God

How To Be A Living Hand Turkey

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

photo-5Hand Turkeys are not high art.

Surely you crafted a Hand Turkey in your younger days. Perhaps your child or grandchild made one for you. Or maybe you created some other elementary artwork as well – a Christmas ornament made from an ashtray, a picture frame glued with glitter and macaroni, etc.

You worked hard on these crafts. Spent afternoons in a grade school classroom perfecting the placement of buttons and stickers onto an oddly adorned flower pot to give to your mother or father on a special occasion.

But these crafts weren’t art. You were 7 when you made them. Continue reading →

The Conspiracy Of Hope

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

denver.post.kennedy.assassination.croppedI fell down the rabbit hole. Like many others this week, I became fascinated by the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination.

The JFK killing appears to be a once in a lifetime time type event – one that only could have happened at a certain point in history where there was not enough media saturation to find out the truth but just enough media saturation to create the controversy and conspiracies which continue on some 50 years and counting down the road.

One podcast I listened to featured one of my favorite authors Chuck Klosterman giving his analysis on the conspiracy theories. Klosterman made an interesting point on conspiracies in general.

Klosterman hypothesized that conspiracies are often more comforting to believe than the more probable truth. He said believing that a few people somehow orchestrated a catastrophic event is more comforting than believing all things happen by chance. If we simply believe all the events of life are random and by chance, that can be even scarier than thinking a secret society or some evil mastermind acted outside of normalcy.

I think Klosterman is spot on. In fact, I’ll take his theory one step further. I think conspiracies can be more comforting than believing God is actually in control.  Continue reading →

How To Beat Writer’s Block With Organic Tea

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

I could not write yesterday.

I woke up early with the intent of using the extra hour of from Daylight Savings to pump out a world-changing, life-affirming blog post for today.

When I sat down to type nothing came out.

Gibberish. Half-sentences. Cliches. Garbage.

I stood up. Ate some yogurt. Read the Bible. Walked the dog. Took a shower. All in the hope that words would come to me.

Still nothing.

I left for church disappointed and defeated by my sole morning task.

Then, as I sat in the service, I saw it. Continue reading →

Life On The Leash

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

photo-2You’d think a dog would hate a leash.

Not my dog.

By definition a leash keeps a dog from moving freely, tying them to where their owner is walking. Seems like something which would annoy a dog in theory.

When I pull out the leash The Roc recognizes what’s about to happen. I don’t even have to say a word.

He knows where I keep the leash. He knows when I’m going for it.

Wherever he is he starts running. His heart starts racing. His legs can’t contain themselves.

We’re going to his favorite place. We’re going outside. Continue reading →

POP GOD POPcast: Episode 9 – Enrique Romero

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

slide.001

Welcome to Episode 9 of the POP GOD POPcast – an exploration into the lives of people seeking God in the present tense.

This week’s guest is Enrique Romero. Enrique is the owner and creator of The Brown Bag Food Truck and Cafe. Enrique stepped out in faith 2 years ago by buying his first food truck and the journey has completely changed his life. We talk about how the food truck came to be, the transition into The Brown Bag Cafe, and the struggles and victories along the way. Plus Enrique shares the story behind The Brown Bag’s logo, gives some great relationship advice, and talks about the joy of serving God by serving others. Enjoy this look inside the life of a man truly seeking God in the present tense.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, rate it, leave a comment, listen to all the other episodes, share it on Twitter and Facebook and anywhere else. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

I’m so excited to open up POP GOD and share more stories of people seeking God in the present tense. I’d love to hear your feedback. Leave me a comment and let me know how to improve things, what you’d like to hear discussed, and give me your ideas as to who you’d like to see on the POPcast.

Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, rate it, leave a comment, listen to all the other episodes, share it on Twitter and Facebook and anywhere else. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

Listen Here:

Subscribe and download on iTunes

Listen on Podbean

531285_446988131998951_1090854910_n IMG_0335

Relearning To Fly

/ Alex Doriot / 4 Comments

If you can’t fly then run. If you can’t run then walk. If you can’t walk then crawl. But whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. – Martin Luther King, Jr. 

photo-2Have you ever flown before? Not literally in an airplane. I’m talking about the sensation that comes when you’re gliding through life, when joy comes effortlessly, when you feel as if you’re floating off the ground. 

When I go out for a run and I really get in the groove, that’s when I feel like I’m flying.

Once upon a time I ran a half marathon. Way back in 2011 I sweated my way across the finish line of the Greenwood, SC Half Marathon in a half-decent time of 2:12:36.

I couldn’t believe it. I would have been happy to finish under the 3 hour mark.

For years I wavered on whether or not I was capable of doing a 13.1 mile run. I trained on and off, never really breaking an 8 mile run at the most.

Finally I made a pact with a few students of mine. We decided we would do this together.

The feeling on the other side of the finish line was elation. I could not believe I had really completed the race. I had immediate plans to get back into training for the next one.

It’s over 2 years later and I still haven’t run the sequel. Continue reading →

Do You Wear The Black Hat?

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

“The villain is the person who knows the most and cares the least.” – Chuck Klosterman, I Wear The Black Hat

In his new book I Wear The Black Hat, Chuck Klosterman writes about villains both real and imaginary. As with everything he writes, Klosterman’s book is an inventive and thought-provoking examination peeling back layers of pop culture to reveal truths that seem obvious until you realize you never realized them before. (There’s a particularly interesting discussion about what would happen if a real life Batman began to fight crime.)

But what sticks out the most is Klosterman’s main theory: A villain is a person who knows the most and cares the least. If you know all the facts about a particular situation, if you know what harm your actions will bring and you simply do not care what happens, then you are a villain in your story.

In a roundabout way, I Wear The Black Hat reminds me of another book about story: Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Continue reading →

The Breaking

/ Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

forbes.com

Walter White never expected to be on the run. As the final season of “Breaking Bad” began last summer, the show flashed forward to a scene a year into the future. Walter White is on the lam in disguise using a stolen identity, running away rom God only knows what kind of violent pursuit.

When he began his descent into murderous meth-cooking kingpin, Walter White just wanted to get in and out of the drug business with a nest egg for his family.

Walter White never expected to become a drug dealer in the first place. He was just a chemistry teacher with no savings facing down a terminal lung cancer diagnosis which would bankrupt his family.

Of course, Walter White never expected to develop terminal lung cancer. No one ever plans on having cancer. Life just sort of breaks that way.

Life has a way of escalating quickly. Maybe not as quick as “Breaking Bad” or those DirecTV commercials. But the plans we construct for our lives always seem to be unraveling. Continue reading →