Linus

Tonight, Cathy and I watched my favorite Christmas program of all time.

The Charlie Brown Christmas special.

Made in 1966, a year before I was born, this Christmas special gets better every year I watch it. It could very well be the perfect Christmas presentation, IMHO. It was Charles Schultz's masterpiece.

First, the music. From the classic Peanuts piano jazz intro, to the "loo-loo-loo" version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", to the relaxing swishy snare drum brushes... Just one minute in to this show, the music has taken me back 35 years. Awesome.

Second, the dance scene. Come on, you know you love it. You can picture all the dancers in your head... The twin smiley girls swishing their hair from side to side... The guy doing the running man in the back... The guy doing the shoulder-shrug dance... PigPen thumping the upright bass...

Third, and most importantly, the message. At the beginning, Charlie Brown expresses to psychiatrist Lucy his feelings of alienation and confusion. What is Christmas really about? Lucy tells him he needs "involvement", so he signs up to direct the Christmas play. But involvement doesn't bring him any happiness - the other kids continually tear him down and label him a loser. Even Snoopy has given in to materialism, with his neon-glowing doghouse.

In perhaps my favorite TV scene of all-time, Charlie Brown asks Linus if there is anyone who knows what Christmas is really all about. Linus says calmly, "I'll tell you what Christmas is about, Charlie Brown."

And for the next minute, Linus gives the complete account of Christ's birth from Luke Chapter 2. And from that point on, Charlie Brown realizes what Christmas is all about, and leaves with a completely changed attitude.

That scene always brings a tear to my eye. It is such a beautiful, simple, non-threatening, childlike presentation of the greatest news ever told. It occurred to me that this scene may be the ONLY presentation of the gospel message that some people will ever really hear. I mean, when was the last time you heard a Bible account on prime-time TV?

My Christmas wish this year? I hope that as the years go by, the TV executives will still choose to air this wonderful Christmas special. I hope that millions will watch it, hear the simple message of Luke 2, and come away changed like Charlie Brown.

Kudos, Mr. Schultz.

Update

Wow, one month until Christmas!

Some random things going on over the last several days:

• Last Road - We started recording our first "studio" CD last Saturday, at OMG Studios in downtown Greenville. It was a long, tiring process, but exciting as well. Unfortunately, of the 12 songs we hope to record, we only laid down the music to 3 songs that day! We may end up having to charge $50 per CD in order to re-coup our investment! Ha!
  
  
• Mandolin - Went to Owings jam session last night, and enjoyed getting to play the mandolin a bit. My 2002 Gibson Adam Steffey F5 is an awesome instrument -- low action, easy to play, huge volume and tone. God is good!
  
  
• Christmas trees - Put up our fake-o tree Friday...bought and put up an 8-ft real tree on Saturday...helped Brandon and Megan put up their real tree from NC on Saturday as well. Look like a forest in here!
  
  
• Christmas music - Charter cable has a great music channel with traditional Christmas music (Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, etc). The channel is called Showcase, and its #924 for us. Every year, I begin to appreciate the crooners a little more.... I must be getting old.
  
  
• Work - For the last four or five months, I have been in transition between jobs (within Michelin). I've been doing 50% of my time in each job (feels like 80% in each!). Anyhow, I officially become full-time at the new position on December 10th.
  
  
• Fun - Zach and I have a tradition of playing 2-player, tactical shooter games (in co-op mode) during the holidays. Worked through some levels of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six this weekend...good fun.

I'm really tired, and the four-day weekend is officially over, so I'll post again sometime this week.

Later!

Rivendell

There's a scene in the movie "Lord of the Rings" where Frodo Baggins travels to the elven outpost called Rivendell. In the movie, Rivendell is portrayed as an unbelievably beautiful city, carved of stone in the the sides of a steep and majestic valley. Frodo's arrival coincides with the autumn, and Rivendell's trees are alive with color: rich brown, fiery orange, bright yellow, and royal burgundy...

Well, this week Simpsonville has the appearance of Rivendell!

I must be getting older, because every year I am taking more and more notice of the beauty that God has surrounded us with. As a kid and young adult, I never took much notice of the fall colors. I mean, sure they were there, but what's the big deal, right?

Every day this week, as I drove home from work, I was amazed at the absolute beauty of the fall colors. It occurred to me that in many areas of life, God has provided incredible surroundings in our lives, and we often are blind to them. Like the fall colors that I am finally beginning to see, what other things in my life have been there all along, yet I have failed to see them and thank God for them?

As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm praying that God will open my eyes to ALL the blessings I'm missing in my life, so that I can give Him back the thanks he wants and deserves!

Success

Today, driving home from work, I somehow got thinking about success.

What is success? Am I successful now? When my life is over, will people consider my life to have been successful? Will God?

Back when I was 23, and had just become a true Christ-follower, I read a book called "Man In The Mirror". The author talked about success, as defined by the world versus as defined by Christ. I decided then and there that I would not get caught up in the rat race, trying to be successful by the world's standards: money, fame, power, position, material possessions. Instead, I would define success in my life as God defines it: putting Christ first, treating others well, giving, serving, loving, bearing fruit for His kingdom.

Since then, 17 years have passed, and it occurred to me today that in many ways my life so far has been a success, according my own definition. Though far from perfect (ask Cathy), I have been a faithful husband t0 my wife. We raised our two sons in a Christian household, and they have grown up to be fine young men who are following Christ and actively serving Him. Of course, we must give Jesus full credit for these successes, for it was His strengths in us (not our weaknesses) that produced these good things.

In some other ways, I feel I really have not hit the mark: putting Christ first, growing in my relationship with Him, learning the Word, prayer. And I realize that these are some of the most important things Christ wants me to be successful in.

