TheBrianParks: A Year after His Passing

A year ago today my brother died unexpectedly. He had a few health issues since he was a kid, but they were largely under control. I got a call that woke me up on that Tuesday morning from my mom, telling me that Brian had gotten sick earlier that morning, that he went unconscious and that the paramedics were unable to revive him.

I had experienced the loss of a few grandparents, but that was all. It had been only older family members who had previously been in bad health, nothing this sudden, and no one this close to me. I’ve never screamed so loudly or cried so hard in my life. I beat my fists on the brick walls of my apartment. I prayed that God would somehow undo this.

You see, a lot of people are canonized after they die and the truth of their goodness is often inflated, but even though I’m very biased I really do believe that my brother, Brian, was one of the most kind, generous and genuinely good people I have ever met.

He would work hard at his part time job so he had extra to spend when his school did a food drive for the needy. He constantly give friends and family spontaneous gifts, just because he knew they would make us happy. He spent whatever free time and money he had helping out at church in the area of his gifts; computers. When someone wronged him, he wasn’t bitter, he just forgave and let things go. I can’t recall a time he ever ranted and raved, or even complained about anyone.

We were only 16 months apart in age, and he was the family member I was closest to. We’d play video games together, go see movies together and he gave way too much of his free time toward helping me with my computer issues. Brian was a generous guy, and I hope I said “thank you” enough to him for all he did for me.

Here we are a year later, and I feel like it hurts just as much today as it did at his funeral. I’m angry he died so young. I’m heartbroken my future kids will never get to know their amazing uncle. I’m doing my best to feel grateful for the time we had together, rather than cheated we didn’t have more.

Brian was just starting his career. He was smart and witty and really fun to be around. I couldn’t wait to see him progress throughout his career. I couldn’t wait til he met the girl who would finally bring him out of his shell. I remember the day I married Erin thinking to myself, “I can’t wait to get a picture of Brian, all 6’3, 275 pounds of him, holding my eventual children.” He was always great with kids.

I miss him everyday, but I know he’s with Jesus. There’s been so much talk in christianity this year about heaven and hell and whatnot, but I don’t worry about Brian. He loved God with a passion, and loved people the same. He wasn’t the kind to walk up to a stranger and tell them about Jesus, but he showed the world what Jesus was like through how he lived. I don’t worry about Brian anymore, he’s with the Lord. As I’ve said all year, “Brian is doing better than any of us are.”

Today is going to be a really hard day for my family and I. We’re going to do our best to celebrate Brian’s life, and continue mourning our loss. I’d appreciate it if you kept us in your thoughts and prayers.

In the Grace and Peace of Christ,
~TheAndyParks

Seeing the World Through Muppet Colored Glasses

I’d like to start off by saying this is not a review. I’m simply posting what this movie meant to me when I saw it. SPOILER ALERT: There are mild spoilers inside, but nothing too significant.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this new Muppet movie since it was announced back in 2008 that Jason Segel was writing it. (If you remember, one of the songs that Segel’s character was playing on the piano in the 2008 film “Forgetting Sarah Marshal” was the theme song to “The Muppet Show”) I’ve always liked his comedy and I knew that someone who loved The Muppets as much as Jason Segel does would create a quality and reverent film. I was not at all disappointed.

Let me give you a little back story before I get too much further into the movie. These past few years and months, transitioning from teenager to college student to full fledged adult has been challenging and somewhat painful. I’ve come across people who have proclaimed to be very righteous and have acted in an opposite manor when their power was challenged.  I’ve experienced the squeeze of student loan companies who care nothing for the one in debt, just that the debt is repaid on their time table. And most devastating, I’ve experienced the loss of my brother, which has had a larger effect on me than I think I’ll ever fully comprehend. Long story short, I had become something of a cynic, and what’s worse, I had become proud of that fact.

So I sit down in the theater to watch The Muppets. I was not overly tired and nothing else was really bothering me at the time. The credits come on the screen and the movie begins and about 3 minutes in (even before the “Life’s a Happy Song” begins) I start to cry.

I’m not an overly emotional person, especially when it come to crying. I’ve attended funerals where I couldn’t cry, no matter how hard I tried. I rarely ever cry, not because I’m so big masculine guy, it’s just not how I’m wired. But when the movie started, and I could see the world through muppet colored glasses so-to-speak, I was convicted in an almost spiritual way about how I saw the world. Where I saw a broken world where people were looking to take advantage of you every chance they got, and everybody has an angle, The Muppets presented a world where you trust the goodness in people first, always. Where kindness and being a friend always triumph over trying to work the system for everything you can get. I forgot that somewhere along the way.

This pretty clearly identifies my struggle. Jason Segel from HIMYM or Jason Segel from The Muppets?

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how much I love TV, and the post-modern humor on current shows. This is still true, and I believe there is a time and place for all kinds of humor, but after seeing The Muppets and reading an article about Mr. Tebow, I wonder if this ironic style of humor, the kind that can sometimes be “honest” and “real” at the expense of being hopeful, is really as good for me as I first believed.

