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After a day at the world-famous San Diego Zoo, we decided to stop at the world-famous Saddleback Church to hear the world-famous Rick Warren preach on our way back Sunday.
The size of Saddleback defies description. Imagine entering your church driveway on your very own multi-lane highway. That’s for starters.
At the beginning of Pastor Warren’s most excellent sermon on “Growing a Heart Like Jesus,” he outlined their church’s “10 by 10″ goals. By the end of the year, 2010, here is what they hope to accomplish:
* 10,000 lives changed, baptized, and joining the family
* 10,000 small groups
* 10,000 completing their basics classes
* 10,000 going on an international P.E.A.C.E. trip
* 30,000 in weekly worship
* 30,000 members
* 30,000 serving through a local P.E.A.C.E. project
* 1,000 famlies caring for vulnerable children
* 1,000 members sent as ambassadors to U.S. churches
* A P.E.A.C.E. team sent to EVERY nation in the world
The last one is the biggest & coolest goal. (The P.E.A.C.E. acronym stands for Promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, and Educate the Young.) Check this out: Saddleback intends on being the first church in history to literally answer the call from Jesus to go into all the world by sending out teams to every single nation.
Dream big, I’ve always heard. If that was a goal in and of itself, Saddleback could check that one off its list.
Well, I was worried (as always) about getting sunburned on our trip to the zoo, but for some reason Saturday’s weather was cool and rainy. Not the best zoo day in some ways, but at least I didn’t get sunburned. And, it probably was a lot less crowded than normal.
Anyway, the San Diego Zoo was as amazing as I always imagined it to be – just wetter. Here are a few pictures…
It has been about 10 months since we moved to California, and this weekend was the first time I spent the night somewhere other than our apartment since we moved in. We went to the Holiday Inn Bayside San Diego for a couple of days, and as you can see from the picture above, we had a neat little 9-hole putting green in the courtyard below our balcony. We played a couple of rounds before grabbing dinner in the hotel restaurant, watching a little television, and grabbing some sleep.
I attended the tale of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, at Malibu High tonight, and while I was there I saw a REAL movie star. Some of you youngsters out there (well, like me) may not recognize her at first, but thankfully my friend, Sky, pointed her out to me tonight.
Katharine Ross is married to a movie star in Sam Elliott, but she has a couple of leading roles in two of the best movies ever made, qualifying her as the REAL movie star in my book. She was Mrs. Robinson’s daughter (opposite Dustin Hoffman) in “The Graduate,” and she starred as Etta Place in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Here she is with Paul Newman on the new-fangled contraption called a bicycle in one of the movie’s most memorable scenes.
Well, tomorrow is my 15th wedding anniversary. On the East Coast I guess it already is. Coincidentally, my wife happens to be celebrating her 15th tomorrow, too. What luck!
A little over a year ago I crossed that line you never see coming, the one where you suddenly realize you are getting old. For me, it began with chest pains and thankfully ended in just a diagnosis of lots of stuff wrong with my digestive system instead of my heart. But as a result, I am never allowed to eat certain foods or drink certain drinks again. Plus, I am never again supposed to eat at certain times of day, and just to top it off, I am also on medication forever. Somehow, the collective effect of all this was to convince me that I will never be young again. That, my friends, is a strange feeling.
But that’s all okay. For a couple of reasons, one being that this all happened in the middle of my life-transforming decision to go to law school (a mid-life crisis is a good time to face a mid-life crisis). The other is that it created some moments of reflection, and I’ve had a few thoughts about mortality and otherwise fun topics. I’ve decided that, although I want to live a long time for the sake of my family, if I really did have to face the end of days I couldn’t complain. I have had a really nice life.
But anyway. Life expectancy for an American man is 76 years, and I am 38. If I get to be average, my mid-life crisis was well-planned. I’ve got an entire second half to play.
15 years of marriage is a pretty long time, but you know, if I get to live that average life of an American male, Jody & I are set for 53 years of this great privilege of marriage. 15 years is a drop in the bucket. Whether I feel young anymore or not, we are really still newlyweds.
I have had a great life from the start, but marrying Jody is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am a lucky man. We have lived through some rather amazing things together, and after them all, our marriage is stronger now than ever. It is pretty exciting to imagine where it will go from here.
