Michael Kelley's Blog, page 247

Steve Jobs Asked Aaron Sorkin to Write a Pixar Movie

Oh, what might have been.

Aaron Sorkin is a pretty phenomenal writer, responsible for movies like A Few Good Men and The Social Network and the television drama The West Wing.

Pixar is a pretty amazing motion picture company. Cars, Finding Nemo, Up, Monster's Inc. – you know the drill.

And Steve Jobs was, well, Steve Jobs.

Here's how the record of the conversation between these two guys went according to Sorkin:

But it's his last call I'll always remember. He wanted me to write a Pixar movie. I told him I loved Pixar movies, I'd seen all of them at least twice and felt they were small miracles, but that I didn't think I'd be good at it.

STEVE: Why not?

ME: I just—I don't think I can make inanimate objects talk.

STEVE: Once you make them talk they won't be inanimate.

ME: The truth is I don't know how to tell those stories. I have a young kid who loves Pixar movies and she'll turn cartwheels if I tell her I'm writing one and I don't want to disappoint her by writing the only bad movie in the history of Pixar.

(long silence)

STEVE: Jeez … write about THAT.

ME: Steve—

STEVE: Why don't you come up here and let me give you a tour of the place.

I told him I'd take him up on it and I never did. But I still keep thinking about that Pixar movie.

Living in Splendor in the Midst of Squalor

[image error]This is Antilia. It's the home of Mukesh Ambani who in 2011, Forbes ranked as the 9th richest man in the world, with a net worth of $27 billion.

Ambani purchased land on one of the most expensive streets in Mumbai and began constructing Antilia, a towering structure that will serve as the 400,000 square foot home for his wife, three children and 600 staff members.

It's 567 feet high.

It has 27 floors.

Each floor in the complex offers something different and there are no identical floor plans.

The Ambani family will occupy only the top four floors. Conveniently, there are still 23 other floors for luxuries such as parking space for 168 cars, a health spa, swimming pools, a movie theater and three spectacular hanging gardens spaced at different levels of the building. All told, the house will come with a price tag over $1 billion.

Here's the thing, though. If you stand on the top, there is evidently an amazing view of the Arabian Sea. Also, the slums of Mumbai are clearly visible. Can you imagine that – standing on the top of a 27 story, 1 billion dollar home and looking down at the slums?

What kind of person spends his money on things so lavish and so expensive when some of the poorest people on the planet are so close at hand? Who could possibly live in such luxury with the knowledge of such poverty?

Who?

Ummm…

Wait a minute…

The 5th Anniversary of Leukemia

Last week marked the 5th anniversary of when we sat in a room at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and heard that our son had cancer. Devastating day. Each year since then, I've written a post with some reflections about cancer, faith, and our family.

Funny enough, I was filming some teaching for the Bible study version of the book about our son, our family, faith, and cancer on the anniversary of Joshua's diagnosis. In fact, it wasn't until mid-afternoon when someone reminded me that it was October 18th.

Funny how time flies. Or maybe not so funny. I can't decide which. But I do think that now, 5 years on the other side of the diagnosis, it is a matter of God's grace that the anniversary crept up on us. We were busy with swim team, barbque's, riding bikes, and… living I guess.

This year, I've decided that instead of writing a post of brief reflections, I would just post an excerpt from the book that is releasing soon. Along with that, here are some links to the previous year's posts.

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

It's not that difficult to tell when someone has something they need to tell you but really don't want to—you can almost always sense the news coming. It's the same

feeling you have right before a news broadcaster interrupts the regularly scheduled programming for a special message. Or when your spouse is talking on the telephone to someone in grave, hushed tones, only to hang up and invite you to "Have a seat. I have something to tell you." It's that feeling where you hold your breath without knowing it and you feel your heart beating inside of your head.

Dr. Collins had ordered a blood test after examining Joshua; while the blood test came and went I tried to keep a 2-year-old preoccupied in the prison-cell sized examination room. We played with trucks. Then we played with a lot of medical instruments that I'm sure we weren't supposed to touch. Joshua ate one strip of his sandwich. Then the doctor came back. He sat across from me. Looking at him, I subconsciously held my breath. My heart started beating in my head. Why was I nervous? We had been to the doctor before. But something was different this time. Then he started saying words that I never expected to hear: "hematology"; "children's hospital"; "call your wife". Then he said the word that would become part of our everyday vocabulary at heart-breaking speed: "leukemia."

What do you do with a word like that? How do you respond? What questions do you ask? I didn't know; I still don't know. But I think I do know that there are some words in our vocabulary that are heavier than others. They are the kind of words that linger in the air long after they are said. They echo in your mind and pierce your heart over and over again, and when they are first spoken, they drop to the pit of your stomach like lead. Leukemia.

