Notorious TV Watcher

When Becky is around, I don’t get to watch as much of the TV I like.  I mostly capitulate and watch what she wants to watch because truthfully, I actually enjoy shows like What Not to Wear and Project Runway while Becky struggles through the shows I like (such as No Reservations, Top Gear) or refuses outright to watch them (Criminal Minds, any number of music-related shows).

Well, friends, the woman has left me alone for a week in order to visit her mom and dad.  I keep fairly busy, so I haven’t gone on any TV-watching sprees, but I have almost exclusively watched things she wouldn’t be into.  It’s been frickin’ sweet.

Tuesday night, I got home around six, ate dinner, watched Jeopardy (as is my tradition), then headed to my room to dig into the DVR.  While working out, I watched Top Gear (one and a half episodes) and after working out, I watched No Reservations: Brittany and fell asleep to No Reservations: Czech Republic.

Last night, I got home around 4:15, did some laundry and watched half an episode of Top Gear (they drove from Basel, Switzerland to Blackpool, England, 700 some miles, on a single tank of gas in unmodified diesel cars).  My mom and I then went to The Canton Inn in West Annapolis for dinner and then walked around downtown for a bit.  We got home around 8:00 and while working out, I watched the remaining episode and a half of Top Gear I had on the DVR.  Now I want a Ferrari Daytona, I’m just sayin’.  I then flipped to HBO to watch Notorious, which was actually pretty good.

It was like a low-budget Ray, but with a fat rapper instead of a blind soul-man.  The acting was weaker than it’s big-budget cousins, and the story felt a bit forced, but it was entertaining and nostalgic.  In fact, I think I’m going to listen to some Junior Mafia now.  [Edit:  I've been listening to some early-mid 90s rap, and good night it is violent and graphic...I know it sounds old, but I wish people were more polite...that's a whole other blog...Outkast's Jazzy Belle from ATLiens just came on and even that has some crazy stuff in it...oh, man, but despite all that, the sound of these songs is so good, so infectious, the sound just invites you in and if you are like me, you fall willingly in and start nodding your head, tapping your foot and possibly replacing the word 'yes' with 'word'].

There is very little chance Notorious would have been seen if Becky was around.

Tonight?  I’m going out for sushi with my dad, but after that, I’ll have to find someone sweet to watch since I’m fresh out of Top Gear episodes and Man vs. Food was on last night.

I’m not ashamed of loving TV.  I still read mad books, do my homework, do 1,000 crunches several times a week and other allegedly healthy things.

I do miss Becky tons though.  Buddy and Dizzy just aren’t as good conversationalists, and the empty bed beside me is nowhere near as warm and wonderful as Becky.  Of course, I miss playing with Ariella, too.

Sunday, I’ll watch the Bud Shootout, which I plan to DVR, then the Super Bowl (I want the Saints to win, but my logic side thinks the Colts have the upper hand).

P.S. I’m tired of snow and cold.  I don’t want to wear a coat anymore.

I am a Polar Bear.

What did you do on Saturday?  I did something stupid, but awesome.  Dangerous, but exhilarating.  And I am excited to do it again.  For the last 14 years, the MD state police have put on a Polar Bear Plunge at Sandy Point state park to benefit the Maryland Special Olympics.  To participate in the plunge, you have to raise at least $50.  Piece of cake, though when I tell people I paid to do it, they laugh.  Truth be told, I didn’t pay anything.  I set my fundraising goal to $50 because I signed up with less than a week to go and didn’t expect to raise much.  I still managed to raise $155.  Next year, I think I will get on the bus sooner and set a higher goal.

So, what was it like?  It was, uh, like, freezing cold.  It was so cold in fact that the organizers chose to cancel the second (of two) plunge out of fear for safety and health.
I woke up ready.  My mind was set on total submersion.  It hadn’t started snowing yet, and I hadn’t been outside to realize the air temperature, without wind, was under 20 degrees.  Of course, jutting out into the Bay as Sandy Point does, I was expecting heavy winds.  I was not to be disappointed.  My parents, Becky, Ariella and I drove to the community college to catch the shuttle bus.  Riding the bus on my lap was Ariella’s top moment of the experience.  The chaos of the rest of the event was not up her alley, and apparently she was genuinely afraid Daddy would go down into the Bay and not return.

At the event, we explored and attempted, unsuccessfully, to keep warm.  Before even changing into my slip-on Vans, which I wore into the water, my toes were beginning to feel more like ice cubes than flesh.

