Why I Hate Clowns (and you should too)

I hate clowns.  Perhaps you should too.

This weekend Brooke and I will go on our annual pilgrimage with the kids downtown Nashville to see The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Yes, this is our third year of the madness. The kids absolutely love the animals and acrobats making death-defying flips in the air.  But every year we see those ridiculous clowns. We break out in a cold sweat when they approach us. I try to avoid hating anything but for some reason I am haunted by these crazies. For crying out loud there is a dedicated website dedicated to “clown hatred.”  It explains the rationale about clowns (my emphasis added):

They scare little kids (mine), they cause neurosis in some adults (me), they have big floppy feet (I have big feet, are they making fun of me?), they try to fit too many of their kind in a car, I could go on and on.

It was the movie Poltergeist (1982) that ruined me.  The scene where the clown disappears from the chair across from the boy and then attacks him is a recurring nightmare. I think after I saw that movie, I threw every stuffed animal clown I had in the house and quickly gave up watching Bozo the Clown.  Then Stephen King had to rub it in my face with the book/movie, IT.  Good grief.

I simply hate clowns. Sorry, it’s personal. There was a period of time as a kid when I was playing with my G.I. Joes and I would find unique ways to kill my stuffed animal clowns. I am sure some of them are nice and do some good things like attempt to cheer up children in hospitals. But I don’t buy it.

Truth is, I am a clown. I wear the mask of a clown too often. I make all sorts of facial expressions to make you think better of me. I try to entertain and show a lot of color but ultimately look just like every other clown out there. I hide behind the makeup. I try to be someone or something else.

The beautiful yet creepy song “John Wayne Gacy” written by Sufjan Stevens has a haunting line that always makes the hair on my arms stand up.  The notorious Chicago area serial killer John Wayne Gacy often dressed up as a clown to lure his victims. Sufjan saw something deeper at heart and expressed it in this line,

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid

So I may not be a serial killer but what do I hide? As a culture, I think we spend a lot of time and energy analyzing the sin of everyone else. I am incredibly guilty of that.  The song is a reminder that this mask I put on each day represents the sin of my life. Until I take off this mask and makeup, I cannot truly be the person God wants me to be. I am just a floppy-shoed fraud until then.

I take splice in 1 Samuel 16:7

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

I pray every day for an honest heart that shows compassion, love and the ‘real’ me God wants in this world.  May you as well. 

What about you?  Any clown stories you need to get off your chest?  

The Most Disturbing Kids Movie Ever

I hope you get the idea from reading this blog that I love movies.  I am developing multiple lists of movies to share with my children someday.  When I was a kid I remember being exposed to several powerful movies for the first time.  I was inspired by some of them and some of them haunt me until this day.  My mother and I joke now but when I was eight years old I first watched Platoon (1986).  Although a fantastic Oscar worthy film, most would agree it’s hardly one to introduce to an eight year old.  To this day mom keeps apologizing about that, which makes me laugh and I then remind her that I turned out just fine.  As that semi-innocent eight year old, I dreamed of being a soldier. I think she felt that me watching Platoon would provide some perspective about what the military could look like. Yep, after a couple of hours of Oliver Stone’s Vietnam, that was enough for me to abandon that ambition. (Thanks mom?)

Like anything in culture, each person has their own filter in what they are able to absorb.  We can be molded by the world so I have become quite self-conscious on how my worldview is formed.  It is a reminder that the world can be scary. I’m a parent now and my wife and I are trying to figure out what our kids should absorb when it comes to education and entertainment.  Recently my kids (2 and 3) and I were watching Aladdin and it is one of the darkest kids movies I’ve seen. In fact, most Disney movies are like that I’ve noticed. I recently read about The Top 26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies by Babble.com.  Is your young child watching one of these?  My wife has usually been the wise one to ask the question,

“Should the kids be watching this?”

In your mind you think that it is a great movie about heroes, villains, and a family uniting to save the world.  What is wrong with that? Wait…but they hit and the even (gulp), kill the villain.

The tension is strong because we don’t just want to expose our kids to just fairy tales.  We want them to be inspired but also see what real life looks like.  One of my favorite Christian thinkers and commentators of culture is Phil Cooke.  In his recent blog, The Change Revolution he noted,

After all, if we filmed the Bible, much of it would be R-rated, and occasionally worse. The Bible doesn’t gloss over real life and God apparently wasn’t afraid to tell real, authentic stories. I think the culture would respect our message much more if we stopped producing just cheesy, G-rated films and started telling gritty stories about real life.

Should we sugar coat life?

