Friday (Sunday) Happy Hour: Yeah, it’s late.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It’s Sunday.  I didn’t do this on Friday.  I get it.  But I skipped the week before (based on the fact that there wasn’t a single question I even remotely had an answer to.  So I thought I’d do Mental Floss’ Friday Happy Hour today.  As always, questions come from the posts, but the answers are mine.

1. What’s a book that changed your life?

I’m going to go with A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McClaren.  It really was the culmination of several years of thoughts I’d had about what Christianity is and should be compared to how it has been practiced in my experience.  This book put a lot of words to thoughts I’d been having and opened and stretched my ways of thinking in a variety of ways in which it desperately needed to be stretched.  All of those things ended up taking me off the pastoral track onto some track that I’m still not sure where it should lead. Off the institutional church track is a good thing… not knowing what that all means is difficult.   Also it has one of the best subtitles ever: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian.


2. Let’s pretend you stumbled upon a wish-granting genie. This genie is powerful, but not as generous as the “three wishes” genies you’ve read about. You only get one wish, and it’s pretty limiting—you can pick any one person and do his or her current job for one day. Who would you pick, and what would you do that day?

I want Stan Weber’s job for one day.  Not because I idolize him, by any means.  For those who don’t know, he is K-State’s color analyst on radio for football and men’s basketball games.  I actually find him very annoying and a way over the top homer.  But that’s not the point.  The point is I’ve always dreamed of being a radio sports announcer, and I got to try it out one time doing a small college football game.  But to get to do my number one love, and alma mater, K-State?  That would potentially be the greatest accomplishment of my life.  So I’d like to replace Stan and call a game next to Wyatt (who I do like, and think does a very good job).


3. If you’re a parent, is there something special you got for your child before he or she was born? Or did your parents get something special for you? (Any kind of keepsake – not a crib, diapers, etc.)

Wait, what?  I’m not a parent, nor am I aware of anything.  So this question gets a lame answer.

 

4. I like to shamelessly use this space to get recommendations: books, comedians, podcasts, you name it. So let’s leave it wide open. What’s something (anything) you recommend?

Here’s a podcast that’s a bit off the radar:  Coyle and Sharpe.  They stopped producing podcasts at 100 episodes, but the good news is that there are 100 episodes to listen to.  Get there.  Do it.  Listen.  They were duping people on the radio before morning guys knew they could.

Each episode is just a couple minutes long, but they are laugh out loud hilarious.  This is from before people knew that someone with a microphone could possibly not be telling the truth.  The innocence of the people they interview along with the absolute ridiculousness of all they say is pure gold.