At 12:40 PM, I took off my shirt but kept my heavy winter coat on in the hopes of maintaining any scrap of body heat before the inevitable.  At 12:55, I took off my jacket and warm-up pants and made my way onto the beach wearing my bathing suit and my Vans…only.  The air temperature was 18 degrees.  The water temperature was below freezing.  Snow was falling and, disturbingly, not melting on my still-dry skin.  I was cold.

I ducked into one of the warming tents for one minute to regain some composure and convince myself that a) I could do this; and b) I probably would not die.  Suddenly, the call rang out to plunge, and I set off from the tent onto the crowded beach.  I shoved my way through the masses, silently pscyhing myself up by telling myself how awesome it was going to feel.  My adrenaline was coursing through my cold, constricted veins, and pain was a distant thought, then…

My foot hit the water.  I’m not sure, but I think it was like when the Incredible Hulk turns green, except I turned blue; starting with my feet and moving up, but I kept pushing forward.  Seven yards off shore, I knew it was time and I stopped and leaned back into the water is one smooth motion.  Water filled my bathing suit, covered my stomach, then chest, then shoulders and neck and finally head.  I kept my face out of the water for fear of losing my contacts, which were like discs of ice on my corneas.

Satisfied, I launched from the water, icy missles of water shooting from my flailing and unfelt limbs.  Ashore, I looked down to make sure my feet were still there.  They were.  Seinfeld had an episode discussing shrinkage.  I won’t say any more about that, but I confirmed later in a more private setting that everythig was in fact still there.

Once out of the water, I had choices.  Go to my towel, which was nowhere remotely close to a warming tent (rookie mistake) or go to a warming tent, get warm, then head out into the cold again for my towel and warm clothes.  Initially, my body’s only desire was warmth, so I angled for a warming tent.  Unfortunately, outside the warming tent, trying to get in was a mass of bodies similar to what you would find at a Metallica concert pressing skin to skin desperately trying to get what everybody viscerally needs:  James Hetfield…uh…I mean, WARMTH, yeah, warmth.  I abandoned the tent, and gingerly made my way across the beach to my parents who had my towel.  I had to move carefully because I couldn’t feel anything below my knees and did not want to break an ankle and not feel it.  Actually, I didn’t want to break an ankle and feel it, either, so I was careful.

I got my towel, at which point I noticed my now-blue skin shared the hue of the wings on the dagger on my left arm.  If you’ve seen the tattoo, you know that is a vivid blue, and I am not joking about the hues matching.

I b-lined for where I knew a heater would be and set up camp in front of it.  It took about ten minutes to gather enough warmth to head for home, and my uncontrollable shivering stopped about an hour after the plunge, which lasted all of 10 seconds or less.

It was the coldest I think I’ve ever been, and I CANNOT WAIT to do it again next year.  I just want to make sure I do it with others to share in the experience.  Doing it alone was the test run.  Now it’s time for teamwork.  What’s gonna work?  Teamwork!

See you around.

Processing Death

I don’t really know how to deal with death properly.  I don’t really get how to reply when someone tells me someone has died.  Today, my friend Sean called me to inform me a mutual friend passed away this morning.  Sean was much closer to the person than I was, but we definitely shared some good laughs over the years.  He had a huge heart and an easy smile, if not an easy life.

When Sean told me, I just stared at my computer screen and said things like, “Uh huh.”  I didn’t say anything encouraging or even intelligent.  I didn’t say anything.  I didn’t really feel anything either.  It was just another fact I came across that day.  This is not the first time I’ve had an experience like that, either.

When my mom’s sister passed away, I couldn’t process it at first.  My dad called and told me.  I was on my way to Chip Holt’s apartment at the time.  I just replied to my dad.  I told him I would come home and drive with him and my mom to Pittsburgh for the funeral.  Everything was clinical.  The lines were very clear, and I stayed well within them.  I had no emotional reaction.

Eventually I process death.  I process sadness, but I usually do it privately, even internally.  I don’t know if this is good or bad.  In the midst of death, my emotional self stays quiet, even glaringly absent at times, while my analytical brain runs the show.

I don’t think I’m cold.  Maybe I am. 

Tonight, while practicing for Centerpoint worship, I’ll probably think about it.  My emotional self holds equal control of my functions (along with the analytical) while playing music.  Other than a very few other activities, 50% is probably the most control the emotional self typically gets.

Plunge into Grad School

I’m back in grad school.  My last attempt at an MBA was a big fat $750 loss.  In my idiocy, I didn’t finish some assignments (prefering instead to sleep following .Ht. shows), and I earned an “F” in the class, resulting in removal from the program. 

