myopic pilgrim

What do you think about the new commercials from the LDS church? You can view the Mormon videos at mormon.org.

I have some thoughts, but what are yours?

My church gives blood as a group at the United Blood Services a few times a year. While we’re there, someone always remarks about all the Ugly Ed plaques. He’s honored several times on the wall of fame in the waiting area. I hadn’t ever heard of him, but while researching how to run a successful blood drive (slated for October 28) I found an article on Ugly Ed.

His name is Ed Feinhandler. He’s been donating since the 1970s. He’s past giving ten gallons of his blood. He was one of the first to donate platelets. He was inspired to give blood from watching his mother donate. He was also motivated by his experience in the Vietnam War.

So why is he Mr. Ugly? He’s won several Ugly Man contests since 1967. It’s charity fundraiser where twenty-five cents equals one vote for your ugly man of choice. Over the years he’s raise over $16,000 for different charities. [Source: Reno-Gazette Journal]

Of course, the Mr. Ugly has his own website where you can get a free autographed photo for a $25 donation to the Multiple Sclerosis Society or the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Incidentally, my other idols include Sting, Harry Connick, Jr., Billy Joel, Gene Kelly and maybe St. Gregory of Nyssa and Peter Parker. Those folks are (in order): alive, alive, alive, dead, very dead and fiction. I bring that up because only in Kelly, the saint, and the spider do I have a wistful sort of longing to meet. These are the ones I will never get a chance to meet. C.S Lewis is included in that (whose alter ego I’ve created, Jack, I’ve elevated to superhero status).

I don’t have that same romanticized view for the first three in my list. Is it because they’re musicians and we share the same craft? The giddy fanboy in me is tempered by a professional interest. And they’re still alive. It’s still within the realm of possibility that I would meet them.

If the Lord your God allowed such things, who would your idols be? I didn’t include John Cusack or Gavin DeGraw because I really only have a desire to seem them perform and perhaps talk about it some. But the only think I’d have to say to them is how much I admire their work which would take about ten seconds including the autograph.

Who are the ones that you dream of emulating or have transported you to new worlds? Who was it that gave you new vision?

There’s only a few people I have admired so much that I wanted to meet them. More than meet them, I wanted to converse with them and ask questions. Most are musicians, but one is the author C.S. Lewis. Most of you knew this.

Unfortunately, Lewis (or as I’ve called him in my head, Jack) died in the early sixties. So I’ll never get the chance. But I did come across this account of Kathryn Lindskoog meeting C.S. Lewis for the first time. She was an English major in California that received a scholarship to a summer course in London. She wrote to Lewis to arrange a meeting and at 4 o’clock July 20, 1956 at the Royal Oxford Hotel she sat with for tea.

Kathryn Lindskoog captures the uneasy delight in meeting an idol. It felt like the way I would be if I were given the chance to meet a man that I regard as my master.

I found this outfit while researching what others have done for using stuff like Reason and Ableton Live in worship. Sacred Loops has folks submitting what they’ve created for specific songs. There are songs by folks like Christ Tomlin and David Crowder Band. This was useful to me for learning how to create my own sequenced tracks.

[tags]worship ideas, loops, music[/tags]