Section 31 Movie - More Wars Than Trek

Finally got around to watching Section 31 last night. I guess didn't hate it as much as I thought I was going to, which is faint praise, indeed. The biggest problem is labeling it Star Trek when it had nothing to do with real Trek. It was a movie without a purpose or heart (or compelling characters, plot, etc.) It looked pretty, but other than that... 

Rosalie nailed it when she said it seemed more like Star Wars and I realized that's exactly the problem. Alex Kurtzman wants to make Star Trek into Star Wars instead of allowing Trek to be Trek.

Life is Like a Rubik's Cube

My column for the local paper this week. Here's a copy for those of you that live far away.

Life Is Like A Rubik’s Cube

Rubik’s Cubes are making a comeback.

I don’t know if that’s true nationwide, but I see a lot of kids with Rubik’s Cubes when I substitute at our High School. There are the classic ones that I remember from the early 80s as well as new variations, from small, 4x4 Cubes to all kinds of different sizes and shapes (Rubik’s Octagons? Tetrahedrons? I’m not sure what they’re called.)

I remember playing with a Rubik’s Cube when I was a kid and trying to figure out how to solve it. There were books written to help guide you into trying to understand the algorithms needed to get all of the colors together. I never could figure out how to do it, short of peeling off the stickers and putting them back on - which wrecks the cube, but by that point you’re too frustrated with the stupid thing to care!

My good friend Evan Olson, who is in seventh grade, is a pro at solving them. He even demonstrated for me solving a Rubik’s Cube with his eyes closed! How he did that still baffles me. All I know is that if I get my hands on a Cube and need help – which I no doubt will – he is the first person I’ll go to for guidance.

It strikes me that our lives are, at least in some ways, like a Rubik’s Cubes. It’s easy to get twisted around and messed up. So you try to back up and retrace your steps to put everything back into order, but you just end up more twisted up and confused. You keep trying and trying to solve the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, but you end up just getting more and more frustrated and more and more messed up. You might even try to cheat, which only ends up wrecking your life more.

We’ve all been there.

It’s not until we’re willing to admit that we need help and that we are unable to solve our problems ourselves that we can get the guidance we need. It’s only when we allow others to come alongside that we finally begin to get our lives back into some type of order.

We resist that for some reason. There’s a spirit of fierce independence in us that, unfortunately, often leads to isolation. But that’s not the way we were created to operate. God says that “It is not good for a person to be alone.” We were created for community – to journey together and to help each other.

That’s one of the brilliant things about the Church. Going to church is not about having to go in order to fulfill some religious duty. A big part of what the church is about is finding other people who can walk with us and help us out when we need it. Because we all have times when our lives feel like a messed-up Rubik’s Cube.

Rob's Review: Coffee-Mate Pop-tart Brown Sugar Cinnamon

While I'm still waiting for Coffee-Mate to resume production on my favorite Creme Brule flavor, I've been trying different flavors, and even tried creating my own version of Creme Brule. Currently my default flavor is Coffee-Mate's Kahlua, which I reviewed a few months ago. Coffee-Mate just released a new "Pop-Tarts" inspired Brown Sugar Cinnamon flavor, and I got my hands on a bottle at our local Walmart yesterday.

I was very excited by this as Brown Sugar Cinnamon is my favorite Pop-Tarts flavor, and it's pretty awesome everywhere else, so I had high hopes for this combo, in spite of the fact that it's being touted as a limited time only offering. And I do have to say that it's pretty good, if maybe not the best ever flavor. The flavor of the creamer alone is quite good, but it doesn't compliment the coffee flavor as well as it might. I'm thinking it might need a stronger brown sugar flavoring or something. Maybe I just need to get used to it. It's not bad, though, and I'll definitely be adding it to my rotation until I can restock on Creme Brule, and maybe keep it for a change-of-pace flavor as long as it's being offered. 

Overall grade: A-

Rob's Review: Treason

There's a new 5-episode limited series on Netflix right now called Treason that Rosalie and I watched over the last week. I'm always up for a good spy story and it stars Charlie Cox who plays Daredevil, so I was predisposed to be interested and to like the series.

I liked a lot of the series. It all takes place in Britain so it's a nice change-of-pace to a lot of the political spy stories I'm used to seeing that are set in the US. Cox does a great job and is always enjoyable to watch. The supporting cast seems strong, as well, and the plot is decent, if a little convenient, but not that deep or compelling. It did have a nice twist at the end, courtesy of being a limited series.

