Phantom Tollbooth, a longstanding music review site (among other things), recently did a review of Into Danger/Out of Rescue along with Micah Dalton’s Pawnshop and Jason Harwell’s Broken Headphones.  It is a good read and a very cool online magazine.  So stop by HERE and check it out.

In other news, I would  like to ask everyone to continue praying for Easton Blanchard.  It is still pretty up and down for him after having a small intestine transplant.  If you get a chance, please stop by his site, read his updates, and leave him and his family a note in his guestbook.  It will only take a minute of your time, but it will make a world of difference in Easton’s day.  He loves getting letters - even from strangers.  If you want to go one step further, stop by Mission:Change to buy a necklace in support of Easton and his family.

Tune in later this week - the newest installment of The Writer’s Closet is coming up.

As many of you know I help support a group called Mission:Change, who is currently ministering to a little boy named Easton Blanchard and his family.  To read more about Easton, go here.

Below you will see the latest update I received from the Blanchard family.  Please read and then pray for this amazing little boy and his family:

Today, well yesterday, has been a very hard and trying time for Easton and us all. As most of you know, Easton started going through rejection about a week ago and they said that things were starting to look much better. Easton was feeling and looking better. Last night about 5:15 PM they took him back in to surgery because he was having some draining from his belly. They got in and saw that the small bowel was very sick. So sick that they had to remove the entire transplanted small bowel. They say that the next 2 weeks will be very critical for him. He is septic.

This is the strongest little boy I know. He fights with everything he has everything time. I it so hard to know that he has wanted this for over a year now and he can’t have it. The only thing he has from it is the mark where they cut him, pain from after and the memories he doesn’t want to keep.

Time and time again I ask myself what am I going to tell him, How is he going to feel when he finds out and what is he going to say?  There has been many tears cried and wiped. I am sure there will be more to come. Right now he is stable and is holding his own. 

Please visit his caring bridge site at www. caringbridge. org/visit/eastonblanchard.  If you look in his journal at some of the other things that have been posted, you will see and address. That is the address for Easton at the hospital. Please take a little time and send him a card or just a note to say that you are behind him and thinking and praying for him. It really means the world to him to get mail and hang it in his room.
I’ll try to update again later. Thanks for the support, thoughts and prayers.

Love,
Brian & Heather Blanchard

I know that most of you don’t know Easton or his family, but it would mean a lot if you would send him a card or at least visit his Caring Bridge site and leave a note there.  If you would like to make a contribution, visit Mission:Change and buy something, and to help tell Easton’s story you can download the song, “Pittsburgh” from my website or from The Writer’s Closet.

Thanks everyone!  Now pray, pray, pray!

Last week a stomach virus invaded my house.  All 4 of us had it at one point during the week, and I was the last… and the worst.  I’ve never been so sick in my life.  It was the kind of sick that makes you pass out on the bathroom floor, and not because you drank too much.  It was the kind of sick that makes you truly believe you’ve contracted something the CDC should be notified of.  It was the kind of sick that makes you bargain with God.  It was both awful and spiritual at the same time.

Sometime in the early hours of Friday morning, in between praying to the Porcelain Queen and begging with the Heavenly King I had a bit of a revelation. 

We typically have 3 responses to illness. 

1. Deny It - We refuse to believe we’re sick.  We say its just a little cough when really its pneumonia.  We often take on this response when the sickness is more inconvenient than usual.  If you just won tickets to the Super Bowl, you don’t want to come down with the flu.  You’d rather be sick and do whatever you’re doing, rather than miss it altogether.  The danger here is that in your denial, you’ll fool others too.

2. Fight It - We get in the ring with the “bug” and we get all competitive.  All of a sudden we’re Dr. Quinn the Medicine Woman and we’re making up homemade rememdies and drinking awful things like Emergen-C or TheraFlu.  You failed high school chemistry but all of a sudden you think you could be a self-made pharmacist.  The sickness is nothing more than opportunity to test your intelligence and resourcefulness.  The danger here is that in reality you don’t have a clue about the practice of medicine, and you could make it worse by trying to do things on your own.

3. Embrace It: Sometimes the sickness can be a little convenient.  Maybe you’re sick because you over-worked yourself to illness, and now that you’re getting some rest you don’t mind being so sick.  Its nice to be waited on and have other people do things for you.  Sometimes we just feel so bad that we don’t believe we’ll ever get better, and our response is a little more than dramatic.  Maybe you even make the sickness last a little longer or take one more sick day… just to make sure you’re really better.  Come on - you all know what I’m talking about and you’re all guilty.  Being sick brings out others’ appreciation and concern for you - something we often don’t see enough of, so who wouldn’t want to make that last a little longer?  The danger here is that if it goes on too long, people will feel like they can’t help you… so they won’t.

