Ridiculous One Star Review from Amazon, these particular reviews for the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. For those who don't know, A Christmas Carol is the story of a miserly businessman who receives four ghostly visitors who help him to see the meaning of Christmas and the need to be generous toward those less fortunate than him. It's a fun story, and rightfully a classic. But that won't stop our reviewers! No! YOU CAN'T STOP US FROM RATING A CLASSIC WITH ONE STAR! This is, after all, America.

I'm saving my favorite review for last, but let's start with Chris Brown of Boston, MA, who says, in part:

There can be no arguing with Dickens's wish to show the spiritual advantages of love. But there was no need to make the object of his lesson an entrepreneur whose ideas and practices benefit his employees, society at large, and himself. Must such a man expect no fairer a fate than to die scorned and alone? Bah, I say. Humbug."

Uh-oh. Looks like someone is about to get a midnight visit from a deceased co-worker! I'm pretty sure the point, Chris Brown, is that Scrooge's practices weren't benefiting anyone other than himself. Remember Bob Cratchitt? Remember tiny Tim? Remember everyone else who ever crossed his path? 


Poodley Beagle Ellis (REAL NAMEtm) says it's "The stupidest, most confusing book in the world."  Wow!


But my favorite one star review came from John Doe of New Jersey, who said several things of note including:

Before reading A Christmas Carol, I automatically gave the book the highest regard probably because I was influenced by the Disney's movie version, at least that's what I thought the book will be like. It didn't turn out to be the case. 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the character
of Scrooge was not even a duck!

Yes, it's always a disappointment to fall in love with the Disney version and then discover that the original was different somehow.


John Doe goes on to complain about the "five dollar words" and that Scrooge gets hand-picked for a Christmas tour. John would prefer someone "worthier" be chosen. He also found the book "too religious." In a spiritual sense.


Lastly, Mr. Doe shares what I think is my favorite critique of the tale when he writes, "I didn't like the part where a character is judged by how he views money."  Alas, neither did poor Mr. Scrooge!


And that is all for today's One Star Review. Merry Christmas and a hearty BAH HUMBUG to all of you!

More sightings of Night of the Living Dead Christian in the wild!

I'm running a bit behind on updates about Night of the Living Dead Christian! So consider this your king-sized helping of Catchup.


First, the Columbian, the local paper here in Vancouver ran a short article about me and the book this week. Be sure to read carefully, or you might get confused and think that I opened a jazz joint! That's the other guy featured in the article! Special thanks to Ruth Zschomler for writing the article!


My parents, coincidentally, happened by the store mentioned in the article, Cover to Cover Books, and look what they found:  

Neat!

Fellow author Renee Johnson Fisher sent along this lovely picture, and shared her review of the book here:

And THEN, as if that was not enough, Renee somehow was hanging out with yet-another-fellow-author named Lisa Velthouse, and they sent me a tweet asking if my ears were burning and when I clicked on it I saw this:

Awww, thanks ladies. I can't believe we've never met face to face, because I really, really like you both.

Now, that is not all. You must go see this review from last week's blog tour, in which The Never Ending Story is invoked, including a hilarious invitation to ride a luck dragon named Falcor. And then there is this interview with J.R. Forasteros.

Last but not least I wanted to mention this picture from Terrence Green, because I WAS HIS HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER! Can you believe it? You probably can. But it's weird to see my students all, like, adults and stuff.

Whew! I think we're all caught up now! Breathe a sigh of relief!

It's time for some music appreciation classes

Yesterday I went to put on some Christmas music for me, Krista and our almost-9-year-old, A. 

Me: What sort of Christmas music do you want?

Krista: How about Handel's Messiah?

A: Is Handel a band you like or something?

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD CHRISTIAN: The Blog Tour! In 3-D! With Bonus Free Book Feature! Like Nothing You've Ever Seen!

