Well, I had my first guitar lesson today. My teacher? Me. Along with Mel Bay and his world-famous Modern Guitar Method.

I feel a lot like Gitarzan, of whom it was famously said…

He ordered Chet’s Guitar course C.O.D.
Makes “A” and “E” and he’s working on “B”
Digs “C” and “W” and “R” and “B”
And me and the chimpanzee agree that one day soon he will be a celebrity.

Anyway, it was fun, if a little frustrating, due to my impatience. But it really is going to force me to value the process, which, if nothing else, may be helpful if I can translate it into some other areas of my life. Go figure…

BTW, I mentioned that my guitar is an old “beater.” I found pictures of one just like mine on the Web today. Check it out here.

I also met the nice folks over at Donley’s Music, a local shop just a couple of miles from my house. They didn’t laugh at me or my guitar, (in fact, the guy at the store gave me several plausible-sounding reasons why it’s a great guitar for learning!) and they fixed a couple of things and re-strung the guitar at a very, very reasonable price in less than an hour. I may end up signing up with them for some real live lessons in a little while.

But until then, I’m off to practice…”1st-String Etude,” “Etude No.2,” “The Mixmaster,” “The Merry Men,” “Frolic,” and “E-B” have never sounded so good!

I’m a-pickin’…and you’re a-grinnin’!

What a day already! Got to church this morning, going about the usual Sunday morning get-ready routine, when, all of a sudden, our nursery coordinator shouted, “Oh, no!”

I headed down the hall to discover about 2-3 inches of water in a 70-foot-long corridor! Nice! I got a stick and held it aloft at the end of the hallway, but it didn’t work for me like it did for Moses! Dang!

So I had to slosh through the flood (funny, it didn’t work like it did for the priests at the Jordan River, either, come to think of it!) to find the source of the stream: a constantly running toilet in one of the preschool rooms!

Well, at any rate, the flood was a good excuse to get rid of a bunch of junk that had been accumulating for years, and it gave us a good excuse to renew our friendship with our local Servpro folks.

Anyway, all that to set the stage for tonight’s Unwind…

I’ve not been real partial to Hillsongs for some reason, but last night I watched NewSpring’s service from last weekend, and was really moved by the worship (led by Lee McD!). They used Mighty to Save from the Hillsongs project of the same name, and it rocked my world for some reason! So I did the old iTunes thing and got it and the Chris Tomlin project which includes “Everlasting God,” “Awesome is the Lord Most High,” and a very laid-back but powerful rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Good stuff!

OK, here’s the deal…

I’m 46, I have some musical background, and I want to learn to play the guitar. There, I said it!

Now I have no illusions of being Jimi (heck, I can’t even hear Jimi, remember?) or Eric or Segovia or Lincoln or even Esteban! But I would like to be proficient enough to get through some basic chords, etc. and not embarrass myself if I tried to lead a little worship now and again.

What are some basic resources – books, web-based, anything – to help me do that?

I already have an old “beater” to learn on…I just need someone to point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

I keep finding ways to have coffee with some of the greatest leaders around. First it was coffee with Craig Groeschel. (You did know he’s blogging now, right?)

Today it was coffee with Andy Stanley. (I don’t know if he’s blogging or not, but I do know he responds to blogs sometimes.)

Anyway, you’d think that since I’d gone to the trouble and spent my hard-earned money to buy Andy’s book, just so I could have coffee with him this morning, that he’d nice enough to not haul off and punch me right in the gut!

But he didn’t think twice about doing it!

Here’s where he did it…(long book excerpt warning)…

What if you had a sixteen-year-old son who said he was coming to church one last time and then he was packing up and hitting the road for good. And what if in the middle of the night and angel appeared and said, “You can reach the heart of your son if you do exactly what I tell you. Go into your attic and find his old box of Legos. On Sunday, preach a message around this one point: Christ came to build a bridge to the disconnected. The entire time you are preaching you are to construct a bridge using his Legos.” I know it’s far-fetched. However, I also know that somebody reading this book is going to find some Legos and build a bridge next Sunday.

