What You Need To Get Me For My Birthday

I know how you're feeling right now.  Terrible.  You forgot to get me a present for my birthday and its killing you.  You have this urge to make up for being such an awful friend.  But how?

You have two choices of what to get me.

 Specialized S-Works Venge DA
The Tour de France bike of phenom Mark Cavendish and Team HTC-Highroad. 11r carbon frame plus Pro Tour-proven Shimano Dura-Ace components. Ultralight Roval Rapide SL 45 wheelset with carbon/alloy hybrid rims for low aerodynamic drag with the reliability of an alloy brake track, Specialized S-Works FACT carbon crankset with OSBB, removable carbon spider, and ceramic bearings, plus legendary Shimano Dura-Ace 10-speed shifters ultralight, smooth performance.

Just $9,200 (plus tax, but who's counting?)

OR

Donate $10* to help me BRING BACK THE CHICKEN

My good friend Rob co-founded this awesome non-profit in Santiago, Dominican Republic. In a nutshell, this past year, Servants Heart Ministry's donations were down, so they had a tough decision- do they A) still serve chicken, rice, and beans for their meals, but stop feeding as many kids or B) feed as many kids, but cut out the chicken. Rob told me the story of the time he had to be the person at the end of the food line, and had the difficult job of telling a grandmother that they didn't have enough food for her grandchild- basically, that they had to turn her away and the child would have to go hungry.  So the decision was made- the kids would lose the chicken, but at least the same number of kids would have something until donations came back up.

So, I've set a goal of raising $2,675 (the cost of chicken for one month for the kids in the program), so all the kids can have chicken (and the much needed protein it provides) for December- sort of a Christmas present.  So, you get this for me as a birthday present, and it doubles as a Christmas present for the kids.  How awesome is that?!?!

*You can also donate either A) how old you think I look, or B) how old you think I act.
http://www.firstgiving.com/brianlord

What A View!

Photo: Daniel C. White

What a great picture by Daniel White!  Yes, this is a real picture, taken by Daniel while our group stopped for a break on top of a massive hill/small mountain at 6:30AM on a ride through the Tennessee countryside.  Gotta love being a cyclist sometimes!

Does Loss Make You Who You Are?

I am a C.S. Lewis addict.  When I was little, my mom would gather all four of us kids together every night and read a chapter in the Old Testament, a chapter in the New Testament, and a chapter from a Christian kids book, quite often from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.

I loved those books, and I believe they play a part in who I am today.  I love reading, learning about far away places, and I even wrote (but never tried to publish) a Narnia-style kids book.  In writing my own book, I wanted to get to know the person who inspired the book a bit more, and so I read a C.S. Lewis biography called "The Narnian". Little Clive (C.S. stands for 'Clive Staples') was a sickly child, many of his earliest memories were of his mother coming in and taking care of him.  However, one time he and his mother became sick at the same time, and even though he called for her, she was too sick to come.  He remembered vividly her passing away.  In The Magician's Nephew, which is a fable based on the Creation story.  [Spoiler alert] In it, a young boy named Digory finds a set of magic rings, and, along with his friend Polly, find themselves in the world of Narnia as it's being born.  Digory goes into a Garden of Eden-type place, and because of his obedience in the face of temptation, he is able to take an apple back to his dying mother in his own world and save her life.  What C.S. Lewis couldn't do in real life, he was able to do through his writing, hopefully giving himself some closure.  It was the very last Narnia book he wrote.

The idea for The Chronicles of Narnia originally came during the Nazi air raids, when children were taken to the countryside for safekeeping (it is believed that the reason Hitler never allowed Oxford to be bombed is that he planned to make it the capital after he conquered England), while their fathers fought in the war and their mothers worked in the war effort.   C.S. Lewis, an Oxford professor, took in three children during the raid (In The Lion, Witch, and The Wardrobe, an old professor takes the four children into his household during the air raids).  From that sprung the series that's entertained, enchanted, and educated children the world over for 60 years.  But you can't forget it was originally written for children who had lost their childhood through six years of war and its aftermath, many of whom lost parents and loved ones, by someone who had lost his own childhood.

Without that loss, would C.S. Lewis have been who he was, and written what he did?  Would my life be different without having what C.S. Lewis wrote be such a part of my childhood? (OK, adulthood, too.  I still reread them).

I write this morning as I remember my own loss, that of my son-to-be Jonathan exactly one year ago today.  I feel loss that for the second August in a row, my dad won't be coming down to visit for my birthday.   Will I become less of a man, or more of a man, because of these things?  Will those losses enable me to do that will inspire my children or friends, or even strangers, tomorrow, or 60 years from now?

I certainly hope so.  There's always this temptation to allow loss and tragedy to give you an excuse to go into your shell.  There is a place for mourning- massive mourning right after, and smaller but still intense mourning on occasion, like today.  There's probably a loss of your own that popped into your head while you were reading this. But overall I think that loss can make you better.  C.S. Lewis decided to turn his loss into my gain, and I'm very thankful he did.

#BestAdvice- How To Be Gracious

My brother Frank put up some old pictures on Facebook today, reminding me of some great advice I received from my grandma, "Nanny Yi". 

Mom, Frank, Me, Dad

Yi ("Yi" because somehow that's how her baby sister pronounced "Elsie Fowler" and it stuck) was born to be a performer.  She taught herself how to play jazz piano from an early age and was always the life of the party.  Her children were all expected to be able to perform, and that carried on to her grandchildren as well.  We always had to tell stories at the dinner table or gather around the piano and sing while she played.

In 8th or 9th grade, I'd gotten a lead part in a church musical, where I played a bad guy who finally figures it out in the end.  Before the play, Nanny Yi took us out to an early dinner at Ponderosa, and I remember her very specific instructions- not on how to perform during the musical, but how to perform after the musical. 

"Now, Brian, after the musical, you'll be at the back of the church, and people are going to come up and say, "Thank you, you did a great job!" When they say that, I don't want you to hem and to haw and mumble or look down at the ground.  Don't be embarrassed! These people want to pay their compliments.  So you need to be gracious. Look them in the eye and smile and say "Thank you!"  My mom, who is a very well-known singer in our community, chimed in her agreement to this advice, which I'm sure she had in her turn when she was younger.

Nanny Yi then looked at my shirt and asked, "Is that what you're wearing?  No, my grandson needs to stand out on stage!" So we raced to JC Penny's and she bought me the brightest red shirt she could find. We just made it to church on time.

The musical went well, and even though I wanted to default to my natural tendency to mumble and look at the ground while people complimented our performance, I instead made myself smile and say thanks- thanks to my grandma.