Point/Counterpoint: 38 Random Thoughts

Today, I am 38 years old. As I inch a little closer to big 4-0, I’m beginning to realize that for every bit of wisdom I seem to have picked up along the way, there seems to be something I either don’t know or some pesky fact which seems to negate any knowledge I might have gained – a yin for every yang, so to speak. Thus, I have decided to compile a list of 38 things I have learned in this life, with each item accompanied by an example of how knowledge is often tempered by … well … lack of knowledge (such as how to gracefully finish this sentence).

1. Riding a bicycle is a great way to stay in shape./Falling off of a bicycle is a great way to ensure you’re unable to do anything to stay in shape for quite a while.
2. Dogs can bring an infinite amount of joy while they are with us./Dogs can absolutely break your heart when they pass away.
3. The original “Star Wars” trilogy still makes me want to dream./The newer “Star Wars” trilogy still makes me want to vomit in a bucket somewhere.
4. “Lost” was a great television series./”Lost” was the most unsatisfying thing ever put on television.
5. Required materials for bringing up girls include ribbons, bows, dresses, dolls, and teddy bears./Required materials for bringing up boys includes Band-Aids, helmets, mud boots, Spider-Man, and Buzz Lightyear.
6. Church folk are some of the nicest folks in the world./Church folk can be some of the most aggravating folks in the world.
7. Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with people you ordinarily would have no contact with whatsoever./Facebook can be a great reminder of why you never have any contact with those people.
8. I can’t stand seeing other guys’ feet./There’s really no counterpoint here; I just really don’t like the sight of guy feet.
9. The bones of a 2-5 year old are remarkably resilient./The bones of a 38-year-old … eh, not so much.
10. I will never outgrow the childhood pleasure of reading a good comic book./There is no way I’m letting my kids read any of today’s comic books until they are well into their 20s.
11. Snuggies are surprisingly warm and comfortable./”Snuggie” is a really unfortunate name for something a man would use.
12. I love to drink coffee./I can’t handle drinking caffeine anymore, so I only drink decaf coffee.
13. Most of the lyrics to most of the music I used to listen to in high school were incredibly juvenile and sound pretty ridiculous to me now./Due to the amazing technical skills of many of the musicians, I am still listening to a lot of the same music I was listening to in high school.
14. I hate when people send me requests to play games on Facebook./I am now a Level 23 agent on the Facebook game “Marvel: Avengers Alliance.”
15. I could eat a meal at a fast food restaurant for the price of one cup of coffee at Starbucks./I am about to use up the third of three Starbucks gift cards I received for Christmas last year.
16. Coming up with a list of points to equal the amount of years old you are is a solid idea for a blog entry./Coming up with a list of points to equal the amount of years old you are is really, really difficult.
17. Children will push you to the absolute brink of your patience sometimes./Children will pull you back from the brink of completely giving up on everything sometimes.
18. I enjoy playing video games sometimes./I suck at playing video games virtually all the time.
19. I spent the first few years of having to wear reading glasses trying to figure out how to never put them on./I have not worn my contact lenses in nearly two weeks.
20. As a teenager, I used to wish girls would show more cleavage./As an adult, I wish girls would cover up their boobs.
21. The older I get, the more I appreciate movies like “Doubt” and “Moneyball,” which don’t have big explosions, over-the-top dialog, and mega-budgets./I will be in line somewhere at midnight May 4 waiting to see “The Avengers.”
22. I am as firm now in my convictions as I ever have been./I still have no idea how to present a proper argument.
23. Reading the Bible is vitally important for me to make it through the day./It is rare that I read my Bible every single day of any given week.
24. I love it when my kids are honest with me./I do not love it so much when the tell me my breath stinks, my shirt is ugly, or my hair looks silly.
25. The love of people is fallible and often fails./The love of God is perfect and strong.
26. Turning 30 didn’t bother me at all./The thought of turning 40 troubles me greatly.
27. I am fascinated by ESPN Radio./I find myself daily yelling at the radio in my vehicle as I listen to ESPN Radio.
28. If I could, I would have some type of music playing wherever I am 24 hours a day, 365 days a year./My job as a music director at a radio station sometimes makes me want to pull my hair out.
29. I am not a fan of large crowds./If officials there would allow it, I would live in an apartment above Main Street in Walt Disney World.
30. I am a merely adequate guitar player./I am a pretty decent bass guitar player.
31. I am always grateful for birthday wishes people post on my Facebook page./I am always surprised by at least some of the people who choose to leave birthday wishes on my Facebook page.
32. I like watching basketball more than any other sport./I get sick to death of hearing about basketball in Kentucky while college basketball season is going on.
33. I love to write./My handwriting is like a cross between a doctor’s signature and something a drunken Irishman would scratch into the wood of the bar he was about to pass out on.
34. I’m sitting here thinking, “I will probably never try and come up with a list this long again.”/I will probably try and come up with 39 random thoughts next year.
35. I worry that I don’t have anything worthwhile to teach my children./I am amazed every day at what my children teach me.
36. I keep saying I would like to write a novel, but I can’t find the time to write enough./I’ve been working on this post on and off for two days now, and I passed the 1,000 word mark a few thoughts ago.
37. When my wife and I got married, she said she didn’t want any children./Ha, ha…
38. Thirty-eight is not that old./Thirty-eight is actually kind of old.

