i

iPhone. Love it. I fired it up on the plane with my Bose noise canceling headphones, set up an On-The-Go list, hit Shuffle, and was swept into this eclectic collection of slices of my life and times and tastes. Love the iPhone.

iTunes. Love it. I’m amazed at how easy they make it to buy any song you can think of, and podcasts are more than I could ask for. It’s amazing. I don’t know why I resisted for so long. Oh yeah. I do remember that. It was apple’s proprietary format. But now it’s all MP3 and the world is good.

And on a similar note, I have found peace and happiness at work by carrying my own phone, my own laptop, my own hard drives, my own thumb drive, my own laptop, my own luggage, everything. I just took all their government issued, horribly supported equipment and parked it in the corner of my home office. It’s amazing how happy you can be when you stop thinking that someone else SHOULD be doing something for you. Sure, I shelled out 5 grand or so to fund my employer’s operations, which is not reimbursed nor appreciated, but it’s so liberating to quit requiring everyone to do the right thing and just be ok to get what you want by spending yourself and your money on it. It’ll come back on them eventually for screwing all of us. I don’t have to answer for that. I do have to answer to God and my own conscience. And for how I loved all the people God put me next to.

john's new book

I’m enjoying John Eldredge’s new book, Walking with God. Brent, David, Christian, Christopher, and I went to see him in the TV audience for James Robin’s show. Again. That makes 4 of 4. We were all really surprised to have a pre-released copy of his book, a paperback, under our chairs when we arrived. The interview was way too short, and James talked way too much, and John didn’t talk near enough, but the book is awesome. I have also been listening to it on the Ransomed Heart podcast.

forty years in the wilderness

I thought I would coast through my 40th birthday with 40 winks and a sugar free cake but OMG. If you're reading this and you participated in the outpouring of grace to me, thank you. I am humbled by the videos. As for the letters, they are tucked away in a notebook like a hope chest. I'm sure I'll read them one by one over the next week. It's honestly too overwhelming just now. If you're not reading this and you sent something then never mind. I'll be writing or calling everyone back, but I just wanted to post this as a way of letting you know that I'm swimming in a sea of it right now. And ya'll mean to me more than I can say.

And yes, it was a new moon on February 7th.

the mountains and the valley god

Mountains. What words come to mind? Strength, grandeur, immense, majestic, ancient? I get this sense of awe when I stand at their feet, especially when they're snow-capped, rising above the earth, looking out over all creation, head and shoulders above all their would-be peers.

I was thinking about the mountains as I flew out of San Francisco over mountains and valleys today. It's one of the most beautiful places in America, which is why Jill and I will be spending our seventeenth anniversary there next week.

You are treated with lots of mountains and the valleys they protect when you fly west to east across the US. They run north and south like great waves. Like mighty waves. Like royal family lines, rising and falling and rising again to new heights. Majestic. Strong. Old.

Somewhere along the way, thousands of years ago, or maybe billions, depending on how old the Earth really is, those mountains arose to exert their strength and assert their right to tower above the valleys. But when you think about it, is that really the way it went? Didn't the true strength lie in the valleys below?

Somewhere along the way, there was this underground, superhot metal and dirt that began to press towards the sky, demanding to be released from its prison beneath the crusty sphere we call the Earth. Giant land masses shifted. Some tore. Others buckled. The weakest places became mountains. The strongest ones became valleys. Somehow, there was something inherently strong and cohesive about the land that is today's valleys. The valleys kept their cool. The valleys held it all together. Mountains are the kids. It's the valleys that are ancient.

When I fly over the valleys I always look for geometric shapes piercing the snow, sure evidence that humans have been at work…or play…marking off territory or laying fence or pipe or tracks. Not many live up on the mountains. Lots live in the valleys. The valleys are flat. Easy to build on. The valleys sustain life. And it makes sense, really.

Sometimes people get into moral dilemmas. And sometimes the advice they get from the pious is—take the high road. But the high road is really the weak road. It's the low road that is the way of strength. The low road keeps its cool. The high road is impressive. The low road is plain. It's easy to build on. The low road sustains life.

This reminds me of Jesus. He was always refusing the high road, refusing exaltation, refusing to be made king, refusing to seize power, accepting humiliation, keeping his cool, keeping it all together. He had no majesty that would make us desire him. He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. He was the valley god. The strong god. The god who didn't buckle. The god you could build on. The god who sustains life.

Since the beginning wave upon wave of youngsters have been raised up to take their place and scrape the skies. But the ancient of days is in the valley.

las vegas

In Las Vegas.

Hate it.

Why is this place called The Meadows anyway?

They're mirages.

I walked about 3 miles around town and another three in the hotel. In the HOTEL. This place looks like the Sistine Chapel. One part of the hotel is lined with high fashion shops with a river running through it and gondolas floating couples around just like in Venice, except that instead of an open sky (which would be something) it’s roofed. And painted to look like a blue sky with clouds, and is lit. I had a dizzy moment there while my brain adjusted…it was pitch dark outside but it looked and felt like late afternoon in there. My room is split level. It definitely outshines my home. It outshines my heavenly home, too, I think.

