Guest Star

Hey everyone,

I'm writing some guest posts over at "Taking Jesus Out of the Box" - head over and check them out. The first one is up today, and it's about what boxes we put Jesus in.

Go check it out!

NFL Preview

So NFL training camps have opened, and the preseason starts soon. Here are some of my random thoughts and off-the-cuff predictions for the next year:

Overhyped: Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, and one of either: Green Bay, Baltimore, San Diego. At least two of those teams will miss the playoffs, but they're all ranked in the top 8 of Sports Illustrated's Power Rankings.

Big Drops: Pittsburgh, Arizona. Each may drop two to three more games this year.

Surprise Playoffs: Every year a couple of teams surprise everyone and make the playoffs, and I have a few picks. My ultra dark horse is below, but I think it's possible that Houston or Carolina could make the playoffs.

Lots of news but ultimately No Change: Seattle and Denver. Carroll won't change anything in one year, and Denver is too caught up in Tebowmania to realize that they're still mediocre at best.

Worst Team: Toss up between Tampa Bay and Buffalo (aren't you glad for one year it doesn't say Detroit?). Probably Tampa Bay.

Rookie Impact: Sam Bradford will be a rookie qb, so don't expect too much. Maybe he'll be the most unflappable rookie quarterback since Matt Stafford! Ndamukong Suh should be a marvel on Detroit; but the smart money is on Ryan Matthews in San Diego.

Detroit: Improves, but not a ton. Maybe challenges Chicago for third in the division.

Quarterbacks: You can't go wrong with Flacco, Brady, Manning, Rivers, Brees, or Rodgers. Expect those six to contain the top five quarterbacks. Flacco and Rodgers are high on everyone's list; and Brady/Manning have slipped a little bit in value the last year. Brees is possibly twice cursed (Superbowl Hangover / Madden). Rivers is probably the safest bet, followed by Brady/Manning.

Ultra Surprise Dark Horse: Ladies and gentlemen, the Cleveland Browns! 9-7 wins the Browns a playoff spot (I'm thinking the competition is down a little in the AFC this year). Looking at their schedule, they play the Bucs, Chiefs, Bengals twice, Jags, Panthers, and Bills. Those are all potential W's - 7 so far. Definite losses to Ravens twice, Saints, and Pats - 4 total. That leaves five games up for grabs (by my guess) - two to Pittsburgh (one with potentially no Roethlisberger), Falcons, Dolphins, and Jets. Eke out two of those games (Dolphins / Steelers perhaps) and bam, you're 9-7. I think Jake Delhomme has a resurgent year and the Browns get a surprise playoff berth, and then get crushed in the playoffs to make sure Cleveland can't have nice things.

AFC Playoff Picture: Ravens and Chargers win their division and byes. Colts and Patriots win their division. Browns and Texans are the wildcards.

First round is a cake walk, as NE and IND easily advance. Next round is brutal! We'll put the Patriots and Raven's in the AFC championship, and Raven's advance to the Superbowl.

NFC Playoff Picture: Saints and Packers win divisions and byes. The other two divisions are crapshoots, but I'll take Arizona and Philadelphia. Then we have Carolina and Minnesota rounding out the wildcards.

Philadelphia and Minnesota advance, setting up Armageddon: Minnesota at Green Bay. Philly loses to New Orleans. So it's Green Bay at New Orleans for the NFC championship - which, regardless, should be an amazing fun game to watch. New Orleans wins.

Superbowl: New Orleans repeats. Wow, did I really just write that?

Fantasy Football: Will have an entire article/post dedicated to it, upcoming.

Silly Christianity: Christian Idols

So if you didn't hear, Mel Gibson is persona non grata (again). Allegedly, he hit the woman he was with and threatened her. Hollywood is quickly abandoning him - and in this case, Christianity beat hollywood to the punch.