Whew!

Longing For Another Land (Part 3)

As I mentioned in a previous post, my children (and even my wife, to a certain extent) are all Narnia crazy these days. In case you don’t know what “Narnia” is, let me briefly explain…

The magical land of Narnia appears in C. S. Lewis’ series of books “The Chronicles of Narnia.” While there are seven books in the series, the most familiar is probably “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which was made into a movie that somewhat remotely resembled the book in 2005 (Note: I am not a fan of the most recent batch of Narnia movies. Too many liberties taken with, well, everything.). In that book, four children enter an enchanted wardrobe and find themselves in the snow-covered land of Narnia, where they eventually meet the great lion Aslan, help defeat the evil White Witch, and become kings and queens of the land (Still not sure how you can have two kings and two queens, none of whom are married to each other, but I’ll roll with it here…).

Several months ago, I was talking with someone about a serious season of depression I was going through (Unfortunately, bouts with depression are very common for me. One day, when I get brave enough, I’ll write about that…). I told him how even reading through the Bible was causing me anxiety. You know the story of Abraham and Sarah? (Well, actually, at the time I’m going to talk about, it was still “Abram” and “Sarai”, but anyway…) At one point, the two of them head down to Egypt to avoid a famine. Abraham decides his wife is so smokin’ hot that the Egyptians might try and kill him so they can have her, so he comes up with one of the great plans of all time: “We’ll just say you’re my sister! I mean, what could possibly go wrong, huh?”

Well, actually, plenty could (and did) go wrong with that plan … or, at least, it went wrong for Pharaoh, who – believing Sarah really was Abraham’s sister – had swapped some cattle and servants for the new girl in town. That sweet deal earned him a series of plagues, and he eventually put two-and-two together and figured out Sarah and Abraham were more than just siblings. It’s interesting to note Pharaoh didn’t even ask for his stuff back; he just told the two of them to go.

Now, to me, it seems like Abraham (and Sarah as well) was the one who screwed up here. He deliberately lied to Pharaoh and then took some of his possessions in a swap for his own wife, so one would think it’s Abraham who would be in line for some nasty stuff to happen to him. As I mentioned in the last paragraph, though, it’s actually Pharaoh and his house that are struck with the plagues, not Abraham and Sarah. And then Abraham apparently strolls out of town with Pharaoh’s end of the trade in tow.

