I just finished a book. It’s called The War of Art, which is not to be mistaken with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Author Steven Pressfield is a former marine, so there is a sense of warring alluded in the book, but nothing that will compel you to dust off your Risk board game. And not that many people want to play Risk anyway.

Okay, back to my point. There’s a captivating line from the book that reads, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” If you want me to fully comprehend the whole notion of Resistance, I would suggest you buy the book, but basically, Resistance is the thing that stops you from releasing your creative work.

During a snow day I had last week, I was faced with many options. Shovel, sled, sleep, schlep, surf the Internet and many other activities that may or may not start with the letter S. The one thing I found hardest to do was “silence” the day. My Resistance was the inability to just get quiet, soak in the moment for more than a moment and actually ask God, “What’s up?”

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On a recent Saturday, I attended a funeral to honor the passing of a friend’s mom. All I knew driving to the funeral was that she died of cancer, and that funerals are almost always sad. This particular day proved the latter wrong.

People say, or at least I’ve heard it said, that funerals bring people and memories together. The strange thing with this funeral is that I hardly knew my friend’s mom. All I wanted to do was support my friend through what has been a tough year. I decided to carpool with four friends, all of which shared the same sentiment: support our friend during this time of loss.

If you Google mapped our journey, it began in New York City to North Jersey to a quick stop at a rest area for gas and coffee and then a straight shot down the New Jersey Turnpike toward Princeton. During our drive, the five of us caught up on life, discussed various current events, commented on the blandness of the Turnpike scenery and then before you knew it, arrived at our destination.

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Unless you've been living under a rock or a Kindle, you probably have heard the rumors surrounding Apple’s unveiling of the Apple Tablet (which will take place Jan. 27). According to Steve Jobs, the tablet “will be the most important thing I’ve ever done.” That is saying a lot since he was the mastermind behind other little hits (iPod, iPhone, Pixar). In any case, you don’t have to be a tech geek to know that the announcement may revolutionize the world as we know it, or at least the world that revolves around multi-touch screens, cool apps, pricey gadgets and a man who loves wearing jeans and a black turtleneck.

I’ll come out and say it, I want this tablet. I don't even know what it looks like (although this blogger took a nice stab at it) nor do I know what is really rumor or fact, yet I still want it. Functionally (I assume), it will make me more efficient at my job, as well as make for a great companion on my morning commutes. Not only that, but I’ll be the envy of every subway commuter … well, until they get their own.

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“Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism--it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.” - Conan O’Brien

The above quote was part of Conan O’ Brien’s farewell speech on the last taping of The Tonight Show. As everyone knows, his run was short-lived (7 months). A combination of low ratings, poor primetime programming (Jay Leno’s 10 pm show), impatient NBC executives and the invention of DVR/Hulu/Cable all led to the demise and firing of Conan as host of The Tonight Show.

The public relations nightmare that NBC faced all week has hopefully come to an end (for now). Could it have been handled better? Probably. Did Conan, Leno and David Letterman showcase the highest level of etiquette? No. Was this trainwreck entertaining to watch? Yeah. Still, there was more haranguing on late night this past week than you’ll find on C-Span … snare drum and cymbal. There were more finger pointing taking place than a dance floor at a 70s nightclub during a Bee Gees song … crickets. Wow, it is a hard gig.

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During a crisis like this, one can only do so much. But in what we can do, the most important thing is that we actually DO.

Please continue to keep Haiti in prayer. Also, give to organizations that has a lot of people on the ground in Haiti. Talking about Haiti and the people impacted by the devastation doesn't actually do anything for them. 

Here are some helpful links to get plugged into doing something for Haiti and its people:

Earthquake relief summary

CharityWater summary

Mashable summary

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Time magazine called this past decade the “decade from hell.” The past decade saw the collapse of the World Trade Center, the beginning of an ongoing war against terrorism (and the nebulousness that followed), strange elections, numerous scandals, natural disasters, government failures, Ponzi schemes, celebrity voyeurism and a great economic recession. 

If John Cusack is right, then we have two years left before cataclysmic events end the world as we know it. In other words, we better start living.

There was a Top 40 song that made its way around mainstream radio this past year that does a fair job of capturing my sentiments. It comes from "American Idol" winner Kris Allen, and although the song itself is cliché in every sense of the word, there is something very true about the following lyrics:

Yeah, we gotta start lookin’ at the hands of the time we’ve been given

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***UPDATE*** Tiger releases statement: "I have let my family down & I regret those transgressions w/ all of my heart ... I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves. For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology."  

There is a Thanksgiving hangover and it involves the media’s indulgence over Tiger Woods. I’ve never seen so much speculation and infatuation over a driveway accident. Sadly, the media frenzy has only just begun.

