Ugh! Just saw my workout for later today...

At first glance it seems easy... but the more I thought about it, it's 420 reps...yikes!


"Blackjack" (Courtesy of CrossFit One World)
Complete the following for time:
20 push-ups/1 sit-up
19 push-ups/2 sit-ups
18 push-ups/3 sit-ups
17 push-ups/4 sit-ups
16 push-ups/5 sit-ups
15 push-ups/6 sit-ups
14 push-ups/7 sit-ups
13 push-ups/8 sit-ups
12 push-ups/9 sit-ups
11 push-ups/10 sit-ups
10 push-ups/11 sit-ups
9 push-ups/12 sit-ups
8 push-ups/13 sit-ups
7 push-ups/14 sit-ups
6 push-ups/15 sit-ups
5 push-ups/16 sit-ups
4 push-ups/17 sit-ups
3 push-ups/18 sit-ups
2 push-ups/19 sit-ups
1 push-up/20 sit-ups

Clever Men's retreat ad

Church Basement Roadshow: Tulsa

July 15, Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village; Doug Pagitt, Lead Pastor of Solomon's Porch; and Mark Scandrette, Poet and co founder of ReImagine in San Fran will be coming town.

I will be there and I'd encourage you to bring your friends as well.

It's a book tour of sorts, but with the guys dressed up as 1908 revivalist preacher. Evidently they stay in character the whole time.

I'm looking forward to it.

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Jon Stewart weighs in on Obama /Dobson

Dobson and Obama

You knew this was coming right? Dobson blasting Obama. The problem for Dobson is that America has changed and he hasn't. I'll go further. The church has changed and he hasn't. Before Dubbya's 8 years in office, Dobson, Falwell and Pat Robertson all decided they would speak for everyone in America who follows Jesus. It worked. Just ask John McCain. It was his justified words against these guys that cost him the bid that election year. (Dobson has said he won't vote for McCain either... even thought the straight talk express snuggled up to Falwell 8-10 months ago for this new election.)

Dobson and the like, have lost their grip on the power they once held. I think this is a good thing. Dobson doesn't speak for me. I don't know what Obama said, or the context of what he said, and chances are I won't fully agree with him, but I do know that I don't agree with Dobson and his blast against Obama is nothing more than fear mongering, something most of my friends are ready to leave behind. This is the same kind of rhetoric that talks about Obama being a closet muslim and such. It's actually hate, smearing and ugliness. But this is par for many of Dobson's ilk isn't it. Fear mongering, slandering others, saying they don't believe the bible, calling them liberal, saying that they are relativist or pluralist or some other thing. Again, I don't know what Obama believes about anything, but I know smoke when i see it blowing.

So while we knew it was coming, and has now come, it's still not much fun. Watch over the next few days and see what happens.

Update: McKnight says it better than I do.

Trying to find rhythm again

I let Pam sleep in this morning as we recover from our vacation.
It was a great trip.
1 day travel to cali
1 day Sea World (10am - 10pm EST)
1 day at beach and out with friends
3 days at Disneyland and California Adventure
1 day at Legoland.
1 day travel to tulsa.
= a great time and tired feet.

Today I'm trying to find rhythm again. It will probably be a few days before I find it frankly. I was able to take a good solid vacation. I was more "off" than I thought I would be, which is good news. There was an emergency appendectomy within the Eikon community, but he's recovering very well, and the community seemed to take care of things well for the family. Also there I had a client with a need for advice on a bit of an emergency situation that had come to their attention. But this was solved in a phone call. So I really didn't work much while on the road.


I downloaded the new Alanis Morisette this week and am listening to it right now. I've loved Alanis' music for a long time. I'll let you know if I like it.

I'm sitting in Joe Mommas working. Free WiFi and good people around. (no pizza for me though, back on the diet i go.)

I've got a long list of things to do this week. Occassionally someone will ask me what it's like working for myself. They'll ask something like, how do you go to work, or get things done without deadlines from outside yourself, or sometimes they'll ask, "is there a temptation to be lazy and procrastinate?"

