Life: Paused

There is something so frustrating about the pause.

That moment where you have to stop where you are and pick it up again later. It drives me crazy when I have to pause a movie and stop in the middle of some cool action scene (or more accurately, when my wife pauses the movie).

What's worse is when you pause the movie and get so engrossed in something else, that you forget about your movie until a few hours later. My DVD player will shut off about twenty minutes after you pause it, if you don't do anything. Then you have to try to restart, figure out where you were, and hope the beginning of the movie remains fresh.

Life pauses too. And my life has been in a (meta)pause, and a (mini?) pause.

Last week, my car blew a head gasket. The repair will cost between two and three grand - money I just don't have. It's been so frustrating, because I've been thinking about all the things I wanted to do this year - look at my New Years Resolutions, for jeepers sake! And without a car, a lot of those seem unreachable or unattainable. I felt like I was growing and in a good place, and all of a sudden it was three steps backwards.

Isn't there a cruel irony in finally paying for YMCA membership and using it to get in shape and then your car breaks and you can't get there?

So my life is in a (mini)pause.

But my life is also in a (meta)pause.

My life had forward momentum until I got married. Now I'm married, but there isn't a momentum in my life, because I'm in the "supporting spouse" role right now. I'm not complaining - I love my wife, I love being married, and I love being in Seattle. It just seems strange that I haven't taken an active role at a church in two years. I haven't applied for a pastorate type position in about a year and a half.

And that's not necessarily bad. I think I burned myself out in those roles for a long time. Perhaps instead of using the word pause, I should think of this time in my life as a breather?

Breather: A moment of anticipation where you stand on the edge of a slippery dock and wait to jump into the icy water.

When I think in those terms, it's helpful. Pause, for me, is so negative, but breather is beautiful and full of hope. So currently in my life, I'm in a (meta)breather and a (mini)breather.

I don't know. Hopefully these thoughts are helpful - what do you think?

Postscript: I struggled to not make (meno)pause jokes the entire time I was writing this.

Tune in later for: The church experience I'm in currently versus Imagine Church

Imagine Church

I used to think about starting a church. Or "planting" a church, depending on if I could convince someone to give me money. It's never went beyond the conceptual phase; my friend Geoff and I would discuss the things that made us most excited but never the challenges or steps we would need to take to get there.

In all of my/our conceptualizing, there was one idea that always stuck with me, something that I reflected on after Monday's post linking immaturity and creativity. It was simple - the idea of imagination.

It's even a cool tagline - Imagine Church. It's a name, but it's also a statement. It's a verb.

Imagine church... where we replace barriers with open arms.

Imagine church... where we swap exclusivity for diversity.

Imagine church... where people are more important than tradition.

Imagine church... where creativity is our worship of God.

It's that idea of emphasizing creativity and imagination over stodgy traditionalism and sentimentality that appeals to me. The idea first started percolating in my head when I read a book by Rick Bundschuh - Don't Rock the Boat, Capsize it. It's mostly a discussion of how Rick does church (in Kauai Hawaii).

The key thing I remember from the book is Rick's quest to make change a tradition of the church. After all, change is inevitable. Resistance is futile, so to speak. And if we can't resist something, shouldn't we embrace it and use it for the glory of God? Routinely, Rick's church reorganizes everything from the structure of the church service, the time of the church service, even the way the church sanctuary is designed, decorated, or oriented.

I don't want to work for or in or with a church that's is rigid and inflexible. The church I imagine is one that is willing and able to move and change - to become all things to all people. What do you imagine in a church?

(There appears to be two Imagine Church's already - one in San Bernardino CA and one in Westfield IN)

Creativity and Immaturity

I wonder if there is a link between creativity and immaturity. I started pondering this idea over the weekend, as my wife and I watched The Social Network. I was listening to some of the commentaries, and one thing that stuck with me was when Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Mark Zuckerberg in the movie, commented that Mark was only 19 when he made some of these poor decisions. This is a good time to point out that the movie is certainly a dramatized version of events, but the point still holds.

Maturity is sometimes thought of as when you "put your childish dreams aside" or when you start living in reality - I am a full grown man, I need to stop playing video games and get a real job. It's that realization that you need to live in the real world that sometimes is used to define maturity.

But creativity happens outside of the real world. When we imagine something, we are by definition not looking at what is. And that, by our definition, is no longer a mature view.

It makes sense to me. When I look at places that are stark and unimaginative, they seemed to be filled with so called "mature" or grounded people. Look at a church that is lifeless and still; it seems to be full of good people, but they are grounded in what is. Same thing happens in the business world - the people without imagination run things, but they can never create anything better than what is.

Certainly sometimes the issue is that creativity comes with too much immaturity - as we see in The Social Network. You have to balance the immaturity with responsibility. But we also may need to embrace our immaturity to find our imagination.

NFL Conference Championship Picks

Enough lovey dovey wisdom. Let's get back to football and a sad memorial..

To the 2011 playoff season... The first season since I started writing my predictions down that I will end with a losing record. Currently, I'm sitting at 2-6, with 3 games left. 2-6 against the spread as well. All that's left is to drag Dave down with me (he's sitting at 4-4).

Before we move onto the picks, let's review from October - my NFL Bias Rankings. Of the teams we have left, we have #4, the Green Bay Packers. That means they are my fourth favorite professional football team. Then we have numbers 30-32 - Pittsburgh, New York Jets, and Chicago respectively. Actually, disrespectively.

