A sunny chilly day in Worcester, Massachusetts found me driving to pick up my friend Jason Destratis for lunch at Moe’s.  As Carie and I are attempting to be wise with our money, I was jubilant about our restaurant choice because I had a coupon for a free meal at Moes.  Both Jay and I requested the attendance of our friend Steve Bramlett to join us, but he had foolishly locked himself into a staff meeting where he works.

For whatever reason I found myself quite warm driving to pick Jay up, and rolled the windows down, which of course is another way of saying I pushed a button to mechanically lower the pane of glass.  The sun shone brightly down onto my face and for a short time the 33 degrees felt like 75.  When I picked Jay up, there was no doubt where we were going and there was no doubt what we were hungry for – The Homewrecker, chips, salsa, and maybe even a bit of queso.

As I drove onto Lincoln St. the driver of a car in one lane decided very quickly to steer into my lane, causing me to face the Lincoln St. Plaza, almost perpendicular to the 5 year old haven of materialism and gluttony.  Target, Lowe’s, Barnes and Nobles, Texas Roadhouse, and Papa Gino’s are just a few of the eating and shopping establishments dedicated to causing us to stumble in the aforementioned areas of decadence.

I watched as Jason leaned over to see (perhaps for the first time) the newest restaurant being added to the  collection of “the Man” machines (thank you Homey the clown, circa 1991), 5 Guys, burgers and fries. “Is it open?” Jay said, salivating like an 13 year old girl over a Thanksgiving feast of Twilightian Vampires during a new moon. “I don’t think so man” I said almost regretfully.  Then with a glimmer of hope, while turning my right blinker on, I said, “But we can always find out!”

As we drove in, the plaza appeared a bit chaotic, but this was because of the Christmas season and shopping and had little to do with 5 Guys, so we drove past the store slowly, and though there appeared to be a few people in the newest greasy spoon in town, I hypothesized that training was going on before the big day, whenever that might be.  So Jay made the call:  ”All right, let’s just head down to Moe’s.”  Just then appeared in my vision a phone number – 508-853-2000 – you can call it right now to see if its for real.

Done?  Good, on with the story.

As I drove away I decided to call the number to see if they actually were open.  ”Hello, 5 guys,” the young lady cheerily answered as she picked up the phone.  I only assume she picked up the phone, though she could have just rolled it up, like my car window.  ”Yes,” I said happy to get a response, “Are you ‘guys’ open yet?  Even if it’s just 1 of you?”  ”Huh?”  ”Nothing, are you open for business yet?”  ”Oh, no, I’m sorry,” she said, having might as well of stabbed me with a cajun fry, and then taken it back.  ”We open tomorrow.”  ”Okay, thank you” I said trying to sound undissapointed and non desperate for the kind of grease that coats your arteries and gets people like House to theorize what’s wrong with me.

“But you can come get some free food” she countered quickly with an obvious smile in her voice that you didn’t need videophone to see.  Now I was responding “huh?”  ”Yes, from now (11:58 am) until 1:30 pm we’re giving away free food.”  I hung up.  I didn’t need to be polite.  I would be seeing her in about 26 seconds.

So Jay and I jumped out of the car and walked with springs in our step and smiles on our faces into the red and white checkered chamber of clogging.  We found what the phone answerer said to be true, ordered and then did our part to help the hour and a half event go viral.  From Twitter to Facebook to phone calls, we did it all, and eventually accompanied by our friends, Billy, Al, and Jake.

And that my friends, is how 5 guys got free food at 5 Guys.

Steve Bramlett would have made it 6.

Another day.  Another hollywood trailer.

I have to say that every once in a while they get it right.  Movies like Crash, Goodwill Hunting, and Blood Diamond really make a point of sharing with the viewer a story of what is, and countering what is by painting a picture of what should be, all the while staying away from shoving their one sided ideology down one’s throat.

But while watching a college football game last Saturday, I was introduced to the latest in end of the world propoganda crud by Tinseltown. (Believe me, I was just as hard on Left Behind)  Humans using great amounts of the earth’s resources, Aliens coming to earth, and of course, Keanu Reeves pronouncing that “If the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the Earth survives.”

Great!  Thanks for the heads up Keanu.

