The Inciting Incident

A general rule in creating stories is that characters don't want to change.  They must be forced to change.  Nobody wakes up and starts chasing a bad guy or dismantling a bomb unless someone forces them to do so.  The bad guys just robbed your house and are running off with your last roll of toilet paper, or the bomb is strapped to your favorite cat. It's that sort of thing that gets a character moving.

                      -Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years


I got Donald Miller's new book for Christmas and, since it's been unusually cold for Texas, I've been indoors more with time to read. In A Million Miles, Miller looks at his life as a story and asks a poignant question: would anyone be interested in reading it, or watching it on a screen?  For him, the answer was "no," so he set out to live a more interesting story.  Almost immediately he discovered that a better story required effort he was unwilling to render.  He needed an "inciting incident," one of those events in all the great stories that forces the protagonist into action.  As it turns out, our heroes don't necessarily have greater willpower than we do; their stories lead them into circumstances that force them out of the comfort and security we usually crave.

Last Sunday was January 3.  Having just returned from the food orgy we call the holidays, I walked into the men's locker room at the Y (no, I wasn't there to exercise--our church meets at the local YMCA) and, in a moment of pure insanity, stepped on the scales.  210.  The most I've ever weighed in my life.  25 lbs. heavier than I was in my 20s and most of my 30s.  I have a gut.  My waist has expanded a couple of inches.  I used to revel in the fact that I could eat as I pleased and not gain weight.  I used to be able to flip a quarter over with my stomach muscles.  Now I could probably lose a quarter on my stomach.  I outlasted many of my peers, but my metabolism has finally caught up with me.

Not having had to worry about such things earlier in my life, I find the idea of dieting and exercise to lose weight repulsive.  I love physical activity for fun and experience, but not weight loss.  And I have a multi-year habit of drinking gallons of Dr. Pepper and eating whatever strikes my fancy.  I walked into the Y last Sunday with no intention of going on a diet.  I even had a conversation with my wife on Saturday about how cliche it was to go on a diet in January.

Enter the Inciting Incident.

Not ten minutes had passed since my episode on the scales, when I overheard one of the guys at church say something about a triathlon.  Then another guy, and another guy.  Before long, I discovered the source: my friends and neighbors, Stan and Scott, had concocted a scheme to recruit all of us men to register for a mini-triathlon in April and train together between now and then.  They used all the right buzzwords about building community and getting sponsors who would donate to charity if we completed the race; and they promised it would be a "no man left behind" event, where we would all stay together and encourage each other to finish. They even played the "we need to be an example to our kids" card.  Stan's whole face lit up when he talked about it.  Apparently people actually look forward to this kind of torture.

Only minutes earlier, participating in a triathlon ranked in my mind somewhere below a colonoscopy, getting shot and lunch at a tea room followed by purse shopping.  Now I couldn't say no.  I would be a wuss and a bad leader.  I wouldn't be championing the values of community I talk about so often.  And it was for charity.  !%&*#@!!.  Of all the gin joints in all the world, Stan had to walk into mine.  I hate inciting incidents.

I started this week with changes in diet only.  Monday I bought a case of waters, a case of Gatorade G2s and a crate of sugar-free gum.  I am now 6 days without Dr. Pepper or fast food.  Next week: exercise.  Stay tuned for the progress report.

Gateway To the Bay sprint triathlon, Saturday, April 10, 2010.  500-meter swim in the bay, 14-mile bike ride and 3.1 mile run. All encouragement is welcome, and I will post info soon on donating to our charitable cause.

God of Second Chances

Sometimes things just work out.  Most of the time they don't "just work out," so you really take notice when they do.  You notice God is up to something.  This is one of those times.

Our community pastor, Brad, is teaching Sunday on the topic of "the power of a second chance."  In his preparation he came across a guy named Carlos Whittaker, who happens to have recently written a song called "God of Second Chances."  The song isn't even out yet.  We only knew it existed because Carlos sang part of the song on this amazing YouTube video.  He was shooting video in a park in Atlanta for his upcoming CD release, and a homeless guy named Danny showed up and started singing with him.  Worshiping with him.  I don't guess angels generally look like homeless Rastafarians, but you be the judge.



You can read Carlos' take on the whole episode here.

As it turns out, Carlos is preparing to move to Chicago to plant a church with a guy Brad and I both know (not personally, but are aware of and have met) named Jarrett Stevens.  The church is called Soul City Church, it looks like an awesome God thing, and at this point I'm starting to feel a bond with this guy I've never met named Carlos.  And I like his song, and Brad and I really want to sing it with the Springs on Sunday.  So I take a shot.  I email Carlos and say, "we would really like to sing your song at our church on Sunday, but your CD isn't out yet, and you only sing part of it on the video.  Any chance you could send me the whole song so we could worship with it on Sunday?"  By the next morning I have it in my inbox.  I love this guy.

