Why the Austin Zoo Is Weird...And Strangely Familiar

I recently took my family to visit my sister Jamie and her family in Austin. While we were there we went to the Austin Zoo, which turned out to be …interesting. But I can’t say my sister didn’t warn me.

BUSTED FACILITY
Before we left for the zoo, Jamie kept making comments that made this zoo sound different (words like “small,” “dusty,” and “not good for strollers”). I never came out and asked her about this, though—I just brushed it off and assumed she was being a little overcritical.

Then we got to the zoo.

After parking in the gravel parking area we made our way into the main building—a smallish structure that looked kind of like an old house with a ramp in front of it. We bought our tickets and ventured into the zoo.

Some of the enclosures were nice—water and fake rocks (standard zoo stuff). But others were pretty busted. The iguanas, for instance, were housed in an old shed.

Yep.

BUSTED ANIMALS
Then there were the animals. One of the llamas had a hole in its nose, so that its nasal passage opened up halfway down its head. It was loud when he breathed. The tiger walked with a pronounced limp. The goats’ bellies were oddly misshapen.

Finally, I asked my sister, “What’s up with the animals?” It was then that Jamie told me this was a “Rescue Zoo.” The animals were here because they were injured or abandoned and other zoos didn’t want them.

It was like the Island of Misfit Toys in the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special—populated by castoffs like a train with square wheels, a Charlie-in-the-box, a bird that swims instead of flying. Toys nobody wants, taken in by a benevolent flying lion who functions as their king.

Kind of like the church.

CALLING ALL BUSTED PEOPLE
If there was ever a rescue zoo, the church is it, right? Christ saves the broken, gathers those who are cast off. “God shows his love for us,” says Paul, “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He chose us when we were wallowing in sin, void of value or attractiveness.

So here we are, like a bunch of messed up animals and misfit toys.

But there’s one great difference. We don’t stay busted. Nor do we remain laughable. I love Ephesians 3:8—”[God’s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.”

A bunch of outcasts rescued, healed, and trusted with the greatest mission of all time?

Yep. Welcome to the church.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

How To Tell A Story That Works

If you’re trying to communicate something, few things are more powerful than a story. Stories personalize ideas and illustrate concepts.

And they can be told in a myriad of ways.

For example, check out this 53-second ad from Google:

Telling stories is good. Telling stories creatively in ways that resonate with people’s current experience is great.

Once you know what you need to communicate, there are two questions left: What’s the story I want to use? And What’s the best way to tell it?

Too Perfect

I seldom drive past houses at Christmastime without thinking about my sister’s deep hatred for what she calls “grid lights.”

These are the Chrismas lights that come prearranged in a grid pattern; you’ll often see them draped over people’s bushes and shrubs.

It’s a whole lot easier than painstakingly threading a single string of lights back and forth across the bush.

And they’re perfectly spaced.

But these are exactly the reasons my sister hates them. Too easy. Too perfect. They end up becoming the kind of thing my wife often describes as “too slick.”

It’s interesting—there seems to be a fine line between purposeful, intentional, designed beauty and slick, too-perfect, inauthentic-looking creations. I think this is why we gravitate toward cool tattered-edge book pages, beautiful grunge design, or casual-but-compelling presentations.

We want things to be good, but not so good they seem inhuman. At that point, they stop being good and start being perfect, and something inside us tends often to bristle at perfect.

Of course, the ironic thing is that there’s a perfect imperfect. There’s a just-so look that comes from getting the Christmas lights scattered in a way that both appears random and well-balanced.

And since that’s most pleasing to our eye, isn’t that the most perfect perfection of all? We don’t want something that’s all messed up. At the same time, we want imposed beauty but we want it without the charm and personality of imperfection being completely erased.

Which is cool, because it’s exactly what God does with us.

Saves us. Washes us. Transforms us.

But saves us. Washes us. Transforms us.

In the end, He preserves the idiosyncrasies, quirks, and eccentricities, creating a perfect imperfect.

And isn’t that the most perfect perfection of all?

The Art of Thanksliving

Spoke at church Wednesday night about communicating our thanks to God through actions. Yesterday, a friend sent me this:

THE ART OF THANKSGIVING
By Wilfred Peterson

The art of thanksgiving, is thanksliving. It is gratitude in action. It is applying albert Schweitzer’s philosophy: “In gratitude for your own good fortune you must render in return some sacrifice of your life for other life.”

It is thanking God for the gift of life by living it triumphantly.

It is thanking God for your talents and abilities by accepting them as obligations to be invested for the common good.

It is thanking God for all that men and women have done for you by doing things for others.

It is thanking God for opportunities by accepting them as a challenge to achievement.

It is thanking God for happiness by striving to make others happy.

It is thanking God for beauty by helping to make the world more beautiful.

It is thanking God for inspiration by trying to be an inspiration to others.

It is thanking God for health and strength by the care and reverence you show your body.

It is thanking God for the creative ideas that enrich life by adding you own creative contributions to human progress.

It is thanking God for each new day by living it to the fullest.

It is thanking God by giving hands, arms, legs, and voice to your thankful spirit.

It is adding to your prayers of thanksgiving, acts of thanksliving.
The art of thanksgiving, is thanksliving. It is gratitude in action. It is applying albert Schweitzer’s philosophy: “In gratitude for your own good fortune you must render in return some sacrifice of your life for other life.”

It is thanking God for the gift of life by living it triumphantly.

It is thanking God for your talents and abilities by accepting them as obligations to be invested for the common good.

It is thanking God for all that men and women have done for you by doing things for others.

It is thanking God for opportunities by accepting them as a challenge to achievement.

It is thanking God for happiness by striving to make others happy.

