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Dark Days in Dumas Check out these photographs of the devastation in Dumas, Arkansas. These are compliments of my friend, Harry Cross. posted by John David Walt | at 2/27/2007 09:02:00 PM | 3 comments
Sunday, February 25, 2007
FARMStrong Family Update
The bad news: Dumas, Arkansas, is my hometown.
The good news: The FARMStrong family was not injured by the recent killer tornados. And to the best of my knowledge, there are no reported deaths. We are keeping close tabs.
This past weekend, the FARMStrong nuclear fam made an excursion over to Cincinnati, Ohio, for some family fun. The occasion was the Chris Tomlin How Great is our God tour. We decided to make it an over night. And in the tradition of "vacation reporting," I will give you a couple of blow-by-blows.
So Saturday we spent the day in the unbelievable Cincinnati Children's Museum. Following we headed for the Tomlin concert. After some fun on the bus (photo) and a few songs, we had to make our way back to the hotel. You're thinking-- we needed to get the kids to bed. . . . right? WRONG. To my utter horror, we still needed to take everyone swimming at 9pm last night. It's a bummer when you are stretching a swimsuit over your fat, white, whale-like body in mid-February at 9pm at night with four kids.
Surely we would have the pool to our selves. . . . . . . right? WRONG. There must have been 80 other kids and 9 insane parents who had the same demonic idea. It was pure bedlam-- mayhem--madness! My first dilemma: should I start out in the 5'x5' hottub with the 27 other kids and then make my way into the so-called heated pool-- kind of a good news-bad news scenario. . . . . . . . . or. . . . . . . . . should I start out in the frigid pool and let the hot tub be a more soothing place-- the bad news--good news option. For some reason I decided to get the punishment over with early. After considerable coaxing from my 2 year old, I jumped into the crazed swimming pool. David and I were having some fun. With my goggles now hermetically sealed to my eyes, I risked some under water play. Just as I was under for the first time, I noticed what seemed like hundreds of legs moving in all directions in an all out panic. I surfaced to hear David's shrieking voice, "Puke in the pool!!!!!" I turned around to find the floating chunks surfing a wave within about 2 feet of me. And before I could make my next move, the poor little girl who was responsible for the floating chunks jumped in almost on top of me and began gathering up the floating vomit in her cupped hands and throwing it out of the pool!!! I'm sure I could have won an Olympic medal in the time it took to get out of that muck. Talk about emptying out a pool. It was like a scene right out of "Caddy-Shack."
After screaming at my kids and any others around to not go within 100 yards of the pool, we for some unknown reason decided to try and wedge ourselves into the now way overpopulated hot tub. Did I mention how large some of these kids were in there? Don't ask. Little by little everyone decided to leave the premesis. It was going to turn out ok it seemed. we would have the whole thing to ourselves after all. The pool cleaners came and vacuumed out the pool and assured us that we wouldn't die and that it would be fine to get back in there in another 30 minutes. As he was leaving, I asked him to do a chlorine check on the hot tub-- just for my own personal sanity. Since it was all the pool we would be experiencing i thought it prudent. David was trolling the bottom like a shark. Samuel had inadvertantly swallowed multiple drinks of the hot tub solution. After checking it he told me that the chlorine level was almost twice as strong as needed. Then he said this, "This hottub is on an automatic chlorine injector. When it senses a lot of kids in the pool and the presence of a lot of urine, it kicks in double the amount of cholorine." AAARRrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!! Uuuuuugggggghhhhhh!!! CCCccccrrrrrrrraaaaaaaapppppppp!!!
And so ended our swimming excursion. I could go on to tell you about the room service fiasco and the sleepless night, but I must stop for now. In all seriousness, it was a complete blast and the best part is I lived to tell the story so far.
more to come. i'm hoping to get to some more grammy reflections this week. time to go watch the oscars for now. posted by John David Walt | at 2/25/2007 08:57:00 PM | 11 comments
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
From LEX to LAX: What a Trip!
Well we're back on the Farm. It was a fast trip-- the Grammy Trip. Here's the sketch of the itinerary for starters:Saturday
3:45 Depart Lexington (finished reading Jake Halpern's Fame Junkies en route-- which will frame some of my reflections on the whole experience)
7:45 Arrive LAX (and yes we were picked up in a p-diddy styled Denali Limo)
9:00 Arrive at hotel: Downtown Westin Bonaventure and ate third supper of the time-warped travel day with Tomlin entourage (including Chris's Mom Donna and the Record Label peeps)
Sunday
1:00am Turned in for the night in our suite room ( i meant sweet)-- actually it was a suite-- and I want to give some gratitude to sixsteps records who so extravagantly picked up the tab for the whole event.
1:00-morning-- maintained the silent prayer vigil for the babysitter a.k.a. Courtney Gray-- who singlehandedly cared for all 4 of our kids. amazing grace.
9:00am Yes-- we haven't slept that late since college.
Enjoyed an extraordinary breakfast buffet at the hotel.
and yes it took the next 3 hours to actually get dressed for this affair
12:15pm The sweet 50cent styled Denali Limos picked us up for the Grammys. Some of you are wondering who "us" is.
us: (a.k.a. entourage) Chris, (and his date Abby) Jesse Reeves (bass) and Janet (wife), Travis (drummer) Daniel (guitar) Matt (keyboard), Louie and Shelley Giglio (Passion/SixSteps) Mike (also w/ sixsteps who did all the work to make our time there happen) Donna Tomlin (mom) and Jeanette (friend), Tiffani and me.
