Good Stuff! Jesus Revolution

ByJohn Brown
Jesus Revolution poster

In 1969, Greg Laurie, was seventeen and going to high school Newport Harbor High School in California. Fourteen miles from Disneyland. Just one mile from the beach.

Laurie was raised by a single mother who had seven marriages and struggled with alcoholism. They moved often, sometimes to very different locations such as New Jersey and Hawaii. He was not raised in the Christian faith or a church environment.

He began participating in the hippie movement, doing drugs, dropping out, because it was fun and because maybe this was the way.

The 1960s and early 1970s was the height of the hippie movement, which sought love, beauty, honesty, freedom, and fun. Hippies felt that “The Man” (the establishment, the authorities, those in charge, Big Brother) had caused huge problems. And they wanted to drop out of that society. Leave it utterly. Find a new way.

Why? What was the problem?

The 1960s was the decade of the Vietnam war. It was the decade when we came to the brink of a nuclear World War 3 with the USSR over the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the decade when a huge portion of the United States strove for equal rights for minorities and women against a lot of opposition. There were riots. Protests. Beatings. This was the decade when Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy were assassinated. There were problems galore.

Now the 1960s was also a terrific decade. We passed civil rights legislation, men landed on the moon, super nerds introduced BASIC computer code which opened the door to the computer revolution. It was a decade of many good things, including the year when Lovely Wife was born. Let’s not forget that.

But it was certainly a tumultuous decade. And the hippies offered a counterculture. A different path.

A lot of youth followed that path. For example, in 1969 half a million hippies showed up at the Woodstock festival to protest the war, capitalism, and convention, and celebrate peace, love, and individual freedom.

This is the world young Greg Laurie was living in. And he was heading down the drug-hippie path.

But then he met a man named Lonnie Frisbee who looked like a hippie, had been a hippie, right at the epicenter in San Francisco, but was now inviting fellow hippies and youth to a different path.

A path that featured Christ. But not in the way of many of the churches at the time.

How was this path different? Did Greg turn around?

There’s a new movie out that is based on these true events. You can watch it and find out.

It’s called Jesus Revolution.

Nellie and I enjoyed the heck out of it. We laughed. We were on the edge of our seats, moved, and inspired. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I want to watch it again.

It’s a great entertainment for the whole family.

If you’re looking for a terrific, feel-good show, I think you’ll love Jesus Revolution. Give it a try.

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  • Two Jillian Workouts & Gottman’s Seven Marriage Principles

    ByJohn Brown

    Jillian Michaels is, in the words of my brother-in-law, “the woman who chases the fat people around.” And indeed, as one of the main trainers on the TV series Biggest Loser, she gets those folks moving. But I didn’t know anything about her or the show earlier this year when a friend recommended her 30-Day Shred DVD workout (thank you, Mr. Dayton).

    I’m a cave dweller. I sit in my little basement office and do my thing. And I have to make sure I get some type of exercise lest I turn into a great jelly. So I’m always on the lookout for a good workout. But it’s got to meet certain standards. I don’t want anything that’s Mickey Mouse. And I don’t want any froo-froo.

    So I asked this friend if these workouts featured a bunch of women dancing around in fruity outfits, because I can tell you right now, as open to new experiences as I am, I wasn’t going to buy a leotard and tip toe through the tulips with them. My friend assured me it was froo-froo free. And boy was he right.

    Jillian shows up with two other gals, gives you a two-minute warm up, and then proceeds to bust your hiney with three circuits of strength, aerobic calisthenics, and ab exercises. The strength exercises include things like push-ups and squats with dumbbell military presses or curls. The aerobic segments have you doing jumping jacks and jump rope. The ab portions run you through all manner of crunches and lower ab exercises. The three circuits take twenty minutes to complete. And there are three different levels of workouts on the DVD.

    I walk or hike three miles a day four days a week, and so I thought I was in reasonably okay condition. Jillian disabused me of that silly notion. I couldn’t keep up. Heck, the first dozen times through the workout I think I spent half the time either catching my breath or trying not to faint.

    But I kept with it and got stronger. And then I found Jillian’s No More Trouble Zones. This is a forty-minute workout. And I defy any of you he-men out there to try it and tell me you can keep up with this broad in this DVD. I still pant like a dog and have to take breaks when I do the workout. My only consolation is that Jillian and her two smiling evil pals work out with three-pound dumbbells while I work out with seven, fifteen, and twenty-five pounders.

    Like the shred workout, this forty-minute workout is comprised of circuits. But in the trouble zones workout there is no jumping about. It all double-whammy exercises that have you working both your upper and lower body at the same time or doing some killer ab maneuver. You’ll do pushups, squats, curls, a vicious plank circuit, and a dozen other exercises. You’ll work your triceps, biceps, shoulders, back, abs, and legs multiple times. This workout is no joke. 