A lot of times people ask if I'm going to go on tour... you know, drive my car from city to city, bite my nails while I wonder if people will show up at my reading, try to convince people to buy my book, sign some books, try not to pass out from the magic marker fumes, get back in the car and rub my hands together in the cold, watch my breath fog up the window, neglect my job and my family, et cetera.

Those sorts of book tours are increasingly uncommon, although the big names will still do them. I'll make you a deal: if I get catapulted onto the New York Times Bestseller List (in any category), I'll do a book tour and come to your town and do a reading at your house and so on.

In the meantime, today my wonderful publisher, Tyndale House, and my likewise wonderful publicist, Christy! W! Stroud! have set up a "blog tour." How it works is this: a whole heap of bloggers have read Night of the Living Dead Christian, and they're all going to review it simultaneously (as if by hidden signals).

BONUS BONUS BONUS characteristic of this blog tour is that they will ALL BE GIVING AWAY A COPY AS PART OF THEIR REVIEW.

So, if you want a free copy, or another copy, or a copy to give away, or just need something to anonymously put in your pastor's inbox just to see what sort of post-Christmas message he'll come up with, here are the sites you should be frequenting today:

EDIT: I am working my way through the whole blog tour, but it's taking a while! Lots of great posts out there. I'm putting a plus sign by all the blogs I've read that have a post. You should be able to tell where I left off, and I'll keep making my way through tomorrow night. LOTS OF OPPORTUNITIES TO WIN A FREE COPY OUT THERE!

www.hookofabook.wordpress.com +

http://timothyarcher.com/kitchen +

http://jennifer-asag.blogspot.com/ +

www.simplereads.wordpress.com +

http://becauseisaidsothathswhy.blogspot.com/ +

http://laurabo.blogspot.com +

http://bohemianbowmans.com +

www.catrinabradley.blogspot.com +

markbraye.wordpress.com +

http://singlecountrychick.blogspot.com +

http://ramblingsofacoffeeaddictedwrter.blogspot.com +

http://www.haroldsays.typepad.com

http://thepaperbackpursuer.blogspot.com/ +

http://valeriecomer.com +

http://inklingsofreality.wordpress.com +

http://leahsgoodreads.blogspot.com/ +

http://www.cupofjoewithjeanie.com/ +

justjenniferreading.blogspot.com

http://TracyeDukes.com +

http://www.ambassadorinexile.blogspot.com/ +

http://andrews-reveiws1.over-blog.com/ +

http://www.theemeryfamilyblog.blogspot.com +

http://eskypades.wordpress.com +

http://scriptedgenius.com/review/ +

http://www.devotionaldiva.com +

http://koreamom.blogspot.com +

http://ourlittlehouseyears.blogspot.com/

www.neveradullminute.blogspot.com +

http://thewritelife2.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/book-review-and-giveaway-the-night-of-the-living-dead-christian/ +