This time I’m going to do it right.  Three weeks in, and my grade is currently an A.  I’m taking two classes:  Introduction to MBA and Introduction to Library Skills.  The second is a joke class to introduce virtual classroom students to UMUC policies and guidelines on avoiding plagiarism and using APA format.  It’s only a five week class.  All my other classes will be ten-week classes.  I’m done all the assignments for the Library class except for the final project (which is an annotated bibliography) and the final exam.  I’m pretty confident that I will finish the project this week.

The Introduction to MBA class has been fairly interesting so far.  Last week, I had to write a five-page paper (double spaced), which after writing hotline reports for so long came very easily.  Actually, I ended up with a 12-page paper and had to really cut it down.  In the end, I had a seven-page paper.

I’m really excited to get into this program because the more I get into the program, the further I’ll be, and the sooner I’ll be done.  I am really hoping that this is a launching point for my career.  I want to progress in my career only so that I can serve my family.  I want Becky to be able to take Ariella to museums and classes without having to worry about overextending ourselves financially.  Right now, we are extended pretty far.  Soon, we could be swimming in totally uncharted territories (as if living with my parents in a 1000 sq. ft., 1 bathroom house wasn’t uncharted enough). 

More than likely, we will be putting our house up for sale this month.  That will probably result in a short-sale and a major credit hit.  Then, who knows who will have me as a renter?  I’m pretty scared, but I’m confident that God’s going to take care of me.  So many crazy things have fallen into place with this move to Maryland as far as opportunities, and graduate school paid for by my employer is only one. 

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On a side note, I’m participating in the Polar Bear Plunge (www.plungemd.com) at 1:00 PM on Saturday (January 30).  If you would like to support me financially, check out this site: http://plungemd.kintera.org/themattmurphy

Bill and Ted say, “Most Excellent!”

Excellence.

How many things do I take on and am satisfied with less than excellence?  None.  I sometimes have to settle for less than excellence because no matter what I’ve prepared, I’ve fallen short.  I cannot tell you how much not achieving excellence bothers me.

My craving for excellence is what makes me a good team player because I am open to doing anything, but it is also what makes me often dread working as part of a team.  The problem with teams is that you have to rely on others.  If they don’t do their part excellently, or if they are satisfied with producing something I view as less than excellent, then I am left short of excellence.  This craving for excellence is a good thing; perhaps even an excellent and wholly necessary and appropriate thing.  How I deal with it is not always great or appropriate, but the innate desire to produce excellence I think is good.  Its opposite is apathy, which is, in my mind, but one of the devil’s many playgrounds.

I have been playing music in front of people at least once a month since October 1999; 123 consecutive months.  I have yet to play a perfect show.  Amongst the hundreds of performances, I would maybe say my part was perfect less than five times.  Of those five or less, none were perfect by all members of the band; even the amazing Chip Holt wasn’t perfect and would curse (though knowing him, it was probably an alternative curse like “sugar” or “fudge”) silently to himself.  Even the great Julia Owens forgot lyrics and the curvaceous John Daubert went flat.  I regularly put my fingers down on the fretboard in a region only loosely associated with the proper region.  Oops. 

Exactness and perfection are not achievable for most of us, especially when humans have to work together in a team, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be our goal.  It doesn’t mean that we should settle for a flat cardboard poster style science project just because we couldn’t afford an Electron Microprobe!  Build a molecule from K’Nex, man!!

I think every time we do anything, we should take time to evaluate it and find real areas for improvement.  There is one other thing we should do (to maintain perspective), which I am TERRIBLE at.  We should compare the most recent time to the previous time and identify SPECIFIC areas where we have improved.  It’s not good enough to say, “Well, our vocals were better and Matt actually played the right song sometimes.”  We have to say, “Last time, we were really flat on this part and this part, but after practice and a monitor change, we were on pitch, and Matt wrote the notes big enough on his paper this time to see them and played all the right notes on that song.”  I tend to only see the areas where improvement is needed; in myself, in the teams I work with, in the people around me.  I need to focus as much attention on what HAS improved.

This inclination to only see the areas where improvement is needed has led me to some sleepless nights this weekend as I prepare to write a paper; learn how to interact on a new, young worship team (young in that we’ve all only been together playing for a few weeks); prepare for this year’s PCTC as well as next year’s (I have the logo for 2011 if you want to see it); continue to grow in my career; and most importantly be a loving, thoughtful husband.