    If you’re looking for an intense workout that doesn’t waste your time, I think you’ll enjoy either of these Jillian DVDs. All you need are a few dumbbells, a mat if you’re working on a hard surface, and prayer beads for those moments when you suspect you’re about to give up the ghost in a muscle-burning cardiac arrest.

    *

    Back in April of this year, Dr. Liz Hale, a licensed clinical psychologist, started her remarks to a local audience of more than 100 mental health professionals by saying, “Dear fellow colleagues, you are in danger of having an affair.”

    Her point was that every marriage, even those of the marriage gurus, is vulnerable to infidelity–be it sexual or emotional. Individuals have to actively curb all the subtle and often innocent beginnings that lead to unfaithfulness.

    “We make the mistake of thinking (marital) vows will keep us safe; and they don’t,” she said. She went on to say that couples cannot depend on love or similarities to keep their marriage intact. It’s not enough.

    Emotional or sexual infidelity isn’t as rare as we might think. But even if we don’t stray into some type of unfaithfulness, that doesn’t mean a marriage will stay together. Like anything worth having, a good relationship takes work.

    But what kind of work? What are the key principles for making a marriage last?

    For many years the prescriptions of marriage gurus were based on anecdotal evidence and rules of thumb—on opinion. Because the opinions weren’t tested, they led to all sorts of errors. For example, many yet believe that the road to marital bliss is through communication, specifically through successful conflict resolution. According to this idea, happy couples are those that have learned to resolve all their conflicts in a nice manner. The problem is that when conflict resolution was put to the test, the studies showed it didn’t work. Marriage therapies based on conflict resolution share a very low success rate—over the long haul they only work about 20% of the time.

    So what does work?

    John Gottman is a marriage counselor who took a different approach and started to collect rigorous scientific evidence on over 650 couples, tracking the fate of their marriages for up to fourteen years. The results of his work are startling.

    He uncovered a number of relationship myths, including the one about communication. He found that happy marriages were never perfect unions. These satisfied couples often had differences in temperament, interests, and family values. They argued over money, kids, and housekeeping, just like unhappy couples did. They had problems and faced issues. However, all these satisfied couples also practiced seven principles, even if they didn’t know it, which helped them navigate their way through all the difficulties and keep their marriages happy and stable.

    And it’s not just opinion. The success rate for the type of marital therapy based on his research is 80%. He knows what makes marriages work and has written it up in a fabulous book called The Seven Principles For Making A Marriage Work.

    Every marriage is vulnerable to failure. It takes work to enjoy a satisfying relationship with a spouse. But it’s so much easier to improve and maintain a relationship when you’re working on the things that actually make a difference. If you want to improve your marriage, give Gottman’s book a read.

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  • Good Stuff! Three Days in Moscow

    ByJohn Brown
    Book cover, Three Days in Moscow

    I just finished Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire by Bret Baier. It’s a New York Times bestseller that takes you into the world of Ronald Reagan, his rise to power in politics, and his role in ending the Cold War. And it does in a personable way with gentle humor throughout.

    I enjoyed the fascinating behind-the-scene insights about the personalities involved and the clarity about what really happened. And how the book brings Reagan to life, as if he’s almost there. Along the way you’ll also get insight into Mikhail Gorbachev, the assassination attempt on Reagan, and more.

    Baier is the chief political anchor for Fox News. In 2001, he became the station’s chief Pentagon correspondent and ended up traveling to Afghanistan 11 times and Iraq 13 times. In 2007, he became the station’s chief correspondent to the White House. More importantly, Baier seems to be one of the few journalists these days who is simply trying to get and report facts instead of spin. And that’s exactly what he’s done here.

    If you like biographies or history, if you want to know how the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. stepped back from decades of mutually assured destruction, if you want to get a view into how diplomacy is done, then I think you’ll love this book. And you’ll probably love it even more if you can listen to the audio book version, read by Baier himself, which also includes a recording of Reagan’s speech to the students at Moscow State University. I listened to it via the Overdrive account my public library provides. Baier’s reading was terrific.  

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  • Good Stuff: Why We Get Fat

    ByJohn Brown

    What if everything you know about fat, cholesterol, and diet is pretty much wrong?

    What if you found out that the science behind the good old food pyramid is, well, not really there?

    We’ve been told that a healthy diet consists of lots of grains, bagels, bread, pasta, cereals, rice, etc. and very little fat. What if it’s actually the reverse?

    If it is, then it might explain why the rates of diabetes and obesity began to skyrocket as the nation started to implement a low fat high carb diet.

