Tea with McNair

• recapture your creative spirit x 1,000

We are approaching 1,000 views of my "Recapturing Your Creative Spirit" online video: Please link to your Facebook, blog, website, and Tweet to your hearts desire. If you've seen this presentation live or online I hope you will see the power it can have to inspire friends, co-workers, family members, or the stranger sitting next to you in the Greyhound Bus passenger waiting lounge. Feel free to use this "bit.y" link: http://bit.ly/b46qKN

OR . . .  use the permanent link in the "Prologue" at the top/center of the TEA blog: "Watch This" and the blue "HERE" link for future referrence (if you forget to bookmark the YouTube page—and post it on YOUR blog.) This was the closing keynote for TEDx Denver educators conference earlier this year. As usual I customized my presentation to this audience. My reference to "showing up every #%!@ day" is me quoting the speaker who preceded me.

• no more humbugs

My Christmas tree is quite small this year. The lights and decorations are small as well. My spirit of Christmas is undiminished. You can't stop me, all you humbug heads out there. (And my tree is a real tree, growing in a small red pot. It will be replanted, outdoors--come Spring.)

"Jesus wasn't born on December 25th!" You say. Fine, but you can't tell me his actual birth date so you've got nothin' for me.

"It's too commercialized!" You shout. Then don't participate. Close your eyes to millions of colorful, sparkling lights that have replaced glowing candles in the front window of every home. Those candles were a beacon to light the way of any traveling strangers..."Welcome...there's room at this inn."

So don't put up a tree 'cause, "they're dead and dying." And don't put even ONE light in your window because who would want to stop at your joyless, angry house of narrow thinking? 

Many of you, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, of old have said, "You keep Christmas in your way, and leave me to keep it mine."

"But you don't keep Christmas, uncle!" Rebuked Scrooges nephew, Fred.

Whatever the day or hour was when Eterinty interupted human history and the Creator arrived (through the back door) with the best gift anyone has ever gotten—forgiveness—many of us have chosen to agree on one day in the last month of the year to sing, gather, gift, feast, and praise the advent of Grace come among us.

And there can be no humbug in that.

Here's why we do all those silly anxious activities, just incase you've chosen to forget or were to busy because you were pre-occupado with perfectionist comlplaining.

Pour another cup of "egg nog & hmmmm." Make mine mulled wine (!) Take seven and half minutes to remeber why we picked a bad date to do the best thing.

Happy Birthday Jesus! Happy birthday to YOU.

• snow and flow - - amazing

FLOW ::  The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.  

~Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi

Irish calligrapher Dennis Brown's medium is ink and SNOW (for his 2010 Christmas video, below.) Found this while searching the web for inspiring letter foms while working on a possible logo and poster design for my new play I,WITNESS  (World Premiere: April 7~10, 2011, Colorado Christian University, Lakewood,CO)

 

• 'tis the season..to be creative

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When the busy-ness, endlees shopping, parking (or NO PARKING), start to become a strain (again)...just take a moment to enjoy some guys who celebrate the birth our Creator - come - among - us by using their creativity to spread the Joy.

• squeezing more out of life, without being used up

My dad had a way of getting the most out everything. He could take jam or peanut butter jar that—to any other mortal—would clearly be empty and he'd get more from it.

"Got any bread...crackers?" He'd add a bit of broken up bread and milk to that empty jar, and (like a prospector) dive in and mine more delicious gold from the glass container that only moments ago was headed for the trashbag under the sink.

And when he was done, that jar was EMPTY. CSI Pasadena could have found "no trace" of anything on the inside, glassy walls of that jar.

One of our dad's most notorious methods of "gettingn the most out of life" was his now-legendary treatment of toothepaste tubes. In his own skillfully-accomplished, flawlessly-executed technique he would scrape the handle of his tooth brush over the side of the tube. He could squeeze more toothe paste out of tube than Colgate had put in there at the factory.

I have inherited this habit. It's a game now. My goal is to flatten the tube so that I can see the color of the bathroom counter top through the tube.

One year, for Christmas, my brother and I visited several of our favorite model railroading shops to see if we could find a toy steam roller to give pop for his ongoing flattened tothepaste tube project.

He didn't do all these nutty behaviors because he lived through the "great depression." His family always had modest means so I am not sure the depression represented a big change in day-to-day life.

No, it was clear to all who knew him that my dad was going to get the most out of life, whatever it took to squueeze the last bit of goodness out of a day or a toothepaste tube.

During the Christmas holiday break it is tempting to try and "do it all." Some of "all" is well worth doing: squeezing the most out of life, singin EVERY VERSE of all the carols, lighting every candle, and putting ALL your change in the Salvation Army red bucket—every time. Some of life we don't squeeze enough like volunteering a few hours to help serve food, give folks a ride to the candle light service, or delivering a gift to a neighbor that you KNOW is not expecting one. (Homemade cookies should do nicely.)

Some of life we squeeze too much. I like red wine. But I love it most when I emjoy it slowly and in moderation. Some good folks in Napa have already squeezed all the goodness from the Zinfandel grapes. I can't squeeze any more goodness from a bottle except to share it with friends.

For Christmas, and all of life, think of my dad getting a little more jam from the jar and see where you can find more life.

Don't forget to squeeze a little out for others. Everyone needs a good squeeze now and then.

• • • • •

Here's a little Christmas treat that the enormously talented Kristen Chenoweth (Wicked, Pushing Daisies, West Wing) squeezed from here operatically-trained lungs on her Christmas album, A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas. Song title: Home on Christmas Day.

