Help! Looking for Lion King Tickets

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Ok Nashville blogosphere, here comes one of those posts that cries out for a response with the hope that you won't abandon me after skimming the first three sentences from your feed reader. ;-)

In an extreme act of generosity the parents have offered to buy me & Shaunna tickets to Disney's The Lion King at TPAC...if we can find them. Ticket Master's website says their sold out, as does Brad on 2 as well. Anyone know where we can score tickets to the Friday night, Saturday night, or either one of Sunday's performances?

Muchas gracias.

Tags: Disney, The Lion King, Broadway, TPAC, musical, tickets

Shidum Haleesh Melosophashal

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That's just about how it most likely sounds to "non-church people" when "church people" open their mouths and fill the air with what might as well be a language from another world. Author, thinker, wonderer, and bud, Jim Palmer of Divine Nobodies, takes a shot at acquiescing to an unknown person's request to "communicate in words the good news of God without using any religious or theological verbiage."

"God is Love.

Love (God) seeks the highest good of the other.

The greatest good God (Love) could offer is himself and so God made all people a reflection of himself in order to form an intimate bond with humankind.

In God, we experience life, love, freedom, joy, and peace.

God is pleased and smiles.

But doubting God, we seek fulfillment our own way and fall short of experiencing what God desires for us.

..."

Go check out the rest.

Tags: Jim Palmer, Divine Nobodies, spirituality, love, God

The Shula Saga

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ESPN reports this morning that AD Mal Moore dismissed coach Shula late last night. My response? BIG MISTAKE! I know he's 0-4 against Auburn and finished 6-6 this season but come on! He just came off a 10-2 season last year!

Ok, ok, I know that his combined record against Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, LSU, and UT is only 2-15 (yikes), 3-15 against SEC teams with winning records, 4-13 against nationally ranked teams, and is 0-19 in 4th quarter comebacks...but still. I think, given the circumstances, he's done a hell of a job. He took over a young, hurt, and talent depleted team in their last year under the NCAA death penalty AFTER spring practice and after one coach was fired due to scandal and the next one walked out quick.

He's definitely had some coaching struggles, himself and those around him, but given the circumstances, I think he's done ok--not great--but ok. Definitely not poorly enough to lose his job.

Sorry Shula. I liked ya man. Want to come help me coach my little league NFL flag football team in Mt. Juliet, TN?

UPDATE: Tide players respond, Coach Shula's statement, Mal Moore press conference video, and Interim Coach/Defensive Coordinator Joe Kines' video statement.

Tags: Shula, Mike Shula, fired, Mal Moore, Alabama, University of Alabama, Bama, U of A

Christmas is Not Your Birthday

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My bud Sam Davidson of Cool People Care has launched a campaign called Christmas is Not Your Birthday to help us rethink the bucks we spend on friends and family (and have spent on ourselves) over the next month or so. From Sam's interview with News 2 VJ Jamey Tucker, "The National Retail Federation projets [Christmas] spending this year at about 450 billion dollars..."

Like Sam, I wonder what would happen if only 1% of money that went to a charity, non-profit, or maybe better yet--someone you know who may need some help right about now?

Tags: Sam Davidson, Jamey Tucker, Cool People Care, Christmas is Not Your Birthday, Christmas, Spending, Money, Jeffrey Davis

We See Dead People...but Just Don't Realize It

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In the past few days several things have transpired causing me to wonder, "what if 'Heaven' wasn't another place, but instead, another realm?" What if the after-life, or rather life as it continues after our physical container ceases to function, is moving and living all around us, in the same place, but on a different plane of existence...the most real plane.

I think back to my grandad, Bubba, who suffered through more than a year as his physical body slowly shut down. Towards the end of his body's existence, he began carrying on conversations and attempting to interact with people that weren't there. A detail I had previously over-looked regarding this strange behavior was who he was talking to. He never talked to anyone who was still alive, always people who were dead. You would think that since his wife and immediate family were the people who dominated his consciousness that he would naturally attempt to interact with my mom, for example, when she was absent. No. It was always dead people. Something even freakier...this seems to be the norm for elderly people who's bodies are failing slowly. Makes one wonder doesn't it?

Here's my theory. Jesus said that God is spirit and we must worship him in spirit and in truth. You may have noticed in this post that I refer to death in a slightly different way than most people. That is because I feel that humans are spiritual beings contained in an earthly, physical, body. When the body dies or ceases to function, the spirit lives on. I'm coming to realize that the spiritual reality is more real than our current physical reality. At any rate, God is spirit. We are spirit. What if as the body begins to fail, people begin to see through their spirit and not with their eyes (though they seem to perceive it to be physical sight)? What if, as their consciousness drifts between the physical and spiritual, they see the spirit of others who's bodies have failed? The strange thing is that though they may be seeing the spiritual, they attempt to interact with these people in the physical realm by talking to them, reaching out for them, etc.

So the question is, how do you interact with something that is spiritual. Perhaps we could glean still from our elderly friends and family as we observe how they attempt to interact with the spiritual beings that they encounter. What if we could learn how to interact with God in greater reality, since he is spirit, as we watch them grope for this understanding somewhere between the two realms? Of course to do so we would have to actually pay attention to them and not say foolish things like, "oh they're just not really there anymore" or "it's just the medication".

On a slightly more vague note (as if there could be one), my Bubba and many others, as they grew nearer to death, had begun to speak of "that man over there" or "that man over there in the corner". It is always the exact same wording. Anybody else had this happen with someone they watched struggle to the end of their physical existence?