My check as a parent now is questioning “what, when, and why” I should introduce when it comes to entertainment, learning, etc.  Most parents would agree that the book To Kill a Mockingbird has a life-changing message that every child should read.  But I’m challenged to rethink when the girls are ready for such an important message.  Most importantly, I am are challenged to pray for the wisdom to figure this out on a daily basis. Romans 12:2 cautions us to never forget that we must go ultimately to God for this discernment.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

What was the most disturbing movie you first watched as a kid? 

If you are a parent, how do you filter what you share with your kids? 

Dare to Be Great Situation

I am looking for a dare to be great situation.

These are the words from the immortal everyday hero, Lloyd Dobler in the movie Say Anything (1989).  It was the first movie I saw that was written and directed by Cameron Crowe.  Crowe gave us other amazing lines in his movies like “You complete me”, “I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen”, and “I’m never as good as when you’re there.”  I always liked Lloyd because he was the everyman, someone I could relate to on film.  His words, especially this line always sticks with me and I kind of wear it around my shoulder.

Why?

We all want to be the “idea” of Lloyd and act out our mission in life.  There are situations when we want our actions to be great but let’s admit it, we’re afraid.   That’s okay because if you aren’t afraid, it won’t be as great.  We want our actions to be honorable.  We want them to be dangerous (in a good way).  We want our actions to matter and be memorable.  It doesn’t matter if it is January or the end of a long year.  When you see that opportunity like Lloyd, act.  If it is a girl you’ve always been intimated by, go for it.  If it is that idea you’re afraid to introduce at work, go for it.  Look around you because your friends and family are cheering for you.

I love tackling a challenge that seems insurmountable at the time but after you get through it, you look back and say, “Wow, that just happened.” We want our stories to live beyond us.  30 years from now you will remember these feats, I promise you.

 

What is your dare to be great situation you are facing?  What are your waiting for? 

 

PS  I read that Kirk Cameron was almost cast to play Lloyd.  That was right after Robert Downey, Jr. turned the part down. Thank God for providing John Cusack.  Oh how that would have been a game changer…

 

 

Are You Paying Attention to the Signs?

It is comforting to know where we’re going.  It’s comforting to have clarity.  It’s comforting to know that there are signs out there to guide us.

Before becoming a Christian, I always knew there were signs out there telling me what to do.  Things like this would happen:

• That must be a sign the girl likes me (or not like me).
• That must be a sign that my golf round is supposed to turn around since my errant show hit the tree and bounced back into the fairway.
• That must be a sign that I got a C in Chemistry so maybe I’m not supposed to be a doctor.

It didn’t take me long in life to recognize that there are no coincidences.  Is that rational?  Not really, right?  It takes faith to recognize that there is probably something bigger behind something that is simply deemed a coincidence.  But sometimes God gives us crystal clear signs and if we aren’t paying close attention, they will simply fade into the being part life’s daily happenings.

In the movie Signs (2002), this issue is dealt with directly. Some signs were given to the main characters years in advance. But none of them made sense until the characters were fully aware that they had a purpose at the present moment.  The characters may have missed them but they paid close attention and when the time was right, it all became clear on the meaning.

One of the main characters played by Mel Gibson, Graham Hess, asks his brother Merrill,

See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

This past year I feel like the signs have been very clear.  I have worked in publishing for the past 6 years and never felt so bombarded with the message of “become a better father to your daughters” than this year.  My two girls are 2 and 3 respectively and I know this is the time to develop and grow with them.  The signs looked like this in 2011.

This past father’s day, I worked on a book called Daddy Dates by Greg Wright.  It is a personal story of Greg Wright learning how to raise four daughters but also offers very practical ways on fun “Daddy Dates.”

Before leaving Thomas Nelson, I was able to work on initial planning a very practical and helpful father’s book called All Pro Dad by Mark Merrill. I am eager to see it have a strong impact on dads when it releases in May, 2012.

The first day of my new job at The A Group, I discovered that I would be working on some pieces of curriculum for the bestselling book,  Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker, PhD.

God apparently wants to use a megaphone this year to tell me that I need to focus on being a better father. Who doesn’t want to become a better father (or a mother)?  But for me I really needed this “push” to be intentional in developing.  I could have gone about my days and completely missed this.  This next year and beyond I’ll update you on this journey of learning, listening, praying, and engaging with my daughters.

Be intentional about praying for God to show you signs.  The signs may be subtle hints and feel like whispers from God.  Pray for God to bring you clarity and take steps to understanding what these things mean.  Pray for patience as these signs may be most helpful years down the road when need them most.

What about you?

Do you feel like you are being shown signs in your life?  

