Something to Believe in...

I don't watch a lot of television...some of that is by design...some is because I'm cheap and don't have cable or satellite...some of it is because I'm just not home that much. I do love to watch certain sports on TV, like baseball anytime; college football when it involves the Baylor Bears, Longhorns, or LSU Tigers; college basketball in March Madness...the NBA Finals and the NFL Super Bowl...an occasional tennis match, and that's about it. The exception recently was "Joan of Arcadia" (and to a lesser extent, "Everwood") which was so cleverly and brilliantly written that it was cancelled after two seasons. I've been looking for a replacement ever since...I may have found it tonight as I stumbled on to ABC's new show "Eli Stone". It caught my attention because a mild firestorm has been raging in the medical community over the subject matter and the way it has been handled. The show is about a successful lawyer who is faced with his own mortality and imperfection through a series of visions and hallucinations, (including George Michael on stage in the lobby of his office building singing "Faith"...yeah, they coulda been a tad more subtle). The controversy arises out of the storyline, which has this lawyer (Eli) taking on the case of of a mother who is suing a large pharmaceutical claiming that a vaccine given to her son caused his autism. There have been cries of outrage lambasting ABC for allowing this kind of story to raise doubts in some parents about innoculating their young children, to praise from others for ABC having the guts to give a high-profile voice to many who believe that there is legitimacy and wisdom in such scepticism. Aside from the controversy, I actually enjoyed the show...its writing, while not Joan-worthy yet, was very good and Eli's struggle to believe in a power he has heretofore dismissed as fairytale is (with the exception of the awkward, but amusing George Michael sightings) handled with a light and humorous hand. The show even got me tapping my feet as the closing scenes played out with the sounds of Aqualung's "Something To Believe In" which I was introduced to last year by my music-saavy daughter, Calla, who is a bit of an Aqualung fan. (I also have heard the song on my occasional secret guilty pleasure show, "One Tree Hill"...hey you gotta love a show about high school basketball players where the actors really are good basketball players...I'm just sayin').

At any rate, my life lately has also been on a search for something to believe in. Not the God thing, necessarily...just the pieces around it that have been stable, or maybe dormant for a long time, and are starting to wobble, and shake off the cobwebs. My faith in institutions and systems is jaded and calloused...I'm having a hard time caring about them at all. There are a few things that have me exploring the possibility that there are some things worth believing in...like the rise of Barack Obama as a legitimate Democratic presidential hopeful...I listen to my middle daughter Hannah talk with passion and resolve about helping solve some of the problems of the inner city by being a part of the problems of the inner city. I also belong to a faith community that is refreshingly more worried about loving people than building big buildings and monster market shares. I have a new friend in Louisiana, whose 8 year old that she adopted at birth with such extensive medical problems that that they didn't expect him to live more than a few months, begin to speak audible, understandible phrases, and eat solid, regular kid food, for the first time in his life. It was an amazing surprise and gift for his teachers and therapists, but especially for his mom who has been his faithful nurse, daily teacher, and most passionate encourager since his birth.

So Wendy and Blake, Eli Stone, Aqualung and, even I, all have something to believe in... come on, jump in and sing a verse...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Derek Webb - This Too Shall Be Made Right

Blistered by the prophet...

I sang at Journey this morning. I don't sing very often. There are several reasons for that...one, we have a ton of talented, gifted musicians and singers who grace us with their musical gifts. Two, I'm not one of the afore-mentioned group. I'm not trying to be pseudo-humble or self-deprecating...I just happen to be very clear about what my talents are and are not...I'm a below average guitar player with an average voice. That's just the facts...anyway, I digress... it was a day when we talked about our community's commitment to the poor, and those in need in Austin and around the world. It was very beautiful...Cathy from Project HELP who works with helping kids and families who are homeless find resources to get them through, talked about her job and how Journey folks have helped in that over the last three+ years. Alan the founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes was there and Heather from CASA. Because part of my job and my privilege is to work with the team from Journey that decides how to best use our resources to support ministries and agencies like this both with money and people power, I was asked to sing. I sang the Derek Webb song "This Too Shall Be Made Right" (see the video above this post). Well, I sorta sang the song...Actually I sang 4 of the 5 verses to the song, which were dead on in our faces as a community as we seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus in helping make some of these things right. The reason I left out a verse was that I didn't have the cajones to sing verse 4. It echoes and paraphrases the words of Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes by saying "there is a time for peace and a time for war...a time to forgive and a time to settle the score...a time for babies to lose their lives...a time for hunger and genocide...and this too shall be made right". I think I understand what Derek is going for. That is always a dangerous thing when listening to a lyric...assuming you know what was going on in the head of the writer. I guess that is true for most poetry and sermons too, but I just couldn't sing it... especially the part about a time for babies to lose their lives. I know that babies lose their lives...and children, and teenagers, and adults...but I couldn't sing it. My friends Scott and Sarah are staring down the gun barrel of precious weeks and months left with their beautiful two year old Thomas who has cancer. I can't sing it... I don't want to sing that there are times for war and times for hunger and genocide either...Maybe I'm a coward... but I'm not gonna sing it...not as long as we have the power to work to change it...and I think with God's help and a willingness to sacrifice and commit resources to not only the symptoms, but the root causes there will be hope that "Thy kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven" will be not just a line from a recited prayer, but a reality...

