charlieDEAN’S Blog

While on vacation I read two GREAT books. One was a novel by Anna Quindlin about a woman who leaves her abusive husband and takes her 10-year old son into hiding with her. The other was a book that I happened to see just sitting on a “Bestsellers” table in the library. It’s called Freakonomics — here’s the link to the website.

I could probably write several paragraphs about how fun this book is, but if you’re interested just go to the website and read some of the excerpts. Basically Steven D. Levitt is an economists, whose particular skill seems to be to debunk conventional wisdom. I had a blast reading it!

Waaaaaaay late on this one, I know, but what a beautiful movie! (Wait until you have two small children and see how many movies you get to see in the theater!) On a couple occasions I got goose bumps because I was so caught up in it.

I don’t have the time right now, and I haven’t really given it a lot of thought, but it’s interesting how significant the story of Peter Pan is to so many people. There is something so tragic about the story — about what it means to grow up and lose your creativity and imagination. And yet, there’s hope, I think…

While on vacation I read two GREAT books. One was a novel by Anna Quindlin about a woman who leaves her abusive husband and takes her 10-year old son into hiding with her. The other was a book that I happened to see just sitting on a “Bestsellers” table in the library. It’s called Freakonomics — here’s the link to the website.

I could probably write several paragraphs about how fun this book is, but if you’re interested just go to the website and read some of the excerpts. Basically Steven D. Levitt is an economists, whose particular skill seems to be to debunk conventional wisdom. I had a blast reading it!

I’ve been on a team that has been thinking and discussing small group life and one of the things that we have begun talking about is the role of people playing together. Most of the small group things I’ve read are heavy on caring for the people in your small group and how to lead discussion, but rarely do they talk about how important it is to just play together. So here’s a quotation from a book I’m reading that I think is important. The book is called Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity and it was written by Lauren F. Winner (the bolded portion is my emphasis).

“I was once asked what I would say to a friend whom I knew was having premarital sex…I told my interlocutor that the first step in speaking to my friends about sex was making sure that we enjoyed relationships built on hundreds or ordinary shared experiences – plays attended together and pumpkins carved together and accompanying one another on doctors appointments and changing the oil together. To say this is not to side-step the question. Community doesn’t come about simply by having hard, intimate conversations. Having hard, intimate conversations is part of what is possible when people are already opening up their day-to-day lives to one another.”

I’ve been on a team that has been thinking and discussing small group life and one of the things that we have begun talking about is the role of people playing together. Most of the small group things I’ve read are heavy on caring for the people in your small group and how to lead discussion, but rarely do they talk about how important it is to just play together. So here’s a quotation from a book I’m reading that I think is important. The book is called Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity and it was written by Lauren F. Winner (the bolded portion is my emphasis).

“I was once asked what I would say to a friend whom I knew was having premarital sex…I told my interlocutor that the first step in speaking to my friends about sex was making sure that we enjoyed relationships built on hundreds or ordinary shared experiences – plays attended together and pumpkins carved together and accompanying one another on doctors appointments and changing the oil together. To say this is not to side-step the question. Community doesn’t come about simply by having hard, intimate conversations. Having hard, intimate conversations is part of what is possible when people are already opening up their day-to-day lives to one another.”

There are nights, when you are responsible for leading something that you walk away pumped and excited about what you do. And then there are those other nights, where you’re discouraged and you feel the weight of the world bearing down on you. I’ve learned in my 6 years of doing full-time ministry that it’s usually a rollercoaster. (I’ve also learned that I’m not a person that does real well with living on an “even keel” — I’m too passionate and so I tend to ride the rollercoaster, probably more than most!)