To me, this illustrates the strength of God’s covenant with Abraham, that he is still under God’s protection even if he should happen to stumble upon the way. What I also think of, though, when I read about Abraham is how Pharaoh’s role in the story seems to have been planned out as the villain – even though he doesn’t knowingly do anything wrong. And when I thing about God laying out different roles for different people, no matter what their actions are, I ask myself a very frightening question: “What if I’m not Abraham? What if I’m the OTHER guy in the story?”

So, anyway, as I’m explaining this dilemma, the person I’m talking to says sometimes it helps him to read some type of fiction. It just so happened at the time that my wife and I were looking for some kind of family reading project for us and the kids to share in. I had purchased a hardbound collection of all seven Narnia books several years ago, but I had hesitated reading them to my children because of some of the violence and the quandary of trying to explain why magic was okay in these books but not in something like “Harry Potter.”

(For the record, I’ve never read any of the “Harry Potter” books or seen any of the movies. We’ve just always been leery of exposing our kids to stories with lots of “magic” in them, and Harry Potter was just the first name to pop into my head there. Please don’t send me angry comments or lengthy dissertations on how I’m a narrow-minded religious zealot. Thanks.)

Contrary to my hopes, reading the Narnia books did not bring me out of the funk I was in. In fact, even though my family was being taken to a new level of thinking about reading and stories and where they can take you, I found myself getting a little downhearted. “Why,” I found myself asking, “can I not be caught up in an adventure like that?” I was almost jealous of the characters themselves. If Aslan was supposed to represent Christ – and if Christ could come and sweep you away into a world that makes you feel as fully alive as Narnia – why wasn’t he doing that for me?

The trip to Disney World represented that adventure for me (It probably didn’t hurt that we listened to our Narnia CD’s all the way to Florida and back.). The only problem was that I had to go back to the “real world” once the vacation was over. And as the days passed, I found myself losing that feeling I had when I was in the Magic Kingdom. It was slipping away, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to make it stay. I wanted to go back to Narnia, but the wardrobe was all closed up.

Oddly enough, it would be two things I really didn’t care for much initially that made me understand that even though I didn’t feel at home, I really was in the place I belonged…

Longing For Another Land (Part 2)

“It all started with a mouse.”

It’s difficult to walk more than a few feet in the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, without seeing these words displayed on some type of wall sign, T-shirt, hat, or coffee mug, and with good reason. Three weeks ago was the first time I had ever set foot in the Magic Kingdom (I did make a trip to Epcot Center and what is now Disney Hollywood Studios when I was in high school.), and I was immediately astounded by the sheer magnitude and detail of it. To see Cinderella’s Castle on TV is one thing; to have it directly in your line of sight as you enter the park is another thing altogether.

Features like Cinderella’s Castle or seeing your favorite childhood Disney characters walking around the park would be staggering enough for most people, but I will admit I was totally taken in by the amazingly tight organizational skills the Magic Kingdom boasted. I’ve never seen a place that moved such large amounts of people in such a smooth and effective manner. For the most part, all the employees were kind and courteous. None of the performers looked tired or irritable. The bathrooms were cleaner than our bathrooms at home, I think. I can’t even remember if I saw any trash on the ground.

Over the years, I’ve come to view Disney products with a fairly cautious eye. I learned very quickly after my wife and I began having children that just because a video says “Walt Disney” across the top of the box doesn’t necessarily mean it contains something I want my children to see. Plus, there are some liberal stances Disney has chosen to take in recent years I do not agree with. If Disney was supposed to be some kind of enemy to me, though, I will have to sheepishly admit I was totally taken in by the “happiest place on earth.”

I’m sure we’ve all been around folks who return from vacation and say things like, “It was so nice we could have stayed there forever.” You know, though, that they were ready to go back to their own homes, sleep in their own beds, and get back to their normal daily routines (Heck, most people will actually freely admit as much.). When I say, “Had my family not insisted I come home with them, I would have stayed at Disney World forever”, I’m not just blowing smoke; I would have taken a minimum wage job dressing up as Mickey Mouse every day just to hang around.

