"Life Is Like A Toilet."

So said my six-year-old son yesterday. He has dreams of becoming a writer when he grows up, and he's pretty good at ferreting out spiritual truths from everyday things.

For example, on Easter Sunday, he informed us that Easter eggs are a reminder of Easter because you open up the egg and take out the candy, which makes it empty inside, just like the tomb was when Jesus rose from the dead.

However, he uncorked a couple of beauts last night. As we drove home from an outing, he said that "Life is like a toilet. When you get all dirty and yucky, you flush the toilet and it all comes back clean. So if you are feeling meanness, you have to flush the toilet and get rid of the meanness and then it will come back as kindness."

I think he meant something about prayer in the middle of that there.

Number two (pardon the pun): My eight-year-old daughter had a compass last night, and she asked me how it worked. So I showed the kids, and then Noah pulls out: "God is like a compass. He shows you the right way you should go."

"Yeah," I said, "you're right. If you ever feel anger or meanness, you can ask God how you should act and he'll show you which way to go."

"Yeah," he said. "But what if someone keeps hitting you in the face with a dodge ball?"

I stifled a smile. "I guess you should just pray and ask God what direction you should go."

"I just walked away," he said.

Uh oh. So he wasn't being silly with the question. I asked him what was up, and he told me that a couple of kids at a birthday party he'd attended earlier had decided to pick on him during a dodge ball game. When he walked away (a move for which I heaped hearty praise on him), they followed him out of the dodge ball pavilion and kept trying to peg him with the balls (for which they were chastised by adults present).

"Why do you think those guys were picking on you, Noah?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, flicking his hair out of his face with a quick jerk of his head. "Probably because of my smooth moves."

How I Made $150 At A Michael W. Smith Concert: A Tutorial.

Boy, the time slips away. If anyone read this, they would be clamoring--clamoring, I say!--for updates. But, as this blog is read, apparently, only by me, my agent, and that crazy cat over at Miscellaneous Creativity, the Clamor Klaxon has not sounded at Dregs HQ.

Nevertheless, I promised a story long ago, so a story I shall deliver!

So Michelle and I got free tickets to see one Mr. Michael W. Smith at a megachurch here in Tulsa, where I happen to lurk. He supposedly wanted to meet with some of the area worship leaders, a title which we can claim, for some purposes of his own design, and, since the tickets were free, we decided to take him up on it.

We did this for two reasons and two reasons only:
Reason #1: to say we met Michael W. Smith because, hey, we could.
Reason #2: to give him a copy of my book Knuckle Sandwich in the hopes that he would say something nice about it.

We did not do this in order to make $150. I cannot stress this enough.

Okay, so we get to the concert, and it turns out that the "Meet 'n' Greet," as they like to call it (yes, the concert organizers swallow the "and" so that it misses the "a" and "d" entirely, leaving only those apostrophes as residuals), is to take place a half-hour before the concert. Good thing we got there early. The whole procedure involves a pair of actual tickets and a pair of fibrous stickers that you attach to your person as proof that you belong backstage.

We slapped on the stickers and headed toward the unmarked door where we were to be ushered backstage along with other worship leaders from our area. When we got to the door, however, we were told the proceedings would be delayed fifteen minutes or so. Having no intention of attending the concert (we had, oddly enough, a worship meeting at church that night to attend), Michelle leaned over to me and said, "Bro, we gotta get rid of these tickets."

First things first: I had to autograph the book for Michael. I wrote: "Michael--Thanks for reading! And thanks for all you do. Love, [random circly thing I draw that indicates my signature]"

Then, it was off to the Will-Call window in the hopes of getting rid of our tickets. As we approached the line, we ran into a friend standing in it and had the following exchange:

Me: What are you doing here?
Friend: Hoping to go to the concert.
Me: You need tickets?
Friend: Yeah.
Me: How many?
Friend: Two.
Me: [Taking tickets out of my pocket] Here you go. We got these free 'cause we're supposedly VIPs and aren't going to use them. You can have them. They're probably good seats.
Friend: [Fishing money out of his wallet] Here. Let me pay you for them.
Me: [Looking at Michelle, wondering if we should take the money]: Nah.
Friend: [Forcing money into my hand]: I already budgeted. Here. Fifty dollars. They're twenty-five apiece.
Me: [Taking money awkwardly]: Okay. Thanks!
Friend: [Walking away happily]: Thank you!

So, that's 33.33% of our earnings for the night, boom, just like that.

As I pocket our fast cash, a dude with semi-slicked-back hair and one of those shiny shirts with a fiery design that people wear at the World Series of Poker walked up to us. He pointed at the fibrous sticker affixed to my chest.

Dude: You guys have those Meet 'n' Greet passes? (Yes, he swallowed the "and," too.)
Me: [Wondering what he's getting at] Yeah. (I turned it up at the very end to make it question-ish, but not enough to merit a complete question mark in print.)
Dude: You're gonna meet Michael?
Me: Yeah.
Dude: [Producing a manilla folder with writing on it and a small Sharpie marker attached to it with string] Would you mind getting something signed for me? I'll give you a hundred bucks.
Me: [Looking at Michelle and communicating wordlessly with her]. Sure thing.