Two hours later Joshua was still playing with his trucks, but he was playing with them on the floor of an examination room at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. My wife had joined us and we were waiting for the results of a secondary blood test they had done. We didn't speak. We didn't cry – much. We hoped, we tried to pray, we wanted to believe. And then we had another "sit down" moment.

Amidst Joshua's truck sound effects and laughter, we heard the confirmation that our 2 and a half-year-old boy had a childhood cancer of the blood. And it felt as if someone had punched me as hard as they could in the gut. Leukemia. There was that word again, and there was the lead-heavy residue in the air. It echoed in my heart.

Over and over again the words punched. The emotion welled behind my eyes until I thought my head would explode. How could 82% of his blood cells be affected? He's playing with trucks! How could he have cancer? I made him a sandwich this morning! And it wasn't just the emotion that throbbed; it was the questions. So many questions that I didn't even know where to begin.

There were the questions you'd expect:

"Is Joshua going to die?"

"How can he be sick? He looks fine!"

"Isn't it just a rash?"

"How do you treat leukemia?"

"What does this mean about the future?"

But then there were the other questions:

"Why this little boy, God?"

"How could You let this happen?"

"Is this punishment for something we have done?"

"Are You even real?"

Joshua finished his sandwich, and I started to cry. I cried because there he was, eating his strips of PB and J the same way he had hundreds of times before. And while he ate, I wondered how many more times he would…

Preorder your copy of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal here.

Be a Conduit, not a Cul-de-sac

The blessing of God doesn't end with you.

We want it to. We want to be blessed for our own sake. But we're not. Think about Abraham.

Here was a man who was greatly blessed by God. God Himself promised it to be so:

"I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great… I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt…" (Genesis 12:2-3).

That's big time blessing. But isn't there part of you when you read these verses that wonders why? Why Abraham? What made him so special? Why him, of all the other men on the earth? And why the nation of people that would come from him? Why would they be regarded as God's chosen people, His special possession?

From the outset, we see the answer. Here is the full text of the two verses quoted above:

"I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

See it? Abraham and his descendants aren't blessed at the detriment of the other people on the earth; they were blessed for the sake of everyone else on the earth. When God blessed Abraham, he had the world in mind. The recipients of God's blessing are meant to be conduits, not cul-de-sacs. They are meant to be hoses, not sponges. Great problems and troubles arise when the people of God choose to be exclusively recipients of the blessing of God.

God's blessing is meant to flow through His people, not bottleneck with them. So I wonder today about me (and perhaps about you) – are you a conduit or a cul-de-sac?

Friday Are For One Question

I know I'm one of only about 47 people who watches every game of the World Series. That's okay.

But last night's game was great. Great defense. Low scoring. Won in the 9th inning.

While it was good, it wasn't one of those sports moments that I'll tell my kids about (if indeed they care about sports moments). Today's question is about those moments for you:

"What is the greatest sports moment you have watched?" (And no, it doesn't count if you saw the highlight of it later. You had to be watching TV, listening to the radio, or seeing it live when it happened.)

The Homosexuality Debate

Trevin does a great job with a difficult topic in writing this. This is how, according to him, the homosexuality debate should go during an interview with a pastor:

Host: You are a Christian pastor, and you say you believe the Bible, which means you are supposed to love all people.

Pastor: That's right.

Host: But it appears to me that you and your church take a rather unloving position when it comes to gay people. Are homosexuals welcome to come to your church?

Pastor: Of course. We believe that the gospel is a message relevant for every person on the planet, and we want everyone to hear the gospel and find salvation in Jesus Christ. So at our church, our arms are outstretched to people from every background, every race, every ethnicity and culture. We're a place for all kinds of sinners and people with all kinds of problems.

Host: But you said there, "We're a place for sinners." So you do believe that homosexuality is sinful, right?

Pastor: Yes, I do.

Host: So how do you reconcile the command to love all people with a position on homosexuality that some would say is radically intolerant?

Pastor: (smiling) If you think my position on homosexuality is radical, just wait until you hear what else I believe! I believe that a teenage guy and girl who have sex in the backseat of a pick-up are sinning. The unmarried heterosexual couple living down the street from me is sinning. In fact, any sexual activity that takes place outside of the marriage covenant between a husband and wife is sinful. What's more, Jesus takes this sexual ethic a step further and goes to the heart of the matter. That means that any time I even lust after someone else, I am sinning. Jesus' radical view of sexuality shows all of us up as sexual sinners, and that's why He came to die. Jesus died to save lustful, homo- and heterosexual sinners and transform our hearts and minds and behavior. Because He died for me, I owe Him my all. And as a follower of Jesus, I'm bound to what He says about sex and morality.

Host: But Jesus didn't condemn homosexuality outright, did He?

Pastor: He didn't have to. He went to the heart issue and intensified the commands against immoral behavior in the Old Testament. So Jesus doesn't just condemn adultery, for example, as does one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus condemns even the lust that leads to adultery, all with the purpose of offering us transformed hearts that begin beating in step with His radical demands.