Regardless of the reason, I cried throughout “Life’s a Happy Song”, pulled myself together by time Gary, Walter and Mary got to Kermit’s house, and lost it again during “Pictures In My Head”. As dumb as it probably sounds, that movie spoke to me like a sermon. I left challenged to be better, to do more good and devoted to growth.

I know the world presented in “The Muppets” is not the real world, but maybe it could look a little more like that if we all were a little more like Muppets.

Grace and Peace,
~TheAndyParks

Review – The “Fit to Smash Ice” Tour by Rob Bell

Last night I joined my friends from the Philadelphia/Wilmington area to see the “Fit to Smash Ice Tour” at Temple University. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tour, this is a preaching tour by Rob Bell. But that’s all I knew. I didn’t know what the topic of this two hour “super-sermon” would be, and I hadn’t read any reviews. I bought tickets based on the body of work I’ve come to know and expect from Rob. It wasn’t what I expected, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

I want to start off by talking about the facilities that the “super-sermon” took place in. It’s a church looking building across the street from the Temple University Preforming Art Center, but it’s owned and operated by Temple. I have no idea what the name of this building is. Inside is an amazing architectural mix between the ancient (stone, stained glass and wood throughout) and the modern (glass paneling, performance hall seating, and brushed metal accents). This building is exactly what I dreamed of for my ideal church building to lead pastor in someday. Amazing.

Rob’s previous “super-sermons” (Everything is Spiritual, The Gods Aren’t Angry, etc.) there was a ton of academic research that went into creating the content for the lecture, but that wasn’t the case here, because it wasn’t that kind of lecture. This one was more story based. More personal. I give Rob a lot of credit for being to candid and transparent after the verbal beating he got from many evangelicals (from my denomination as well as the rest) over the content of his last book.

Instead of passing on information, the purpose of this tour was much more about facilitating a posture of what Rob calls “living life with open palms”, or not holding so tightly to the plans, successes and failures that define us. The message was one of redemption, and at the heart was the idea that we are all on a journey and “even though right now might feel like what we’re going through is an ending, it might really a beginning of something better and more beautiful.”

There were stories told of family vacations, water skiing lessons gone wrong and most embarrassing moments. Rob introduced the talk as still “raw”, and he was right, but it was raw in all the best ways. They weren’t stories made to project an image. They weren’t stories looking to project an image of the perfect Pastor/Husband/Father/Author. They were stories that were there to encourage and provide hope for the rest of us. I don’t know about the rest of the room, but I felt a renewal of purpose.

The basic themes were as follows:

• Overarching theme: who are you and what are you doing here?
• The end is often the beginning
• We hold things so tightly we can’t receive new things from God
• Failure is not final
• We’re all in a larger stream of God’s redemptive activity
• You only get the next step forward (lamp vs. flashlight)
• Sabbath is a time where we are busy being (rather than doing)

By the way, Shane Clayborn was there, and it was kind of cool to be sitting a couple of rows away from him.

After the lecture was over I drove the two hours home while my wife slept in the passenger seat. I was reminded of the greatest hits, and greatest misses of my life, realizing I could remember with amazing clarity my biggest failures (Chi Easter Egg hunt 2010, anyone?) , but I was having a hard time remembering my biggest victories, like a sermon I killed or a teen I’ve mentored, even though there are plenty of those things. What was exposed to me is this shame I won’t let myself get rid of, even though past failure seems to be a requirement of God using you to do anything significant through you. While I was driving I prayed for guidance in my future, and the ability to be okay with who I am. A walk with Christ while keeping open palms will allow for the old fall away and something new to easily replace it.

Grace and Peace,
~TheAndyParks

(btw, thank you to http://solarcrash.com/2011/11/rob-bell-fit-to-smash-ice/ for reminding me some of what was said. I didn’t take notes as it happened in an effort to just enjoy and reflect on what was being said.)

TV Shows Touch Our Lives

(In case anyone is wondering this title of this blog is a play on the title of a song by The Mountain Goats, entitled “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” off the album, Tallahassee. Check it out, it’s one of my favorite albums.)

Abed Nadir (played by Danny Pudi) from the NBC comedy, "Community".

If you’re familiar with the NBC comedy “Community” then you know of one of my new favorite characters or any show I’ve ever watched. His name is Abed. (pronounced; Ah-bed) Abed is a character who has spent a large part of his life watching TV and movies, and understands his world through the lens of media. I love this character so much, besides the fact that he’s masterfully written, because I too am a student of TV and movies.

Growing up, my parents would beg me on a regular basis to go outside and play, but I never wanted to. I was far more content to stay inside and watch the adventures of Zack, Kelly and Slater on “Saved by the Bell”, learn from the family dynamics of the Huxtables on “The Cosby Show” or watch my nerd hero, Steve Urkle, win the hearts of the Winslows on “Family Matters”. I couldn’t get enough of these shows, with their easy to digest plot lines and canned laugh track. They were just my speed as an elementary school student who was awkward enough to need some basic lessons on what other people go through and how relationships work.