Of course the answer depends on the day. But today, there is a list of things that don't have to get done today, but actually do, if you know what I mean. Emails that need to be sent, that if I don't send them, few people will notice. Reading that needs to be done, that no one will notice if I do it or not.

This kind of thing isn't fun, or easy for me to do. I've got Eikon stuff, Riddle Group stuff, and a bit of "Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors" stuff to do in the next couple weeks.

so I'm off to see if I can find the beat....

4th Century Church

Scot McKnight has a very short post I found very interesting here.

Thing that stood out:

Two things struck me about this basilica:

First, that the name “basilica” is also the name the Romans used for their central legal building.

Second, that this Christian basilica was in the heart of the city of Ostia antica, surrounded by pagan shrines and homes and legal buildings.

A Great Reminder from Mike King

Mike is at Biblical Seminary outside Philly (the same Biblical I'll be teaching a 3 course youth ministry certificate starting this fall) and he's in a conversations with John Franke and Alan Roxburgh and they are talking about Missional Theology.

Money Quote:

The reality is that being Missional is first and foremost about God. This is not the Churches Mission, it is God's Mission missio dei. John Franke dealt with the most important question for those hoping to embrace a missional way of life, a missional church. The question is, "Who is God?" We focused on the Trinity and entered into a discussion on the Eastern view that God is social not solitary. God is love and God is radical sociality. The Trinity - God is one by virtue of their interdependent sociality. Alan states that it is essential to start with the "Who is God?" question instead of the common mistake of hyper-focusing first and almost exclusively on ecclesiology.

Link

Links to some Friends

Micheal asks an important sports question.

Jimmy answers Jake's (his 3 yr old) theological question.

Brant (who'd I've never met, but hope to one day) wonders what the election would look like after the rapture. That's funny.

My old friend Mark hangs with Desmond Tutu. Link

Vacation Day Four

Disney.
We drove into garden grove late wednesday night, stayed at the Marriott Suites.
It was a nice hotel with a nice room, and a free buffet (thanks again to all the churches who I've traveled to see this year for marriott points)

We packed up and changed hotels. We are now staying in the Disneyland hotel. (which is great.) with Pam's parents.

We did a lot today.
In fact I'd say we attacked the park.
Highlights for Zach, California Adventure's California Screamin' his first roller coaster with a loop. and Tower of Terror.

Jaden liked Splash Mountain.
Mikayla liked Buzz Lightyear.

So tired. need sleep.

I did discover that I have wireless internet in the new hotel about 11:30 PST. which is cool

Vacation Post Three

On Wednesday we slept in a bit (7:30am PST which rocks for Mikayla!)
Then we drove thru La Jolla where our hotel was (Marriott Reward points and travel away from families pays off!) then we drove over to Coronado island and at at Miguel's which is my favorite and only place I've ever eaten on Coronado. My buddy Dave lives there, but he was in michigan the day were there. Then we dropped $10 and rented a boogey board and hit the beach. And that my friends was fun. Zach and I wandered out to about my chest deep with big waves over our heads and had a ball. Jaden caught waves at about knee level and enjoyed those too, then Mikayla and Jaden buried Pam.

Zach asked, "Is this a sport?"
Me: "Yes, I suppose it is."
Zach: "Is it exercise?"
Me: "Yes, it is."
Zach "I think this is my sport"
Me: "Cool. But you realize that we live in oklahoma? Right?"
Zach: "Yeah"

10 worst products for men...

10 worst products for men ever created. Not for the faint of heart.

Link

Chris Folmsbee gets it

Chris has an amazing post about youth ministry and parenting.
absolutely brilliant. short and sweet.

If you know a teen, or work with teens are have a teen in the house. His very short post is worth the read.

The title of his post is "5 Dangerous Things" go now and read it.

Link

Quote

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
-H. L. Mencken

Vacation: Post two

Sea World was great. Shamu, Shamu Rocks, the Dolphin show, otters and Sea Lions, polar bears, penguins, elmo and sesame street have a pretty cool area there to and some great rides.

I now officially have video of Mikayla singing "Baby Baluga" to a few baluga whales swimming in a tank in front of her. very big on cute points.

Zach loved Ship Wrecked Rapids (water ride with round raft) and he loved Journey to Atlantis (part water ride, part roller coaster.

