My 5-year-old daughter Olivia and I wrote a song today! It really was a co-writing effort. She came up with some of it and I came up with some of it. As a habit, I like to demo (which means roughly record) a song as soon after it’s written as possible, and we did that with this one. So what you’ll hear is a newborn song, about 10 minutes old, not completely formed but formed enough so that you get the idea. The lyrics might change a bit before it’s totally done but I think we have our melody.

It’s about two newborn baby birds and their mother. My favorite part (Olivia’s idea) is where the mother takes off to the roof of the Walmart for a party and stays out all night while her babies are hungry at home.

This is so exciting for me. Have a listen. Lyrics below if you want to follow along.

Download audio file (Something%20Good.mp3)

(right-click here to download the mp3)

Something Good
Written by Olivia Krahn and Michael Krahn (c) 2009

Mommy flew away to find some food
The babies stayed at home
The eggs were about to hatch
But mommy didn’t come back
Until the next morning

And when she came back two were waiting
Their mouths were open wide
Two new babies hatched in the nest
They had no food inside, and they said…

(chorus)
Give me berries, give me worms
Fill this empty tummy
Give me bugs, or give me twigs
I don’t care, just give me something good

Mommy filled their bellies, they felt so good
The babies felt at home
Mommy flew to Walmart
The party was about to start
She didn’t come back til morning

And when she came back two were waiting
Their mouths were open wide
Two new babies hatched in the nest
They had no food inside, and they said…

(chorus)
Give me berries, give me worms
Fill this empty tummy
Give me bugs, or give me twigs
I don’t care, just give me something good

A couple of years ago I won a prize at a writing conference for writing the following story in about 10 minutes:

It didn’t jive: foxes and God? What had one to do with the other? Yet here was this brewer, regaling me with stories of how both God and foxes made numerous cameos in his life.

“What does God say in these cameos?” I asked – assuming the cameo foxes were not talking cameo foxes.

“Well, it usually happens during a nap, so it’s kind of a dream, but too real to be a dream,” he said.

“I’m sitting on the ice – I’m dry but I’m frozen, and I always need to pee, but I don’t think that’s part of the message from God. That just happens because I have a large glass of water before my nap.”

“Ok, so you’re sitting on the ice…” I say, trying to pull him back from his tangent.

“Right, right, I’m on the ice…” he continues, “Everything around me whitens and out of a large hive come large bees…”

At this point I wonder if all this actually happens unaided or is the result of some brandy-spiked chocolate fondue.

“So the bees print messages in the snow, they dab themselves on the pure white blanket and print words. I sit there watching until six bees – its always six – grab my ears and turn my head.”

This is getting weirder by the moment, and I wonder if he’d notice if I snuck out and left him there alone with his story. No such luck. He grits his teeth and looks me straight in the eye and says:

“Here’s the best part…”

Ok, here’s how the story was written. We were given a photo of a finished Scrabble game board and we had to use as many of the words on the board as possible to create a story on the spot.

Below is a picture of a finished Scrabble game board. It’s not the same one I used but it will work for the same type of contest. Try it out – use as many of the words on the board as possible, then email the story to me (michael.krahn@gmail.com) or leave it in the comment box below.

I think Donald is one of, if not THE brightest of “our” writers. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality deserves a place on the highest shelf of that genre… I’m thinking of Madeleine L’engle and Anne Lamott here… and maybe a bit of P.J. O’Rourke. Honestly, Blue Like Jazz changed a few parts of my life, and that ain’t hyperbole.

However, I was equally disappointed with Searching for God Knows What. You know how musicians who are Christians are saying things like “Hey, I’m not an authority on stuff. I just write and sing about living my life as a Christian. Don’t hold me up to be higher that you.”? I feel like Don turned that around in SFGKW. He’s a great writer, but in that book he tried to be a theologian and the effect was just the opposite of BLJ. He came off as an arrogant, left-of-liberal theologian instead of the regular guy reflecting on life experiences he was in BLJ.