Host: You say he condemned adultery, but he chose not to condemn the woman caught in adultery.

Pastor: That's right, but He did tell her to "go and sin no more."

Host: But who are you to condemn someone who doesn't line up with your personal beliefs about sexuality?

Pastor: Who am I? No one. It's not all that important what I think about these things. This conversation about homosexuality isn't really about my personal beliefs. They're about Jesus and what He says. I have no right to condemn or judge the world. That right belongs to Jesus. My hope is to follow Him faithfully. That means that whatever He says in regard to sexual practices is what I believe to be true, loving, and ultimately best for human flourishing – even when it seems out of step with the whims of contemporary culture.

Host: But you are judging. You are telling all the gay people watching this broadcast that they are sinners.

Pastor: I'm not singling out gay people. I'm pointing to Jesus as the answer to all sexual sinfulness.

Host: But you are referring to gay people. Why are you so focused on homosexuality?

Pastor: (smiling) With all due respect, you are the one who brought up this subject.

Host: Are you saying that you can't be gay and Christian?

Read the rest here.

The Way You Listen Reveals the Way You Believe

Belief and action are two sides of the same coin. When James, in chapter 2, talks about how faith without works are dead, it should come as no surprise to us. Faith in anything, in any situation, in any moment, is followed by action. Or you could look at it another way – any action, at some level is motivated by faith.

What you eat, the way you exercise, the way you approach sex, or the way you read the Bible – all these actions are underpinned by belief. And I was struck this week that the way I listen during the sermon at church is also revelatory of what I believe.

Is this the Word of God?

Does faith come by hearing?

Is there something unique about the proclamation of the Bible?

If the answer is yes, then action will follow on my part. Perhaps we would do well, before the sermon, to consider what we believe to be true about what's about to happen. Maybe there would be a few less gazes at the watch if we did.

The Future of Voiceover Recording

Voiceover talent, Daniel Smeeth, explains his unrehearsed, unscripted approach to recording commercials…

Umm… I think I could do this…

(HT: 22 Words)

If You Were Squeezed, What Would Come Out?

We get squeezed in certain times of life. Sometimes the squeezing is more dramatic than others.

Our job is deleted. We should have been prepared. We should have had more savings. We should have had a better resume.

Squeeze. Tighter.

Parenting is harder than we thought it would be. We are daily stressed because of the schedule, and because of situations that our kids find themselves in. We don't know if we're making the right decisions and we second guess ourselves at every turn.

Squeeze. Tighter still.

We sit by the phone and wait for the doctor's office to call with the results of the test. Is it serious? Is it not? Will there be surgery? A treatment regiment? Medication for months and years to come? Will the insurance cover it?

Now we're barely breathing. Panic ensues. Can't get enough oxygen.

The vice grips tighten and we get squeezed. Now not to get too graphic here, but squeezing something – anything – makes something come out. You squeeze a piece of fruit and you get juice. You squeeze a blown up bag and you get a pop. If you were squeezed what would come out of you?

It's during these moments that we find out what's really inside. We get squeezed, and anger comes oozing out. So does frustration. Anxiety, too. Fear, no doubt. When we're not being squeezed, we can fool ourselves into thinking that these traits aren't really there. They're long gone, driven out by our Bible studies and participation in church programs. But squeezing forces what's deeply ingrained in us out through the surface.

But there's hope.

There's hope not because we can rid ourselves of these things, but because in the gospel God has given us the righteousness and the life of Jesus who knows a little something about being squeezed.

In fact, do you know what came out when Jesus was squeezed?

Not random phrases. Not incoherent babbling brought on by pain.

Psalm 22 came out of Jesus at the cross. Go ahead – look it up.

The words on His day of squeezing, as He was nailed to a cross and tortured, were the very words of God recorded for this very purpose centuries before. That's where our hope lies. Not in ourselves, but in the One who on the day when the life was squeezed out of Him never resorted to or gave into fear and anger, but to His last breath trusted in the Word of God.

Fridays Are For One Question

These few days are going to be pretty rough in terms of schedule for me. All good things, but good things in very different places.

I drove from Nashville to Atlanta yesterday morning at 7:30 for meetings until about 10 last night. This morning, there are more meetings until about 11 when I will drive from Atlanta to the Nashville airport. Then I'm catching a flight from Nashville to Redmond, Oregon, to speak at a collegiate retreat for some new, good friends.

In Oregon, I'm driving from the airport to a retreat center a couple of hours away to preach tonight. When you figure in the time change, I'll be opening the Word at about midnight central time.

Long day. But you get that – especially those of you who frequently do international travel. So I'd love some helpful hints today in the answers for the Friday question:

"What is the greatest length you've ever gone to in order to stay awake?"