Overall it's fairly enjoyable (although it wasn't Rosalie's cup of tea, as the British might say). I don't know that it was something I would necessarily watch again, and I don't know that if it had been longer that I would have stuck with it, but at five episodes I figured I'd give it a shot. Overall it was okay, but there's probably more compelling shows you can spend your time on, unless you are a big fan of Charlie Cox, in which case you'll like it.

My grade: B

Practicing the Art of Showing Up

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

    - James Clear, Atomic Habits

You don't have to do everything... just do something.

What are you doing?

Media Tracking for the Year

I've often wished that I had recorded every time I finished a book or a movie in my life. It would be fascinating to see the list. And based on the graphic I found above, I'm not the first to have this idea.

A few years ago I started doing something like that with movies that I watched and the date I saw them if I knew what it was. I would then make a little notation on the movie - maybe what it was about - and give it a grade. Here's a very few I ran across in my file: 

1 Mile to You B (Netflix) 7/4/19

A Quiet Place A

A Quiet Place 2 A 6/11/21

A Week Away C (Netflix) 4/17/21

Aquaman C

ARQ B- (Netflix) 11/19/16 time loop

Parallel (Amazon) 6/5/21. B - Like an episode of Black Mirror with a nice Twilight Zone twist at the end. Plot a bit predictable but decent ride.

            ...and so on

I started this because with the plethora of movies available on streaming services I would sometimes have trouble remembering what I had watched. Then I'd start a movie and go, "Hey, this seems familiar..." This would be super helpful to have also for them it's been a number of years since you've seen the movie and you can't remember if it might be worth watching again. The movie ARQ listed above I have no recollection of, but with my B- grade I am pretty sure I won't be watching it again. (I also look at Aquaman and think I might have been generous with my C grade, but that's a discussion for another time.)

I think this would be just as interesting for books that I've read. I thought about going through and making a list, but I've literally read thousands of books in my life and there's no way I could ever complete the list. And forget about TV shows! That list would be overwhelming and, potentially, depressing. (But maybe a list of series?)

I think this would be a good project throughout each year from now on - just list when you've seen a movie and read a book or finished a TV series. Then you could go back at the end of the year and review. Of course, with my blog, I pretty much report on every major movie or book I've seen, so there's that. But a summary list would be helpful as well. 

Stay tuned and at the end of the year I'll post mine here. If you have one of your own you to share, you can post in the comments.

Labels and Identity

How do you identify? 

There are so many labels that we use to categorize and distinguish ourselves - our job, nationality, region of origin, favorite sports team, hobbies or interests, religion, denomination, birth order, type of food you eat, political affiliation, sexual preference, school you attended, graduating year, physical abilities,... pretty much anything you can think of.

What is your primary identity? What's most important?

Do the labels we use help us understand ourselves and others better? Do they serve us in that they help us identify others who share the same traits? Or do they just serve to divide us ("You're different. You're not X like me!")? 

For a Jesus-follower this has huge implications. Paul addressed this in his letter to the Christians in the region of Galatia when he wrote, "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:28)

For a believer, our primary identity is "forgiven and beloved child of God." That is the most important distinguishing factor in our lives, not any of the other labels we so often use.

Looking back on 2023

[This is from part of my challenge at church this morning.]

I think it's interesting how we characterize and categorize years - like they have their own personality and are good or bad years. 

I was trying to think of years that stand out to me personally. 

1966. That was the year Star Trek came out and the year I was born. Both very memorable and important to me. Good year!

1984. I graduated high school and headed off to college. We had economic prosperity in our country and great 80s music and styles. For me, I would say that was a good year.

2001. We had 9/11 happen, so we tend to characterize the whole year by that and say it was bad year. 

2013. That was the year I started out as a full-time pastor at First Presbyterian Pine City. It was a good year for me. Hopefully my congregation would agree.

2020. I don’t even need to talk about it. Bad year.

What about last year, 2022? There were lots of global and national challenges, but a lot of individuals still had a good year. A mix of good and bad. Pretty typical for a year. 

One thing all of those years have in common – they’re all in the past. You can’t change them now.

But 2023 is just starting. It’s full of potential and possibility.

So my question is: How will you categorize 2023 in 12 months when you look back on it?

We can’t control most of the circumstances of our lives. Good and bad things are going to happen to us throughout the year. But one of the things we do have some control over is the person we are becoming. 

At the end of 2023, you will not be the same person you are today. You will have had experiences and relationships that will shape you, for better or for worse. Maybe you will have developed some new practices that will develop into habits.