I can tolerate a lot of theology that doesn’t match my own in a work like BLJ, or Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, or any number of L’Engle’s books. What I find hard to stomach is a writer like Don trying to be definitive on matters in which he is not an expert. I’m not either, BTW.

“Write what you know”, right? Either that or explore what you don’t know humbly and with an open mind.  Don repeatedly uses analogies about marriage, raising kids, and to a lesser extent sports to make his theological points. In those first two categories he has no experience on which to draw – which isn’t to say those categories are completely off-limits for him.

So I found myself writing in the columns of the book a number times – writing things like “Hey Don, try this line of reasoning again after you’re married and see if it still rings true to you” and “Hey Don, get back to me once you have some kids and have thought through this in real time.”

I guess the annoyance was exacerbated by the fact that I loved BLJ so much.

Sorry for riffing on Don so much. Its been a blog post sort of waiting to happen so I guess this was my rough draft.

The winds of reconciliation are blowing through the stratum of Christendom of late.

First, Steve “Shake Me to Wake Me” Camp made a heartfelt apology to long-time nemesis and current All-American Calvinist poster boy Mark Driscoll.

Then, in an equally heartfelt – though expletive peppered – post,  Chief Executive Senior Pastor of New Spring Church, Perry Noble, admits that he actually likes John Piper.

Now, it’s being reported that John MacArthur and Brian McLaren will co-author a book together to be released on the new Tony Jones/Emergent Village approved Baker imprint Fundamergent.

“With the winds of reconciliation blowing so hard,” MacArthur said when reached at his home this afternoon, “I felt led to approach Brian in a spirit of correction significantly less stringent than I had previously experienced. There was a moment there, as we were posing for our picture together, that I almost caught myself saying – out loud – that he might be a Christian, but cooler heads prevailed.”

In response, McLaren was equally effusive in his praise of MacArthur. “John is not such a bad guy,” McLaren said, “He and his kind really do have something to add to the conversation, even if it is just to tell the rest of us how wrong we are.”

The book, currently being written with a working title of “The War on Velvet Heterodoxy”, will feature alternating chapters written by McLaren and MacArthur, with McLaren writing first and then MacArthur picking apart verb tenses and voice intonations, and keeping and eye on McLaren’s particular word order.

The book is slated for release April 1, 2010.

***SEE ALSO: Tony Jones Finds Audience, Loses “Religion”

***You might want to read part1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 first***

“I wish Ani DiFranco wasn’t a Lesbian.” 

So begins Miller’s chapter on love.  It’s another fine example of why this book would never have shown up in Christian bookstore even a decade ago.   At any rate, Don continues (if you don’t know anything about Ani DiFranco you won’t find this very funny.  Personally I think it’s hilarious:

“I am listening to her right now, and I think I would marry her if she’d have me.  I would hang out in the front row at all her concerts and sing along and pump my fist and get angry at all the right times.  Then, later, on the bus, she would lay her head on a pillow in my lap, and I would get my fingers tangled in her dreadlocks while we watched Charlie Rose on television.”

Don has some interesting fantasies to say the least – this one seems like the artist’s equivalent of a geek fantasy about being the captain of the Starship Enterprise.  And last I heard, Don, Ani is no longer a lesbian (exclusively anyway) and is married to a guy from a city 20 minutes from where I live.

“If Ani DiFranco and I got married, I would write books on the bus ride between cities and in the evening, after the concerts, we would watch Charlie Rose, and three or four times each night we would whisper, Good question, Charlie, good question.  But none of this will happen because Ani DiFranco is not attracted to men, I don’t think.  Otherwise we would be on.”

These are the fantasies of a desperately single, artistically inclined man.  Good luck, Don.

Miller is a first rate writer – in this book anyway – and from the audio I’ve heard of him he’s also an engaging and hilarious speaker. 