http://lifeisfunner.blogspot.com +

http://ayamegusa.blogspot.com

http://blesstheirheartsmom.blogspot.com

followjonathan.wordpress.com +

http://collectedmiscellany.com +

http://www.jmarkafghans.com/pages/blog.html

http://pjtheemt.blogspot.com/ +

http://blog.scripturemenu.com/ +

http://www.frugalexperiments.com +

http://couponingfromfl2mi.blogspot.com/ +

Http://jimkane.wordpress.com

http://writingsofasmalltowngirl.blogspot.com/

http://hangingoffthewire.blogspot.com/ +

http://matthewkresge.blogspot.com +

http://fbcnewlondon.blogspot.com +

http://leicestersquared.wordpress.com/ +

matichuk.wordpress.com +

www.homeschoolblogger.com/CharlaM

www.crmooney.com +

http://jacobscafe.blogspot.com/ +

http://themisplacedmidwesterner.blogspot.com +

www.bookreviewsbytima.blogspot.com +

http://wordbasket.blogspot.com +

http://nordykeacademy101.blogspot.com/p/moms-book-blogs.html +

http://chatterandclatter.blogspot.com/ +

worryfreemom.com +

http://baysbooks.blogspot.com/ +

http://readingfairytales.blogspot.com +

http://hollyroberts.weebly.com/blog.html +

http://www.examiner.com/christian-fiction-in-san-francisco/cindi-rose +

http://mylifeasmamajodi.com +

http://itsjustme.wordpress.com/ +

http://andrealschultz.blogspot.com/ +

http://womanofhopeandprayer.blogspot.com/ +

http://awaitingtheking.com/ +

http://biblechick.com, + http://www.examiner.com/parenting-in-portlandsunshine-simmons +

http://www.thewriteweb.wordpress.com +

http://myseasonsofgrace.blogspot.com/

http://mexicanwildflower.blogspot.com +

http://perplexedpastor.blogspot.com/ +

http://terriharr.blogspot.com/ +

http://grammageri.wordpress.com/ +

http://www.lindseyvanniekerk.blogspot.com +

http://www.rebeccajosbooks.blogspot.com/ +

friartucksfleetingthoughts.blogspot.com +

http://reeseone.blogspot.com/ +

http://nashpredsfan.wordpress.com +

An excellent reminder of our limitations, as presented by my two-year-old

Walking to school this morning with the kids, I pointed out the moon in the western sky, full and bright in the early sunlight.

The so-called baby, M, looked up and said, "The moon!" Then she paused, thought about it for a moment and added, "I can't reach it."

Wonderful Wednesday: Haiku Traffic signs in NYC

Since that earlier Wonderful Wednesday was wonderful-with-a-question-mark, here's a pure wonderful one. New York City recently put up haiku and traffic . Here's the scoop.

This particular news brought to you by Nurse Shasta. She cares about your health.

Wonderful Wednesday (?) : Batman Christmas Special!

I watched this and it made me laugh. It's so weird as to be nearly nonsensical, but it was funny. But also it was not quite, um, kosher. If Christmas can be described as kosher. Warning: if you have kids around you may want to preview this, as a certain antlered creature at the North Pole is done away with and a red-clad merry elf is looking a little less than well by the end. It's not a game, though. More of a music video.

Batman Christmas Special Finally finished with this one!

Play this free game now!!

Eavesdropping With Matt (Episode Sixty: If you're going to talk like a geek, at least get your facts straight)

Dedicated to the two guys sitting behind me at the Nutcracker ballet. An old guy and a young guy, equal in ignorance!

Guy #1: You know Superman and Batman?

*SPOLIER* I heard that in the new Batman movie,
Catwoman and Batman get married and have babies!
 I found this picture here.

Guy #2: Yeah. They are just beating super heroes into the ground with movies. Batman movies. What have there been now, three? They just, they just don't have any stories worth telling any more.
Guy #1: Are Superman and Batman from Marvel Comics or some other company?

Guy #2: They're all Marvel.

Guy #1: Not X-Men. They're Capcom.

Guy #2: Well, I do know that the Marvel comics, they used to have this whole family called The Marvel Family.

Guy #1: Oh yeah?

Guy #2: And the dad, Captain Marvel, he would always shout SHAZAM!

Then I turned around and shouted, STOP IT STOP IT YOU ARE HURTING MY HEART!

Starring Darth Vader as the Grinch

Ah, the time has come for Christmas posts! Yay!

I enjoyed this little video, as it made Darth Vader seem like a charming old sourpuss instead of a galaxy-ruling mass murdering sociopath.



I'm pretty sure I first saw this on Marc's blog. And, if not, shame on you, Marc, for not finding this first.

Can the Bulldog be saved?

Last week's New York Times Magazine ran this interesting article about the plight of the modern bulldog. Apparently the inbreeding necessary to create pure breed dogs is resulting in a dying, health-challenge breed. I've forced my poor wife to listen to me philosophize about it at least twice. And, as a service to her, I am now going to force you all to read it so that I can leave her in peace.

Here it is.