Hamburger Helper

I made a trip to Walmart last weekend - a fairly rare occurrence for me. I'm not a huge fan of the store, mainly because they never seem to have enough check-out lanes open. I'm usually zipping in to get something I need and wanting to zip back out with it. Seldom happens.

Anyway, as I entered the Walmart through the door on the food side, I saw the following display:

That's right - one of the staples of quick, easy-to-prepare meals: Hamburger Helper.

Now this brought back a flood of memories, and they were not good. In fact, as I walked past the display, I was surprised at myself. I had looked straight at the boxes of HH without getting nauseated.

You see, way back in my college days, my friend Steve and I shared a trailer and neither one of us had very much in the way of income - after all, we were in college. In the summer, we would run the air conditioner one day a month just to absorb the luxury of a cool trailer for a few hours. So HH was one of the ways we could eat without spending much money. A little hamburger meat, a box of the seasoning and voila - dinner!

But one November evening, we finished our Hamburger Helper meal and then it happened. I can't remember whether Steve or I started to feel sick first. but within an hour or so we were both sick as dogs. I can only remember one other time in my life where I felt that bad. I will spare you the gory details, but you can imagine. I didn't eat for days.

Now here's the thing: I don't know to this day whether the food had anything to do with it. I kinda think it didn't because I found out later that there was a stomach virus going around. but it didn't matter. From that day forward, if I saw a box of HH I would feel sick at my stomach. If you mentioned it...nausea. And Lord help us all if I actually smelled any of it cooking. I couldn't stand the thought of it.

Have you ever had anything like that? A food associated with a bad memory that makes you sick to think about? Or a song that reminded you of a bad break-up and you would get depressed every time you heard it?  Of course it works both ways - our senses are very powerful carriers of nostalgia both good and bad. There are songs that still make me think of specific periods of my life. Smells and tastes that bring back memories. That's just the way we wired.

But if you have songs you just can't stand to hear, or places you can't stand to see, or - yes - foods you can't stand to smell, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to last forever. God's grace is strong enough to help you put those behind you. Christ came to give us a brand new start. Yes, from our sin and rejection of our Creator. But also from the pain that comes from living in a fallen world. If I can walk past that Hamburger Helper display (and write about it!!), then it can happen.

And oh, I grabbed my travel size shaving cream and walked to the check-out stand. Believe it or not, there was an employee waiting to check me out. No line! Yes, it was a miraculous day...no nausea and no line at Walmart. I sure hope I wasn't dreaming.

Practical Universalism

Well, the book is out. And based on the reviews and interviews with the author, it appears to be what it was promoted to be.

Of course, I'm talking about the highly controversial book Love Wins by Rob Bell. I wrote about it in my blog a few weeks ago, and you can read what I said (as well as watch a promotional video) here.

Like I indicated, as I watch Mr. Bell being interviewed I think it's pretty clear he believes that people who reject God's love in this life will eventually give in to God's love post mortem and be saved. He rejects the label "universalist", but a label is just a label. The idea that our eternal destiny can be determined by choices made after death is, as Bell says himself about life after death, speculation. And it is speculation that I believe is contrary to Scripture. But...

Yes, there's a "but". And the "but" is what this post is really about. I saw a tweet earlier this week referring to David Platt's comments on the subject. And it stopped me dead in my tracks.

You see, the question for those of us disturbed by Bell's book is this: are we practical universalists? What does that mean? Just this: if we insist that God's justice demands an accounting and that Christ has been provided as the way to the life God intended (both here and forever), do we live as if it matters? Do we really believe what we're saying? Or is it just words?

If we really believe it, it will break our hearts to see people rejecting God's love. We will want to do something about it. And we will work our whole lives to bring God's kingdom here on earth, by 1) loving others as God loved us, 2) meeting the the needs of the poor, the widows, and orphans, and 3) by working to reconcile those in our sphere of influence to God.

I object to theological universalism, because I believe a loving God must deal with injustice and that the choice to accept God's love or not in this life matters. But I know that as I live my busy life, practical universalism creeps in all the time. God grant me the sense of urgency I need. Because people matter.

Fringe

Very seldom does a television show rise to the level where I want to recommend it to all my friends. Alias was such a show, although it kinda lost its way toward the end of its run. Probably The West Wing. And my all time favorite show (which will probably never be surpassed), LOST.

Two of these shows are from the Bad Robot production company, creations of JJ Abrams. And so it, in my opinion, no coincidence that by far my favorite show currently on TV is Fringe.

(Note: I blogged a couple of months ago about this - I do remember that. But the show is just getting better and better so I thought it deserved a more detailed post on why it rocks. I will probably post on individual episodes in the future.)

Fringe was created three years ago by Abrams among others. It's smart, thought-provoking, centered on extremely interesting characters, and even funny. The acting is superb, led by a previously relatively unknown actress named Anna Torv (Olivia Dunham). Because of the plot, Anna has played at least 5 different shades of characters, and makes each one come alive - amazing. John Noble (Walter Bishop) is an awesome actor, and the most well known actor, Joshua Jackson (first known from Dawson's Creek) has created a deep, flawed character (Peter Bishop) that it's impossible not to care about.

The show uses a science fiction background to tell wonderful stories about a group of people who are eternally interconnected, and whose actions have enormous consequences. It's a story about choices, and how all our choices are important and affect people in waves we can't even begin to understand. It's not just science fiction - it's people.

It is a serial story and if you start watching on Fridays you'll kinda be in catch-up mode. But I almost guarantee that if you give it chance, you will want to go back and catchup on previous seasons.

Here is a fan-made trailer for the current season:



Fridays, 8 pm CDT. Give it a shot.

Brackets 2011

In just a few minutes, college basketball season will begin. Well, not really - it has been going on since November. But when the NCAA Tournament starts to day, it begins the only time when the sport achives interest and popularity that approaches football. For three weeks, people who haven't watched as much as two hours of basketball all year will be mesmerized by the drama. It's alot of fun.

One of the reasons is that filling out your own bracket and seeing how close you came has become a national pasttime. So, not wanting to be left out, here's my bracket, for all the world to see:

(It's definitely small and hard to read, but if you click on it you can see a larger image.)

Yep, I'm putting it out there for everyone to discover how little I know about college basketball. It includes logical picks, picks from the heart, and a few shots at trying to be the one who predicts the big upset (and there will be at least one, count on it).

As it goes along, feel free to let me know how much better you did than me.

Let the fun begin...