What are these signs telling you? 

Are you not entertained?

“Are you not entertained?”

These were the words shouted by Maximus in the amazing movie, Gladiator (2000). After slaying Roman soldiers in The Coliseum, former General and now slave Maximus gave them what they wanted.  He gave them entertainment.

I am an entertainment and information junkie.  Pre-digital age, I could spend hours in a library or a Barnes & Noble just filling my brain with any type of information possible. I even subscribe to Entertainment Weekly as it is my magazine candy.  How appropriate.

I read blog post after post about being distracted by the entertainment of this world.  I’m the guiltiest of the guilty when it comes to this.  I often wonder what I would do if I couldn’t access “entertainment” and “information” at every moment? To illustrate my point, I’ve got ESPN on in the background as I writes this (cue me taking a moment to turn the tv off and actually focus on writing this to avoid extreme hypocrisy).  It hit me how much I try to cram in so much information into each moment when my body, heart, and mind can’t process it fast enough.  I’m simply not created to effectively keep up with this information madness.

I can feel God saying in my life, “Dave, you need to have balance. Focus on me first and slow down.”

Today’s reading from My Utmost for His Highest put it into perspective for me,

It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God’s best.

But is it sin to be constantly distracted?  By my experience is sure feels like it.  Oswald Chambers points out that even though some of the things we fill our lives with are good, they still keep us at a distance from God.  It keeps us from the “best” God wants for us. I fear being behind in the information age but I’m reminded by God in his whispers that I need to focus on Him first to make sense of it all.  So that leaves me with this commitment:

 I’m going to spend more time thinking.

I’m going to spend more time dreaming.

I’m going to spend more time praying.

After that, I have a stack of books (physical and digital) that I have waiting to read.  He will bless in that time after spending time first with Him.

Furthermore in My Utmost,

If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. There is no high or easy road.

God gave us Matthew 6:33 for a reason:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

It is not easy. It is not supposed to be but know that you are not alone in this daily if not minute by minute battle.  But I know in those moments when I do seek him first, the blessing is beyond imagination compared to any entertainment.

Your Top 5 Comedy Movies…

A warning to any person who interviews to work with me.

I ask a lot of questions but to be honest assuming I have done my research on you and know your work ethic, I want to a few simple things.

I will learn more about you from asking this question than fifty others.

What are your top fives movie comedies?

Over the years I love asking people what their Top 5 (fill in the blank) as it keeps great conversation and I do learn more about that person in the process.  If you have read the book or watched the movie High Fidelity (2000), you will get the glimpse of the power of identifying your  ”Top 5″ of anything; your top 5 breakup songs, Top 5 places to live, Top 5 embarrassments in life, Top 5 songs about death, Top 5 _____.  There is a great line in High Fidelity and I don’t completely agree with it but the idea always amuses me.

“I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter. Call me shallow but it’s the (expletive) truth.”

Ultimately I do care “who” you are but this sometimes can be more fun.

So let’s have fun.

Here is my rule for identifying your top 5 comedies:  The comedy must be at least 5 years old so you can test if it has “staying power.”  If you don’t understand, there is a possibility for The Hangover to eclipse this list.  You will notice that all of these movies are incredibly quotable.

Tommy Boy: Pure dumb and clean humor.

“Brothers don’t shake hands. Brothers gotta hug.”

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The finest of English “humour” to hit this side of the pond.

“I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”

Wedding Crashers: The classic buddy movie…never leave your brother behind.

“Never walk away from a crasher in a funny jacket! Rule #115!”

The Big Lebowski: Crass it may be but it is the most quotable movie…ever.

“At least I’m housebroken.”

Caddyshack: I grew up on this movie and being a golfer, it makes that much more special.

“Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac… It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!”

The Fringe list: The Hangover, Airplane, Anchorman, Old School, Animal House, Strange Brew, Top Secret, High Fidelity, and National Lampoon’s Vacation (and Christmas Vacation of course).

When I need the best laugh, I simply press play to watch The Big Lebowksi. Any Lebowski fan will love this line,

“Obviously you’re not a golfer.”

So have you thought about your top 5?

Would you believe there is a “help” website to find your top five?  Check it out here.

Comedy likes are so personal and can have tremendous variety.  Take a look at these.

College Humor’s Top 100 Comedies

Only these guys would come up with a countdown to awesomeness like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Anchorman, The Hangover, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Glorious top 5.  I want these guys running the country. No wait…the world.

Time Out London’s Top 100 Comedies

How typical that the English would come up with two Monty Pythons in the top 5 and This is Spinal Tap.  I guess they need to represent their homeland best.  I do appreciate their Zucker brother humor by keeping Airplane as #2.