    I remember having gained about fifteen pounds when I was first married. I decided I would go on a diet. I read up on the low fat high carb diet and followed it strictly. Two weeks later, I had gained ten more pounds. Did I, at the time, look at the diet and think that maybe there was something wrong with it?

    No. That would have been too intelligent.

    Instead, I figured something must be wrong with me and continued to try to “eat healthy.” What’s that definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Call me insane. Or slow. Or too trusting of authority.

    It appears that the science of nutrition got hijacked. Government policy then ran away with it. It’s a fascinating and cautionary tale. Let me recommend three books that explain what really causes us to deposit fat and how we got off track.

    The first is Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes. In it he reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, why the good science was ignored, what really causes us to store fat, and what to do about it.

    The next is The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Fung is a kidney specialist. Obesity and diabetes are the root of many kidney problems. And so he decided to help his patients by strop treating symptoms and get at the root cause. Fung’s gift is clarity. He explains how obesity and diabetes became an epidemic, the errors in how we think about calories and diet, and then he explains in great clarity the new model of what really causes obesity and how to reverse it.

    The last is The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by investigative journalist Nina Teicholz. She spent nine years investigating this, and the book reveals how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community, government, and the public and how recent findings overturn these beliefs. It’s a startling history, a cautionary tale showing how ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma.

    If you’re dealing with obesity, heart disease, or diabetes, I think you’ll find these books very interesting.

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  • Black Hawk Down, Pete Blaber, Not Waving But Drowning

    ByJohn Brown

    A Ferocious Battle

     I just finished reading Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. It is the most gripping account of any battle I have ever read.

    In 1992 a Somali warlord attacked and killed U.N. peacekeeping forces. As a result, the US put a $25,000 bounty on his head and attempted to arrest and try him for war crimes. On October 3, 1993, by the order of President Bill Clinton, a force of United States Army Rangers and Delta Force operators, the Army’s most elite warriors, set out to capture several lieutenants of the warlord’s militia in an area of the Somali capital city of Mogadishu that was controlled by the warlord.

    The force of about a hundred U.S. soldiers helicoptered in during broad daylight. They roped down to the streets surrounding the target building. It was supposed to take them no more than an hour. They would bag the warlord’s lieutenants, put them on a convoy of Army trucks that had barreled into the city and were waiting right around the corner, and get out.

    But the citizenry, loyal to the warlord, weren’t going to take it lying down. They began to swarm with guns and rocket propelled grenades. They attacked, almost heedless of the danger. One Somali with an AK-47 rode a cow out in a strange charge, a number of other Somali’s taking cover behind (yeah, he and the cow died). But the Americans were overconfident of their Black Hawk helicopters. They didn’t think the types of weapons the Somalis had could bring them down.

    One chopper was hit and crashed. Then another. A third and then a fourth were damaged and barely made it back to safety before they crash landed. As for the Rangers and D-boys, they were in for the fight of their life.

    The book tells the story of their courage, but it also brings in the point of view of a number of actual Somalis who fought and were injured. In the process, we get a view of the battle that is both thrilling and poignant.

    Bowden did an excellent job researching and writing this. I could not put it down. It does include some military grade profanity, but it wasn’t there to titillate or shock. I’ve talked to those who saw the movie based on this book, and I could tell the book is, per usual, better than the movie. If you’re at all interested in the military and the military operations we conduct overseas, let me recommend that you read this book. 

    Delta Force Commander Shares Insights

    Delta Force is the world’s most elite counterterrorist fighting force. Pete Blaber was a Delta Force operator that worked his way up to become a Delta Force commander and took part in some of the most dangerous, controversial, and significant military and political events of our time.

    During his time in uniform, he learned a number of lessons about life, about how we make decisions and act on them. In The Mission, The Men, and Me, Blaber writes about a number of the missions he conducted and the lessons he learned from them.

    The missions were conducted in Montana, Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. One featured a commander stupidly ordering Blaber to take his men into sure destruction. Another featured some of the first plans to capture Osama Bin Laden, before 9/11. Another included a man in a gorilla suit.

    The lessons Blaber draws from these experiences are fascinating and apply to more than military operations. For example, the lesson he drew from the operation featuring the gorilla suit is something I use every day with my writing. Anyone who leads or manages or works in groups will find other critical lessons. This was another book I couldn’t put down. Anyone interested in special forces will love this book.

    Not Waving But Drowning

    “Not Waving but Drowning” is a poem by female British poet Stevie Smith. It was published in 1957 as part of a collection with the same title. The work is her most famous poem and describes a man whose distressed thrashing in the sea causes onlookers to believe that he is waving to them, not drowning

    I hadn’t thought about this poem since I was a student at BYU. Then a local poet read it as part of his remarks at a conference I recently attended. The image and message lingered with me for hours. I thought about it off and on over the following weeks. This is, for me, an incredibly powerful poem. It needs to be read aloud, I think, to be appreciated. Not in some silly way, but with the appropriate feeling. I’m going to record a reading for my website, but you can read it aloud for yourself. Or have someone else do it for you. Then read it again.

