I am juggling a number of stories at the moment for different destinations.
For Saturday's paper:
1. A nonprofit group called Operation Worship is sending Bibles with hand-written notes inside to U.S. servicemen and women around the world. The organizers hoped to "deploy" 100,000 Bibles in 100 days starting June 1. They reached that goal in less than a month.
2. Del Tackett of Focus on the Family teaches a course called "The Truth Project," which I happened to be studying via video and guidebook in a small group setting through my church. I got an email saying Dr. Tackett was available for interviews so I jumped on it, he's a remarkable teacher with great insight.
3. A "Faith Notes" column looking over some new spiritual media, books, mags, CDs, etc.
4. A Toledo native and Christian comedian who tours with a Muslim and a Jewish comedian
5. "The Shack" novel, almost done with this one and it is such an amazing story!
6. The revival in Lakeland, Florida, that is drawing so many people it's become a phenomenon.
There's a lot more but that's just a little peek. I'm also setting up an interview with terrible Ted Nugent, one of the most entertaining artists you'll ever meet.
Terrific story on Billy Joel in last Sunday's New York Times (here's a link). I've interviewed Billy a number of times and he is always great to talk to. He played a concert last night at Shea Stadium, where I used to go watch the Amazin' Mets when I was just a kid... They're tearing it down after this season and Joel, a fellow Long Islander, was the perfect choice to bid farewell to this not-very-pretty stadium.
A little trivia: Billy played at my high school in New York in the late 1960s with his band The Hassles. When I saw him backstage at the Palace in 1994 I gave him a copy of the Hassles' album that had just been released on CD. He hadn't seen it yet.
He said there was a song on there where the producer changed one word and put himself down as a co-writer. I laughed and said well it's a lesson learned and he laughed and said no, he should have but didn't learn... this was just after he found out his brother in law had ripped him off of virtually everything he owned. He has since rebuilt his fortune ... in fact the Times article says he bought his 29-year-old wife a $16 million house in the Hamptons for her birthday.
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Toledo, Ohio
July 17, 2008