There are a lot of areas where we can grow and improve this year: physically, intellectually, relationally and so on. But I hope you don't neglect of think about your spiritual growth. 

Spend some time reflecting on how you want to grow spiritually this year. If you are a Jesus-follower, your goal is to draw closer to Jesus and to become more like him. How can you do that this year? What is a step you might take this week? Today?

Hopefully in 12 months you can look back and say 2023 was a great year.

Whew! A Whole Year of Blogging

I made it! I set out last year to write a new blog post every day this year, and (with just a couple of exceptions) I was successful. It's been an interesting experiment and it's fascinating to see how the posts have evolved over the year. I look back on them and I'm pretty proud of the whole of what I was able to accomplish. 

I learned a lot over the year. For one thing, I think having some sort of image to go with each post is helpful in drawing attention to the post, as well as in finding past posts. I also learned that my best blog posts happen in the morning. By evening my brain is done and I just want to chill and not think a bunch.

I don't plan on stopping blogging next year, but I may not be as diligent on making sure that there is something new published every day. There are days when I just don't have anything new, helpful, or interesting to blog about, and trying to come up with something relevant is sometimes a little stressful. So I will continue to update this, but there may be days where I don't necessarily post anything. 

I hope this has been and will continue to be interesting for you. Maybe more people will be impacted as this blog floats out there on the net in the years to come.

Here's to a great 2022 and hoping for a wonderful 2023! Happy new year.

Rob's Review: Avatar - The Way of Water

I finally had the opportunity to see Avatar: The Way of Water today with my sons, Jordan and Jonah. We ended up seeing the movie in 3D down near the Cities. Here are my initial impressions.

The movie is obviously a spectacle and special effects masterpiece. It should definitely be viewed in the theater for the full impact. I don't know that 3D is necessary (especially given the premium prices 3D commands), although it was excellently done and not distracting at all. I would also be interested in seeing it in standard 2D for comparison, but I'm not sure I'm up for another 3 hour 10 minute movie experience real soon.

The movie will do well partly because there's nothing else out right now that's especially compelling as far as movies go. And it's a greatly-made movie, if not a great movie. It's certainly enjoyable enough, especially as I went in with low expectations. 

I enjoyed the characters and the rudimentary plot, but I wish they had spent as much time on the story as they did on the special effects. The acting was top notch, but I wish the characters were developed a little better or at least had more to do. There was a lot of time spent "sightseeing" and showing off the special effects, but it did little to add to the actual story being told. The run time could have easily been pared down to 2.5 hours or less with some judicious editing. I imagine they didn't want to cut costly effects, but the movie suffers as a result. 

Would I recommend it? Sure. It's fun to watch - good eye candy - and a great way to kill several hours. But I doubt if I'll be watching it again any time soon. 

My grade: B+

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to be when you grow up? 

For a younger child, that's a fun question because you get to hear their imagination run wild and you hear about things that are interesting to them. I remember when I was a young kid thinking that I wanted to be an astronaut, which I still think would be cool if you didn't have to worry about all the science and math stuff. You know, all the stuff that real astronauts have to do. My other thought was that I would love to be an actor on TV. 

What do you want to be when you grow up is an interesting question for a teenager, as well. Usually that person has had time to consider it in a more realistic way than when they were a child. 

Many times, a person's choice of career is informed by their own experiences. For example, if a parent is employed in a certain industry, the chances are much higher that they will be drawn to the same or similar jobs. My parents were teachers and I ended up in a field where I do a lot of educating, both as a pastor and as a substitute. I have friends whose parents were in the military who ended up going into the military, and so on. It's not a guarantee, but I think the familiarity with their parent's job can be a strong influencing factor.

For those who are in the middle of their vocational career or have retired, a good question to help you get to know someone better is "What did you want to be? And why?" Or maybe, "If you weren't doing what you are doing right now, what would you like to do?" What if money weren't an issue? What would you do? 

For me, if I weren't doing what I do now (which I love), I still think I might pursue acting. 

Maybe I could play an astronaut.

Finally - More Broomball!

Today we finally got time to play some broomball - the first time this winter. It was a beautiful morning and we had about 20 people who up to play. The ice was very slick, which is great for broomball because it helps level the playing field in that the fast, athletic students don't have a big advantage over the slower students. We had a fourth-grade girl facing off against a twelfth-grade guy and they were evenly matched.

Looking forward to scheduling some more games. Broomball - the one nice thing about winter!

