A little bit of whatever's going on in my head today.
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Our "preview audience" for Riddle of the Rainbow was today. We had around thirty people, around half of them kids, most of the kids younger, which is DEFINITELY a good thing with this show. Judging from their responses, the audience was, for the most part, deceased, but the show went well.
I was really looking forward to leading discussion afterward. We always have Q & A time after our children's shows, and this is a show that has got the gospel and salvation message in it, though it's extremely well-hidden in many zany diversions from the story. Also, apparently you have to watch this show several times to get a clear picture of what exactly the story is. So, the whole thing is terribly confusing, and the abstract spiritual parallel is most likely lost on its target audience. However, one hopes that in the discussion, some child will ask what the point of the whole thing was, and then you've got a wide-open door to share the gospel with them!
So, I was primed and ready to go for the discussion on the off-chance that rare opportunity to bluntly share God's salvation plan might present itself.
As it turned out, there was only one question from the small audience. A young boy wanted to know how glow-tape works.
Awesome.
Riddle of the Rainbow: asking the deep, theological questions, such as "How does that stuff stay glowey?"
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When I was in high school, I was mortally opposed to Diet Mountain Dew. Last summer, I took a month or two on a low-carb diet, and suddenly Diet Mountain Dew was better than no Mountain Dew.
Now I am twenty-seven, and suddenly Diet Mountain Dew doesn't seem all that bad after all.
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JOE SACCO????? With all the qualified candidates that are out there looking for a job, the Avs go with JOE SACCO? The guy who's coached their farm team (one of the WORST teams in the AHL) for the past two years?
This is seriously better than just keeping Tony Granato?
It's going to be a long, long climb back to the top for the Avs at the rate they've gone these past two off-seasons...
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While we're on the topic of the NHL, I've got a bit of a bad feeling going into tonight's game four. No specific reason, but my hunches have been pretty good this playoffs. That said, this has been the hardest series for me to get a read on in, like, forever. So it may be that my hunches aren't as trustworthy as they have been up to this point.
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For some reason, this bit of "Invictus" by Brave Saint Saturn seems to be speaking very loudly today: "Take this broken heart if it brings You praise. Take this beaten soul, shivering hands I will raise, Hope unstoppable. Sing, the morning sun: "Wake up, o sleeper, the Daylight has come. You are, You are invincible. You are, You are unbreakable."
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Kim and I are starting to read through the (Biblical) book of Jeremiah today. Jeremiah's probably my favorite of the major prophets. (What? You don't have a favorite major prophet?) I used to think it would be awesome to write a stage musical called Mourning Prophet based on Jeremiah's story. That was during my major Les Mis kick, when I thought all the best musicals had to be uber-sad.
Not to say, that is, that Les Mis depresses me. Far, far from it. Beautiful story and show. But dang, can it get ya to cry.
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Actually, let's stay with Les Mis for a moment: I saw the tour in Tulsa back in my college days with some friends my sister and, I believe, my mom. My sister prided herself on not crying once through the entire show, though she admitted it was a struggle. Later, she told me that it had been a mistake, because repressed Les Mis tears were finding their way into her everyday life. Anything remotely sad or patriotic or touching, whether it be on TV, in a movie, at school, or in a book, would cause her to start choking up. This continued roughly until she saw the show again a couple of weeks later at Kansas City, when she was on some sort of cold or flu medication and kind of loopy anyway. She said she bawled the whole show. And then she was better.
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Yesterday, I was sitting on the floor at my computer when Robbie climbed on the couch and threw himself on my back. "Hi Daddy," he said. "Hi, Robbie," I chuckled. "How are you?" he asked. "I'm doing pretty good," I said, then there was a pause. "How are YOU doing?" I asked him. "I'm fiiiiine," he said as he swung back and forth on my neck a bit from behind.
It was a reminder of how much he's already grown, and the realization again hit me that it won't be long before he and I can carry out lengthy conversations on just about any topic. Crazy.
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Speaking of Robbie, I have to say that the kid is probably the youngest hard-core Skillet fan I've ever met. For those who are not familiar with Skillet, they're a fairly hard Christian rock band. Their last two studio albums, Collide and Comatose, are choice. (Their next album is called Awake. Makes sense. If you collide with something too hard, you become comatose, but then you eventually awake. Awaken. They should have called the next album Awaken. Oh well.) Now, Robbie is a child who loves music--I have to hurry with him from the nursery after church so he can get to the sanctuary before the praise band is finished playing and dance/clap along--but he absolutely LOVES Comatose. As we've been having trouble putting the poor sick kid (he's had a fever the last couple of days...please pray!) to sleep the last few days, that Skillet CD is the only sure-fire way to get him to calm down, no matter how loudly he's screaming, now matter how exhausted and tantrummy he is. You start playing the first track, and his head instantly goes against your shoulder. By the end of the first song, he's done screaming.
We really need to write Skillet a thank-you note.
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This has become longer than I expected. Should have gone ahead and wrote that last Lest I Forget. Ah well. Hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes even better.
