Breakfast

I love breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day, after all. I know that there are some people that don’t eat breakfast, and I just don’t understand that. Do they not know what they are missing? There are so many great breakfast foods. Here are a few of my favorites and why:

1) Donuts. Think about it. A donut is cake that is deep fried and covered in sugar. You can’t eat cake for lunch, and you can’t eat cake for dinner, but you can eat it for breakfast.

2) Cereal. I love cereal. I love the idea of eating and drinking at the same time with one hand without looking.

3) Pop Tarts. I just can’t get enough of these little beauties. My favorite is the S’mores kind. Mainly because they are awesome.

4) Pancakes. Actually, I haven’t eaten pancakes in years. No sir, I eat Man-cakes. Life is too short for a short stack, and I don’t waste my time with Silver Dollars. No, I want mine to be the size of the entire pan, and load that puppy up with chocolate chips if you got ‘em.

5) Bacon. It’s meat candy!

6) Coffee. Though technically not a “food” it is one of the best things in life, the other being chocolate. Make the coffee a mocha, and you’ve hit the jackpot, my friend.

I also love the idea of breakfast. The name comes from the fact that you are breaking your fast, a fast you didn’t even know you were having because you were sleeping during it (which is the best kind of fast). There is this wonderful relief of filling your stomach with something delicious and getting the energy you need for the day all at the same time.

This weekend we had our media fast, and it was a really cool experience. And just like with breakfast, there is something to be said about breaking the fast, turning on the television or checking in with Facebook. However, for me, it wasn’t quite as wonderful as the sausage, egg, and cheese croissant I munched on this morning. I found Facebook to be filled with complaints and the TV loaded with innuendo and lacking in taste. I guess I didn’t notice it before, but when you get used to not having it, all that stuff comes in loud and clear when you bring it back. Maybe I don’t need another media fast, and maybe I don’t need to cut it out entirely, but I sure don’t mind lowering my intake and spending time with God and my girls.

American Idol

The tenth season of American Idol premiered last night, and I breathed a great big sigh of relief. I LOVE this show. I don’t know why, I just do. I got into it later in its run, but it’s like when Idol is back, everything is right with the universe. I guess there aren’t too many TV shows that I’m willing to give two nights a week to, so there must be something special about this one.

But there was some fear for a while that the “something special” was all gone. Three of the four judges left, and many fans (myself included) had become convinced that the show had jumped the shark. And even though I could hear the funeral dirge for one of my favorite shows playing in the background, I went ahead and watched anyway. I had to see what the new judges (Stephen Tyler and Jennifer Lopez) were like.

It may be better than it ever was before.

That’s right, I said it. Only time will tell, but after last night I am optimistic about the shows tenth season. However, watching it last night brought to mind some of the things I said at our Wednesday night service OASIS. We talked about how as people we gain our self-worth by comparing ourselves to others, and that only if the people around us say our life matters will we think that it does. One young lady, after being turned away by the judges, said that “singing was her purpose” and she didn’t know what to do with her life now that this dream was gone. And that’s the problem with assuming that anything besides God will give us what we’re searching for, none of those things can be counted on to last forever.

Not even American Idol.

But He will, and that’s why serving Christ is my purpose and nothing else.

Shoot Your Television

I saw on the news today that a man in Wisconsin shot his television because he was so upset about Bristol Palin making it to the finals on this year’s edition of Dancing with the Stars. Everything about that last sentence is wrong. Allow me to list the problems as I see them.

1) Let’s start at the end of the sentence, with the problem that has bothered me the longest. The show is called “Dancing with the Stars,” and even though the program has been on for several years, I have not once seen a genuine “star” in the line-up. No one should be watching this show. It is stupid, and based on a ridiculous premise that the producers have never been able to actually deliver to the audience. They should call it “Dancing with the Has-Beens” and they would have a more accurate depiction, and yet not always, which brings me to my next point.

2) Bristol Palin is not a star. Not even close. She’s not even a has-been. For Palin, we would have to rename the show “Dancing with the People who have Parents that are Quasi-Celebrities/Political Figures/Laughingstocks.” She is a teenage mother, not a star.

3) Brandy (who got her start as a pop singer and actually has done some dancing) didn’t make it to the finals. Now I don’t watch the show, so I have no idea if she’s any good or not, but I have to assume that if she has done some dancing PROFESSIONALLY, she should be ok.

4) A man shot his television over this! They had to bring in the cops, for crying out loud. Are you following me? A grown man destroyed a perfectly good TV set with a shot gun because of something that happened on TV’s worst program ever (at least before “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”, another one I refuse to watch, but which would finally give Bristol a possible claim at “stardom” however weak, but that’s never stopped the DWTS producers before).

It is this last point that gets to me the most. While the others are irksome, it is the fact that Americans have let our priorities get so out of whack. We don’t shoot our televisions when we see stories about people dying in Haiti. We don’t shoot our televisions when we see programs that degrade women and contribute to the breakdown of the family. We don’t shoot our televisions when lies are presented as scientific fact. But we are more than willing to shoot our television when we don’t get the results we want on “Dancing with the Stars.”

This leads me to two possible conclusions. Either our collective consciences have become so scarred that we should have shot our televisions years ago, or I can’t wait to see what happens when we get now judges on American Idol.