Jaden thought the otters were very cool.

We caught up with our Michigan friends, (now san diegians) at the park and they showed us around a bit too.

It was a good day.
Each of the kids got one stuffed animal. Mikayla got a commerson dolphin, Jaden got an otter and Zach got a bottle nose dolphin to remember our trip together.

We stayed until 10pm with the fireworks.

As we were leaving Zach said, "This was the greatest day of my life!"

All three kids fell asleep in the car on the way back to our hotel.

Jimmy Freaking Doyle blogs again

After a two year hiatus, Jimmy Doyle of Liquidthinking.org fame is blogging again at jkdoyle.com

Add him to your blog roll. You will learn something.

Vacation: Post one

Yesterday was a bit crazy.
American canceled our flight out of Dallas to LAX.
Which put us into San Deigo about 11pm.
That's a long day of travel for those counting.
We laughed a lot, but we had reached the end of our ropes at the end of the day.
Couple highlights.
Zach and Jaden think that flying in a plane is the greatest thing ever.
Mikayla sang the whole 3 hour flight.
The ride on the SKylink at DFW was a thrill ride for our boys. They kept cheering at every turn and every acceleration. They are going to love Disney in a few days.

Today is SeaWorld!

I laughed a lot on this site

brilliant!



so true.


I think Jeff Goldblum is a great actor... and this made me laugh.



we are sparta!



I married into a Texas family.. and this is true.

Here's the link for the site.

(thanks to Andrew)

Crisis and Innovation

Stephen J Dubnar writes about Crisis and innovation here.

Money Quote:

Hippen writes that in the earlier days of kidney transplantation, both the U.S. and Iranian governments “paid for dialysis while continuing to develop transplant options.” As more and more patients needed dialysis, the U.S. made it a fully funded Medicare benefit. But Iran didn’t feel it could do the same. Why not?

[T]he expense of dialysis, the economic collapse in Iran following the 1979 revolution, and the expense of the subsequent protracted conflict with Iraq encouraged the Iranian government to pay for transplantation as soon as immunosuppressant drugs made it a viable alternative to dialysis.

So that’s how, and why, Iran began down the road to allowing people to freely buy and sell organs on a regulated market. Without the financial crises, Iran probably wouldn’t have felt pressure to pursue a plan that turned out to be, on some significant dimensions at least, very successful. (Hippen argues that Iran is the one country in the world with no waiting list for kidney recipients.)

sorta gross, but interesting. worth the quick read.

Today: Read the blog of someone you disagree with

Surrounding yourself with only people who think like you is the road to arrogance. Having friends who think differently than you (and share their opinion) is a wonderful gift. Last year I sat down with a former TV evangelist and he talked about how there was a strong discouragement to read material that is different than their thinking was. Someone might bring up a book and say, "Have you heard anything about this?" and people would say, "You don't want to mess with that stuff." You might find this as a strange practice, or something unintelligent people do.. that is let people do your thinking for yourself.

I don't think its a good practice.

Amazingly normal and acceptable in most churches, yes. But not a good practice.
But don't take my word for it.

Here are some folks I read for a very different perspective on things: Some are way more helpful than others.
My friends Bobby and Craig
Dan
Team Pyro
The Parish
Kevin
Ed

The Atheist Nightmare??? um....

Saw this on Andrew Sullivan last week. I have words, but I'll refrain, and let you draw your own conclusions.



Andrew then has a reader post this.

Here's what a reader says

The banana in question is a Cavendish Banana, which actually are asexual offshoots of larger, bulkier banana plants. These supermarket mutants bear little resemblance to their progenitor, the wild banana, which is a green oval-shaped thing full of large seeds and liquid (see above). The domestication of the wild banana began between 5000 and 8000 years ago, and only after thousands of years of farming and breeding (one can call that evolution if one wishes) did they even begin to slightly resemble their celebrated yellow hue, curved shape and 'natural' wrapper.

Christian apologetics has certainly deteriorated over the centuries. From Saint Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes with their long treatises to washed up child stars with poorly constructed 'common sense' appeals in only 800 years. The fruit, I suppose, has fallen far from the tree.