I don’t worry about being a dad quite as much.  I’m pretty convinced I’m the man in that area; which may mean that Ariella has me wrapped around her finger.  That’s fodder for another blog.

Food and Health

Food.

I freaking love food.  I am not rich enough to really be a foodie, but I live a foodie lifestyle vicariously through Anthony Bourdain and various other TV personalities.  Becky and I want to visit Volt in Frederick, MD, so much that it comes up in conversation daily.  Volt is owned by Brian Voltaggio, the runner-up on the most recent cycle of Bravo’s Top Chef.

I love cooking.  I love eating.  There are few things I love more than trying new things.  In October, on our way home from Meagan’s wedding in Lynchburg, Becky and I stopped at this trendy-looking restaurant in Charlottesville for brunch.  I had a marvelous concoction that was egg, english-muffin/biscuit with shrimp and a puree of butternut squash.  HOW DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME THAT BUTTERNUT SQUASH IS AMAZING?  This dish was breakfasty joy exploding on my taste buds.  I’ve been fortunately enough to have butternut squash a few times since that day, and I still can’t believe it took me 28 years to find it.

I love fancy foods and wines.  I also love basic, comfort foods (and beer).  I have been on a spicy foods kick for a while now, and each time I try one of these spicy foods, I ramp up the heat a little more.  Soon enough, I’ll be competing next to Adam Richman (Travel Channel’s Man Vs. Food) in a eat lava-flavored, pepper-encrusted balls of flame contest at some insane food destination (with my luck, it’ll be Fredericksburg or Annapolis…not that I don’t love those towns, but I’ve been to each a few times).

On Saturday, I’m going to cook for Becky and my parents (who are my roommates/landlords/friends).  I’m hoping to cook some good cold-weather comfort food.  Maybe the four of us can settle in for a movie or something after the girl (Ariella) goes to sleep.  That’s where the second part of this blog comes in.

Health.

A lot of food isn’t healthy.  A lot of those fancy foods Anthony Bourdain and others eat are bathed in fat and butter and cheese…  A lot of the foods I like are filled with fat.  When I was 18, I weighed 225 pounds and running a mile would have been a nearly impossible task.  After getting married, I started eating pizza and General Tso’s like it was my job.  Truth be told, an alarming portion of my salary went into this indulgence, so in a way, eating this was cause for my job, if not my job.  This deliciousness binge brought me up to about 245 pounds.  I decided I needed to lose some weight, so I started running.  At first, I literally struggled to make it around the block, but every ten runs or so, I could add another few dozen yards, and after a few months, I could do a mile, then two, then three.  I still ate like it was my job (oh my goodness, I love food, did I mention that?), but weight started coming off.

Then, one Sunday in January of 2007, after Common Ground, and after a probably incredibly overindulgent lunch, Becky said, “I want to have a baby.”

I thought, “Heck yeah!”  So, it was business time (I knew because I had on my business socks).  It was also time to get healthy.  I had already lost some weight.  I started running in September of 2006, and the scale at PCTC in February 2007 showed I was down to 206 pounds (the elation at this accomplishment is recorded in my journal).  I dramatically changed my diet and started working out in one way or another at least four days a week.  By the time Ariella was born in October 2007, I was down to 175 pounds.  A year later, I was down to 160 pounds.  Now, I hover around 170 pounds and my goal is no longer weight loss, but muscle tone.

To keep this, and to inspire continued discipline, I try to still watch what I eat…which has limited my intake of delicious foodie foods.  Add to this my roommate, whose name is Dad, is a diabetic.  I do random Internet recipe searches like “low-fat diabetic friendly comfort food recipes.” 

I’d like to cook some Cincinnati Chili, but I don’t know…it’s not really in either search category above…

Did I mention that I love food so so so so much, and you should pay for me to go to cool restaurants?  I just wanted to put that out there.

Pandora and Slacker…MUSIC!!

My Friend the Chocolate Cake is why Pandora is better than Slacker Radio.  I use Slacker, which is very similar to Pandora in principle if not in user interface, on my Blackberry because I was having issues with Pandora’s mobile application on my phone.  I like Slacker, but it is definitely the inferior despite it’s advertised access to several times the number of songs that Pandora has.  My Friend the Chocolate Cake is one of several reasons why Pandora is superior.

