TED ALLEN, THE HOST OF CHOPPED ON THE FOOD NETWORK, LOOKS LIKE A COMPOSITE SKETCH OF HIMSELF. IT'S KIND OF CREEPY.

LET'S PLAY ILLUSTRATION- The game where I give you a scenario and you tell me what spiritual analogies can be drawn from it.

Last week Camp Maranatha received its first heavy snowfall of the year. It was the sort of snowstorm that comes down overnight, burying the mountain in silence. We have had an unusually mild winter here in Idyllwild so the snow storm was all anyone was talking about in town the next day. It was interesting to note all the various associations that the word “Snow” held for people. For example, to the snow plow operator snow meant income, but for the person who needed their driveway plowed it was an expense. For children, snow meant sledding and snowball fights, but for the elderly it was a slippery walk. For local business owners, snow was “white gold” because it brought tourists up from warmer climes down below, but for the CHP officer that influx of motorists on icy roads meant more traffic collisions. You see, even though we all would agree on the definition of the word snow, “crystals of ice formed from water vapor in the air,” it can still hold many different associations for us depending on our experience, perspective, or even our personality.

OH, TO SEE YOURSELF AS OTHERS SEE YOU.

Earlier today I telephonically contacted a very close relation of mine who, over the course of our conversation, described the BFZ as being "sassy," "wacky," "always pushing the envelope," "over the edge," and "around the bend." That sounded more to me like a description of Lady Gaga then the BFZ. I have always viewed this corner of the internet more as Wally Cleaver than Eddie Haskell, but perhaps I am blinded to the truth of my own public image. Do those descriptors fairly capture the essence of the BFZ?

I guess what I want to know, although I am afraid to ask-

Am I sassy?

Say it aint so.

JACK POETRY!

Oh yeaaah!
You come true.
Just like your baby
You're made by
Jee-sus!

(Jack, my 4 year old son, pictured here with his homemade guitar he made with a rolled up book and a rubberband. Sarah, my wife, overheard the above snippet of Jack Poetry while he was wandering through the house singing to himself and strumming away on his "guitar.")

For other installments of Jack Poetry click here.

The Daytona 500

For many, the biggest sports day of the year has come and gone. However for me, it is on Sunday February 26th. That's right follks, the Daytona 500. While I'm a firm believer in the greatness of NASCAR, I have not been a very good apologist for the sport. When people ask me why I like NASCAR, I struggle to give an answer. When something is as great as NASCAR, how can I give a simple response? So for my first post in the Bummer Free Zone, I'm going to give 5 reasons why NASCAR is great (in no particular order).

#1 In NASCAR, you are not just cheering for clothes. In other sports, I have favorite teams, but I really don't know anything about the players on those teams. I just cheer for the team regardless of who plays for the team. It's hard for me to get very excited about that. In NASCAR, you root for an actual person, and because of the high amount of access to the drivers, I know a decent amount about my favorite drivers (Jeff Gordon in the Sprint Cup Series and Morgan Shepherd in the Nationwide Series).

#2 In NASCAR, you get to watch your favorite driver(s) every race. In other sports, there are 30 or so teams in a league. That means almost every game does not involve my favorite team. I can barely stand to watch baseball when my team is playing, there's no way I'm watching teams I care nothing about. In NASCAR, I know Jeff Gordon will be in every single Sprint Cup race. I don't have to wonder if I'll get to see my favorite driver on the weekend, I know I will.

#3 NASCAR begins each race with an invocation. I'm not saying NASCAR is a "Christian sport," but how often do you hear this on t.v.?

#4 NASCAR races almost always have an exciting finish. In other sports, the outcome is often known before the final minutes. In NASCAR, it is impossible to know who will win until the final llap. Even if the leader has a big lead, there could always be a yellow flag that will bring the field together at the end.

#5 NASCAR folks are easy support. Generally speaking, they are more down to earth than people in other sports. You don't hear about NASCAR folks getting arrested for violent crimes. With a few exceptions, you don't really hear anything negative about people in NASCAR. Plus, their commercials are awesome.

-- Chad, The Fellowship of the Octogon

OVERHEARD

"If you go into the boy's locker room in high school, sometimes it's a little…powerful…the odor in there. So I was thinking about the fact that, you know, we weren't washing our stuff enough."
President Obama during a recent address in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

I'm gonna drop some truth at Lake Manor Chapel in Chatsworth, CA on March 4th at 9:30 am.