This place is really wasted on me. I walked around thinking those words Jesus once said, “Now is the prince of this world coming, but he’s got nothing in me.” This place has no hooks in me. No attraction. I have no desire to gamble, get drunk, take a hooker, go to an all night party, or have a lap dance. I’m not mad at anybody who loves it here, and I don’t think they’re evil or weak or (most of all) wrong. And I’m glad two and a half million people are just as happy as they can be living in the middle of an ugly desert. It’s just got nothing on me.

The reason Vegas doesn’t do it for me is because I’m too much of a realist.

And as I walked around, I wondered if it would work without the billions (strike that) trillions of dollars spent to hype it up. I think if it weren’t for all the lights and bells and whistles and sound and carnies and free drinks and free food and free rooms and free skin this place would flop. I think most people would think rationally and decide not to spend a minimum of TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS for a round of poker or craps or a spin of roulette. But when you look around and there’s a hundred thousand people shelling out twenty-five bucks a hand, it throws your reality check organ for a loop. I think there’s a frenzy that people get caught up in. That people PAY to get caught up in. I see entire groups of people that clearly came here together to lose their minds all at once. Like this bunch of women wearing Burger King crowns and drinking tequila shots and pinching eachother’s butts as they scream their way to the dance floor at an outdoor bar. And then there are the tattoo parlors right there in the casinos, people laying in there half naked, glass walls, so everyone can see them get permed.

Now that I’ve seen how people pay to come here, I have no trouble at all believing that people would choose the Matrix.

Did I mention that the porn star convention was at the other end of my hotel? Actually it was called the Adult Expo or something like that. A lot of them were walking the casino and hotel in living color. Everyone who was ever in a porno, and everyone who wants to be in a porno is here I think. The ones who are already stars walk around with an entourage like they own the place. The wannabe’s have a single escort, an older man who wears a badge, and they talk real loud. I guess it’s to make a splash. In the meadows.

There are a few dark spots, though. Two things that gave me a little smile. Some guys were standing around enjoying some cigars together. That looked real. And then I got hailed by two prostitutes in the casino. They were young, dark-skinned, had pretty eyes, and nice smiles. They looked like they were having fun. And they didn’t curse me when I smiled and walked on by.

I want a respite.
I want a place where the sun lightly bakes my cheeks while the cool breeze folds my arms.
I want a place where the rhythm is not a painted woman pounding my lap but careless ripples slapping my dingy.
I want to hear birds and crickets and fish and trees.
I want the night to be lit up with billions of lights billions of miles away, and watch some fall.
I’m so tired of having and so bereft of wanting.
Help me get someday back.
Help me to ache.

there is no better you

Unfortunately when you travel through airports, you end up seeing this plastic smile a lot, which is attached to one of the most heinous ideas ever. I kept my mouth shut long enough.

There is no better you.

progress and the electric toothbrush

For Christmas I got an insulated USB coffee mug. This is a picture of it plugged into one of my laptops.

It cracks me up. But I'm sure a lot of my people would call it the perfect gift for me. It's hard to think about me apart from coffee or computers. And if the people who gave it to me are reading this, thank you. I will use it. And to be fair it also has an adapter to plug it into your car cigarette lighter.

But here's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering how valuable progress really is, and where it's taking us.

If you don't know of Tim Hawkins, you may not appreciate the humor of an electric toothbrush (below). It's all about laziness. But now there's something for the more disciplined among us, or more fearful—the wireless toothbrush. The wireless toothbrush streams data to a remote display, prompting you how long and how hard to brush. I'll bet Wireless Toothbrush 2.0 will include an accelerometer based on the iPhone's to determine exactly which tooth you're brushing and at what angle. But then where does it go?

I know better than to make a slippery slope argument. But I do wonder what the slope might look like with the likes of a wireless toothbrush. Maybe the insurance companies will get ahold of this and give discounts to anyone who promises they have bought a wireless toothbrush, and that they brush their teeth 3 times a day for 2 minutes (hey, it could happen—they give me one if I promise I bought an alarm system for my home, and that it’s monitored). But then, men like control, don’t they? If those insurance companies could figure out a way to monitor my tooth brushing themselves, they wouldn’t need to trust my promise (kind of like the way the state dials my car’s computer into their computer when I get a mandatory yearly car inspection). I doubt the insurance companies would pass a law requiring me to submit tooth brushing data. But they don’t have to. If it costs $25/month with a wireless toothbrush and $150/month without, it’s law enough. There’s written laws and there’s unwritten laws. Ask anyone who doesn’t go to church.

When you think about it, the promise of progress is exaltation. Whether it's in technology or in the church or wherever, it's about me escaping the common human plight, setting me apart from the less fortunate, and making me feel like a god. It sounds great up front, but the side effects are hell.