It’s not that I don’t think this is an important enough message (though the whole end of the world stuff has got to stop, and maybe it will… someday…), but personally, the movies are a part of the problem.  Please consider this:

I decide I want to go to a movie on Friday night with my wife.   First of all we go to dinner.  Let’s say…Moe’s. We have food and drink there in the form of burritos and cokes.  Then we drive to the theater across town in Millbury.  It’s a huge complex complete with restaurants, shops, and a Yankee Candle Store.  Before we go to the movies, Carie wants to stop by and smell the candles, ultimately buying my new favorite scent, “Harvest”.  Then since she bought something, I decide I want to go to Barnes and Nobles and buy a book.  So I do.

Afterward we walk to the theater and purchase tickets to see “The day the earth stood still” a remake of a 1951 movie of the same name.  Of course, I have to get a coke and a snack in order to watch the film.  We are awed by the special effects, and Keanu’s amazing acting ability (just so you know this is a fictitious story).  Then what?  Are we going to be inspired to not spend money casually, Waste money on gas, and make wise decisions in our spending because of a film that costs millions and millions of dollars to make?  And that’s after Keanu’s already been paid for his Oscar winning performance.

In the meantime, we can buy a couple dozen magazines with the picture of Keanu on the cover and watch Keanu and his date for the evening easily spend thousands of dollars on their wardrobe at some award ceremony where all the friendly folks of Hollywood will lash out at our current president for being rich.

As Americans, I hope that we’ve learned a lesson in the last several months that will speak louder than hollywood movies.  You can see this lesson in the current gas prices.  Riches and material possessions don’t produce goodwill, but a giving, loving heart whose “back is against the wall” does,

And that’s something money can’t buy.

2 things:
I like Keanu’s movies, I just don’t think he’s a great actor.
Tomorrow I’ll hit up on the “back against the wall” concept, and why that’s so important.

I wanted nothing to do with them.  Not because they were filled with witchcraft, spells, and snake talkers – CS Lewis cured me a long time ago of giving a rip about those things – plus I could never get my broom to fly anyway.

The reason I wanted nothing to do with the Harry Potter novels was simple – everyone else was reading them. It’s not a good reason not to read a group of books, but I had already been pressured to reading another series of books about 7 years earlier called “Left Behind.“  They started out fine I guess, grabbing my attention and moving me to enjoy reading about this post rapture age I’d been taught my whole life.  Then the authors got a bit money hungry, and what should have been a 7 book series at most became a 13-15 book series, sucking the life out of what once had been decent reading material (even if one disagreed with the premise).

So I was not going to get caught again.

And then I happened to be meeting a friend at Barnes and Nobles the day the last book came out.  That was a mistake.  As we talked, hundreds of people from the age of 7 or 8 to the age of 88 walked around the store dressed as Harry, Hermione, Ron, and any number of professors at Hogwarts, playing games and having a blast celebrating “the Deathly Hallows.”

Freak Show.

I just didn’t understand what was happening.  How could all these people enjoy this children’s book?  And then it happened.  A few days later, I was sitting in my office doing some work when in walks Darren.  Darren worked here at Fellowship for a while, doing odds and ends, and doubling as my secretary at times too.  It was not infrequent that he’d come into my office, especially when his mind whirred with thoughts on life.

As he walked in, I immediately asked him what the deal with this Harry Potter thing was.  Why were so many people dressed up like the characters in this novel and waiting anywhere from 3-7 hours for this book to come out?  It seemed crazy to me.  He agreed, and then said he only waited 2.  What happened next is the stuff of myth.

I asked him if it was worth it.  Is the story good?

And for the next hour and a half, Darren proceeded to explain the story to me, scene after scene, philosophy, action, good vs. evil, the climax, the adventure, and the epilogue – One after the other.  Four times he cried.  Other times he leaped out of his seat to physically demonstrate a battle scene.  And by the time he finished, there was only one reaction to his story…

The next Monday I took a trip to Barnes and Nobles and bought the first 6 books.

You see, this is what happens when a story connects with you.  When a story changes who you are inside, simply because you read it, you learned from it, and you are a different person after having experienced it.  And then you tell those close to you about the experience you had.  Hopefully affecting them with the story as well.

It kind of reminds me of another story of redemption that affected my life a while back.