1:30pm The 49th Annual Grammy Pre-Telecast Show begins.
2:40ish We find out Chris did not win a grammy
3:00 we're over it and settling in to the "just glad to be here" mentality
4:00 we head over to the Staples Center for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards Telecast
4:15 we are eating Staples Center McDonalds and hotdog stand Nachos in our Grammy finery
5:00 The 49th Annual Grammy Awards Telecast begins with, yes-- you saw them-- The Police
8:30 Show ends and we load up in the sweet Limos for the After Party Scene.....
9:00 Tomlin and entourage arrive at (I can't remember the name of the club) on the Sunset strip for the EMI party.
more on the party later-- but it was everything you thought it would be-- movie stars, singers, exotic dancers (clothed) and so on.
Midnight Team Tomlin loads back into the Limos to head to the hotel.
Monday
2:00am Finally get to bed
8:00 Wake up thankful for a taste of this life and even more thankful for all the life we needed to get back to
9:00 Another fabulous breakfast
10:00 Say goodbye to Chris and friends
10:30 Cab to the LAX (where did all the Limos go!!)
Noon Fly Back to LEX
11:00 Arrive back in the shire-- a.k.a. Wilmore
11:15 I headed for the grand opening of the Asbury House of Prayer
Tuesday
2:00 am Back in Bed
7:00 Back in the saddle again.
Wednesday
Finally getting around to blogging.
more to come. posted by John David Walt | at 2/14/2007 02:57:00 PM | 8 comments
Friday, February 09, 2007
sermon reference link Some have asked me to post a link to the Ashland Seminary Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Study (Lilly Project) material I was quoting in chapel yesterday.
You may find it HERE
FARMStrong will be setting up shop for the weekend in LA for the Grammy Awards. Watch for the story and photos next week.
And pray for the little FARMStrong fam (david, mary kathryn, lily and samuel) who will be staying behind here in the shire. posted by John David Walt | at 2/09/2007 01:52:00 PM | 5 comments
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
American Idol and the new form of sex and violence
Yo Dog. What's going on with American Idol this season? The humiliation factor seems higher than ever. It's like these auditions are more about embarrassing and humiliating people than it is to introduce us to the future contestants. They are working the same formula that shows like Alias and 24 use. Take Alias for instance, the first couple of seasons it was pure plot. Then season three (and did they even make a season 4?) turned from plot to porn. They just kept incrementally showing us more and more of Jennifer Garner. 24 seems to be going the same direction with respect to violence. It's fascinating that 24 never seems to play the "skin" card, yet they always play the violence card. These torture sessions just get worse and worse. Within the first few hours this season we had Jack Bauer biting a guy to death in the jugular and then a nuclear bomb detonation killing 12,000 people. It's a shock factor of sorts and the only place they can go with that is "more shocking." Doesn't this seem to be the deal with Idol this time?
Back to Idol- It's still early in the game and the humiliation factor is already off the charts. To keep our interest, they have to keep turning up the humiliation. Reality TV has introduced us to the new sex/violence factor: humiliation. Why does it work so well? So how else might they keep us from getting bored with it?
I am also reminded of my earlier analysis of what makes the show so appealing. It's the dysfunctional family dynamic. Check that out HERE. posted by John David Walt | at 2/06/2007 10:07:00 PM | 7 comments
Friday, February 02, 2007
Sabbath Keeping scrap Early last December, I was part of a conference in Houston where Lauren Winner was one of the keynote speakers. She spoke on Sabbath keeping, a subject on which I have become keenly interested in the past 7 years. She opened her lecture by reading an excerpt from "Stranger in the Midst," Nan Fink's memoir recounting her conversion to Judaism. I later found the piece in Winner's book, Mudhouse Sabbath. It captured my attention.
"On Friday afternoon, at the very last minute, we'd rush home, stopping at the grocery to pick up supplies. Flying into the kitchen we'd cook ahead for the next twenty-four hours. Soup and salad, baked chicken, yams and applesauce for dinner, and vegetable cholent or lasagna for the next day's lunch. Sometimes I'd think how strange it was to be in wuch a frenzy to get ready for a day of rest.
Shabbat preparations had their own rhythm, and once the table was set and the house straightened, the pace began to slow. 'It's your turn first in the shower,' I'd call to Michael. 'Okay, but it's getting late,' he'd answer, concerned about starting Shabbat at sunset.
In the bathroom I'd linger at the mirror, examining myself, stroking the little lines on my face, taking as much time as I could to settle into a mood of quietness. When I joined Michael and his son for the lighting of the candles, the whole house seemed transformed. Papers and books were neatly piled, flowers stood in a vase on the table, and the golden light of the setting sun filled the room. . . .
Shabbat is like nothing else. Time as we know it does not exist for these twenty-four hours, and the worries of the week soon fall away. A feeling of joy appears. The smallest object, a leaf or a spoon, shimmers in a soft light, and the heart opens. Shabbat is a meditation of unbelievable beauty."
Labels: sabbath
posted by John David Walt | at 2/02/2007 07:53:00 AM | 5 comments
Today...