AFI’s 100 Years, a Hundred Laughs

The irony of their top two is that Some Like It Hot and Tootsie both feature cross dressing.  Although I love AFI and these two movies are they the top two comedies of all times?  Hmm…

So…

What are your top 5 comedies and why? 

How To Make The Best Plans and Master The Moment

You know a good speaker when you see one.

But are you one?

Do you ever wonder exactly why a speech can be so good? It can bring shivers down your back. It can inspire you to change the world.  Sometimes it can be as simple as provoking the feeling that you aren’t alone.  Everyday I have the opportunity to speak in public or watch someone else do it.  I am fascinated by those who do this so well so I try to study and emulate them.

More people fear public speaking over death for example.  It is frequently ranked as the #1 fear for people as a matter of fact.   With so much fear attached to public speaking, often people shy away from trying to better themselves at it.  As Flannery O’Connor put it, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” As it a good speech. I have a long way to become a good orator.

Winston Churchill noted that in each speech,

“There must be character, personality, delivery and occasion,…”

As in all things in life, Sir Winston. Thank you.

I like keeping things simple in life so there are two attributes that can be applied to about anything in life, especially speech:  Planning and Delivery.

Let us study two of my heroes of speech and rhetoric.

PLANNING: Churchill’s “Our Finest Hour” Speech

Churchill grew up with a lisp and had to overcome incredible odds to become the speaker we know him as today.  He was known early on in his political career as a rambler but over the decades, he transformed into a master of public speaking. How did he do it?  Churchill would often say that for every minute in a speech one should prepare an hour.  His work ethic was untouchable and it helped eventually him do best what was needed in the moment.  In Churchill’s preparation, he knew that his pause was his secret weapon.  By intense planning, he knew when to best use the pause.  Churchill has given thousands of speeches that you will neither hear nor read in life but if you could only read one, read his amazing “Our Finest Hour” speech.  Whenever you feel down and frustrated by life’s circumstances, it will uplift your spirit.  If you are in that Dunkirk point of life in retreat as the Allies were; learn from the Brits and regroup, reassess, and get back in the game.  You can read the full speech here.

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”

DELIVERY: FDR’s Message to Congress after Pearl Harbor

Draft #1: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in ‘world history’….”

Following the sudden and deliberate attack on the United States, FDR knew this was a moment to capture emotion and reason so in his final draft he changed ‘world history’ to ‘infamy.’  Read the original version a few times and you realize that it doesn’t fully embrace the magnitude of what happened at Pearl Harbor.  It is now one of the most famous opening speech lines ever.  Can you imagine trying to describe the emotion of a nation on the fly like FDR?  He mastered the moment and a nation became united and galvanized for war.

What does this mean to you?  

Part of your planning must be to anticipate the moments that could come.  You must plan for the moment in the same way that you planned how to get there.  Over my years as a history student, I studied Churchill and FDR extensively.  Today, I become discouraged occasionally and think, “I can’t do it like them.  I am not even in a position of ultimate leadership that would require this sort of planning and skill.”  But I then realize that I am wrong.  My team, which includes my family, look to me daily to master these skills of planning and mastering the moment.

Remember that yes you can do it.

Keep it simple. Plan, and plan for the moment.

It’s a Jelly

Ever wanted to achieve that specific goal in life?  You want it so bad, you can’t help it?  But you know deep down you can’t just step out and grab it.

Sometimes it requires more from you.

Sometimes in life, it requires a sacrifice.

Sometimes you need to give up a jelly donut.

I love jelly donuts because they are the “best of the best” when it comes to donuts.  My favorite movie from the Great White North is Strange Brew (1983)  I even parodied the McKenzie brothers with a friend at a Young Life camp. We of course drank “Eh” Root Beer instead of Elsinore but you can imagine how much fun we had with our accents.  We even played donut hockey with campers.  God bless Canada and their accents I say!

For Bob McKenzie, giving up the jelly was essential to get what he needed to accomplish the mission.  (Yeah, I know theirs was a bribe but you get the idea)

What are you trying to achieve today?  What do you need to give up? 

You may need to give up the jelly.

PS Maybe this is a better post for lent? But enjoy the clip from Strange Brew if you’ve never seen it.

What is your pastor driving?

I’ve never been a car junkie. Don’t get me wrong, I completely appreciate a beautiful automobile that can accelerate like an F-16.  I have always been amused by the reasons someone buys their car. Ask a financial expert and they will tell you that what you drive tells a lot about how you view your personal finances.