You see, Mel Gibson was the king of Christianity for a couple of months in 2004. People were pouring into theaters to see his unashamedly Christian "The Passion of the Christ." It became one of the more financially successful films of all time, at one point being the third highest grossing movie in history. Christians looked up to Mel for sticking it to the man (leftist hollywood), forgetting his tendency to show his rear end or kill people (and Gary Busey) violently in his other movies. It was the era where the Christian right could do anything - note the presidential election that followed shortly.

Then Mel got pulled over and made some racist comments. Then he made the unashamedly violent Apocalypto. And Christianity dropped him faster than a Detroit Lions receiver drops the football.

So he joins the ranks of other "Christian" celebrities to fall from grace: Britney Spears, Scott Stapp, Jennifer Knapp, Ted Haggard, Kate Gosselin, etc. Heck, you can probably put George W. Bush on that list too.

So who's next? Who have we as christians portrayed as saints so much that it's just a matter of time before we realize they're human? I'm not as in touch with "cultural christianity" as I used to be - so what say you? I'll rule out Obama because half of the country wouldn't be surprised anyway. Maybe Tony Dungy?

Writing Tip: Excavating

I've heard four differently famous creative people talk about writing as excavating. Stephen King -- master of the horror, macabre, and popular literature. Donald Miller -- Anne Lamott with christian testosterone. It's a concept discussed in the mind-bendingly good Inception. And just last night I heard Andrew Stanton, director/writer of Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and more, talk about it.

Writing isn't just about creating. When you think of writing as "making it up" it's a loss. You are limiting yourself to your voice and your thoughts. But true writing (and art) comes from discovering a truth that already exists - excavating a dinosaur bone.

It's hard to explain, I think. The truth of the matter is that you find a story, in yourself. The story already exists - you are simply excavating it. You are uncovering a fossil system and putting it back together - creating the best dinosaur you can. And sometimes, you have to have the courage to realize that the dinosaur you thought you had isn't the dinosaur you do have. Too many people and writers try to force their story into the dinosaur they want - and it's a poor showing.

This is true of not just stories we're writing, but stories we're living. Sometimes, you have to realize that what you have been living isn't the best story you could be. Sometimes, you have to have the courage to change your story.

Because I think I lied earlier - You don't find the story in you.

You are found in the story.

Inception Review

If you haven't seen Inception, don't worry about reading this review. There's not really a twist to ruin and I won't go into depths of the story...

I'll make this quick - go see Inception. It's an amazing film. Very exquisitely layered, it rewards multiple viewings and discussion. Christopher Nolan has become one of my favorite directors - from the ironically unforgettable Memento, to the mind bending Prestige, and through the two best made Batman films, I haven't seen anything by him yet I haven't liked. I'm putting Insomnia on my netflix queue now simply because he was the director.

Gosh, I don't even know how to begin with Inception. It's a really cool story in and of itself - a heist film set in a dreamworld. But some of the concepts take it beyond being just a heist film...

I loved it. It's just amazing. Go see it.

Minor Spoilerish Discussion:

For those of you who have seen it: How do you interpret the end? Here's my theory : perhaps the entire film is an "inception" to Cobb in the same way they were "incepting" Fisher.

Random Thoughts: Being Known

I think one of the scariest things in my life is being known.

It’s very difficult for me. I score a 3 on the enneagram test, which means that I tend to wear a face when I’m with people. I tend to wear whatever face is going to be most well received. This means that I make a very good salesman or performer.

This also means that it’s very hard for me to let down those masks. It’s hard for me to let people see who I really am and what really matters to me; I think in some ways this is a result of my parents. My experiences growing up taught me that if I communicated what did matter to me, then I would learn that it didn’t matter to the person I was communicating with.

So it scares me when people know me before I want them to. My wife does this all the time. It use to terrify me when we were dating – she would say something flippantly, and it would cut to through every façade and mask I had built.