THINGS I THOUGHT TODAY BUT DIDN'T SHARE WITH ANYONE (until now)

1. I think it's kind of interesting that there is no product on the market designed to retard hair growth. There are loads of miracle cures for baldness, but none that will stop hair growth. Who has time for a haircut? Have you seen the prices they're charging these days? There is a need for such a product. I can imagine it now- "With just one application of Tate's Miracle Hair Jelly (not available in Oklahoma, Puerto Rico or Washignton D.C.) you can schedule your next haircut for sometime next year." I wouldn't be surprised to learn that such a product already exists but the Barbers are keeping it under wraps. In fact, if I go missing you can bet it was the barbers. I'm told that if you get too close to the truth they'll go all Sweeney Todd on you.

2. I think God created the earth with fossils in the ground. It's possible that dinosaurs never actually wandered the earth.

3. I have never folded a piece of paper evenly into thirds. There must be some trick I'm not aware of, and until I learn it a perfect tri-fold will continue to elude me.

4. I like how excitable Brady Barr is.

It's warm under the covers
Though it's cold throughout the room
Lying close are we two lovers
In our blanketed coccoon
The wind may howl through the streets
And the snow may fall in heaps
But all of that's beyond the sheets
And safe, close, warm we sleep.

MONTEREY LAST APRIL

In the pearly light of early day
After a night of drizzle and drip
I stepped out onto the path
Behind the hotel and strolled along
Between the waxy green hedges
Until I came to a place that
Smelled like coffee and breakfast.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST BFZ PRODUCT ENDORSEMENT AND POLL ON THE SIDEBAR.

BEHOLD...SUPER BED!

5 mattresses, 10 sheets, 11 pillows, 15 blankets= a rockin good time!!!

Mr. Mom

For the remainder of this week Sarah is up in Chico, CA with her sister who is in a family way and fixing to pop any moment. Sarah wants to be on hand to help out, and I'm doing my part by holding down the fort here in Idyllwild. This morning I woke up to no less than three of my children howling "I want Mommy!" Lucy escpecially, sweet little Lucy, is having a hard time with her absence. I have found her a couple of times alone and crying. More than once since Sarah pulled away yesterday has the front of my T-shirt absorbed dark splotches of Lucy tears. She's Mommy sick.

I've decided on a twin pronged strategy of structuring the day and continuously advertising the upcoming events I've planned. To some extent I'm embracing the weirdness of not having Mommy around. Tonight we're planning on constructing a "Super Bed" in the living room, which is to say we're going to push all of the furniture to the side and combine our mattresses side by side to create the largest bed in the world. I plan on sleeping in the "Super Bed" for the remainder of the week, with my heart-sick progeny all around. This morning a breakfast of pizza and strawberries welcomed them to the world. We have a fishing trip planned for either Frdiay afternoon or Saturday morning or both.

I'm aware though that I have all of you at my disposal. What are some other ways that I can help my Mommy-Sick little kids and make the time fly for them? Do you have any memories of Mr. Mom moments from your own childhood? Have any of you men-folk ever filled such a span of days in a creative way? Do you ladies have any tips for how best to care for my little Lucy without dialing up Mom on her cellular phone device every hour?

I eagerly await your advice.

PAX ZUCKERBERG?

Pax Romana ("Roman Peace" in Latin) is a term historians use to describe a period covering most of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. During this time much of the known world was connected by a single government, a single language, and a road system. Relative peace throughout the Roman empire and the ability to travel unmolested from Hadrian's wall in Britain to the Euphrates River in modern day Iraq aided the spread of Christianity (portrayed above as a mold growing across the face of the ancient world). This has got me thinking about the age of the internet. There is no doubt that social media sites and the internet in general are ushering in a new era of connectedness, but could this represent kind of a Pax Zuckerberg? Waddaya think?  (I read yesterday that if Facebook were a nation it would be ranked as either 7th or 8th in size overall.) I tend to view the rise of the internet as a shadowy and vaguely sinister thing, an invasion of privacy, a great collector of information, intent on unknown purposes. (Sometimes I feel as if the whole world is on the verge of vomiting.) Perhaps the internet is even a necessary precursor to end-time events prophesied in the Bible- maybe so, but on the bright side it undoubtedly represents an incredible opportunity for the spread of the gospel today. These very words I am typing here could be accessed and read by someone in Moscow (assuming they could read English), and that connection is so easy today- no air fare, no travel time, no passports.

Pax Zuckerberg!!! (I might have to rethink my abstention from facebook.) Go ye into all the nations and make disciples of men.

HAVE YOU?

Have you ever stood on a moon-dappled limb?
Up near the top where the trunk tapers slim?
Where you cling to the bark with a white-knuckle grip
As it pitches and rolls like the deck of a ship?

Have you ever sat where the mourning dove grieves?
Looked out on a view that's framed by the leaves?
Where the comings and goings of things here and there
Are plain to your sight from so high in the air?

Have you ever slept in the riotous trees?
Have you been rocked to sleep by the force of the breeze?
Have you laid out your roll in the quiet recess
Of a woodpecker's hole or an old robin's nest?