Junk Drawer Spirtuality

What Up With That?

I don't exactly know why I think this Saturday Night Live sketch from last Saturday is so dang funny, but I've watched it about 7 times now and I've cracked up every time.  SNL needs to let Jason Sudeikis (the guy in the red jumpsuit) dance in the background of every sketch from now on. . . hilarious!

Liu Bolin, The Invisible Man

Check this guy out.  He's a Chinese artist who paints himself so that he blends in with his surroundings.  People call him "The Modern Invisible Man."  There's no "photoshop" or trick photography being used here.  This is all done by painting his own body.  Check out some of his work-- the final two pictures are amazing!

OUCH!

Cubs fans remain the butt of the joke, even after a failed olympic bid . . .

How BIG Is Your World?

I had a 1 1/2 hour conversation with my neighbor this evening.  I've only lived in the neighborhood 3 months (a townhome community), and I've been wanting to know my neighbors better. But it's been difficult. My neighbor who shares a building with me has this little yippie dog that weighs about 10 pounds (looks similar to the dog in the picture), but it constantly barks it's little yippie head off and lunges at me like he's possessed by beezelbub. And since I almost never encounter my neighbor unless he's out walking this little hell-minion (named Sugar), he has successfully thwarted nearly every attempted conversation. . . until today.

I decided to play "barking chicken" with him.  The object of "barking chicken" is to begin talking to my neighbor, pretend I don't notice the exceedingly annoying Sugar and his high pitched, ear-piercing bark, and force my neighbor to be the first one to do something to end the the barking before I do.  Of course the way I usually end the barking is by walking away (although there are plenty of other ways I fantasized about ending his barking involving a trip to some back-alley Vietnamese restaurants and a rotisserie oven).  Thankfully my neighbor lost "barking chicken" today by taking Sugar inside the house and coming back outside to finish our conversation.

Alot of good stuff came out of our conversation today.  We talked about some spiritual stuff, about God, why he doesn't like going to church . . . I think we laid a great foundation for future conversations on spiritual things.  I also spent a good part of an hour and a half listening to him rant and rave about our home owners association.  This particular neighbor is retired (about 70 years old, I suspect) and has lived in his home since the neighborhood was built 10 years ago, and during that time, he has served on the home owner's association board and seen MANY new board members and HOA presidents come and go.  And oh . . . the DRAMA!  He told me about the time he suspected the board president was not managing the HOA properly and how he staged a coup to have the board president "impeached" (I'm not kidding).  He had all kinds of things to say about how he thought they SHOULD be managing things, what they SHOULD be fixing, which neighbors were taking care of their property, which were not.  He made it clear that he felt it was his duty and responsibility to keep our neighborhood board's "feet to the fire!"  It reminded me of some of those old Seinfeld episodes involving Jerry's parents in their Florida retirement community.

I was so happy the conversation happened, but it also made me kinda sad.  At the risk of sounding judgmental I think it's really sad when I see someone living in a very, very, small world.  I feel so blessed to constantly be surrounded by people whose greatest intentions, thoughts, and emotional energy is occupied by God, their families, and bringing love, justice, and Jesus to the world . . . things that at the end of the day, really count.  It's hard for me to imagine that for some people, what most dominates their hearts are things as menial as the value of their home and whether or not the crack on the street in front of their house is getting fixed.

It's a reminder for me that when I help introduce people to Jesus, I'm not only helping a person discover eternal salvation but a better view of a much BIGGER and more BEAUTIFUL world.

Mexico Mission Trip Recap at Waterfront

We showed this video at Waterfront a few weeks ago.  This will give you a small taste of our mission trip to Mexico from last month.

New Waterfront Series, "FAQ: Frequently Avoided Questions"

I'm really excited about our message series coming up at Waterfront this month (I don't usually use this blog for Waterfront propaganda purposes, but in this case I'll make an exception because I DO think it's really cool).  We're doing a series starting September 13th called "FAQ: Frequently Avoided Questions."  Here's what it's about: We think every single person has a question deep down inside themselves which, if they could, they would want to ask God.  "What's my purpose," "Why did this happen to me?" "Why didn't this happen?" "Am I going to Heaven?" "Is my husband going to heaven?", etc., etc., etc.

So we wanted to design a message series that looked specifically at the questions people are asking. A little over a month ago, we started handing cards to people at Waterfront that inquired, "If you could ask God anything, what would you ask?"  We got a HUGE response from people asking all kinds of good questions.  So we began choosing topics that we would talk about for our series based on the questions people were asking.

And so this week, we're launching that same question to the community at large . . . "If you could ask God anything, what would you ask him?"  We put up a huge billboard along I-90 asking that question, we're passing out business cards to friends and relatives, we're sending out postcards to the community, and we're directing everyone to a blog site where people can interact with us and ask their own questions . . .

The blogsite is www.askgodblog.com

Help us out. . .  Get the word out.  We want lots of interaction and lots of questions from people even if you live outside the chicagoland area.  So share this blogsite with friends or anyone you think would love to ask God a question if they could.

The 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers

I just read this article on CNN.com.  Thought it was pretty clever.  And I'm pretty sure I've violated almost every single one of this guy's facebooking pet-peaves at one time or another, so that makes it even more entertaining for me (except for the one on on being a "chronic inviter"  I NEVER do mass invites, nor do I respond to them).

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html?iref=mpstoryview