It is thanking God for beauty by helping to make the world more beautiful.

It is thanking God for inspiration by trying to be an inspiration to others.

It is thanking God for health and strength by the care and reverence you show your body.

It is thanking God for the creative ideas that enrich life by adding you own creative contributions to human progress.

It is thanking God for each new day by living it to the fullest.

It is thanking God by giving hands, arms, legs, and voice to your thankful spirit.

It is adding to your prayers of thanksgiving, acts of thanksliving.

Happy Day of the Giving of the Thanks!

Okay, so here’s my requisite Thanksgiving Day post—a list (à la my wife) of the small things I’m thankful for this holiday:

• My MacBook Pro
  Not going to be obnoxious about it, but I converted to Mac in April of ‘06 and I will NEVER go back. Beautiful, smart, reliable, and fun. Reminds me of my wife.

• The first significant ding on my car
  After that first one, there’s no reason to be uptight about small (or not so small) scratches and dents. There’s something freeing about pulling through a parking garage and thinking, “Ehh—it wouldn’t ruin my day if I hit that pole.”

• Evernote
  So incredibly useful! Downside, though: if their servers all simultaneously crash, I’ll have While-You-Were-Sleeping-level amnesia.

• Croissants
  Not sure on this one, but these things might be why God created the French.

• Community on NBC
  I feel like I’m cheating on Steve Carell every time I watch this, but if loving this show is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

• The iTunes Store
  An awesome-song-I’ve-never-heard-of-that-iTunes Genius-found-for-me-magically-and-will-sell-me-for-just-99¢?? I’ll take 60, please.

• Crackers
  A parent’s best friend. Anybody who’s got an infant or toddler knows how they got the first 5 letters of their name.

• Grooveshark.com
  Any song. Any time. For free.  Groovy.

• Sunny 60-degree days
  I dare you to go outside and try not to be happy. Betchacan’t.

• Baby wipes
  I hear these things are more flammable than California, but wow are they useful. Young kids or not, we’ll be carrying these things around ‘til kingdom come.
  
  
• The folks who read this blog
  That’s you. Thanks for coming around; I’m glad to have you.

Happy Thanksgiving. Gotta go feed my baby another cracker.

Fantastic Four

I’m off work today in honor of the pilgrims, so I thought a goofing-off post would be appropriate for a goofing-off day.

Thus, here are 4 goofy websites for your surfing pleasure. They’re all ridiculous and at times stinking hilarious. If you’ve already seen one of them, I’m not surprised. If you’ve already seen all of them, then I bow to your interweb prowess.

1. 1000awesomethings.com
   You and I both know some things are just awesome. Here’s a surprisingly accurate and quite whitty chronicle of 1,000 of those things.
   
   
2. awkwardfamilyphotos.com
   I’m not sure who’s more to blame here: the people in these pictures or the goofballs who took them.
   
   
3. bananasurprise.com
   Here’s the premise: you take a banana, throw it to an unsuspecting person, and snap a picture of their reaction. How did I not think of this?
   
   
4. thereifixedit.com
   A tribute to human ingenuity—creative (or completely busted, depending on how you look at it) solutions to real-world problems. Please don’t try these at home.

That should keep you busy for at least 30 minutes. You’re welcome.

Got any sites for the next list?

In Praise of Dads With Guitars

I love playing guitar.

I only play a handful of chords. I don’t know a lot of songs. I can never remember all the verses when I sing the songs I know.

But playing and singing make me happy.

Some of my best memories with my father are playing guitar together. We didn’t do it all the time, but every once in a while we’d end up with both our guitars out at the same time, playing through our limited repertoire ‘til 2 a.m.

To this day, a few songs immediately take me back to our living room at home in Dunedin, Florida, the squeak of fingers moving atop strings, the gleam of my dad’s koa wood Taylor, old sheets of notebook paper covered with lyrics and chord letters in his handwriting, the sound of our voices at home with one another the way only related voices can be.

Things are different now. My dad and mom have recently divorced and things are weird and it feels like we’re often avoiding stuff when we’re together.

But even just after all of that happened and it was weirdest, I would’ve loved for us to sit down and play together.

Dad and I could always connect through those sessions. Anything else causing tension between us would fade, allowing us to—if just for a few moments—enjoy one another.

I want something like that with my daughters. As they grow, I want to share something with them that makes us happy to be alive and happy to be with each other, even if it’s against our better judgment at the moment. Something where we share ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable and feel really close.

I love that every time I pick up my guitar I smile and think of my dad. Most of the time the smile comes easily. Sometimes it comes more reluctantly.

But it always comes.

Purge

Jen and I are in the process of some major purging.

We’re selling our house in order to move into a much smaller one (as little as 30% of our current square footage).

That means 70% of our stuff has to go. (Not really, but almost.)

Goodwill thought they won the lottery last night—we dropped off over 300 pieces of clothing and a bunch of other stuff. More than one truckload is going to the dump.

It feels good.

When we moved from Alabama to New York City, we knew we’d have to get rid of a bunch of stuff, so we sold and gave away what seemed like two-thirds of what we owned. I remember thinking then, “This is ridiculous! How did we get so much stuff? Everybody should do this every 4 years.”

And here we are, 3-and-a-half years later, purging again.

Time has a way of encouraging us to accumulate. Eventually, we get so much good stuff (clothes, electronics, furniture, a big house, whatever) that we begin to see it as a source of our own worth. It hurts to think about letting go of it.

…Which, of course, is not good at all.

Jen and I need this periodic purging. It helps us to re-prioritize, to check our greed, to simplify our existence.

Goodwill needs it too; it helps ‘em stay in the black.