Say Yes

Say YES. It gets you unstuck. It opens the door to experiences you would not have had. It makes life interesting. Sometimes the best stuff to say yes to is the most random. I once asked my friend Justice to go with me to sing happy birthday to a friend of ours at 6am . We sprayed silly string all over him when he staggered to the door. Justice said yes. My son asked me to play playdough this morning. I said yes. We developed a story about bears that became strange and crazy by the end. Ask people to say yes. Say yes.

(I realize there is a new movie with Jim Carey, The Yes Man. A reference to it would feel corny. Woops, I just referenced it.)

TED

I've been hooked on this website for a few weeks now. TED is an invitation only conference for only the smartest people in the world. My joke: "I'm the keynote speaker this year." Insert yours here...It's inspiring, thought-provoking, and just downright entertaining.

Here are my six favorites so far:

1. School Kills Creativity
2. The Best Stats You've Ever Seen
3. The Mystery Box
4. Once Upon a School (very inspiring!)
5. The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives
6. Tidying up Art

Let me know what you think.

Sufjan Stevens, Anne Rice, Christopher Moore, Etsy, and Foster Care

I submit the following for your Christmas (if that's your holiday...this holiday season) enjoyment/consumption:
1. Sufjan Stevens, Songs for Christmas. This box set of random Christmas stuff will change your opinion of Christmas tunes. If you just want to buy a few songs from itunes. Buy these: The Friendly Beasts; Holy, Holy, Holy; Put the Lights on the Tree (or watch the video below); We're Going to the Country.
2. Read Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, by Anne Rice. A story about Jesus (age 8) coming to terms with who he was and the power that was within him.
3. Read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus' Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. If you're offended by this book, then I agree, it's horrible. If you laugh and then think, call me and we can talk about it.
4. Buy handmade stuff from this website. I've just started doing my shopping in this way. People like it (if they're a little weird).
5. Consider something like this. My kids are young, but they just packed up a bunch of toys they didn't use/like anymore and we took them here.

Any other recommendations? (Please don't say Jingle Cats)

Hypothesizin': Blockbuster?

I went to Blockbuster for the first time in two years. Having little kids makes the convenience Netflix very appealing. But I had to get a movie for my job and so I stopped on my way to work. I found the movie I was after. When I went to check out, I told the cashier (a smart, young girl) that I didn't have my card anymore. She went to pull my account info up, but alas, I had never been to that store. "Aren't all the stores linked together?" I asked with a hint of technical flabergastedness. "Well, some are and some aren't." I followed up, "Are the stores franchises or are they corporate owned?" "We've got both," she said. She did some confusing stuff on her computer, wrote a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper, and a few minutes later I was checked out. I walked out scratching my head. A few observations:

1. Blockbuster is sad. They bet the farm on bricks and mortar. They were king, but they're not anymore...and it's just going to get worse. It's a doomed business.
2. Who's working at Blockbuster?
3. How could their story have been different? They jumped into the "by mail" game too late. Plus, their mailing option membership was too confusing (I actually tried it for a month or two and it hurt my head).
4. What will we do with all these empty Blockbuster locations in 3 years?
5. What businesses/religious institutions/empires feel like Blockbuster circa 1997? How long before they arrive at their proverbial 2008?

Hypothesizin': Political Discussionz

I'm full of questions, so I'm starting a series of posts with the hip title Hypothesizin' (g's are for the tragically unhip).

The Question: Why is it nearly impossible to have a political discussion with someone you disagree with?

Answers?
1. Most people lack an identity deeper than their political identity/ideology.
2. People are scared that other people will find out that they don't know anything about politics.
3. Yelling is easy. Talking is hard.
4. All of our "pop-political voices" do nothing but yell (Hannity, Mahar, etc.) so we think that's what we're supposed to do.