I realize how irresponsible and silly and immature most of this sounds. Five-year-olds want to stay at Disney World forever, not 37-year-olds with four children under the age of 10 himself. The difference here, however, is that while a 5-year-old would actually want to live in Cinderella’s Castle forever, I’m pretty sure it’s more the feeling of losing myself in the immenseness of the Magic Kingdom I didn’t want to let go of. The whole place crackled with creativity, everything from the architecture of the buildings to the design of the costumes to the music and lyrics of the songs being sung. Everything in the park was telling a story.

Stories always have beginnings. The beginning of the story of Walt Disney World was some guy sketching out a cartoon mouse on a sheet of paper. As I snapped pictures after picture of my kids posing with their favorite Disney characters, I remembered every movie and cartoon I had watched with those very characters in them, and as I walked the streets of Disney World every ride, every poster, every T-shirt, every songs playing on the outdoor speakers reminded me of some other tale I had heard or seen. And, suddenly, something very important came into focus for me.

All these years, I’ve been chasing the story.

There have been instances where this has been very clear for me, such as when I bought every Star Wars action figure I could afford when I was a kid and then proceeded to never use them to play out any storylines related to the movie or how all of my Masters of the Universe figures were forced to adopt wrestling names and personas to execute the ideas I was gleaning from watching old-school Memphis Coliseum grappling with my dad. I shot hoops in the yard, but I wasn’t so much interested in practicing my jump shot as I was in who was the scoring leader in the league I had created in my head (I used to block my own shots to simulate gameplay. I’ll bet that looked really weird to anyone driving by…). I used to throw a tennis ball of a brick wall next to my grandmother’s house not to get better at hitting the strike zone, but to pitch the guys in my league into stardom or obscurity.

These are kids’ examples, though, things I thought were the imagination of any youngster growing up and trying to avoid reality. Flash forward to just a few years ago, however, and you would have found me coming home every day and recounting all kinds of new stories and random facts to my (poor) wife. I wasn’t a very good reporter; I always felt like I lacked the aggressiveness to really get the scoop. I felt like I was a good writer, though, and even if I didn’t necessarily enjoy having to be outgoing I always loved the stories I could take away that could be told over and over again. Even now, I’m storing away music industry and radio stories I can tell in the days to come.

And you know what I’ve done with this knowledge for years and years? I’ve stuffed it. Stuffed it because you couldn’t make any money with it. Stuffed it because it wasn’t real, manly work. Stuffed it because it was juvenile, not what an adult should be spending his time thinking about. And then I could never figure out why I was never truly happy doing any of the work I had been assigned to do.

I watched one recent Saturday as my 4-year-old (now 5) son, Nathanael, spent almost the entire day setting up his own puppet show. He colored faces on paper bags. He set up quilts over chairs to simulate the stage. He told me over and over again what the show was going to be about. My initial thought was to tell him his time might be better spent cleaning his room or putting away laundry. He was working so hard, though, I didn’t have the heart to step in and discourage him. He was invested. He was dedicated. What more can I ask to see in expecting my son to be committed to a cause?

The challenge, then, at the Sheridan household has become how to not stuff down those feelings of wonderment which were awakened first by my reading a book about a guy who made cartoons about talking vegetables (read Part 1 for those details) and then were further encouraged by a man who almost named his most famous creation “Mortimer.” And the obvious question becomes, “How?”.

Well, let’s head to Narnia for a minute…

Longing For Another Land (Part 1)

A few weeks ago, my family and I went to a book sale hosted by Murray’s South Eastern Book Company. We were really looking more for books we could use in the kids’ homeschooling, but in the process of browsing a couple of titles caught my eye.

One was a book by horror writer and best-selling author Steven King, titled “On Writing.” I’ve always been kind of on the fence concerning King’s writing. He definitely has the ability and talent to weave together passages of stunning power, but he also has a maddening tendency to descend into jolting, needless passages of profanity and general gutter talk. Still, I’ve seen enough examples of the former and read and heard enough interviews with him that I thought a book where he’s discussing the craft of writing might be something I should read. Plus, it was only a quarter.