I think this is how people act when they understand grace.  People of the Second Chance.  Springs, when we sing it on Sunday, I hope we give it a little extra.  The song speaks for itself, but there's something behind the song that gives it even more meaning.

Oh, BTW I promised Carlos that we would all buy his CD when it comes out.

Charlie Brown Christmas in the Bathroom

A few years ago I was working on music for a Christmas Eve service, and I chose a personal favorite for a kids' group to sing: "Christmas Time Is Here," from the soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas."  Instead of openly objecting to the song (which I now know everyone hated except me), my colleagues allowed it, then made fun of it (and me) throughout the holidays.  The kidding culminated in a gift I have cherished ever since: a plastic display of all the Peanuts characters from the Christmas special.  Since it doesn't meet my wife's standards of impeccable taste in Christmas decorating, it is relegated to the upstairs bathroom this year, next to my home office.  The bathroom is now my favorite room of the house this Christmas (notwithstanding the gingerbread man soap dispenser who crashed the party).

Forty-four years after its TV debut, I still think Charlie Brown and his gang effectively remind us of the best reason to celebrate at Christmas, and expose our worst efforts to ruin it.  I love to laugh at Lucy as she complains that what she really wants for Christmas is not toys, but real estate; or Snoopy, obsessed with winning the local Christmas lighting contest with his doghouse.  And I relate personally to Charlie, striving to find some significance in what has become not just a commercial event, but an economic necessity for the American retail industry.

But there is more than meets the eye in this little cartoon.  The scrawny tree that becomes the object of Charlie's affection happens to be the only living tree on the lot--a far cry from the pink aluminum tree Lucy was hoping for.  It's special to Charlie, but he doesn't know why until Linus makes his famous speech.

Luke 2:8-14, King James version.  Underneath all the mountains of wrapping paper, lights, musical extravaganzas, cookies, parties, and shopping malls, there is still only one place in Christmas where there is life.  And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.  I hope you find Jesus, humble and unassuming and unadorned, God and Savior and Prince of Peace, this and every Christmas, and every day of the year.

All That I Want for Christmas

My first recording on the iPhone / FourTrack app

All_That_I_Want_for_Christmas.mp3

My First iPhone Recording

I remember when I didn't have an iPhone, and I would watch those "there's an app for that" commercials with relative disinterest.  It's a phone, after all.  A phone's a phone.  You make calls, you text, maybe you surf the internet.  Like most people who don't have iPhones, I didn't have a clue.

I don't even consider my iPhone a phone.  Making calls might be the least important of its amazing abilities.  It helps me through Houston traffic.  It tells me the weather.  I read books on it with the Amazon Kindle app, and carry the Bible in my pocket in my favorite translation.  I actually read Psalm 136 from my iPhone at my family's Thanksgiving gathering, which I'm pretty sure freaked my dad out.  I buy stuff on ebay with it.  I plan church services on it that are uploaded to the internet and keep all our volunteers informed.  The list goes on an on: games, YouTube, songs, camera, etc.  I even find myself using it as a flashlight to find my way to bed at night.  But without a doubt, my favorite apps are the music apps.  My iPhone is a guitar tuner, a metronome, a chord finder, a drum machine, and even a pretty decent 4-track recorder.  I have more technology in my pocket to record music than the Beatles used to record the White album.  On one hand that's incredibly cool; on the other, I feel very exposed and without any excuses as to why I haven't recorded more and better music.  But you have to start somewhere, and I recently recorded my first song on the iPhone: take a listen to my version of a little Christmas song I came across recently.

Like most categories of apps, there is now a large list of available apps to record music, and you have to figure out which ones are the best.  In the recording category, FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works is my hands-down favorite, and the one I used to record "All That I Want."  It's straightforward and easy to use, but still has all the most important features of a multitrack recorder: volume and pan on each track; listening to recorded tracks with earphones while recording a new track with the iPhone's mic.  You can even combine recorded tracks together, freeing up available space to record additional tracks if 4 isn't enough.

My recording is completely raw -- I just recorded the tracks and saved the resulting song as a .wav file.  But you can save tracks individually, transfer them to more sophisticated software on your computer, and produce something more professional.  A band called The 88 went all the way with this and produced a commercially-viable song recorded completely on an iPhone.  Check out this amazing video where they show how they did it!