So laying on the cold tile floor I opted for option 4: Get On With It.  I wasn’t going to deny it or fight it.  I certainly wasn’t going to embrace it.  I was going to do what I had to do: rest, fluids, medicine.  It was basically like a surrender with hope.  I knew it was coming.  Now here it is.  I know it will pass.  I didn’t change any appointments, I didn’t ask anyone to do my work, and I didn’t call the CDC.  I just waited patiently to get better.

Sin is much the same.  In faith it is the sickness.  So often we respond in 3 different ways.  We deny it - but that only hurts us and possible others.  We fight it - but trying to cure it on our own only makes it worse.  Or we embrace it - we give up all hope on ourselves and we declare ourselves incurable - and those who could help us most stop helping us altogether.

The only real way to respond to sin is to get on with it, much like David does in Psalm 51 after his Bathsheba incident.  Do what you have to do to get better.  Confess it.  Ask for forgiveness (from God and others).  And most importantly - move on!  Don’t deny it, don’t try to fix it yourself, and don’t sit in it.  Get on with it.

So after my littel revelation, I had a time of prayer seeking God’s forgiveness for my sins.  And then I repented to the toilet for eating those chicken nachos.  And then I passed out.

Last Friday night I was at a party. The guest of honor was an 8 year old little boy named Easton Blanchard. Easton is just like any other little boy from Leesburg, GA. He likes baseball and NASCAR and hanging out with his friends. Easton is unlike any other little boy in that he was born with a rare degenerative muscle disease - muscular dystrophy with myosin deficiency. After numerous surgeries, Easton is left with only four inches of his small intestine forcing him to subsist on an all-liquid diet, fed to him through a feeding tube. He is currently on a waiting list for a small intestine transplant through the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, an operation so rare and complicated that Easton and his family will literally have to move to Pittsburgh for the duration of the surgery and recovery period.

So here I was playing a show for Easton and his friends and family, and I’ve never been so honored in all my life. The party was hosted by my friends Mission: Change, who have designed a T-shirt and complete Jewelry line to raise money to support Easton and his family when they have to move to Pittsburgh. You should check out their site to read the full story on Easton and to give some support in exchange for some very fahionable accessories.

The thing that blows me away abou Easton is this: He has so much against him, but you’d never know it. He was smiling the whole night, goofing off with his family, and fully relishing in being the center of attention (as it was his party). His wheelchair is fully styled after Dale Earnhardt Jr’s race car, complete with an autograph from “Junior” himself. As I shook Easton’s hand and had a picture taken with him I could not help but think, “He’s just a kid.” It seems unfair that someone so young should have to face so much. Easton never even had a chance - from day one he’s been the underdog. Not long after that thought and the picture I looked over at Easton only to see the biggest, shiniest smile I’ve ever seen. It’s like he was saying to me, “Don’t feel sorry for me… this race ain’t over yet.”

Easton is in no way an underdog. He’s a winner through and through. He is young. He has been through a lot. He has a long tough road ahead of him. But I feel confident that he will storm that road like “Junior” storms the racetrack every Sunday. I can’t wait to see how God continues to reveal himself through Easton’s life.

This past Monday Easton finally got the call - they found a match and he immediately flew to Pittsburgh for surgery. As you read this he is in recovery. Please keep Easton and his family in your prayers and please visit Mission:Change to find out how you can support this amazing little boy.

“Pittsburgh (Easton’s Song)” is available for free download as usual at The Writer’s Closet, my site David Herndon Music, and MySpace. Please download it, play it for your friends, and share with them the story of Easton Blanchard. Thanks!

As many of you know, I partner with a great organization called Mission:Change (www.missionchange.com).  Right now their mission is supporting an 8 year old little boy named Easton, who needs a small intestine transplant.  This is a pretty rare and complicated surgery and the family has been waiting a very long time to find a matching donor.  Well, early this morning the call finally came, and as I write this Easton is probably in surgery getting his life back.  Be sure to visit www.missionchange.com to read the full story and to help support Easton and his family in this very exciting, but also very scary time.  Thanks!

The other day I was driving down the road when I noticed a bumper sticker on the car in front of me that read, “Protect Our Borders Now.”  Apparently the driver of the vehicle is not a fan of illegal immigration.  Normally I would bumper stickers leave my memory as soon as they enter it - its just not that significant to me.  But what was significant - and humorously ironic to me - was the vehicle.  It was an Isuzu Amigo.  Pause here… let it sink in… now laugh.  The driver who dislikes immigrants from Mexico enough to paste this bumper sticker on his car actually drives a car named by Mexicans.  You would think that someone with such a blatant distaste for immigration would drive something different.