What the hell am I talking about?  Well, sit down and shut your pretty face and I’ll tell you.  The easiest way to listen to music on Pandora or Slacker is to just put in a band name.  The programs then create playlists based on what they think are similar songs/artists to what you chose.  Both do a pretty incredible job of selecting things that are similar, but Pandora definitely throws in more outliers than Slacker…you know the songs that make you think, “What in the world does David Bowie have in common with Filter?”  [They both worked with Trent Reznor, but that does not necessarily translate to musical similarity.]

These outliers are usually intriguing, fun, and something to look forward to, but occassionally the “Huh?” factor is too high and a precious skip has to be used (skips aren’t unlimited in either program’s free version).  The variety of songs and artists is what I’m looking for using these programs, so the bad outliers are an acceptable problem. 

Other than having more outliers, Pandora is better because it strays further from the beaten path than Slacker.  That’s where My Friend the Chocolate Cake comes in.  They are a fairly obscure (for Americans) band, but they have some songs that I love.  They came up randomly during a trip through the halls of Pandora.  I had gone through the “Morphine” door and found myself listening to some great groups like Portishead and Mad Season and even Cake, but eventually one Wednesday afternoon about a year ago, they played My Friend the Chocolate Cake, and I loved it.  Slacker never plays that stuff.  I’ve been listening to Slacker all day and have not only heard many bands repeated several times (White Stripes, Killers, Franz Ferdinand), but I’ve only heard one band I’ve never heard of before (Klaxons).

Ultimately, they are both brilliant options and are a great way to be exposed to music beyond your little record collection.  I’ve fallen in love with many bands through Pandora.  Yes, they were mostly brief trysts that faded with time, but a few have really stuck: Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, Drag the River, Glassjaw, Animal Collective… 

The one thing I hate about these programs is when you select a band thinking them an obvious heading for a genre, and Slacker/Pandora apparently thinks they are another genre.  For example, I chose Arctic Monkeys today to hear some stripped down Brit post-punk, but I found myself listening to Radiohead, The Killers, and Interpol.  Not that I don’t like them, but it was definitely not what I wanted. 

Anyway, if you have a smart phone or a computer and don’t use one of these programs, what the heck is wrong with you?  Get on it.  Okay, you don’t have to shut your pretty face anymore….
My playlists today (please listen to some of these bands and yes I realize I have music A.D.D.):

Station:  Bloc Party
Bands Heard:  Bloc Party, Spoon, Klaxons, Kaiser Chiefs, Hot Hot Heat, Postal Service, White Stripes…

Station:  Battles
Bands Heard:  The Flaming Lips, Battles, Modest Mouse, Mogwai

Station:  Arctic Monkeys
Bands Heard:  Arctic Monkeys, White Stripes, Interpol, The Killers, Radiohead, Razorlight, Arcade Fire…

Station:  Glassjaw
Bands Heard:  Glassjaw, My Chemical Romance, Thrice, Alkaline Trio, Taking Back Sunday, AFI, Jimmy Eat World

Station:  Drag the River
Bands Heard:  Drag the River, Wilco, Ryan Adams, Son Volt, Old 97s, Lucero…

Station:  Comedy
Comedians Heard:  Rodney Dangerfield, Larry the Cable Guy, Jerry Seinfeld, Dan Cummins…

Station:  Foals
Bands Heard:  Foals, Band of Horses, Cut Copy, Interpol, The Strokes, Bloc Party

The Sleeping Seat, Catch 22 and Song Suggestions

There is a seat on the Light Rail I’ll start calling THE SLEEPING SEAT.  I would guess that four of every five days on the way home, I see someone asleep in it by the time we reach Linthicum.  A dude is sleeping there now with his Jansport backpack occupying the aisle seat beside him.

It is a strange phenomenon, this sleeping seat.  Yesterday (17 Dec 2009), I myself became victim to it’s narcoleptic influence and slept from Baltimore Highlands to Cromwell with my briefcase acting as blanket.

I am still reading Catch 22, at least when I am awake.  It is really good, but dense in a very unique way.  I find myself regularly laughing, sometimes outloud thereby making my fellow passengers believe me to be crazy (this impression is not helped by my ill-fitting jacket, scraggly beard and black knit beanie pulled down past my eyebrows).  The constant contradiction and circular reasoning is hilarious, but I can’t make my 50 pages per day on the train average.  I’m doing more like 35, but I’m loving it even if it is probably leading some other Light Rail rider to write a blog about the crazy bearded guy sitting near them laughing loudly to himself.

I’m hoping to write blogs over the holiday, but they may not get posted until I get back.  Until then, please listen to a few songs:  Dynamite by Son Volt, Amazing G. by Drag the River, Carol of the Bells by August Burns Red, Shimmer and Shine by Ben Harper, Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked by Cage the Elephant, and Teach by The Chariot.