Weird post, I know.

Tags: death, ghosts, spiritual, God, real, reality, Sonny Johnson, Jeffrey Davis

God's Wrath: Reality or Cop-Out?

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I've been involved in a comment string on a friend's blog that has begun to deal with this issue of God's wrath. [I'll link up that convo if and when some comments get going here, so as not to slant or jade the dialogue before it begins. *UPDATE*: Screw it, here's the link.] So here's the question, do you think that God's "wrath" on humans and nations living in sin is a reality, is it a fictitious way that humans have copped out of responsibility and/or blame, or is it something else? I know my blog really isn't known for it's massive comment strings, but I do hope to get some discussion going on.

Tags: Christianity, wrath, the wrath of God, grace, forgiveness, Jeffrey Davis

After Two Weeks, We're LOVING T-Mobile

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The wife and I have been T-Mobile customers for two weeks now and are absolutely loving our service! The myFaves plans are incredible. We use the myFaves Family share plan with 700 minutes between us, and of course we have unlimited talk time to the five people that are set as our Faves. We've also added the "any 400 messages" option to each of our phones. I LOVE the way T-Mobile bundles their message packages. It is the way that I feel it should be--you get "x" number of messages, period. Whether I want them to be all text, all video, all picture, IM, or a combination of the above, it doesn't matter. I have my allotted number and use them as I choose to.

Verizon and Cingular separate all their messages into text, picture, media, etc, bundles in what seems to be an attempt to confuse the consumer and ultimately take them to the cleaners. (I almost had to make a flow chart or something to keep track of what I get in which message bundle when I was comparing T-Mobile vs. Verizon.) At any rate, as my wife and I didn't have text capable phones until we switched to T-Mobile, the 400 messages each will more than suffice. If our addiction grows, T-Mobile allows unlimited messages (still of any type) for everyone in the family plan for twenty bucks per month. That'd be a great deal even for just the two of us, not to mention if there were two or three teenagers on the plan as well...so take note you parents of text-happy adolescents.

After driving all over the Nashville area from downtown, to Goodlettsville, to Lebanon, I've only dropped two calls since our conversion to T-Mobile and they were in the following spots between Hermitage and Mt. Juliet. *Note that these are the spots as I estimate them on the T-Mobile coverage map. This coverage map should be drastically changing at the end of this year as T-Mobile is erecting (ha, snicker) a number of towers in Middle Tennessee at the end of this quarter. It's important to note that I've been on calls through these two spots at other times without dropping them as well. Anyway, here are the images:




Here's a zoomed out view of the two spots:



One last thing, the T-Mobile customer care reps I've spoken to regarding a few questions about some plan details have been the most pleasant and most helpful customer service people I've ever spoken to, and not just in the cell phone industry. All-in-all, we're MORE than satisfied thus far with our service. If you're in the Nashville area and want to switch to T-Mobile, go to the Opry Mills Store and ask for Jessica, she was soooo nice, very knowledgeable, and incredibly helpful. Tell her Jeffrey and Shaunna Davis sent you...if she doesn't remember us, just tell her "you know, the guy who asked 10,000 questions back in October," then she will.

Go T-Mobile!

Tags: T-Mobile, Verizon, Cingular, myFaves, cell phone, Opry Mills

When All Our Heroes Crash and Burn

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This post started out as a work of reality-based fiction, but for some reason, didn't feel right. Perhaps it is because it is easier to surrender to my cynical nature if I detach from the truth of the situation. Nevertheless, here we go.

The news about Ted Haggard's struggles just came out this morning and I'm already sick of hearing about it. One news report that I heard as I was getting dressed this morning was, "...the evangelical community's response to this news can be summed up in one word, shock." (Let me pause here to clarify that the cynicism I'm fighting against in this post is not directed toward Ted, but toward the "evangelical community".) Ok, that pause greatly aided in slowing the anger I sensed welling up inside of me (albeit what I might call, righteous indignation).

I do so hope that the "evangelical community" does not react in the way the so mercilessly tend to do in similar scenarios. Hopefully Mr. Haggard will not be laughed at, discredited, slandered, or kicked to the curb as if he were a filthy leper that must spend the rest of his life wandering here and there, calling out "unclean! unclean!". Rather, I hope that he is loved, embraced, and nurtured, as the same Christ that lives in him lives in us all...many just may not be aware of it.

I find it incredibly sad that Christendom continually heaves a few "big boys" or "heroes" up onto the pedestal of faith, only to disown and condemn them when they come crashing down. However, many of the heroes themselves are not entirely void of blame. They, as I once did, have desperately sought their entire lives to be in such a position of power influence. Unfortunately, as many learn the hard way, great is the cost of "Christian super-stardom"--not only to the "super-stars" but to the people who put their faith in them, rather than God.

Dear Ted, I may not agree with your ideology of "church", among a great many other things, but I love you. You have struggles, just like me. Now, though without your initiation, those struggles are out in the light of the public eye. I know how unfortunate that must seem and how scary it must be, but at the same time, I'm sure an incredible burden feels as it has been lifted off of you. You do not now hold secrets from those you "lead" or love. What a relief, huh? May you discover the Love and the voice of Christ within and around you as you stand at this incredible crossroad. The roads that cross? That's for the Spirit to show you.

Love and Grace,

Jeffrey

Tags: Ted Haggard, New Life Church, Religion, Christendom, Scandal, Love, Grace, God