My friend Charles was the inspiration for post. He's like the wind beneath my wings.

a miracle on ice, the creme de la creme, magical

Real conversation from the voting line:

Oldish Guy: So, what do you do for a living?
Young, Slick Guy: Funny you should ask...I buy life insurance policies from people at the end of their lives. I purchase enough of them, like 100, and then sell them to a hedge fund. We call them "lots of lives" in the biz.
OG: Uh....
YSG: The price we pay people for their policies is dependent on their current health and/or their prospective health.
OG: Uh....
YSG: You know, so if someone's really close to dying, they may be able to get more money than if they think they're gonna live longer.
OG: Uh....
YSG: [pause, pause...wait for it] So how's your health?

It was at this point that I tuned out and began thinking. This guy is my hero. Anyone who can be that out of touch with the human condition is a miracle on ice, the creme de la creme, magical. The only thing I made up was "in the biz." I just think that's a funny thing to say.

If Everything is a Crisis, Nothing is a Crisis

In Atlanta, we've just come out of our GAS CRISIS! Thousands are dead. Lives will never be the same. What we have just experienced will never be forgotten. Movies will be made about it. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet will likely star. We have all been traumatized. That's right, our coping resources were no match for running out of gas or having to wait in line for 35 minutes. Please pray for our recovery from this crisis as it will likely be decades before we come to terms with what has happened.

An Internet Miracle

I'm three months into a pretty wild job and I'm struggling a lot with stress. You know, awake at 4am, not going back to sleep, regular migraines, etc. Music is one of the things that centers me, but I don't have any cash for new music right now and I'm too legalistic and paranoid to download illegally. Luckily, an internet miracle has happened. Pandora Radio is a free service that is pulling me out of my crazy stress. Basically you pick an artist you like and they craft an entire radio station around that sound and style. I've been listening to my Beck station for a couple days...it's awesome. Thanks internet.

Silence

I suppose I should simply cast from my mind these meaningless words of the coward; yet why does his plaintive voice pierce my breast with all the pain of a needle? Why has Our Lord imposed this torture and this persecution on poor Japanese peasants? No, Kichijiro was trying to express something different, something even more sickening. The silence of God.

Silence is a novel that does something that most contemporary "Christian" books do not. It describes faith the way it really seems to be: beautiful, hard, complex, and void of formulas. Living in the affluent suburbs of Atlanta where the church scene is dominated by market driven, numbers oriented philosophies, a book like Silence cleansed my palette to put it mildly. I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about the book, but the one, lasting bit from the book is this: There was/is only one Christ. I've known Christians who have spent a lot of time and energy trying to be something (or someone) that they could never be. It's a book that speaks to Job's pain. It's a book that speaks to the pain of feeling the silence of God in times that we feel we need to hear something, anything. It does not wrap up nicely in the end...kind of like life.

Wyatt

Hey Everyone,
I'm writing to announce the birth of Wyatt Laurence Luce. He was born
Saturday, June 21, at 9:17am after a quick (and intense) 6-hour labor.
He weighed in at 7lb9oz. We're all quite taken by the little fellow.
Levi and Avery were in love at first sight. Levi said, "I love
Wyatt!...Hug Wyatt?...Hit Wyatt?" Just like that, in that order. We're
working on boundaries with big bro. Both Levi and Avery are really
sweet and gentle with him and want to be around him all the time.
We've caught the two of them reading books to him through the crib
while he's sleeping. This is our third time going through this, but
it's new every time. We're loving the whole experience and we're
trying to sleep when we can. Thanks for all your support.
Love,
Jeff, Denise, Levi, Avery, & Wyatt

Does Anyone Else Think It's Awesome...

...that Mercedes has broken into the hearse market?

What's in a Name?

Our third child will be arriving sometime in late June and we have stalled out on naming the new little one. We do know it's a boy. I've got some ideas, so does Denise...but we haven't come together on it yet. So last week I consulted an expert on living, a life-coach if you will: my (almost) three-year-old son Levi. I asked him what we should name the our baby boy. He looked at me, dead-serious, and said "Waffle." At first I thought that I misheard him, so I asked him again. He looked at me with a bit of an annoyed look and said, "Yeah Dad, Waffle."

So that's that.