Snow Shovelling A New Normal

As a kid, I always thought it was strange that my parents spent most of their time at home and didn’t seem to have the close-knit community that I had in high school.  I held onto the belief that this was strange through college, where my bonds with some people were as close as my bond with my actual brother.  As college ended, some of those bonds stretched and some faded altogether, but several strengthened even further.  The lifestyle my parents had, which didn’t seem to involve direct, close involvement in the lives of their friends or their friends involvement in their lives, seemed at odds with what I was experiencing.

I cannot imagine my parents leaving me and Tim for nearly a week to travel to Maine in a tight-packed friends’ car to attend the wedding of another friend.  I don’t remember them having friends that close.

Maybe I just missed it…but really I’m starting to feel like maybe my parents have been looking at my lifestyle, which has historically involved heavy reliance on my friends, and my extension of myself so they can rely on me, as odd.  Maybe my parents’ lifestyle is more the norm.  It’s hard for adults to develop the bonds I’ve developed.  People who are older are more guarded and closed off.  Their priorities are more self- or family-focused rather than world- and community-focused. 

I don’t know if you noticed, but this past weekend, there was a lot of snow in my neck of the woods.  Reading Facebook, I was able to track the exploits of my community of friends in Fredericksburg with envy at times, but mostly just joy at their joy.  I was enjoying Ariella’s first real jaunt in the snow and Becky’s awe at the amount of snow we had (the most she can ever remember seeing).  I was enjoying the sweat and effort shared with my dad as we dug out the driveway to our house.  I didn’t get out to see anyone (after having coffee with Chad and Donnie, which was awesome).  I was sad not to have spent that time with my friends, at times very sad, but when evaluating my weekend, I see that it was filled with joy…just different joy.

Now, I don’t know what normal is anymore.  I still crave community and long for discussions both superficial and serious with the people I have spent years cultivating relationships with.  My heart skips a beat when I think about these bonds stretching and fading. 

Despite this craving, I have to learn a new way of living, as geography and priorities (mine and others) have changed.  It’s time to find a new normal that blends my parents’ example of extrememly strong family-centric bonds with my experiences with community.   Things are never easy.

Creativity and Jesus

14 December 2009

I should take a creative writing class at the community college.  Maybe Becky and I can do it together.  I miss the wave of creative language that would overcome me at the most unexpected times.  I found my HS journals in my parents’ attic, and much of it is terrible and embarrassing but it brought back memories of the feeling that I HAD to write or I would burst.  Now, all too often, I am forcing myself to write.  I keep this journal and write a blog not because of the overwhelming feelings I used to have but as an avenue of release should those feelings decide to return.

It’s gotten exponentially worse since coming to Baltimore.  I am guessing it is due to the lack of a cohesive body of creative people around me.  Here, it is just me and Becky and there is not a lot challenging me to write or sending creative vibes my way to soak in.  Maybe I should take a class and learn a new way.

15 December 2009

I finished another book yesterday.  AJ Jacobs’ “A Year of Living Biblically.”  It was okay.  He’s an engaging character, and I think I would like to meet him and hang out with him.  It was a very secular view of the Bible but strangely reverent nonetheless.  For me, the reality is that (despite his claim) that you cannot hope to experience the Bible without faith (in my case that faith should be in Christ).  Jacobs does a great job of putting the Old Testament into perspective:  the reality that you cannot hope to live all the laws all the time.  The rub, for me, is that Christ brings the Old Testament into perspective and gives the reason for the laws.

As shown with food, Christ gives us the authority to live free from the OT law, generally and live life looking through the glasses of Christ.  Love God, love people.  Before Christ, the law existed to point a behavioral pathway to holiness.  It created behaviors that looked like faithfulness and would probably foster faith (as seen to some degree in this book).  It also separated the Israelites from the pagan nations by clothing, behavior, diet, etc.  Christians are called to live righteously through following His example of sacrificial love and praising Him for the sacrifice He made on the cross taking our sins on for us.  We are so undeserving of that grace-filled act.  Jacobs talks in his book about how pervasive lying and lust and anger can be.  We Christians give into them, too.  We are incapable of perfection, so we need someone holy and perfect to intercede for us:  Jesus.

This is rambling and probably nonsensical.  It’s 6:12 AM on the Baltimore Light Rail.

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I’m now reading Catch 22, which I’ve never read before, somehow.