“I want the Stuff Christians Like book to sell slightly more copies than Rick Warren’s ‘Purpose Driven Life.’”
That’s what I told Zondervan.
Actually, I think my direct quote was, “If the Stuff Christians Like book sells more copies than Rick Warren’s ‘Purpose Driven Life’ I will buy you all solid gold, life sized remote control cars.” (It just seemed like the right thing to do. I’m pretty generous, I know.)
How did Zondervan respond?
“No problem, we just have 40 million more books to sell and we’ll have hit that goal.”
Chances are, I won’t ever have to pay out that promise, but it’s fun to joke about that, especially as I sit down to write a second book.
A week ago, I told my daughter L.E. what the publishing process was like. “I’m writing a second book right now that I don’t have a book deal for. We’re going to try to convince a publisher to pay us for this book.” She thought for a second and then, with the same grenade lobbing thought process that inspired me to build the kindergartens, said:
“And if we get too much money, we can give it to Vietnam.”
I love that. I love that as a six year old she still believes in the concept of “too much” money. Those words are so foreign to me as an adult. There’s no such thing as “too much” money. That’s crazy talk. Have you ever heard someone at work say, “Yeah, my wife and I realized we have too much money so we’re trying to figure out how to do something with it before it does something with us.”
Doubtful, but kids still get that concept, at least until we train it out of them. I don’t know at what age it happens, but at some point we take away their idea of “too much” and instead give them the idea of “not enough.” We switch out those two words and to tell you the truth, I’m to blame to a degree.
For the last 12 years or so I’ve written advertising and for the most part, advertising is pretty simple. I don’t sit down and say, “How can I help this person improve their life?” I instead sit down and say, “How can I help this person experience such a depth of emptiness that they believe the only possible way to fill it is to purchase the thing I offer?” Not all advertising does that, that’s a gross oversimplification and there are noble companies. The IT department I currently work in doesn’t do that. But a large degree of advertising is geared that way.
So when I wrote, I didn’t try to get you to buy granite countertops for your kitchen, I tried to get you to imagine a Thanksgiving where family members gathered around the heart of the home, a warm kitchen where laughter and life spilled out into the kind of moments you never forget.
That’s why it was so weird to hear L.E. say, “If we get too much money…”
Those words sounded like something an alien from another planet would say, but I think she was right. I think there are times in life where we have enough. Not in a shameful way, and please know I believe God pours out His love in an abundance that makes Trump look modest, but I think there are situations when we have enough.
These are impossible financial times. We’re in the midst of a horrible economy. That anyone gave a dollar to help this project blows me away, never mind the $40,000 we’ve already raised toward our goal of $60,000.
We’re almost done. Zakk, our metrosexual worship leader, is about $500 from getting two more metrosexual accoutrements today.
This has been such a fun/crazy experience. From “that’s pretend, right?” to “If we get too much money …” I feel like I’ve really been challenged. And I hope you have too.
Normal Stuff Christians Like programming will return on Monday. In the meantime, let’s finish this project. Let’s get Zakk fully clothed and two kindergartens fully built. Let’s jump into the joy of this.
p.s. Lest you think my daughter is a saint, when I told her on Monday we had raised $23,000 for the first kindergarten, her immediate response was “Do you know how many American Girl Dolls that would buy?” I told her, “About 2. Those things are ridiculous.”
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