I often wonder how much a pastor thinks about what he drives.  If I were a pastor, I would probably be incredibly insecure about how people viewed my ride.  What does it say about their heart?  When a pastor asks people to give to the church, do they question where the money “really” is going?  If they preach about giving to the poor, are they doing the same?  If their church has exceeded 2000 attendance, can they get that suped-up sports car?  Or is their car too sissy?  Too bold?  Even worse, are they driving their wife’s Mary Kay pink Cadillac?  If you are a pastor reading this, I can only imagine how many things you are judged upon.

Not long ago I saw a pastor driving around in this amazing 330 BMW.  I’m not even sure what my pastor drives to be honest.  I’d like to think that he drives something modest but should I even care?  Whether you are pastor or not, the class-warfarist in me thinks that when faced with the choice in traffic whether to let a Ford Fusion or a Mercedes into my lane, sorry Heir Mercedes, you are going to have to wait.

For me I ask if I should purposefully drive a Yugo, a beat up old sedan, or a pickup truck?  A pickup truck might annoy my more liberal friends saying I was wasting gas and not using it to haul stuff on a regular basis. If I had an SUV, well…how American.  You suburban gas guzzling yuppie pastor.  So here I am…my wife and I have a minivan, which we love and loathe.  I don’t need to explain why.  If you have kids, you get it.

I read a few years ago about Kurt Warner after he received his big contract from the St. Louis Rams, he didn’t really upgrade his car, he just made sure he had a safe SUV since he had a bunch of kids.  I’m pretty practical like that but then again I bought a lottery ticket the other day and I couldn’t help but think what car I would purchase if I actually won.  The act of buying a lottery ticket says a lot about my heart I suppose.

I drive a 2008 Honda Accord, which I bought for its practicality and reliability.  My grandfather Papa Jack worked for General Motors for forty years and I recently.  I felt like a complete family letdown for buying a Japanese car but the truth is and we all know that our American manufacturers haven’t necessarily had their act together the past few years.  I’m starting to see a turnaround from them so when I need another car, I’ll definitely consider “Made in the USA.”  Recently my grandmother said that Papa Jack said he secretly always wanted to have a Volkswagen. That made me smile.

I work in publishing with that comes a lot of  interaction with pastors.  Many of these pastors are some amazing people.  Some of them do sacrificial things like not taking a church salary and only utilizing their book royalties.  I’ve seen every type of car driven by them but have never been bold enough to ask.  So if you are clergy, beware, I’ll be asking you what you drive this week.

So, what is your pastor driving?  Ever asked him (or her) why?  

What about you?  What do you drive and why?

I Hate You Because You Are A Christian

In an Australian accent, those were the words said to me across a table at a coffee shop where I lived in Glasgow, Scotland.  It was 2001 and I had been living there surrounded by a culture of those who didn’t know Christ.

What?!?

What did I do to make this guy hate me?  I was casual friends with this person and had no serious interaction with him previous to this. But there was something I apparently did wrong.

Or did I do something right?

I tend to avoid conflict and be a harmonizer whenever possible.  So when I heard the words “hate” and “you” in the same sentence directed at me, it definitely hurt.  I am led to believe a lie that just because I have gotten on my knees to accept Christ, things will be easier.  Life has only gotten harder but my faith and peace in Christ has grown stronger.

I was reminded this morning when reading Jesus’ words in John 15: 20 “….If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” Persecution should be expected.  After all, the early church was hated by the world because they didn’t understand the truth.  Most of this hate surrounded by the fear of the unknown.  It was good, though.

Most of the conflict I encounter today is with other Christians.  The themes around that conflict is usually about pride.  I bet if someone who doesn’t know Christ would observe the way we act, he or she would have every right to say “I hate you.”  But you know what? That person is probably not caring because we as Christians become irrelevant when we fight amongst ourselves.

There are so many people fighting for their faith in this world.  They are  being persecuted.  They risk their life just to have the chance to read the Bible. We as followers of Christ should be causing the right kind of stir that causes people to stand up and say, “I want that.”

The goal isn’t to go out and try to get people hating you. It is about being bold in your faith fearlessly sharing the Gospel.  This happens by earning the right to be heard and letting the truth speak.

Being hated by this guy woke me up.   It reminded me that if I’m not causing a stir then I’m not quite living out the true Gospel.

May you cause a stir with me.

————-

Updated from December 28, 2011

For years this moment kind of haunted me, mainly because I didn’t understand it completely. Today, God reminded me of why we as Christians are here.

John 15:18-19

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

Preceding these verses is this line from Christ himself in John 15:17,

This is my command: Love each other.

What encouragement!