My friend Jason Harwell once told me about pulling up to a stop light next to the biggest pickup truck he’d ever had the pleasure of seeing.  This truck was like Bigfoot on steroids and it was painted bright canary yellow.  With the huge tires, the blingin’ rims, and the “heat of a thousand suns” paint job it was a true “look at me” vehicle.  When Jason peered up to see who was driving such a vehicle, he noticed the driver was dressed head to toe in all out camoflauge.  Camoflauge generally communicates that you do not want to be seen.  What is someone who wants to be invisible doing driving a vehicle that demands occular stimulus? 

Its kind of like the driver who cuts you off and almost shaves your bumper with their Christian Fish decal or their WWJD sticker.  I once accidentally cut a guy off on the interstate.  Upon realizing my error I turned around to do the “I’m sorry” look only to be greeted with his middle finger.  My eyes then drifted down to notice his front license plate that read “Clergy.”  The men of the cloth can be real boogers behind the wheel.

I know more than a few people who refuse to put a Christian/Church sticker anywhere on their car because they know their driving behavior will not match the message.  While I want to admire their honesty, I’m not sure that is the answer either.  Perhaps we’d all be better witnesses if police started issuing tickets and fines for hypocrisy.  Its kind of like false advertising.  If Jesus was an American citizen maybe he could sue for defamation of character or something.  Maybe I think too much when I drive.  Either way - if I was a cop I would definitely pull over that Amigo.

Oh the joys of traveling on our nation’s highways and biways.  Do you have a “hypocrisy on the highway” story?  If so, please share by way of commenting.

Many of you who know me well are familiar with the fact that every once in a while I have a stroke of genius and think of a new invention that would surely better our humanity and improve quality of life.  The problem is, I never act on my ideas - mainly because they seem to far-fetched.  But more times than not, someone else eventually comes out with my invention, which is not their invention and therefore they reap the reward.  I have blogged about this before… here.

Well, it happened again!  For several years now (since we moved to the coast) my favorite hobby has been skimboarding.  Skimboarding is where you take a board (it looks like a fatter, mini version of a surfboard without the fin), you run as fast as you can at a 45 degree angle to the incoming waves on the beach, all at once you kind of throw your board in front of you and jump on, and then you glide across the water much like Tom Cruise did on his floor in Risky Business.  More advanced skimmers can even angle their board into the waves and surf a little.

Anyway, a few years ago I had an idea for how more people could skimboard without the beach.  You could build a contraption much like a Slip-n-Slide, maybe with a thin layer of foam underneath to mimic the sand, and some sprinklers to keep the water flow going.  I thought this was a good idea.  I wanted to build one in my backyard.  That way I could skim anytime I wanted to.  My wife said no.  I shared the idea with my skimboarding buddies and they all laughed at me, saying there was no market for such a thing and that it would be too hard to make.

Well, they were wrong… check this out.  That’s right, the Slip-n-Slide folks made my dream come true with the exact invention I just described to you.  When I first saw this, I was really angry - I had missed out again.  Then I kind of laughed because there is a major design flaw in this new rig.  On the beach, when you run out of water, there is only one option - falling flat on your face.  So Slip-n-Slide execs, what happens at the end of your little game?

In the end I thought it was pretty cool that someone else out there had the same idea as me.  It was kind of eery, but at the same time comforting.  For years I have been really excited about this idea, but everytime I’ve shared it people seemed to laugh at me.  Now here I find that someone else, possibly several someones, not only thought this was a good idea - they did it!  Even though I had nothing to do with it, a little part of me felt proud.

And that is how community works.  We need to find people who are passionate about the same things, who believe the same things, and more importantly people who will help us achieve our dreams.  I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if I crossed paths with the other folks who thought of the Skim-n-Slide.  I could have told them it should be longer.  The good ideas would be better and the bad ideas would be out the window.  True healthy community makes you a better person by solidifying your strengths and by exposing your weaknesses.  In the end, not only are you a better person, but the world is a better world… and slip-n-slides become much safer.

Do you have a group of people who believes in you?  Do you have a group of people around you who are helping you accomplish your dreams?  Or do you find yourself surrounded by cynicism, doubts, and even laughter?  My advice - find some fellow dreamers and start living!

The newest installment of The Writer’s Closet is up.  It’s a song called “Baby, There’s Still Me.”  Here’s the message behind the music:

“It’s Better on MySpace.”  That’s what her shirt said.  Her eyes said it too.  I had seen her earlier walking through the mall with her boyfriend.  Now she sat on a bench near the food court and was currently necking (as the old folks call it) with said boyfriend.  From the neck down she was totally invested in this guy and in what they were doing.  But in her eyes she looked… bored… distracted.  She looked like she was thinking much harder than a person should while participating in full blown PDA.

