Since grade school I have been fascinated by clouds. *nerd alert* I hate to admit it, but my sixth grade science fair project was on predicting the weather using your own instruments. A large portion of that project included 'reading' the meanings of different cloud types. It was very exciting to me and I even considered the possibility of becoming a meteorologist. But other pursuits, and a failed ribbon at county, left that dream long behind.
Fast forward a couple decades to last week.
After a particularly crazy day of thunderstorms my wife and I were cruising the town getting together last minute details for our firstborn's 'monkey birthday party.' I looked up into the sky for no reason at all and,
"Holy Crap! What's ...
"Essentially, I believe the world needs more, better sermons. And I'm passionate about this. I do not think a sermon should be boring; I think it should be electric. I do not think that it should be something people sit through so they can go to lunch. I think it should be something that rattles your cage, and disturbs you, and comforts you, and inspires you, and provokes you. And it should be SOMETHING. This is an ancient, primal art form. It's the original gorilla theatre. When you look through the prophets and look through Jesus' sermons: Whatever you did, you didn't sit back and just evaluate them. You were caught up in something, because the communicator was caught up in ...
Beatrice Arthur could get a huge laugh with just a long, hard, silent stare. When she opened her mouth, her ringingly authoritative voice brought forth another wave of laughter. To defy her as Maude Findlay in Maude, or as Dorothy Zbornak in Golden Girls, was foolish: she'd crush you. No one upstaged Bea Arthur, yet no one, performer or TV viewer, resented her for that. Indeed, this was the source of her thunderbolt comic power. Other women may rival her as TV icons (Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore), but no woman ever made so many people so happy by being so imperious, so decisive, so just plain bossy.
Look at Maude, which premiered in 1972 as a spin-off from All In ...
They say that you never really deal with your own mortality until faced with it. It was 8:30am and I had been in Biblical Interpretation class for a half hour. In a moment of clarity I realized I was having trouble focusing on the lecture and had been searching doctor's numbers on my iPhone for the last fifteen minutes. I could not remember doing either. On the forefront of my mind at that moment was a growing discomfort in my back and abdomen that was making sitting still very uncomfortable. I realized I could sit no longer. Getting up, I made my way to the nearest restroom as calmly as I could. Pressing the speed dial button for ...
Since grade school I have been fascinated by clouds. *nerd alert* I hate to admit it, but my sixth grade science fair project was on predicting the weather using your own instruments. A large portion of that project included 'reading' the meanings of different cloud types. It was very exciting to me and I even considered the possibility of becoming a meteorologist. But other pursuits, and a failed ribbon at county, left that dream long behind.
Fast forward a couple decades to last week.
After a particularly crazy day of thunderstorms my wife and I were cruising the town getting together last minute details for our firstborn's 'monkey birthday party.' I looked up into the sky for no reason at all and,
"Holy Crap! What's ...
"Essentially, I believe the world needs more, better sermons. And I'm passionate about this. I do not think a sermon should be boring; I think it should be electric. I do not think that it should be something people sit through so they can go to lunch. I think it should be something that rattles your cage, and disturbs you, and comforts you, and inspires you, and provokes you. And it should be SOMETHING. This is an ancient, primal art form. It's the original gorilla theatre. When you look through the prophets and look through Jesus' sermons: Whatever you did, you didn't sit back and just evaluate them. You were caught up in something, because the communicator was caught up in ...
Beatrice Arthur could get a huge laugh with just a long, hard, silent stare. When she opened her mouth, her ringingly authoritative voice brought forth another wave of laughter. To defy her as Maude Findlay in Maude, or as Dorothy Zbornak in Golden Girls, was foolish: she'd crush you. No one upstaged Bea Arthur, yet no one, performer or TV viewer, resented her for that. Indeed, this was the source of her thunderbolt comic power. Other women may rival her as TV icons (Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore), but no woman ever made so many people so happy by being so imperious, so decisive, so just plain bossy.
Look at Maude, which premiered in 1972 as a spin-off from All In ...
They say that you never really deal with your own mortality until faced with it. It was 8:30am and I had been in Biblical Interpretation class for a half hour. In a moment of clarity I realized I was having trouble focusing on the lecture and had been searching doctor's numbers on my iPhone for the last fifteen minutes. I could not remember doing either. On the forefront of my mind at that moment was a growing discomfort in my back and abdomen that was making sitting still very uncomfortable. I realized I could sit no longer. Getting up, I made my way to the nearest restroom as calmly as I could. Pressing the speed dial button for ...