******

Post Script – I’ve read another entire book of his now and I disliked it as much I liked Blue Like Jazz.  It is a book that is more focused on theology and in it Don seems to be in way over his head, regurgitating half-baked ideas with a more that subtle liberal bias.  I’ll post some thoughts on that eventually.

*******

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This is a re-post of an article I published ay Digital Journal in the summer of 2007.  It still seems timely considering the numer of attacks I’ve heard by “real” journalists on bloggers.

 Triumph In Waiting: The Rise of Digital Journalism

July 28, 2007

One week ago I sent a letter to the editor of the National Post that wasn’t published. 48 hours later I posted the same letter as an article at Digital Journal. I now have readers, new intellectual sparring partners, and money in the bank.

Twentieth century media prophet Marshall McLuhan observed that new technology decentralizes power. Apply that observation to the newspaper business model and you’ll see why, unless you are a full-time professional with a regular gig, it probably makes more sense to write online.

Face this near-universal truth: all media content serves the goal of selling advertising. It was true of terrestrial radio; it is true of newspapers; it is even true of Digital Journal.

But this is where the idea of decentralization comes into play. When you post an article at Digital Journal, advertising revenue is generated. How much? It depends on how good your article is and therefore how many people view it. But whatever revenue it does generate, Digital Journal acknowledges that you assisted in the generation of that revenue and they share it with you.

Compare this with a typical letter to the editor: When you send a letter to the editor, the editor decides whether or not it will be published. This decision is based at least in part on how much advertising revenue your letter creates. It may be indirect, and it may not be much, but the fact is that you provide the paper with free content that they publish for profit. To add insult to injury, if your comment is published you still need to buy the paper the next day to see your letter in print.

Unfortunately, that is the end of the line for your letter unless, of course, you are the subject of a letter to the editor about your letter to the editor. Here is how the system works:

On Saturday a feature article is published. On Monday the first letters to the editor about the feature article are published. Reasonable enough so far, but then it gets a bit strange. On Tuesday the first letters to the editor about other letters to the editor appear under titles like (real example) “Re: Who’s Really Doing The Fear-Mongering? letter to the editor, July 26; Anti-Muslim Fear Mongering, letter to the editor, July 21; At War With Radical Islam, letter to the editor, July 19.”

These letters often make eloquent refutations of letters published earlier in the week, but what’s the point?

There is some generational divide between those who read newspapers and those who read online, but such anonymous or semi-anonymous activity in the online world is known as “drive-by commenting” and is looked down upon. This is why many blogs and most online news sites will not allow you to leave a comment without you first providing valid contact information. To be clear, I am not saying that all letter to the editor writers are cowardly, only that they would probably be perceived as such in the online world if they provided no avenue for contact or follow-up.

Of course where accountability is absent, bad behavior flourishes.

The convenience of the anonymity of being published in the letters section of a newspaper is second only to the convenience of the same anonymity afforded to those who comment on others’ comments. If that sentence sounds convoluted, try following a thread of “conversation” as it happens in a newspaper.

Everyone who posts to the Digital Journal knows exactly how many times their article has been viewed and how many comments it has generated. In the last four days, my article (The Dawkins Defeat) has had almost 900 views and generated 87 comments.

How many people read your last letter to the editor?

***You might want to read part1, part 2, and part 3 first***PART 4:

I also want you to know that I believe what Don says about Jesus giving us the ability to love the things we should because I have experienced the transformation.  I could have written, word-for-word what Don says next:

“I tried to love the right things without God’s help, and it was impossible.  I tried to go one week without thinking a negative thought about another human being, and I couldn’t do it.  Before I tried that experiment, I thought I was a nice person, but after trying it, I realized I thought bad things about people all day long, and that, like Tony says, my natural desire was to love darkness.”

That paragraph threw me into a period of self-examination, with periodic recurrences ever since.  And this is not just changing the way I think about other people, it’s also having a profound effect on the way I think about myself.  It’s changing me from being a receiver to being a giver.  It’s helping me to see that I have a lot in the bank when it comes to having things to offer.  Things I haven’t attained entirely on my own, but stored up through a great childhood and a lot of years of experience making mistakes in my life as a Christian. 