    Nobody heard him, the dead man,
    But still he lay moaning:
    I was much further out than you thought
    And not waving but drowning.

    Poor chap, he always loved larking
    And now he’s dead
    It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
    They said.

    Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
    (Still the dead one lay moaning)
    I was much too far out all my life
    And not waving but drowning.

    How often does this happen? Those onlookers, caring only superficially, thinking it was too cold, thinking he was funning. But it wasn’t too cold. And his heart didn’t give out. He was struggling for his life, and they were too preoccupied to see it.

    Too preoccupied to really see. 

    I wonder. Is there someone around me, that if I just looked, just paused from my rush, I’d see they were much too far out, and not waving, but drowning.

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  • Good Stuff! Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

    ByJohn Brown

    hillenbrand-unbroken-4

    Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is the finest book I’ve read in some time.

    It’s tells an engrossing and true World War 2 story about Louis Zamperini, who started out in life as a steal-and-run trouble-maker. He was a kid who’d try the patience of Job. His mother tried to reform him to no avail. His father administered spankings, but physical punishment seemed to have no effect. Louis was constantly in trouble with neighbors, school mates, cops, teachers, store owners.

    Louis’s older brother thought Louis would succeed if he were to just receive some positive attention. He thought track, a very popular sport at the time, was just the ticket. Louis loved his brother. In 9th grade he tried running, but the workouts chafed, and then one day he had an altercation with his parents. Louis figured the train would take him away from all his problems. So he ran away, hopped a boxcar, and very quickly learned the freedom of the rails wasn’t freedom at all. It sucked.

    When he returned home, defeated, he decided to submit to his brother’s plan. This time it was just what the doctor ordered. Louis ran like mad. He broke records. He got a scholarship to USC and broke more. Louis ran in the 1936 Olympic Games. He didn’t win, but he would the next time they came around. However, the world was in turmoil back then, and Germany and Japan had their own plans which changed Louis’s life forever. He became a bombardier in the Pacific theater.

    And that’s where I’m going to stop. The story that awaits you is truly amazing. And Hillenbrand brings it to life with surprising and powerful details. From start to last, I was enthralled. And towards the end, just when I thought the story was over, it took a turn that lifted it from being just another WW2 story with plenty of action to a tale that goes right to the heart of what it means to live. I wept, not for Louis’s pain, as awful as that was, but for something far more vital.

    When I first saw the book, its sepia-washed cover turned me away from the tale. But with so many folks talking about it, I thought I’d give the first pages a go. I was delighted, but didn’t make it a priority. Not long after that, my 10th grade nephew told me how much he enjoyed it, and that prompted me to go back (and I’m so glad I did). It’s not that this is a kid’s book or that my nephew has the maturity of an older man. He’s definitely got some reading chops, but it’s not about an advanced writing style either. What is enthralling old and young alike is Zamperini’s story and Hillebrand’s skills in telling it.

    How much do I like this book? I’m reading it again, slowly this time, so I can savor every word. Let me recommend you do yourself a favor. If you read one book this year, make it Unbroken.

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  • FireBoy and WaterGirl and date night with Number 4

    ByJohn Brown

    It was date night with daughter number 4. I asked her what she’d like to do.

    She said she wanted to play a computer game. She likes the ones on friv.com. Probably because there are a couple hundred to choose from, and they’re free.

    Every time we’d play games before, we’d play Miragine War. Warriors, monks, zombies. My army against hers. Sometimes I’d win. Sometimes she’d win. It’s a fun game. It gets a little tedious with the back and forth, but we always had a good time with the slaughter.

    This time she wanted to play something new called FireBoy and WaterGirl.

    Fireboy and Watergirl

     

     

     

    The animation is done in a style similar to FancyPants, which I just love. Not as exaggerated, but still fun movement. The two characters are cute. FireBoy dies in water. WaterGirl dies in fire. Both die in the green mud. And the interesting thing is that it isn’t a competition. I don’t have anything against games that pit players against each other. I love them. But this one was a nice change. The two players actually have to help each other to progress. Part of the fun is figuring out exactly what each of you have to do and in what order to make it through the scenarios.

    So daughter 4 and I laughed and yelled and cheered when we didn’t die. We had a great time. We must have played for at least two hours.

    If you’re looking for a good date, give FireBoy and WaterGirl a try. Oh, and if you go to Friv.com to play it, it’s the little guy with the burning head.

    Fireboy and Watergirl on Friv

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