And I took some of that thought process, how terrifying it can be to be known, and started to apply it to God. God had to risk everything that He had, in a sense, to love us. For an omnipotent being, the only possible loss is that of rejection by another being with will. And for an omniscient being, God must have known it would happen. But God still chose to risk and love us anyway.

For me, that means that I must choose to risk and love anyway. It’s easy enough when it comes to my wife (well, most days anyway). But it’s more difficult when it comes to the people who have hurt me in the past – friends, enemies, family. Perhaps especially family.

So that’s my challenge, to you, for today. Look at your life – who is it most risky to love? Who has the most potential to let you down? How will you love them anyway?

Mashup: The Decision and Evangelism

Authors note: Mashup is a new series here at Thoughts on Life... The point of the series is to take something and view it was an allegory for something else. Mashups are intended to be funny and perhaps thought provoking. Today, we'll talk about Lebron James and Christianity.

The biggest news story in the last week was undoubtedly (for better or worse) "The Decision" - where would Lebron James, NBA superstar, sign? He had a few options. Cleveland was his hometown but a perennial disappointment. The New York Knicks offered everything they thought they could (including more money than anyone else). And finally, the Miami Heat gave Lebron a chance to play with his buddies.

In this allegory, Cleveland are the fundamentalists, the strong-arm conservatives, the type of people who believe that the King James is the Authorized Version, and any deviation from their expectation (of the King James Bible) is a sin. People who leave fundamentalism might be thought of as "narcissistic" or as exhibiting "cowardly behavior."

We also have the Knicks to consider. They're playing the part of the modern church - seeker sensitive. The Knicks tried to be all emcompassing and meet every one of Lebron's needs. They were showering him with money and promises of being a "global icon." They were willing to bend over backwards and sink their team for three or four years in order to afford Lebron. The Knicks would have done anything to see Lebron join them.

And of course, Miami. Miami's premise was simple - we'll let you play with two of your good friends.

Long story short, Lebron chose Miami to play with Wade and Bosh. So in this example, a person chose relationships over money, fame, loyalty, and possibly (it remains to be seen) championships.

Admittedly, this allegory breaks down if you expand it. When you start considering James's selfishness, the Chicago Bulls, and secret pacts made in communist China, the allegory doesn't work. Still, interesting to think about, eh?

Importance

I really like the cloud that appears at the bottom of the right column on this blog.

What the cloud is is a ordering of what I've tagged different posts to be about. So anytime I wrote a post about choices or abortion and tagged that I did, it is referenced in the cloud. The more often I refer to something, the larger the link to that tag becomes.

So here are some of the largest tags:

Random Thoughts

Movies

Reviews

Somebody Smarter Said

Hey Neat-O

The last two are long running "series." Random Thoughts is just thought - random musings. Two of them - including the predominate heavyweight "Reviews" refer mostly to movies.

Why is that I spend so much time musing on movies? Even my most recent series "Signs" was headlined by movie quotes.

I think it's because in some ways movies can say things that are true even when they are a fictional enterprise. Books can do this too; but books are entirely a visual medium. Movies are increasingly multisensual - stimulating vision and hearing and even olfactory and taste senses.

There are true aspects to movies. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever get involved with moviemaking. I read a book recently and all I could think about was how cool of a movie it would make - how I would frame the shots for maximum suspense, what sort of music, how to avoid being cliche...

I wrote a screenplay once. It was four pages long and was a love story told between different types of IHOP syrups. I won an award at school, and briefly thought about continuing down that path. But I never did. You can found the original video on my facebook page (I believe the youtube page has had the audio track removed for copyright violations).

I just recently created my first animated film. It's below, and I entered it into the Million Miles Short Film Contest. Didn't win, but I didn't really try.

I guess what I'm wondering and rambling on about is whether I should continue this path. It could end up with me winning an academy award someday, or perhaps I'll create dumb little skitvideos for church use.

I have no idea what this post was going to be, and this is what it is. Strange world.