(sigh)

Oklahoma and the price of oil

Oklahoma's not ready for the oil prices according to Money Magazine.

Not too important..

I think this speaks for itself.

JK Rowlings on Imagination and Failure

Link

Money quote (from the given text):

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

(Thanks to Rick)

3G iphone

Eugene got to handle the 3G iphone proto-type. He has pictures here.

Bill Mallonee in Tulsa

one of my favorite songwriters will be performing in tulsa on June 29th. Eikon meets this night. I don't know how this will work out.
I wonder what eikon folks would think of Bill....

Link

Ripped my hands... for the first time

evidently this is a common crossfit injury.
but while doing 100 pullups yesterday (with a rubberband)
I felt my skin move.
the calluses I've build up on my hands started to move and pinch up toward my fingers. Then the skin broke and left it raw. Lucky for me this happened around number 50.

I suppose it makes sense. Let a guy who's 50 lbs overweight flail around while hanging on a bar and the part of his body holding him up is going to get hurt after a while.

so here's a couple picks of my hand. Zach thinks it's gross. He didn't care for me using the scissors to remove the extra skin.

Turns out that Eric, gives owns a callus remover and a stick with some sort of sand paper on it. They are a lovely baby blue color.

Marketing Jesus

Australian marketers are invited to sell Jesus in an attempt to promote an event. Here's the link to what they came up with.

Today: Name one thing that is True about yourself

This is harder than it sounds.
There are things we hope are true about ourselves.
There are people we often hope to act like, or resemble, or be like.
There are faces and masks we put on depending on who's standing in front of us.
Knowing what is true about us is a difficult thing.
It's something we probably knew as a child, but forgot during adolescence, or another time when the pressure outside us to perform a certain way, or live up to someone elses expectations dominated how we lived and understood ourselves.

Today, most of us struggle to know something that we can say with certainty is true about us.
Today, most of us struggle thru life attempting to answer this question in a lot of troublesome ways.

Are we really what our parent's told us?
Are we really the sum of our report cards in school?
Are we really defined by our kids?
Is our identity wound up in our possessions?
Or our work ethic? or our current economic status?
Are we really the sum total of our relationships?
or the friends we keep?

Does it feel like it changes? What is true about you, has always been true about you. But maybe you've forgotten, or been confused along the way.

Think about this for a while. Let is saturate your thoughts. It may haunt you, but answering will free you in ways you've only dreamed.

Today, name one thing that is true about yourself.

Crossfit is spreading

Wade Hodges, Lead Minister of Garnett Church here in Tulsa is now doing it.
Maybe one day he'll blog about it.

Today for his first real workout he did 50 pullups (with rubber band), 50 pushups, 50 situps, and 50 squats. I think he did it under 18 minutes. pretty good...

anyone else want to join.

So New, There's No Title

This song was written by Julie Miller, her husband Buddy performs it.

This video of buddy singing, with those amazing lyrics made me want to post this video too.

Today: Make up a story

Make up a story. Maybe write it down. or just tell it to your kids, or a friends kid at bedtime.
A story answers the questions, who, what, when, where and how.

let the kiddo name the main character.
who: Eek Eek is the story my son Jaden loves me to tell stories about. TwoShoeKoo is who Zachery has loved to hear stories about for 8 years.

Sometimes TwoShoeKoo and Eek eek's paths cross.

There is often a battle after some wondering in the woods.
With Mikayla there is often a princess. (she doesn't have a regular character name yet.)

Eek Eek and TwoShoeKoo's adventures always start with wandering into the woods, down a path to a lake, where they fish. You never know what they'll pull from the lake, or what it will say.

Harry Potter, Star Wars, Larry Boy, cheeseburgers, papa fish, alligators with light saber tails, and other assundry creatures find their way into the story.

Occassionally, there are dance breaks, where I sing a song by one of the characters, and the kids dance. At especially Jaden.

There are no rules for telling stories. Your character can do anything it wants.
There doesn't have to be a moral to the story.
don't feel a pressure to make it similiar to a biblical story.
The best stories are moralized. They are simply told and in the act of telling them, you tranfer the very things you believe and hope for. It's best if you don't try to hard.