So, if you will all kindly turn your heads for a moment, I’d like to wish my wife a happy anniversary. I love you so very much.
I’m really looking forward to my internship beginning next week. Working with the homeless population of Los Angeles should provide a most interesting summer.
I was talking to Dean Perrin about it at a Memorial Day Eve cookout Sunday evening, and he told me about the movie, The Soloist, out in theaters now. It is a story from the streets of L.A. about a friendship that developed between a columnist from the L.A. Times and a homeless man. Add in a little help from the Internet, and I’ve decided that I would really like to see this movie. Either way, I’ll keep an eye out for Mr. Ayers this summer. I hope to make lots of new friends, too.
Here is the 60 Minutes segment on The Soloist if you haven’t seen it already.
On this Memorial Day, the L.A. Times ran a piece on their Opinion page that I think is very much worth reading.
You can check it out HERE.
You know, you go to church, and you learn things.
Preacher Ken said this morning that there is a 151st Psalm included in the Bible used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant splinters never accepted it as part of the psalter, but it is out there anyway. Preacher Ken’s sermon text was the David & Goliath story today, which is why Psalm 151 factored into the sermon. If you, like me, have never even heard of it, here it is:
Psalm (151)
This Psalm is ascribed to David and is outside the number. When he slew Goliath in single combat.
(This Title given in the Septuagint)
1 Little was I among my brethren:
A younger brother in my father’s house.
2 My hands, they made an instrument of music:
My fingers, they prepared a psaltery.
3 And who shall bring back tidings to my master?
The Lord Himself, Himself gives ear.
4 Himself sent forth His messenger:
And took me from among my father’s sheep;
And with the oil of His annointing He annointed me.
5 Comely my brethren were and tall:
And yet they found not favour with the Lord.
6 But I, I sallied forth to meet the alien:
And he reviled me by all his idols.
7 But I drew forth the sword that was beside him:
I cut his head off with it,
And from the sons of Israel removed reproach.
Act I: So I lost all my clothes in Hurricane Katrina, which was a bummer. But people gave me all sorts of clothes for free afterwards, which was really nice.
Act II (Gezundheit):
* Scene 1: A little over a year ago, I began a series of doctor visits that led to a diagnosis of esophagitis, gastritis, and a hiatal hernia. Doctor’s orders were to change what I ate and when I ate it, the combination of which led me to begin losing weight.
* Scene 2: We move to Pepperdine (or, Pepperclimb, as my friend, John Dobbs, not so affectionately calls it), and between the hills, beginning a little exercise regiment (walking), and the fact that we live on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex sans elevators, I lose about as much weight as I can stand to lose.
Act III: Since my clothes no longer fit, and since I begin a summer internship in a week where I should be wearing “business casual” on a regular basis, we went shopping today. For me of all people. Thankfully, I was with Jody & Hillary, who, not only are WAY more fashionable than I, but also are cute and fun to be around.
So it turned out to be a nice day. California weather is just alright with me (sunshine, cool breeze, no bugs – that last one will be appreciated by all my Southern friends), and we enjoyed it at an outdoor mall in Thousand Oaks. I learned that Marshall’s is a pretty cool place to find some good deals on clothes, which might come in handy in the future. That is, if I ever have to go shopping for myself again.
The End.
Graduation at Pepperdine University, as you might suspect, comes complete with a gorgeous setting. Even though I only felt like I knew about 10 of the 200+ graduates from the School of Law today, I really wanted to be there to see them become Doctors of Law (maybe in part because I’d like to see myself become one someday, too). I’m glad I went.
The featured speaker was Dr. Gary Haugen, founder/president of International Justice Mission. He had a simple message for the graduates: Enjoy your life. He said this mostly because many lawyers do not.
Within his message, he had a path to finding joy in the practice of law: Practice with a purpose. Dr. Haugen, of course, has found his joy/purpose in pursuing justice on behalf of the millions of poor around the world, and he thinks that just might be the secret of happiness for many disillusioned lawyers in the world. His is a simple mathematical equation: Scads of powerful-yet-disillusioned American attorneys + millions of poor people around the globe in desperate need of legal help = both sides getting what they desperately need.
It was a good speech, and a compelling solution to two very real problems. Not bad work for a commencement speaker.
