The Jeff Show – Podcast #1 Pre-Christmas!

I’m trying to work on getting myself on working up a podcast. Not sure how regular it will be. I’d like it to be once a week, but it will be less than that, for now.

I’ll upload it to my Microblog for hosting, and provide the link on my main blog (here) for the main show notes.

So here is what is on my mind this time.
  • Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead – The Reboot Website which goes with the movie. https://jointhereboot.com/
  • New schedule for us at work. Looks good for now, but down side is every 4 weeks will  be the mid/evening.
  • Christmas is coming. I’m not as cynical as I have been. I still wan to try and do something with the Advent Conspiracy.

Listening to it on after I recorded it, I’ll leave it as is, but I’m looking at ways to do a little post-production to clean up the recordings. I’m still learning Audacity.

 

Update! Let me know if this link to the podcast isn’t working. I’ll provide a direct link to my microblog where it is hosted for the time being until I can figure the issues out.

The Power of Story, the Power of the Scene

I’ve been listening to Don Miller‘s, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” Without getting into too much of the book, he realized that life is a story, and that God is asking us to live a better story. In the section that I’m listening to, he is talking about how important scene is. You don’t have many memorable conversations in a coffee shop, or your home, or what have you. However, you do remember the ones that were in an unexpected or memorable place, or maybe did something different in a place you have always been in. I can remember things with our kids, where the scene was different or the things happening were out of the ordinary for the place that they were occurring.

I’m thinking that I’ve been living a boring, mundane story. In some ways, I have, but there have been memorable scenes of conversations over the past 7 years since I met Mary and her kids. I know that I’m not always living a boring story. I’m trying to get into a more interesting one now, again.

In the book, Don talks about a bike trip that he initially didn’t want to do. I would turn into an epic story as he and a group of others were going to ride from Los Angeles, to Washington, D.C. on bikes, for charity. He equated that the beginning would be exciting, but that the middle would seem like they weren’t going anywhere. It would be easy to give up, chose an easier story. Not every story has a payoff. Some just lead into another story.

So, I’m trying not to abandon my story, it seems that there is a part that seems to go on forever. Like the story has come to a halt. I don’t want to abandon it. I need to be on the look out for memorable scenes to have meaningful conversations. I’m trying to be intentional about how my story, and those close to me, how their stories will evolve. That their character arc will bring change into their lives.

I highly recommend this book. I still have more to listen to. I may have to listen to it again.

Leaving ESPN behind…

I’ll try not and belabor the point, however, I wanted to say some things about ESPN and Penn State.

I don’t disagree that Joe Paterno should have done more, he has said that himself. I think that it was time that Joe step down, and the retirement at the end of the season sufficed. However, ESPN went after Penn State and Joe with abandon, only to find out that ESPN was sitting on a tape that they say they couldn’t corroborate, so they didn’t turn it into the police.

At the behest of another PSU alum, and a friend, I wrote and complained. I received an email and was pointed to a blog post on ESPN.com about their reasons for not coming forward. It was lame.  I found this comment and many more like it in the comment section. (This is not me)

“Let me get this straight. ESPN is saying that if Joe Paterno had been a journalist, his actions would have been considered completely acceptable. Paterno had no real knowledge of the abuse, was told by a single person who’s story could not be confirmed by a third party, and did not go to police with potential evidence that at the time he didn’t believe was creditable enough to report. But Joe wasn’t a journalist, so he got crucified for it.”

If they were doing an investigative piece or not, they should have done more. So let me drag their name through the mud, well, yeah like my little piece here will do anything. So I  sent this reply:

“I’m sorry, but I went to your link. The explanation is weak, and my thoughts are pretty much in line with most of the people that commented on the blog post. Due to your failures, I will no longer be frequenting your pages, nor will I subscribe or use your cable stations, when I have the chance. Not to mention, I will avoid ABC or Disney if at all possible, as well.”

So there it is. ESPN (ABC or Disney) you are no longer welcome here. My own personal boycott.

Do We Reason Too Much?

As I often do, I listen to podcasts. A decent amount of them are sermons from other churches. Couple that with the “Journey to Bethlehem” that a church north of Harbor Springs did to night, I’m left wondering how do we recover that sense of wonder and sacredness that the church has lost over the years?

First, a little background. One of the last podcasts that I listened to from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Shane Hipps preached about how the age of reason, that has brought us a lot of cool tools, it has hampered our ability to heal based on faith.

Then, as I listened to Brian Zahnd preach at Word of Life Church, in St. Joseph, MO I realized that his idea of the sense of sacredness was one of the things that is missing out of the American church. That sacredness, like that of communion, leads to a faith that believes in what I witnessed tonight.

At the Journey to Bethlehem, I realized at each step, how whacked out the story of how our savior was born. I mean, an angel appears to Mary and Joseph, pretty much telling them that Mary will be an unwed mother, that Joseph will marry her. Then as the night of the birth is upon them, angels pop up and tell these shepherds that the savior is born. I mean really? Okay, I buy into it, but I also partake in communion, where we are eating His body and drinking His blood. As we continue to wonder how to market our churches what if we made those things like baptism and communion, the focus. I we don’t, then we are just singing some uplifting songs, and listening to how to be moral, just like the secular world.