Make up a character. start them on a plane, a boat, a beach, a bed, a star, a space ship and then make it up as you go.

I'll bet it will be a great story.

Today: Tell a story about yourself

Tell someone a story. You may be out of practice. Some people can tell stories better than others. Often after seeing someone who is gifted tell a story, we try and it we screw it up. Great story telling is an art form.

But it's no excuse for you and I to stop telling stories. We are a part of the grand story of God. We each fit into it differently. Sharing a story about yourself is part of how God transforms others. You never know how meaningful the ordinary detail will be to someone else.

What is ordinary to you is often dramatic to someone else. The stories from your life seem ordinary, because they are familiar to you.

Telling a story about your dad, might impact someone who never knew their dad.
Telling a story about the time you broke your leg skiing, or how the doctor recommended to your parents the give you some scotch to help you sleep better, or the time a family member died may be exactly the story someone needs to hear. You feeling inept about telling your story isn't a good enough reason not to share a bit of who you are.

I'm not asking you to tell your darkest secrets, though you may.
I'm not asking you to tell your most embarrassing moment or to endlessly brag on yourself.

tell a story today.
everyone loves a story.
and who knows, you might find out that you're pretty good at it.

mobileme

simply incredible.

Link

Friday Night

I have a prayer team of 130 folks around the world, who pray for me and the new church I'm a part of.
Here's the email I sent them Friday night.

I wanted to write you this evening about the Sending Out that took place a bit earlier.

I hope you know that tonight felt right on so many levels.

Get this: I was ordained tonight by a southern baptist pastor, an international missionary, an episcopalian friar, a couple non-denominational pastors, an emerging AG pastor and a Church of Christ pastor.

These pastors also commissioned the folks from our group. We met at a local pizza place, owned by a member of our community. Kids were everywhere, they were noisy. it felt right to be outside the walls of a "church" building. Eikon's friend Heather Hodges recreated a Rothko painting (untitled number 12) and then had each member present put their finger prints in it in black.

Of course we hung out after and ate pizza for 2 more hours with rich conversation and even a few new friends showed up.

I'm so grateful for your prayers. This is happening my friends and today marks the day we start. People are getting it. We are on the road to becoming who God wants us to be. It is humbling. It feels like we are become ourselves.

Thank you.

mark
I'll post some pictures as soon as I get them.

Today: Go for a walk

I know you are tired and don't feel like it.
I know the weather might not make it easy. It may be too hot, too humid, too cold.
The sofa and TV are a not a good representation of life.
Maybe you can take your old dog, who hasn't been walked in years for a walk.
Maybe it's just you.
Maybe it's just around a couple blocks in the neighborhood.
or maybe it's a trail thru some nearby woods.

go for a walk.

Today: Make a face at a child

put your fingers on the sides of your mouth and make a face.
see what happens.
if the child cries you did it wrong and you need to work on it a bit more.
do it. don't think about it.

Random Links

Steve Carter Student Pastor of Mars Hill in Michigan writes about reality and vision.

Father Rob says Church is not a business. I agree.

Mike King is a 3. I am a 7. The biggest difference is that he's currently in Assisi learning about the enneagram.

Seth Godin has great advice for sending email. Print this and put it next to your computer.

Jessica asks,"Who can take care of everything". I ask, how can a few lines on an index card be so prophetic.

Today: Find God in Beauty

A work of art you walk by everyday.
A song you hear on the radio.
the smile of a blond or brunette, or balding person.
God speaks in more ways that sermons or books.
A dancer.
A lyric.
A sandwich.

Today find God in beauty. If you do, tell me what you saw.

Today: Quit your job

If your job is killing you, quit.
If your job doesn't awaken hope, love and life within you on some level, quit.
If your job is mindless and you want to dream and think and live, quit.
Life is too short to work a job that kills you slowly one day at a time.

You may have a family. You need to feed your kids. I get it. Trust me. I do. Your kids need to eat.. that is important and feeling responsible for that is respectable.