Every gossip site is milking this story for every ounce of traffic it can attain, and although most respectable news sites are holding off from making it A-1 material, one can’t imagine a cage made of human interest holding off a Tiger-sized story.

Several sites have claimed that Tiger has had a long affair with a former waitress, who allegedly has a voicemail and some texts to prove it. A Chinese news report even featured an animated re-enactment of the Tiger Woods incident (which is laughable not only in its poor quality, but in that they have Tiger attempting to drive off in a van).

If any of the speculations prove to be true, most people will wonder how in the world a man who has it all—money, fame, beautiful wife, healthy kids, adoration from fans, respect of many—risk it all for a tryst? Most of us would like to believe that with a billion dollars handy and the world as our stage we wouldn’t screw it up, but we’ll never have the opportunity to fail (or succeed) in those extremes. So, naturally, we project how we would have handled things on someone we don’t even know.

Sure, Tiger’s richer than all the readers of this site combined, but that doesn’t make this circumstance any less painful and any less difficult to navigate. He has a marriage to fight for, kids to protect, a job to maintain and partnerships to uphold. Whether he fabricated a story, cheated, lied or all of the above, no one knows the extent of the story better than Tiger himself.

Known as one of the most stoic and secretive sports figures, Tiger is suddenly facing his worst nightmare. It is a lonely jungle he’s traversing through, and I want to hope for something great to come out of this. I want Tiger to fight for his family, his legacy and his reputation as a role model for the next generation of golfers. I want Tiger to shock the media world and turn their indulgence for negative press into intervention for positive change. If I’m being honest, 12 hours ago I wasn’t even thinking about Tiger the person. I was just another set of eyeballs on the Internet scouring for the latest news on the collapse of a modern icon. Then it hit me, Tiger is just a man. A sentiment I discussed in my most recent post.

Life, like golf, is not just about how you begin on the front nine, it is all about how you finish on the back nine. Tiger has hit some major roughs and if there’s one thing we can all agree about real life is that mulligans are rarely offered. And as if I haven’t already used every golf metaphor in the book, excuse me as I continue. People describe the game of golf as more mental than it is physical. One’s ability to keep the outside distractions at bay determines the success on the golf course, and no one performed better under intense pressure than Tiger Woods. This is easily the toughest course he’s ever faced.

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In case you’re not familiar with Tim Keller, he’s a New York Times bestseller, a gifted orator and founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. To those fond of Keller, he’s often regarded as the “thinking person’s pastor,” with sermons that are culturally relevant, exegetically sharp and profoundly practical. On any given Sunday, Keller can in one breath be heard quoting C.S. Lewis, an Old Testament prophet and an op-ed from The New Yorker.

Having visited Redeemer church a dozen times or so, I can attest to Keller’s ability to connect with the casual New Yorker, and by casual I mean well-read, successful and impeccably groomed. His congregation, which now hovers around 5,000 people, have known for years what many Christians outside Manhattan are finding out—Tim Keller is a powerful figure in the church.

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Did you hear about the two pilots who missed their landing destination by 150 miles because they were distracted? And guess what were the culprits of their distraction: laptops.

According to the two pilots, they were simply checking flight schedules on their laptops, but it reminded me about my own distractions, most of which aren’t harmful. Whether it’s the can’t-miss comedies on Thursday night or sports or Facebook or whatever else it might be for you and me, it’s usually subtle.

It is the small and subtle things that make us miss the mark or changes the course of where we’re going. I wanted to write longer, but I’m kind of hoping I didn’t distract you more than you already were.

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Note: this is a guest post by good friend and pastor Richard Lee. He can be found here.

Back in 1996, I went to a Missions trip to Shanghai, China. During our debrief period, we took an 18-hour train ride (that took 24 hours) to Beijing.

We did a bunch of sightseeing including Tiananmen Square (somber), Temple of Heaven (ornate), Summer Palace (huge) and Maidonglao (McDonald’s).

But the place that I was looking forward to the most was the Great Wall of China. We had an opportunity to choose which Great Wall we wanted to visit: the restored Great Wall or the original Great Wall. Luckily, we were persuaded (by me) to visit the Original.

There was something profound and ponderous about sitting on a wall that had been built a millennial before me. It took longer to drive to. We had to climb through shrubs to get to it. The steps were ridiculously steep. It wasn’t as pretty (and certainly more dangerous) as the rebuilt wall. But it was the authenticity of the Wall that made it profound. It was the knowledge that these stones were carried and laid here by people that had long since passed on that led to its impact. Rather than a reconstructed version that was better suited to sell souvenirs and keepsakes. There was something undeniably real about this wall.

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