Conversation Monopolists

Why is it so hard for some people to have a normal conversation?

The art of conversation seems to be lost. A good conversation will have some give and take, where all parties to the conversation have an opportunity to contribute. There should be natural pauses to allow input, and the occasional "What do you think?" or "How are things going with you?"

When it's a little kid, it's understandable. But when adults are involved, there ought to be a level of emotional intelligence. Of course, that requires all the parties to have an interest in the other people. When you get a narcissist involved, all bets are off. Especially if they are a bigger and better person ("Oh yeah, well you should hear what happened to me.") 

So, how was your Christmas?

A Very Star Trek Christmas

What did you get for Christmas?

That's always a good conversation starter, especially if you don't know the other person well or you just want to get to know them better. I use it frequently when working for teens and it works for a couple weeks after school is back in session.

You can tell a lot about a person by the gifts they get. (Or, at least you can tell a lot about what the people around them think of that person, I guess.) My Christmas this year was an all Star Trek Christmas. My boys got me some Star Trek beverage containers (a mug, and water bottles), and a cool Starfleet Academy sweatshirt. 

Rosalie surprised me with tickets to the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas this August, including plane tickets and arranging a place to stay at a condo of a good friend. She got some very good tickets to the convention which includes early registration, dealers rooms (Star Trek, not drug), and autographs from the celebrities. In addition to the main event rooms which will feature all of the remaining cast of the original Star Trek series, there are a lot of ancillary events. Last year the Inglorious Treksperts were there from my favorite Star Trek podcast and I'm hoping they will be again.

The only problem with this gift is that I will have to wait until August to enjoy it!!!! Oh, well, the anticipation is part of the enjoyment, I suppose.

So what can you tell about me from my gifts? I'm a big geeky kid at heart. Not that this is a surprise to anybody who knows me at all.  

Christmas Traditions

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We actually celebrated Christmas at our home this year instead of heading directly to Ripon to visit with Rosalie's family. (We'll be doing that tomorrow, instead.)

Other than Christmas Eve service at church, our family Christmas traditions revolve primarily around food. We had our traditional Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, which is typical for us as we're usually traveling on Christmas day. This year our Christmas day meal was chili during the Packer game, during which we were treated to a Packers victory, which was a nice Christmas present for us. This morning we had monkey bread for breakfast, which is something my mom used to make on Christmas when I was growing up. This is our 27th year of this tradition and it shows no signs of being broken anytime soon. 

Fortunately, I was able to get a run in this morning, which is something I try to enjoy most Sundays. The weather cooperated today as it was only -7 with no wind instead of the -34 degree windchills of the past few days. I cranked the Christmas music (I have one with the most upbeat songs in a running playlist) and took off. This is probably the last day I'll do that for the next 11 months because, as much as I love Christmas music, by the day after Christmas I'm pretty much done with it - other than possibly sneaking one into the worship set this next Sunday. I usually do Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, which seems Christmasy to me because it was used so heavily in the best Christmas movie ever. If you don't know which one I'm talking about, how are we even friends? 

Christmas won't be on a Sunday again until 2033. I don't know why you would need to know that, but it might give you something interesting to talk about at the dinner table. 

Christmas Eve Candlelight

I think one of my favorite gatherings of the year at our church is our Christmas Eve candlelight service (in spite of the challenges I chronicled yesterday with coming up with fresh message ideas). We have the perfect venue for a traditional service like that, with the real candles everyone gets to light at the end and finish the service with the lights off, singing Silent Night. 

Each year I remember similar services growing up. The church we attended in Florida wasn't quite as picturesque and historic as my current church, but we did have a candlelight service. That one was at 11 p.m. and ended at midnight with everyone singing Silent Night, but then they finished by singing "Happy Birthday Dear Jesus". Ugh! What a way to break the mood. Apparently, I was the only one who really hated it - or at least the only one who complained. The nice thing about being the service planner is that I can make sure that never happens at our church!

It was kind of fun when I was a kid being up that late, but we were used to later nights in Florida. It seems like everything winds down earlier here. Maybe it's the weather. Here, I can't imagine getting ready to head out into the cold for an 11 p.m. service! I expect I'll be fast asleep tonight by that point. 

What's your favorite Christmas tradition? 

Christmas Eve Challenges

Christmas Eve services are always a challenge for me, especially the longer I serve in ministry. How many different ways can you find to preach on the same passages and the same topic?