Anyway, the whole point of this post, is that tonight is one of those nights where things are good. The ministry I am responsible for (Nexus) seems to have a good energy right now, and I’m excited about it! It feels like we’re on the edge of something good happening. I’ll just keep praying…

Of course I pre-ordered the Dave Matthews Band CD Stand Up. In fact I had it delivered to my grandparents’ house in Florida last Tuesday and since I had a 20 hour trip back to IL, I’ve listened to it beginning to end about a dozen times now. So here are some thoughts…

1. DMB fans need to chill out! I haven’t exactly heard any complaining yet, but after one listen, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the long-time fans start complaining that it doesn’t sound like the DMB that they like. Here’s the deal…all of us change, grow, experiment, etc. GET OFF THEIR BACKS! This album sounds different than anything else they’ve done because as individuals, they aren’t the same people that they were in 1993 when they released Remember Two Things. I’m not trying to convince you to like something that you may not like, but let’s stop throwing words around like “sell-outs,” and recognize that more important to DMB than pleasing you was to please themselves and do something that they could live with.

2. After watching the DVD on the other side of the Dual-Disc (which is a cool format — I also have John Mayer’s Heavy Things in the Dual-Disc format), the word that I have for this album is TRUE. Here’s what I mean: in literature there are all kinds of literary rules that one may or may not follow that are kind of the techinical aspects of a work. But, some of the greatest works of all time don’t follow the rules. Instead you hear critics speak of a work being “true” in that it is consistent with reality/the author’s experience/etc. I think this CD is “true” in the sense that it genuinely reflects who the DMB is. Take or or leave it — you don’t have to buy their CD’s or go to the concerts! Personally, I believe this may be the “truest” CD they have released in a while. Everyday seemed like Glen Ballard made them into something that they weren’t, but I think Busted Stuff was back in the opposite direction as a way to appease the fans.

3. If this disc wasn’t a DMB dics, I would still listen to it…it’s a great summer, windows down kind of CD, that isn’t at all morose like Dave’s Solo disc Some Devil. I’d bet that a lot of the songs on Stand Up, when done in concert without being so processed will be a party! Seriously, one of the things that I love about DMB is the diversity. There are days that I feel like Some Devil, but there are also days that I feel like Stand Up.

PS…if you want a really fair review (in my opinion), check out this RollingStone review.

Well, the Deans are back! Although vacation was too short (aren’t they always!), we had a great time — 4 straight days on the beach with nearly perfect weather (mid-80’s not a cloud in the sky!) We met a family that had kids just a bit younger than ours, so everyday, we hung out with them and after 2-3 hours on the beach would head to their condo for and hour or two in the pool.

We also had a great time visiting family — my uncle and aunt in Atlanta, my grandparents (who we stayed with in Florida), and my brother and his family in Nashville. All in all, a great trip.

So I haven’t posted this week, but I have a list of things to post about, so keep coming back and I’ll update as I have time.

Other than a 4-day jaunt to Denver at New Years, and a 4-day dash to Boston in Sept ‘03, we haven’t been on vacation in a LONG, LONG time. In fact, I think our 10-day trip to Spain in ‘02 may have been our last vacation. It’s been too long since we’ve gotten away. (Something about using up all my vacation time on building a house last summer.)

So tomorrow night, we’re loading the kids in the Odyssey (I am soooo middle-aged!), and driving to Florida, stopping at my Aunt & Uncles outside of Atlanta on the way down and at my brother’s in Nashville on the way back. We’ll have 4 or 5 days on the beach while we stay with my grandparents in Bradenton, just south of Tampa.

As much as I hate all the driving, I do really enjoy when Jen and the kids are asleep and I can geek out listening to “Coast to Coast” on AM radio. For those of you who are uniformed, “Coast to Coast” is a call-in talk show that is almost exclusively about conspiracy theories, particularly regarding alien abductions and the like…it CRACKS ME UP!!

So, I probably won’t post for a while unless I find a free Wi-Fi connection somewhere.

My brother ran the Nashville Country Music Half-Marathon this weekend and finished 98th of 11,392. He ran it in just under and hour and a half, which would roughly be the time that it would take for me to run half of a half of a half-marathon. This just confirms again, that my total lack of athletic ability, compared to my brother, is just embarassing! (The only consolation that I have is that if I read the statistics right, he got beat by four women!)