Her shirt said it all.  “It’s Better on MySpace.”  It’s better when you make up a new you.  It’s better when you can give details about yourself that impress people, whether they are true or not.  It’s better when you can show people photos of yourself that make you look your best, whether they really look like you or not.  It’s better when you can make the person on the outside come across as someone others will like and maybe even love.  Because you are not so sure they might like (or love) the person on the inside.

So we play this game.  We buy the right clothes.  We drive the right cars.  We get the right jobs.  We hang out with the right people.  We sell sex for love and we sell love for sex.  We say the right things.  We act tough when we really feel scared.  We act pretty when we really feel ugly.  Inside we really just want to be loved, to be accepted, to be found worthy more than anything else.  And we’ll do just about anything to get it.

The problems come when the truth comes out – when we wear the wrong clothes, when we drive the wrong cars, when we take the wrong job, when we hang out with the wrong people, when we say the wrong things.  When our true self comes out it totally discounts the “better” self, and therefore it totally discounts any love, acceptance, or worthiness that came with it. 

Love based on lies is no love at all.

God doesn’t work this way.  God says nothing could separate us from His love (Romans 8).  This means that nothing we are ashamed of – our failures, our blunders, our mistakes, our weaknesses, our doubts – nothing would make Him love us less.  It also means that nothing could Him love us more – the right clothes, the right car, the right job, the right friends, our strength, our glamour – none of it will earn His love.  Simply said, we don’t have to play the game with God.  He loves us just as we are.

The sooner we accept this truth is the sooner that we really are better.

I hope you enjoy the new song, “Baby, There’s Still Me.”  Its available for a free download this month on The Writer’s Closet, my Home page, and, yes, on MySpace.

Also, I need your vote at Indie Heaven “Church or a Brothel” is currently #30 on the fan faves chart, and #3 on the Rock chart.  If you’d like to see my song climb to the top of the chart, vote here.

I wanted to expand on last week’s entry about “going green.”  If you missed out on that entry, be sure to catch up because its not about what you think its about based on that summation.

I firmly believe that we (human beings) get things backwards sometimes.  We know our world is messed up, so we try to fix the world - and not the people that live on the world, control the world, destroy the world, etc.  Example: We try to “go green” by inventing hybrids, building recycling stations, and growing “organic” products.  You can produce all the hybrids you want, but if people still don’t care about other people, things are never going to really change.  I believe this is what Jesus had in mind when he said the most important commandment  was to love god via loving people.  If every human being genuinely cared about every other human being (or at least every other human being), then I believe our world would be a lot greener… in more ways than one.  None of this is to say that I don’t support the green movement.  I do.  I believe loving people and loving the planet are two important things.  I also believe you can combine the two for one dynamic, world-changing effect.

Here are some ways you can go green and love people at the same time (go green via loving people)

1. Car Pool Evangelism/Discipleship:  If you’re a Christian, you probably have that certain person really want to share Christ with.  Effective evangelism and discipleship requires time, it requires a relationship.  Often this relationship is with someone you spend a lot of time with, a fellow student, a co-worker, etc.  So, what better way to initiate more time together (for talking/listening/sharing) than a car pool?  You could lead someone to Christ and cut down on harmful emissions.

2. Feed the Hungry, Not the Landfill: Do an inventory of everything you use on a weekly basis in your home, from food to laundry detergent to toilet paper.  Try to categorize these things (and more importantly the quantity you use) into three categories: absolutely necessary; beneficial but not necesarry; and pure pleasure.  Try going a month using only the “absolutely necessary” category.  Use the extra money you save at Wal-Mart that month to sponsor a mission organization, a church, or another benevolent charity.  You’ll cut down on waste, probably lose some weight, and help the needy community.  Take it a step further and go a year using only the “absolutely necessary” category.

3. Save the Ozone/Save a Village: The Mvule Project is a great organization to sponsor.  Visit their site to get all of the wonderful trees, but here are the basics: Certain regions in Africa have been completely deforested, the people lack education, employment, and health care to name a few.  When you buy an Mvule tree from the Mvule project you ultimately provide job opportunities and stimulate economic growth which leads to the building of schools, churches, and hospitals.  Your one tree will change the future of generations.  You’ll also be helping to alleviate the deforestation problem that is facing the globe.

Those are a few of my favorites.  Sound Cheesy?  A little.  Simple?  Yes.  But real change does not happen over night.  It happens in small steps.  We can all take at least one step.  I have more to list, and will do so in the future.  In the meantime, please share your ideas about how to go green via loving people.  More importantly, act on your ideas!