So there you go. We took the guy's item (it was a photo of him and Michael W. Smith, blown up to 8x10 size) backstage, got Michael to sign it, and brought it back out to him for a pocket-sized portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

Not bad for a night's work, eh?

Oh, and we got to meet Michael W. Smith and get a copy of his new worship song on CD. He really would like for us to perform it at our church. No word yet on how much it's worth to him.

The Wushy-Cushy.

Noah, my five-year-old son, recently traded in a bunch of Incredible Pizza tickets for an item so hilariously awesome in its sheer guy-ness that I had to share.

He calls it the "Wushy-Cushy."

The Wushy-Cushy is a balloon-like device, often made of rubber, but in Noah's case, made of green plastic cloth-like material. He demonstrated it for me immediately by blowing into it to inflate it about halfway. He then, right there in the middle of Incredible Pizza, placed it on the floor and proceeded to sit on it.

It looked kind of like this:

Of course, it was hilarious. Flatulence noises always are.

But what struck me especially dumb was Noah's innate desire to simulate the sound of passing gas. I have not instructed him in this. Neither has Michelle. This incident has simply placed in me a deep-rooted knowledge that the males of our species are genetically predisposed to laughing hysterically at fart noises, which is perhaps why such sounds pervade so many of the so-called comedies on display at the nearest cinema.

Of course, Noah laughs because he's only five.

The Question.

Emma, my seven-year-old, delayed bedtime the other night with a question.

"Dad," she said, "I have a question."

I wanted to be the dutiful dad, but I was a little perturbed that she'd rolled out of bed--she was supposed to be asleep. Nevertheless: "Shoot."

"Well, I don't know exactly? What the question is?" She talks like that sometimes, turning her words up at the ends of phrases, so it sounds like a bunch of questions. I'm sincerely hoping she grows out of it.

"You don't know what the question is?" I said. "Like, you don't know how to ask it?"

"Right. Like my mind? Can't think of the right words?"

"Why don't you just use whatever words come to mind," I said, "and we'll figure it out from there."

No go. She literally did not have the words to express her question. All she could say was, "It's about mankind." Oh, and this: "It's like my heart? Is asking the question? And my mind? Can't figure it out." She brushed her hair out of her face. "It does have to do with God, though."

I decided to offer a suggestion. "Is it, like, about the meaning of life?"

She moved her hand like she was waving off the suggestion. "Well, kinda. But..." and here she trailed off, and I wished her forehead was transparent, because I could tell her brain was working overtime to express whatever feelings she was feeling. "I just... my mind? Can't get any rest."

I sent her back to bed, and she continued to ruminate on the question for the rest of the night. Dutifully, I went upstairs to tuck her in, and this is when things got a little crazy.

"Maybe you'll figure out your question while you're sleeping," I offered.

She smiled. "I hope. It's like my heart is asking the question and my brain isn't following. Like I've been digging in the dirt, and I hit, like, a hard thing? Like cement or something? And I've been digging with a shovel? So I need to, you know, change tools."

Now it was my turn to smile. "What does that mean?"

"I just have to go back to the beginning and figure out what pieces of the puzzle I do know, then use those to figure out the question."

Did I mention she's seven?

Boy, I felt hopeless, as a father. I desperately wanted her to be able to articulate this question, but I couldn't figure out how. Fortunately, I didn't try to force anything--at least I had that much going for me. I just let her know that God was giving her that question, and that he would help her figure out what it was in due time.

I left the room to check on her brother, then came back for a little more spiritual discussion. "Dad," she said, "I figured out something. The puzzle pieces? Those are, like, memory verses, and other parts of God's word. And the cement? That's, like, the devil? And sin? So that's how I can figure out the question."

You know what I said? "Emma, someday very soon, you're going to be teaching me."

She had two other things, though: "Dad, when I do figure out the question?" And here she smiled so big--I wish you could've seen it--"I'm going to tell everyone around me."

The other thing: "I know why God's doing this. Because I'm going to be a missionary..." (A quick aside: Emma has known, since the age of five, that she's going to be a missionary. We trust her.) "... and so God is teaching me how to, you know, follow him when it's hard? Because that's what missionaries have to do."

I have no doubt that Emma and God are pretty tight. It will serve her well in her missions efforts.

And in that moment, I also had no doubt about God's love for me. Because I had such a swell of boundless love in my heart for my daughter, and the thought struck me: I love my daughter this much, and it's impossible for me to love her more than God, so he must love her even more, though I can't even comprehend that amount of love. And if he loves her that way, he must love me that way.

The thing about our spiritual conversation that really struck me was the way Emma was able to share The Question, to participate in The Question--that same Question we all have, in one way or another. The Question of God, and the way our hearts, whether we know it or not, are always on the lookout for Him. And sometimes we find Him with our hearts but mislabel Him with our brains, calling Him "knowledge" or "the delicacy of a feather" or "a crimson sunset" or "a '67 Mustang."

So let's bring this whole story home: What is your Question? Do you even know you're asking?