Now THAT I can sing...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Really, Best Buy...Really?

I'm sure that some enterprising store manager thought that this display was a brilliant combination of honorific tribute and creative product marketing...hmmmmmmm...not so much.

Pling...Pling...

dg

To Sushi or not Sushi...

First of all...apologies for this being my first post in almost a month...it seems that there are actually breathing homosapiens who read this occasionally and I have been scolded for letting the blog dog lie...and I have...but mostly because my girls have been home for the holidays and I just was preoccupied with spending time with them...that part I don't apologize for. So, Hannah and Calla are back at their respective schools (Belmont and UTA) and Ariele heads back to Portland on a three day road trip beginning Saturday. Also, this break has made me appreciate all the more the kahunas of the blog world, Milton Brasher-Cunningham (donteatalone), Gordon Atkinson (reallivepreacher) and Bob Carlton (The Corner) who have been, and are, faithful disciplined bloggers who have produced amazing stuff with very few breaks for the past several years. You guys are my heroes.

Tonight Ariele and I had dinner at a sushi restaurant, Maru, a couple of miles from where I live. It is a smallish place occupying an old remodeled frame house. I was a little surprised that over the course of our dinner the patrons came in a steady flow and with very few exceptions they were Ariele's age...in their mid to late twenties. Now I don't know how you feel about sushi. Ariele is an aficionado. One of her friends in Portland is a sushi chef. I had never eaten sushi before she introduced me to it a couple of years ago. Well, that's not completely true...I swallowed a live goldfish once on a bet, but I'm not sure that counts. Being a little Cajun boy, I have eaten raw oysters all of my life, so the concept is not completely foreign, but still I approached this inevitability with a measure of guarded trepidation..In an effort to expand her hopelessly unhip dad's culinary sensibilities she took me to a tiny, modest sushi restaurant a few years ago... did all of the ordering... explained the proper etiquette and procedures...was careful not to have me OD on wasabi, and guided me through a fairly uneventful, but pleasurable dining experience. When she asked me what I thought following the virgin sushi experiment, my response was something like, "Well, it is not that it wasn't pretty tasty, but we just paid $40 or so for a few pieces of raw fish and some hot dipping sauce...for $40 I could eat all the fried catfish I could hold every day for the next week." Yeah, I know...classy. So I have dabbled a few times in the last two years or so, and I was looking forward to, not only a new sushi adventure, but mostly taking advantage of spending some good time with Ariele before she headed back to the northwest. So...my plan was to again default to Ariele to order for me, but upon perusing the menu decided to go for the gusto and do the deed myself. It wasn't a particularly daring order, but teriyaki salmon, a few California rolls, tempura vegetables and shrimp and I had a veritable feast. Ariele had miso, tofu rolls and eel. Because I have a new appreciation for chefs through reading Milton's "don't eat alone" blog, and because, coincidently, I had just watched the wonderful German film, "Bella Martha", (the recent American film, "No Reservations" was based on it) I paid particular attention to presentation, and to nuances of taste. The salmon was the best I have ever had, and I have eaten at some of the best seafood restaurants in the country ...including my Cajun mama's kitchen table. I also watched the elderly Japanese sushi chef from a distance and could not help but notice that while he juggled knives and pans of all shapes and sizes, he smiled often as he would place a finished plate on the counter and move the ticket over. He spoke very little English, but there was no mistaking that this was not just his job...it was his love...his passion...and he was very good.

Dave Madden played an amazing new song for us Sunday morning (the same song he played at the "Dave Madden Day" in Austin ceremony at City Hall on Thursday), and anyone who heard him either time, knew that for DM this is not just a hobby...this is his heart on a stringed instrument, and it matters to the world. Finely crafted songs and exquisitely prepared sushi it seems, are significantly different (and maybe a bit more glamorous) that what I think I am cut out to do to make a difference in the world. But then again...maybe not.

Pling...Pling...

dg