Instead of always looking for the next opportunity to consume I’m looking for ways to serve others. So, for example, the next time a Promise Keepers event comes to town, rather than bashing it as being of no use to me (which I have to say it is not), because I see that it really IS of use to a great number of men, I’m going to volunteer to pray or counsel or run security.  I’m putting legs to the idea that “it is better to give than to receive”.

Of course really putting legs to this idea means living it in the place where I spend the most of my waking hours: at work.  It’s the toughest place for me to successfully NOT think bad thoughts about people for an entire day.  But I like challenges.  I think working a normal job should be a prerequisite for every person who wants to have a full-time church job.  I think one decade is a nice qualifying number.  You need to spend ten years, one decade, working a normal job before you can work in the church. 

How many Bible college students would drop out with that prerequisite in place?  And from the ones who saw it through, how many would go on to be far more mature and effective leaders in their churches and, just as importantly, in their non-church communities?  (Ok, so this is an easy requirement for me because I’ve already fulfilled it – I’ve worked for 13 years and am now contemplating a career move into ministry.)

But in keeping with my “I AM THE PROBLEM” line of thought, I want to tell you about the a response I gave to some questions I was asked while I was reading this book. The questions were about the format of the Sunday morning services at the church I attend.  Things like “How do you like the music?” and “What could we do to enhance your worship experience?”  I started to answer as I normally would but then found myself writing in response:

I am an elitist.  

I want the world to revolve around me.  

I want friends who are like me in every way.  

I want to change people who are not like me so that they are like me.  

I want to be efficient about friendship.  

I want people to meet my criteria if I’m going to spend my precious time on them. 

I am selfish. 

So, what do I want in a church service?  I’m not sure you should care.

Now I should point out that the “I AM THE PROBLEM” philosophy was still in trickledown mode at this point and after a bit more conversation I did back off from the extreme but still, this was a very uncharacteristic response for me.  I have a lot of opinions about everything. Find someone who knows me, even a little, and they’ll confirm that for you.  I have enough trouble thinking overly well of myself without someone encouraging me to think about myself a bit more yet.  I am a recovering self-addict, and like an alcoholic I’ll always be recovering.

go to part 5

I’ve had this story collaboration project going on my site from time to time. You can join in. Its just a fun game where you can write a bit of fiction and plot the course of the future. Ooooooo, the power.

I wrote part 1 and it goes like this:

and then Part 2 was sent in by the ever-mysterious parttimescribe@hotmail.com:

It was a system that worked fairly well.

He patted down his tired brown hat and re-adjusted a few stray straws sticking out of his sleeve. His thoughts made him hesitate again; a big “what if” made his pale legs refuse to move.

What if it wasn’t true?

What if it was farther than he had been told?

Would his old body hold up?

Again he reasoned and wrestled with his mind. It was playing tricks with him, causing him to doubt, to stumble. He mentally forced himself to begin. One step in front of the other.

The sun had started making its journey upward, gleaming and streaking its rays across the field. It’s warm and yellow heat gave him a renewed strength and he picked up the pace. He could see the black pavement ahead, somehow marking the real start of his long journey. Carefully he climbed over the old wooden fence, waved a final goodbye to the field and looked straight ahead with a now unwavering purpose.

His destination was just beyond the river and the two mossy green hills. If he could make it to the river by sundown he’d be doing okay, then the valley through the hills, and then finally the city. Knowing this he walked a little faster, almost a skip in his step now…

Part 3 from barryball_2000@yahoo.com:

Before long he realized it was further to the river than he had thought. His legs were getting tired because this was much more walking than he was used to and the dust from the road was making him feel tired and dirty. These were not sensations he was used to back in the corn field. That field had rich, dark dirt; not this infernal dust. And even though he was on his feet all day in the field he was able to lean on his post, he even sometimes would nod off to sleep.