So the best case scenario is clearly a Green Bay / Pittsburgh matchup, which would average a 17 on the bias rankings. That's what I have to hope for - a matchup that averages the appeal of the Washington Redskins, who are the highest rated team in the bottom half of teams I don't like.

Of course, because God hates my sports picks, I'll be looking at a Chicago/Jets (average 31.5) superbowl, and have to decide whether I want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty fork dipped in tabasco sauce or allow my manhood to be repeatedly crushed with a hammer. Oh, and both the fork and hammer have Ebola.

Seriously, if one of those two teams wins, it might be a devastating blow to my sports appreciation. Following on Pittsburgh / Chicago Stanley Cup victories and the dismal Rich Rod experience, I might have to give up on sports altogether.

On to the picks.

Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears (Pack by 4)

Here's the truth of the issue. I've picked against the Packers twice so far. They are tied with the Jets as the possible kryptonite team for me.

But this week, I'm taking the Packers. Aaron Rodgers? Can't bet against him in the playoffs. And Chicago is still one of the luckiest teams to ever make it to a conference championship - they beat two good teams all year (New York Jets and Philadelphia, who may or may not qualify for "good" status). They had at least one bogus win - week 1 against Detroit. And they played against approximately 24 backup quarterbacks.

So I shall take Green Bay to cover the spread. Heaven help me. Green Bay 27, Chicago 14.

New York Jets at Pittsburgh Steelers (Pitt by 4)

In the last two years, I have picked the New York Jets games in the playoffs at 1-4. I have never picked the Jets to win a game.

So dang it all, I'll pick them to win this game. And be happy either way. New York 24, Pittsburgh 20. Well, as happy as I can be with a Pittsburgh win.

Enjoy the weekend, and get those tabasco forks out!

Power of Vulnerability Discussion

Yesterday, I hosted a video on my blog. Not entirely sure why it didn't work right - the video is strangely cut off on one side. You can see the full (unmessed up) video here. You can also read the transcript here.

I think one of the interesting things that she talked about was the idea of vulnerability, and how we often try to numb the pain of vulnerability. The danger with that is that we can’t selectively numb – when we numb pain and vulnerability, we also numb joy and gratitude and happiness.

It’s something interesting to reflect on in regards to my life, and definitely interesting to think about with where I’m at currently. In the past, I’ve tried to ignore and numb the feelings of pain and hurt. I think back to my relationships with my parents and I have tried to just simply ignore the ways they did hurt me, and numbed the memories away. In doing that, I simply disconnected from my family. I don’t recall having a single deep conversation with my family after I reached high school.

So perhaps that should be my challenge today – to start entering into those relationships and having conversations, even where it feels dangerous. What about you?

Elements of Story

I recently told 2 stories here on the blog - one about our temporary dog and one about my first kiss. I was searching for something in the stories that would allow me to use them as more stories. In reflecting on the telling of the story, I started reflecting on the elements of storytelling (a flashback to first grade!)

All good stories have these elements. I want to now examine the stories I told in light of these elements, and see where the strongest elements of each story lay.

1. Setting - where and when is the story happening?

Neither of the stories have particularly strong settings. "Chopper" takes place in Charleston, two or three years ago. The dominant location is our house, and I don't do a particularly strong job of laying out the geography of the house. "First Kiss" for the most part happens in a driveway.

In telling stories, I think this is sometimes my weakest element. I don't do well with laying out a scene in a particularly interesting or engaging way. This is an element I need to work on, clearly.

2. Plot - what is happening in the story?

Plot can be a hammer if you're not careful. I've written in the past to not let plot be the primary driver in any story, fictional or nonfictional. Plot should happen as a result of characterization. Looking at my two stories, the plot is more natural in the "First Kiss" story. There is a definite order to what is happening, but the reason it's happening in that order is because of the characters involved. The plot involved with "Chopper" is more by-the-numbers - x happened, then y, then z.

3. Characterization - who is the story happening to?

The primary drive behind any good story is solid characters. One of the reasons I remember Stephen King novels is because he creates wonderfully vivid and engaging characters. This is an element of story that occurs (for me) most unnaturally. I have to struggle to imbue the characters on paper (or on-screen) with the character that they have; it's a challenge to not end up in cliche. In writing Ashram, I worked the hardest at bringing out the essence of each team member. Writing the plot and conflict was easy - but making the characters true to the real life persona's was most difficult area. One of the notes I remember getting from Dave after he read the manuscript was "Um, could Keith and I not be idiots the entire way through?"

In the two stories, the characters are mostly flat. You don't get a sense of Steve through his actions in "Chopper" - probably the most developed character is Chopper himself. In "First Kiss," you can see some of my essence coming through in what I wrote (pretty easy to write for yourself!) but you can't really see Jess. This is an area that I need to remember to work on.

4. Conflict - why do the characters care about the plot?

Ultimately, why are the characters invested? Conflict should arise naturally as a result of your characterization. I reflect on Lost, season two, and one thing that seemed so clear going in was how epic of a showdown Mr. Eko and Locke were going to have. The reason you could feel that coming was that both had very strong characterizations, and those characterizations were in conflict. For them to be true to their characters, they needed to have conflict.

In "Chopper," the conflict is readily apparent - our house was being destroyed by a demon-dog. In "First Kiss," there are two conflicts occuring, but only one illustrated. The first conflict is between Jess and I specifically, about the status of our relationship. The second conflict, the one I didn't (and should have) addressed is the conflict inside of me - how should I respond?

Those are the elements of story, as I recall them. Thoughts?

Watch This: TED

A great talk that we listened to at Sabbath Group recently, about vulnerability. Give it a listen!