The cast of the NBC, and eventually ABC, show "Scrubs"

As a high school and college student, I feel in love with the show, Scrubs. It started my freshmen year of college. To say this show was important to me would be an understatement. Each episode, (especially the early seasons) were really about growing up and what it means to deal with real life and death issues, all while trying to figure out what life long friendships and romantic relationships look like. I spent hours laughing, and yes, crying with this show. (Don’t judge me.) I my feeling for this show were so strong that I wrote a paper on it for my Narrative and Personal Essay class in college. (I got an A and was asked to read it for the class. If anyone ever wants to read it, let me know and I’ll email you a copy.)

Scrubs was a show that was smarter than the only four camera sitcoms. There was no laugh track to tell you when to laugh and they weren’t afraid to be, as the show’s creator Bill Laurence would say, “a comedy with emotional stakes”. But it was a show that could be a bit preachy, and it’s voice overs occasionally beat you over the head with the lessons they were trying to teach, rather than let you wrestle with them. And that was okay, it was exactly the show I needed in my high school and college years. (For the record, I like to pretend the 9th season was it’s own show, completely separate from the rest of the very well done series.)

And this brings us to today. I’m now a fan of shows like “The Office”, “Parks and Recreation” and most of all, “Community”. These are shows with themes they want to get across and things to say, but they aren’t preachy. They aren’t forceful, they give you only what you need and let you connect to dots to come to the conclusions yourself.

There is an episode of the show “Community” where almost all of the characters are in some way dealing with the issue of mortality. As they’re dealing with their own issues, Abed is out-of-focus (literally) in the background throughout the whole episode taking care of a pregnant girl, and eventually helps deliver her baby in the hatch back of an SUV… and it’s NEVER addressed. A lot of people I’ve talked to didn’t even notice it was happening during the episode.

The poster child for disfunctional characters, Jeff Winger. (played by Joel McHale)

These shows I watch now don’t have any perfect, or even remotely perfect characters. Often times the characters are written to be down right unlikeable. The relationships are messy and almost nothing goes the way it’s suppose to, but that’s probably why these are the shows I need right now.

When I was a kid, I needed fluff shows that functioned on a just-higher-then-sesame-street level that did everything for me, even telling me when to laugh. When I was in high school and college I needed a more complex show that still was willing to spoon feed me a lesson of two from time to time. Now that I’m an adult (kind of) I need these shows. Because, as hokey as it might sound, our entertainment reflects who we are and where we ‘re at in life. It should give us what we need while challenging us to be more. To be better.

TV shows have touched my life, and I have to say I believe I’m a better person for it.

Grace and Peace,
~TheAndyParks

Underwater and the Response of the Church

I’ve been away from my blog for a while, but for a good reason. Well, as good a reason as I’ll ever have I suppose. A month ago now (wow, it feels longer than that) my town, Pine Grove PA, was his with a devastating flood. In some areas of town homes were flooded up to 4 feet on the first floor. Whiles over a hundred people were displaced from their homes, hundreds more were doing their best to salvage what was left of theirs. To drive through town was heart breaking, and to hear peoples’ stories was worse. I spoke to a man who told me that since the flood he’s had daily thoughts of killing himself, because the road back to reclaiming his home seems so daunting.

In the midis of all this, the church I have the privilege of serving in took action. The people of this town were all in the same boat, but they still were committed to bring healing to this town. Our church converted its building, sanctuary included, into a relief center. Five rows of tables full of clothes lined the sanctuary that people from all over donated. Our foyer was filled with cleaning supplies, toiletries, and food that came from individuals, businesses and schools. The local beer distributer let us borrow their refrigerated trailer to store food in so we could serve people who needed it a hot meal. The whole town came together, and we had the honor and the privilege to be the facility that helped people recover from this disaster.

The aftermath of this disaster, like most disasters, has caused pettiness and selfishness to be washed away. I’m not naïve enough to believe it will last forever, but it’s a good feeling while it lasts. I’m not writing this post to pat myself and my church on the back and tell the world how wonderful we are for getting involved, because frankly that’s the response that Jesus expects from us. The fact that this was the right thing to do, and it was out of the ordinary for us to do it, calls into question everything about how we’ve done Christianity up to this point.

To me, the loudest statement in all of this was the church affirmed that this world matters. That mud and sweat and tears and refrigerators and so on and so forth… they all matter to God. We affirmed as a church that this world is not simply heaven’s waiting room where we pray a magic Jesus prayer and hope we can make it till we die without “back-sliding”. We affirmed that the abundant life Jesus promised us wasn’t about creature comforts for ourselves, but the ability to serve love and bless those around us. That “Kingdom of God” Jesus was talking about? Well it’s here now, and it’s our job to show it to the world.

This might not make a lot of sense, and that’s okay. It’s a late night, and hopefully I can flesh all this out in greater detail for a sermon in the future. In the mean time, I love you all.

Grace and Peace,
~TheAndyParks