The other title, at first glance, could not have appeared more different. It was the autobiography of VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer, titled “Me, Myself, & Bob.” Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber have been staples at the Sheridan household for several years now, and we all practically have the “Jonah” movie memorized line-by-line by now. What many people don’t know, however, is that Vischer’s Big Idea Productions eventually went bankrupt, forcing him to sell the company (Vischer still works with VeggieTales, though. I’m not going to go into the explanation here. Look it up on-line or get the book.). I’d heard him speak several months ago on Focus on the Family concerning the whole ordeal and what he was up to post-Veggies, and I thought the book might be worth a read. And, again, it was only a quarter.

I had, honestly, expected to glean much more useful information from the King book than Vischer’s autobiography, since the former author is a writer (which I identify with) and the latter produced, well, CGI videos of animated, talking vegetables (which I have no experience with whatsoever). Instead of focusing the beginning of his book on writing, though, King decided to share some autobiographical details of his own in the first several pages, and – perhaps unsurprisingly, since this is, after all, a book written by Steven King – while he tries to paint a sort of “artist as a young man” picture, most of his early recollections just come off as weird and more than a little disturbing. I guess this is done to offer some insight as to why King developed into a writer of the macabre, but I really had no desire to relive his memories of how one of his babysitters used to sit on his head and pass gas and once fed him eggs until he vomited and then shut him in a closet (I’m not making any of that up. Just read the book.).

From skimming through the rest of the book, it appears King does actually discuss writing as a craft in it, but his initial (and, yes, sometimes vulgar) attempts at telling his own story turned me off enough that I decided to give Vischer’s book a try. Despite hearing the aforementioned Focus on the Family broadcast, I went into “Me, Myself, & Bob” fairly unfamiliar with any of the details of Vischer’s personal life; I just knew he was the guy who created VeggieTales and then lost the whole thing. (Well, that’s not entirely true. I did conduct a radio interview with Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, the voice of Larry the Cucumber, when the VeggieTales movie “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” was released. I got them to bust out the Bob and Larry voices, but that was as deep as the conversation went.)

Unlike King’s somewhat rambling personal introduction, I was immediately struck by several of aspects of Vischer’s personal history. For one, he grew up in a small town (Muscatine, Iowa – population 22,886 in the 2010 census). He never went through a particularly rebellious phase, outside of pulling some pranks in college. He showed incredibly ingenuity as a kid by utilizing the video equipment of the day. His grandfather was a famous radio evangelist.

And he was a child of divorce.

I, myself, am not a child of divorce, so Vischer and I do not share that fact in common. What I found we did share in common was an extreme shyness (which Vischer explains developed after the shock of his father walking out on his family one day), a desire to create things, and an initial sense of not knowing what to do with ourselves. Vischer explains in his book how watching hours of MTV as a kid was the genesis of his desire to provide children’s programming that would point them toward God and not toward the values and morality of the culture at-large. It’s a goal he’s still attempting to fulfill today with his newest endeavor, Jellyfish Labs (www.jellyfishlabs.com).

Vischer’s tale and my own begin to veer off into different directions when he leaves home for college (I never left my hometown, and I actually lived at home during a large part of my college education.). He eventually sets up his own business before embarking on what would become VeggieTales. I’m at the point in the book right now where VeggieTales is about to really take off and become successful, which is almost sad because I know what’s going to come after this part of the story. A very fascinating and insightful interview with Vischer appeared in last month’s World magazine. I would highly recommend checking it out at http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18626.

You’re probably wondering, at nearly 1,000 words in, what point I’m trying to get to here. It’s something that’s been brewing inside me for a long, long time, and I’m still not sure what to do with it. It has to do with feeling like you were created for something more than what you’re doing. It also has a lot to do with being afraid to step out and answer the call. It involves a place I’m still not sure I’ll ever get to, but I want to try now more than ever. Two weeks ago, I was dreaming.

Then I went to Disney World.