Just as he was thinking about stopping for a rest a dusty brown pickup truck came rattling down the road in the opposite direction. As it got closer it slowed down and came to a stop a few yards in front of the scarecrow.

The scarecrow stopped walking. He looked at the truck but with the sun behind the truck he was unable to make out who or what was in it. He thought this seemed odd and threatening but as the dust settled he decided to press ahead rather than show that he could be intimidated. In fact, he decided, it might not be trouble at all. He put a smile on his face and thought of a friendly greeting to use as he started to pass the truck.

Now it’s your turn. Send in Part 4. I’ll put the entries up for a vote and the winner will win a CD.

(CLICK HERE – you need to be playing this song while you read)

Airports are filled with people who have a purpose.  Its not the type of place many people go to just for something to do, although after being here today I would consider coming again for the sole purpose of writing more character sketches.  People are arriving and departing, but those of us who spend the most time here are waiting… waiting for the arrivals and departures to do just that – arrive and depart.  The ones arriving are starving for a cigarette, anxious to find a cab, and ready to do the business they came to do.  The ones departing are checking and rechecking the flight numbers on their tickets and matching that information to what’s on the screens overhead.
 
Those of us waiting for an arrival are talking about what we ate for breakfast and lunch – topics that will inevitably change when the one(s) for whom we wait finally arrive.  When they do its on to "Oh my God!" and "How are you?"  Tears are always saved for the departure at the other end of the visit – if it’s a two-way flight.

Awaiting a departure is a different story.  Some wait alone, and many are business types who have probably done this a hundred times before and don’t think much of it.  But there are others who wait together, family clusters of two’s and four’s who are about to be separated and their distress is palpable.  When the departing member final walks onto the plane and out of site, those remaining walk slowly back to the parking lot and drive away – sadder and more alone.
 
That sultry Chris Isaak song is wafting through the terminal.  I think its called "Wicked Game" and unless you’re a REALLY slow reader you’re listening to it right now… As the fat, balding middle aged men wait for their luggage to slide on the carrousel, there is no poetic appropriateness to that song playing, but I can see a video for it made in slow motion in an airport with people walking in all directions. 

I wonder if those here on business will recover what they’ve sacrificed to be loaded onto a flight to come to this small city.  The most recent flight arrival yielded a bumper crop of young-to-middle-aged men.  Guys in tweed jackets that seem happy with their lives; younger guys in casual-but-still-serious business suits who still want more of whatever it is their getting right now.  Scattered amongst these common types are the rare out-doorsy looking 50-year-olds and the red-faced 35-year-old alcoholics.  Most of all these men arrive alone, wait for their luggage alone, and leave alone.  If this is their return home, they must lead lonely lives.
 
One man is lucky enough to have his daughter here to meet him but there is tension between them and she’s largely ignored by him -and he by her.  She’s more concerned with the text messages on her cell, but I doubt she would be if her father was showing an interest in her.  She strikes me as the type that is a marginal high-school athlete and is more concerned with the elevated social status being on the team affords than she is about doing well on that team.  Its the hoodie that says "GIRLS BASKETBALL" in Rockwell type that’s important – you see, it says something about her identity.

I make these observations about someone I really know nothing about.  Its all conjecture based on other girls I’ve know who look the same and I think I’ve got her pegged, but I’ve been wrong before.  Its still fun to write a character sketch about someone you don’t know based solely on their physical appearance and body language.  Besides, by now everyone must know that first impressions are almost everything and so I take whatever I see first as a person’s manifesto.  This is either shallow or efficient on my part – or maybe a bit of both.

More people waiting, men shaking hands, exchanging forced salutary chuckles, walking out into the night through a rotating door.  The handshakes, the chuckles – they’re supposed to convey self-confidence and draw attention.  It works, but they leave, and those of us left waiting are left to find a new object of observation and to periodically turn our gaze toward the domestic arrivals door, looking for that familiar face we came here to pick up.