Download 10 Home On Christmas Day

 

• alone is okay...maybe even good

  We have all found ourselves alone...eating, walking, driving to meet others so we won't be alone. Sometimes we are on our way (on foot or on wheels) to get away from others so we can be...alone.

  Being alone can be on purpose, forced, or it just happens. It doesn't have to be painful, humiliating, or the source of anxious moments and worry-producing feelings.

 Alone can be a place of rest, discovery, creativity, solace, contemplation.

And now, during the busy, helter-skelter, where-the-(heck)-do-we-park? season we need to find moments to be alone and:

Recharge - a favorite (even quiet) tea shop on a downtown side street with great scones. (Just get the scone and have a bite or three.)

Restore - sitting with one good friend (spouse, adult child, true friend) for a conversation where you both mostly listen while savoring a glass or Pinot Noir (David Bruce makes a good one)

[Photo, left, my breakfast at Buena Vista Cafe, San Francisco, 1 Dec. 2010.]

Refresh - A hot bath in the middle of the day or the steam room at the hotel spa that lets you use their enite spa facitily for the price of a massage. (Exspensive? Well..what's the cost of not doing it and carrying all that tension? Call me to meet for wine only after your spa visit.)

   Renew - visiting a candlelit church (not your own) in the rearly morning, late-late-night and lighting a few candles for close friends who need your alone prayers. (Bobo and Sonja are the candles now twinkling in my life. Their courage makes me stronger.)

Release - letting go the obligation to "Shop" for everyone on that too-long list of folks you "think" need a present from you. IF they are grown ups, a simple card with a line of two of your truest feelings of thier place in your life should be more than enough. (If it's not enough, they can find somebody else's list to be on next year.)

Return - to the center of our faith...in ourselves (confidence not selfish pride), and in our Creator—who is at the heart of this season, however you celebrate it. And if you do not celebrate, return to Bethlehem...alone.

You'll find a small oil lamp, burning in a cave.

You'll find a young couple and their new baby—IT'S A BOY!

[Thanks to my friend Val for pointing me to this film by ANdre Dorfman and poet/songwriter, Tanya Davis.]

• return to narnia...now!

A fantasy movie with an heroic mouse and it is NOT produced by Disney. After Disney Studios turned down the Harry Potter movies, they jump at the chance to produce The Chronicles of Narnia with the Walden Media —the rising star in family films. But almost as quickly (after only two films) Disney backed out of the wardrobe, exited Narnia—dropping  their participation in the next five Narnia installments.

[Click map to enjoy larger version]

Enter 2oth Centrury Fox (again with Walden) and Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan the Pevensie kids (a.k.a. Kings and queens of Narnia.) Back too, the swashbuckling and hilarious Reepicheep (with Simon Pegg replacing Eddie Izzard as Reep's voice) for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This is the third Narnia to come to the big screen and it arrived (funnily enough) in 3D.

Something that does not change are the world class special effects, dramatic settings (Australia and New Zealand standing in for England and Narnia), and lush soundtrack (David Arnold) and directed by Michael Apted.

Most importantly, the story by C.S. Lewis is rich and powerful in meaning.

Watch the Dawn Treader trailer then read the letter C.S. Lewis wrote to a young girl explaining the themes for each of the seven Narnia books, below.

The letter, below, was written by C.S. Lewis to a young girl in 1961. After reading one of the latter stories in the series, she had written him asking about Aslan (Christ) speaking of dying once.

5 March 1961 
From Magdalene College – Cambridge

Dear Anna,

What Aslan meant when He said He had died is, in one sense, plain enough. Read the earlier book in the series called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and you will find the full story of how He was killed by the White Witch and came to life again. When you have read that, I think you will probably see that there is deeper meaning behind it. The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I asked myself, "Supposing there really was a world like Narnia, and supposing it had ( like our world) gone wrong, and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (like He did ours) what might have happened? The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of talking beasts, I thought He would become a talking beast there, as He became a man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts (b) Christ is called "the lion of Judah" in the Bible; and (c) I'd been having rather strange dreams about lions when I began writing this work. The whole series works out like this:
The Magician's Nephew - Tells of creation and how evil entered Narnia
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe - the crucifixion and resurrection
Prince Caspian - restoration of the true religion after a corruption
The Horse and His Boy - the calling and conversion of a heathen
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - the spiritual life (especially in Reepicheep)
The Silver Chair - the continued war against the powers of darkness
The Last Battle - the coming of the Antichrist (the Ape), the end of the world & last judgement All clear!
 
Yours,
C.S. Lewis

Thank you to Sonny Salsbury, my long-time friend and huge Narnia buff, for porviding a copy of this great letter. The first two Narnia films have been playing on TV lately, so it should be easy to catch up or refresh your memory. And I've seen DVD's on Amazon as cheap as $1.53.

Meet me at the lampost!

• a hair-dragging adventure

How do you draw 100,000 strands of hair, seventy feet long? Oh, I know, you "can't even draw stick figures." Well, I can and there's no work for me because there is no "Stick Figure" industry...anywhere.

Fortunately for all of us, there are folks—500 of them—who figured out how to bring to life (and the big, 3D, screen) the 70 feet of hair on the head of fariy tale legend Repunzel in Disney's new animated feature TANGLED.

Here's a behind-the-hair look at what it takes from stroyboard to "final color" (the scene at about 90% of final version). Notice they don't use stick figures—ever.

 

Official website (more trailers and other Disney magic) HERE.

Here's your choice: see the movie or be left out of the conversation at every holiday gathering over the coming weeks.

• a little frederic handel with you corn dog, sir?