If that really happened to you, I feel confident that you would not respond by saying, “I can’t do that in my church, it would require moving the pulpit.” If you really believed that getting way outside your comfort zone on a Sunday morning would reach your teenage son, you would do it. If you wouldn’t, there are probably other books you should be reading.

Now please don’t miss this. Next Sunday, somebody’s prodigal son or daughter may slip into the back of your auditorium to give the God thing one last try. And it could very well be that somewhere in your town there is a mom or dad praying like crazy that something significant would happen in the heart of their child. I know you would be willing to do some new and possibly unusual things to reach your own son or daughter. What would you be willing to do to reach someone else’s? (Communicating for a Change, p. 176-177)

WOW! And OUCH! Thanks for the coffee, Andy. And thanks for the punch in the gut.

Now if we can only remember what the punch in gut felt like this morning – and do whatever it takes – whatever it takes! – to communicate the powerful, life-changing message in powerful, life-changing ways!

Went to a meeting today with The One, The Only Mad Babbler Himself! Much to my disappointment – and deep down, to Gary’s disappointment, too – nobody even mentioned the Christmas Eve video!

The great A Love Supreme follows Kind of Blue in tonight’s “Unwind” sequence.

I’ve “unwound” to tonight’s selection before, but some things are just worth repeating!

The John Coltrane solo on “Flamenco Sketches”…man! That – among other things – is what makes Kind of Blue arguably the greatest jazz recording of all time! And that’s what makes it tonight’s unwind at the end of a pretty good day!

Last week, I signed up to have my body fat percentage tested. Now as both of you loyal readers will recall, 2006 was a banner year for my personal physical fitness. I went from 274 pounds on January 2, 2006 to a svelte 190 by Thanksgiving, and I’ve maintained that level through all the holiday eating festivities!

Between the time I signed up for the body fat test and actually taking the test today, I had my annual physical exam as well. Let me brag just a bit more.

Remember my comedian doctor told me that in addition to needing to “jettison some excess tonnage,” my liver enzymes were also high? This year, the new guy (from Canada, eh?) kind of scratched his head and said…

This is a typo, right? You really haven’t lost over 80 pounds since this time last year, have you?

“No typo,” I replied.

He went on to say this…

Your liver enzyme levels were rather high last year, and they seem to have come way down. It was 94 last January, and we like to see it no higher than 43 in guys your age. Your level this year is 26!

So anyway, today was the day of the body fat test. Kind of a weird experience where you have to completely submerge in this big ol’ tub, assume a pushup position, and blow out all your air as fast and as hard as you can. More than once.

I was a little worried about what the number would show, since I’ve never had this tested before. The optimum health range for guys my age is 18.1% to 15.1%. Mine was 17.6! I’ll take it!

I think I just found my next challenge though – getting it down to 15%. According to my tester’s information, that means I need to drop around 6.3 more pounds of fat. That would put me at 183.7! I can do that! I think I will do that!

…because the esteemed inventor of Ramen Noodles has passed.

I was waiting to get my hair cut this afternoon and I picked up the January 2007 issue of Real Simple. I know, I know…but, hey, I like the magazine, and I figure you can learn something from just about anywhere if you pay attention.

So they had this little factoid section about what happens in 15 minutes. I came across these interesting 15-minute happenings…

• An estimated 625,000 email messages are sent worldwide. 417,000 (67%) of them are spam.
• About 91,000 people enter the turnstiles in the Moscow Subway system. How does that compare to the NYC system? Only 51,000 or so pass through the turnstiles in NYC’s subway system.
• 62 million shares of stock are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

The issue also included several sections which asked…

What would you do if you had 15 minutes of time?

The answers ranged from kissing your spouse, to playing with your kids, to reading and writing.

I’m amazed at how much we can get done in a very short time, if we only apply ourselves to the tasks at hand. That’s a great argument for being fully engaged, for being where you are, wherever you are.

You and I have 96 15-minutes stretches of time every single day. I want to make mine count for something significant.