The tendency, of course, is to try to get creative and do something out of the box. There's a real limit to how effective that is. After all, people come to hear the Christmas story, not some random obscure passage from 2 Ezekiel (which is not a real book, just making a point). The other temptation is to try to cram every piece of theology in knowing that there are people who only show up once or twice a year that will be there.

I think the trick is to keep it simple. And especially keep it short. My typical Sunday morning messages run about 27 minutes, give or take. Christmas Eve is more a meditation and a challenge than a typcial sermon. I shoot for 20 minutes max on Christmas Eve. Add in special music, a video, several Christmas carols, and time for lighting candles and you end up with about 45 minutes for the evening. Which seems to be about right, especially when you have extended family visiting and so on and everyone is anxious to get home and finish preparations for Christmas morning.

All that to say, if you don't have a place to celebrate Christmas Eve, we'd love to have you join us at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow!

Recommended Winter Running Shoes

Out for a run this morning in the cold. I waited until it was -7 (about -25 with wind chill). 

Truthfully, I'd rather run in the bitter cold than when it's hot and humid. At least with this kind of weather you can add layers and prepare for it (to an extent). As long as the wind isn't too bad, neither is the run.

Along those lines, let me recommend Saucony's Endorphin Speed RUNSHIELD shoes. These are a water-resistant shoe from Saucony and they do a great job at keeping moisture away from your feet. I've literally never had cold feet running in these, even at the crazy temperatures it gets to in Minnesota. I believe they have RUNSHIELD tech in a number of their different shoes, I just happen to be a fan of the Endorphin Speeds. 

Rob's Recommendations: Timothy Zahn

I've mentioned Timothy Zahn before, but I wanted to highlight him here. He is one of my favorite science fiction authors and one of his classic Star Wars books, Heir to the Empire, is on sale right now at Amazon for only $3.99 in the Kindle ebook format (possibly elsewhere, as well.) This book, which was published in 1991, introduced Grand Admiral Thrawn and launched the Expanded Universe (which later became the Legends imprint.)

In addition to a number of Star Wars novels, he has written a ton of other standalone novels and book series, as well as some collaborations. If you like Star Wars, you owe it to yourself to read the Thrawn Trilogy, which was far better than any of the other sequels or prequels. If you like hard science fiction, any of his other works are excellent and highly recommended.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Podcasts

I love listening to podcasts and I've collected thousands of episodes over the years from all the various ones I've come across. Some are no longer in production. Others I'll download episodes depending on the guest, but I don't listen to all. The ones in this list are top podcasts that I listen to regularly and I listen to every episode. 

Many of these I've blogged about before, but here for the first time is my current list of favorites. There are others I enjoy and subscribe to, but they didn't make the cut.

Most of my Top 10 lists are in order of preference, but this one was very difficult to prioritize as it's really hard to compare some as my tastes are so eclectic. Try them out if you'd like. I bet you'll enjoy them.

10. The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast - Pastor Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church interviews various leaders.

9. The Simple Reminder with Pat Lencioni - This is focused on spiritual growth for ordinary people, with devotional thoughts and discussion by organizational health expert Patrick Lencioni and his friends.

8. Hollywood & Levine - This podcast features comedy writer Ken Levine, who wrote and/or was a showrunner for a ton of great, classic sitcoms like M*A*S*H*, Cheers, Frasier, and many more. Sometimes he hosts alone and sometimes he interviews various entertainment personalities or behind-the-scenes people. Always interesting, but sometimes the language can be a little PG. 

7. North Point Community Church - featuring Pastor Andy Stanley's weekly sermons.

6. No Worries If Not! - This is a podcast by two friends who also happen to be comedians, Aaron Chewning and Andrew Stanley (son of Andy). It's wide-ranging and always funny. 

5. The Working Genius Podcast - This features Patrick Lencioni discussing the Working Genius personality model. Hard for me to explain here in a few words, but it's wonderful and highly recommended. (Here's a link to my earlier post about The Working Genius.)

4. Laugh More: The Skit Guys Podcast - Tommy Woodard and Eddie James are The Skit Guys and this is their podcast. Very entertaining. 

3. At The Table with Patrick Lencioni - This is Patrick Lencioni's flagship podcast (and his third appearance on this list!) As you can tell, I'm a big fan of his. Listen to a few of these and you will be, as well.

2. Inglorious Treksperts - The best podcast for Star Trek fans, bar none. Tons of great interviews and content for the true Trek fans.

1. The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - My absolute favorite. Mike has great and very interesting guests. But sometimes he and his co-host/high school buddy Chuck talk, and it's just as great.