So driving home today, looking at the beautiful fall colors, it hit me that as a 40-year old empty nester, I really need to evaluate how I will use the years I have left. As the old question goes, if I found out I had incurable cancer and had six months to live, what would I do differently today? This week? By the end of the month?

Then why not do these things now???

I'm beginning to give some thought, in the back of my mind, to what God wants me to do in the next five or ten years. A couple things have bubbled to the surface, and I am praying about them.

Stay tuned -- when the Holy Spirit is done revealing them, I'll let you in on it.

God is good.

Lint

Ahh, the joys of old-house ownership! The latest recently-discovered problem with our old house?

Lint.

It seems that the folks who started restoring our 1911 house neglected to run the dryer vent to the outside of the house. Instead, I found a length of flexible tubing hanging in the crawlspace, with a big pile of dryer lint under it!

This would not be a big issue, except for the fact that dryer lint is quite flammable. In fact, when my boys were in Cub Scouts, our den leader had the boys bring Ziploc bags of dryer lint to the Webelos Wild campout, because it makes such good tinder for starting fires!

So, tonight, I crawled around the crawlspace (thus the name?) and collected big wads of dryer lint. Fairly soon, I'll need to install some vent piping to the outside of the house.

You know, like normal houses have. :)

Classic

I've had my 40GB third-generation iPod for about three years now, and it has seen some serious use. I'm talking, many hours a day, many days per year use. So lately, the battery has been wearing down, to the point where I only get about 45 minutes or an hour of play before the thing goes dead.

So, I says to myself, it's time for a new iPod!

After all, it has been a few years, and much has changed in the iPod world since then. There's the new iPod Touch, which is basically a iPhone with no phone capability (!?!). But alas, it only holds 16GB max, and I have about 25 GB of music. The iPod Nanos are also flash-memory based and only go up to 8 or 16 GB.

But, there is a new hard-drive iPod in town, the new iPod Classic. The classic comes in 80 GB and 160 GB models (!!!). I don't need that much room, but I need more than 16 GB, so the Classic was my only option. The Classic is basically the same as the iPod Video (5th generation), but has an slimmer all-aluminum case. Also, the software has the flashy (but not super useful) "Cover Flow" mode, where you can scroll through all your album covers.

Anyhow, I broke down and bought a silver 80GB iPod classic, and I'm loving it. In fact, I'm blasting some tunes on it as I write this! The battery life is rated at 30 hours, but if I get a consistent 10+ for a couple years, I'll be delighted.

Who would have thought that I could take my entire (huge) CD collection with me wherever I go, and it would fit in my shirt pocket? Ain't technology great? God is good.

Discipline

One of the things I need work on in my life is discipline.

A good example of this is my diet. For a while, a few years back, I was doing a very good job of watching what I ate. Instead of soft drinks, I would just drink water. Instead of potato chips, I would eat pretzels (is this better?). Instead of fried foods, I tried to eat grilled or baked foods. I cut out candy almost completely. Instead of eating seconds, I just had one serving.

You know the drill. It was a disciplined diet, versus an undisciplined diet. Easy to talk about, tough to actually stick with.

Well, lately I find that my discipline in this area has eroded. And if I'm perfectly honest, I'd have to say that my self-discipline in the area of spiritual things has slipped a bit as well. In the spiritual area, I'm talking about things such as daily quiet times, time in prayer, time studying the Word, reading Christian books, etc.
And in the same way that my bad eating habits has resulted in gaining a few pounds, my spiritual lack of discipline has resulted in some significant "loss of muscle tone" in my walk with Christ.

I do realize that it is a long series of small, poor choices that adds up to us finding ourselves where we don't want to be, and didn't think we'd ever end up. So, I have resolved to try and start making wiser choices, both in the area of my eating and in the area of my spiritual life. Apples instead of Pop-tarts, water instead of Coke, Bible reading instead of web surfing, prayer instead of talk radio.

Hopefully, a month from now, I'll be able to report back that I am more fit and trim, both physically and spiritually... Oh well, I'm off to eat an apple!

President

Today was bizarre.

Today I stood fifty feet from President Bush, and today I met the "Nature Boy" Ric Flair.

I guess I'd better explain this one...

My bluegrass band, Last Road, was invited to play a barbecue lunch fundraiser for Lindsey Graham in Columbia, where President Bush was in attendance. The event was held at the Millwood Plantation, the site of Civil War General Wade Hampton's home, which was burned by Sherman. There were probably a few hundred in attendance, including all the movers and shakers in the South Carolina Republican party. Among those I recognized from SC state offices were Governor Mark Sanford, Senators Lindsey Graham (of course!) and Jim DeMint, and Congressmen Bob Inglis and Gresham Barrett.

Our band played from maybe 9:30 until a little before 11:00, followed by our guitar player Benji Merritt singing the national anthem. A few more announcements were made, then Lindsey Graham said a few words, and then we played a bit more. At one point we heard helicopters, and someone said that was the President landing on the grounds. A few minutes later, President Bush was introduced and greeted the crowd. I was probably not 50 or 60 feet away while he spoke for 20 or 30 minutes. It was probably the only time in my life when I'll be in the same room with the President of the United States!

Interestingly, ex-pro wrestler Ric Flair is apparently a big contributor to the Graham campaign, and he was there with his wife. My boys grew up watching wrestling on TV, so I was somewhat familiar with "the Nature Boy". We walked over to his table and briefly said hello. It was funny because you could see all the young guys in attendance pointing to Ric Flair and going "whoooooo!". You wrestling types will know what I'm referring to!

Anyhow, it was a great event, a great opportunity for our band to play for an appreciative audience, and a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear the President speak live and in person. Sometime this weekend, I'll tell a little bit about what George W had to say in his speech...it was very interesting.

Certainly a day I won't soon forget!