But does your job steal from you kids in different ways? do the dreams you have for the world and the dream of God overlap? Are you contributing to a better world through your job? If your job is killing you, your kids can have big meals and wii's but see their father/mother shriveling up.

You may have a mortgage. there are smaller houses with less amentities.
You as a healthy parent are more important than a nice house to live in.

I'm guessing some of you will resist this. But I'm not talking about being irresponsible. I'm saying quit, because it might just be the most responsible thing you can do for your family.

Youth Ministry Consulting

I started the Riddle Group 3 years ago today. I've done this full time since then. During that time I've experienced the joy of using my gifts to encourage and support local church leaders. I am excited about what the next 3 years will be like for the Riddle Group. I feel like I've found my rhythm and have seen God work the situations we've been invited into. Along the way we've never advertized. We pray for folks, we've initiated one-on-one conversations and we've seen churches transformed by what God can do in a church that wants to see great things in their youth ministry.

Since the beginning I've been committed to only working with churches who want to change. We don't sell ourselves to anyone. This has come with obvious pro's and con's, but we remain committed to this strategy. You want to change, we can help. But we aren't going to convince you that you need it. I hope that I am living and leading the RG generously. There is plenty of need for youth ministry consulting to go around. I'm also confident that no one does what the Riddle Group does, as well as we do it. It's with this spirit of generosity and confident and trust that I want to share with you some other folks who do this kind of thing. That I trust.

Jonathan Reitz is a Riddle Group consultant who has recently started his own full time initiative. Jonathan is a great consultant and coach.

Mark DeVries is one of the most humble guys I know. He's been doing consulting for a long time and was gave me amazing advice as I started the Riddle Group (and before). His company is named Youth Ministry Architects. Here's link. Save it. Architects is hard to spell.

Bill Easum blows stuff up. He's founded Easum Bandy and Associates years ago and is a great guy. I run into a lot of his clients who are looking for youth ministry consulting too. It's good to partner in an informal way with Easum Bandy.

If you are looking for consulting, give these guys a call, or we at the Riddle Group would be humbled to help you. These folks will all take care of you.

Today:Let yourself grieve

maybe it s funeral you of a grandmother today, or the loss of your father when you were 4 years old. let yourself grief.
maybe it's the life you thought you would be living by now, or the teen years you gave up to raise the kids you had to early.
let yourself grieve.

maybe it's bad news from the a TV news anchor about a child.
don't be tempted to self medicate. absorb the pain, bear the cross, engage community. Let yourself be loved.
Let yourserlf grieve.

A Record Month for the Blog

It appears that this blog had just over 110,000 visits to it in May of 2008.
Wow. It doesn't seem like it should be right with so few comments.

I'm humbled that you are reading this.

Thanks!

Today: Try something new

A new flavor of ice cream.
A new grocery store.
A new brand of coffee.
A new brand of toothpaste.
A new item on the menu of a favorite cafe you've visited for years.
Break your routine with a different radio station.
A new seat on the bus.
A new route to work.
A new pet name for a spouse.
A new brand of toothpaste.
A new goodnight to your kids.

Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."
Jesus said, "I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly."
The Narrator of Fight Club says, "Love & life belongs to great risk."

Your old ice cream is good, you don't try a new one because it might not be as good. There's a chance it won't be. Why risk it?
Over time, you can nail your life down. You know what music you like and don't like. You know what seat you'd prefer on an airline.
You know what kinds of cereal are good in the generic form and which are not.
You know what turns you on about the opposite sex.
You know what brand of detergent smells the best to you.

Everything little thing has it's place. Every dishrag and sock are folded just so. You no longer need to decide what you think of owning a cat. You now know the reason church or mosquito's exist and their role in the world. Or at least they sorta work.

New is a threat to the status quo and safe world you've constructed.
Take a risk. Order the sushi.
It just might awaken transformation in you.

Today: Smell a Flower

Yes. take time to do this.
If you have bad allergies and smelling the flowers might cause your face to swell, then admire flowers from afar and image what flowers might smell like.

Today: Put a spoon on your nose

When was the last time you put a spoon on your nose?
Tonight at dinner, at home or out, have a contest with your dinner guests. See who can keep the spoon on their nose the longest.