Reading C.S. Lewis' Problem of Pain

This week my To Do list is nothing but sending a few e-mails to churches setting up services and comedy shows and then A TON OF READING. I’ve got a big ol stack of books I’ve got to get through to prepare for next year.

If you want to follow what books I’m reading and what I think of them, I restarted my Good Reads account. You can find it here.

 
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Last week I finished C.S. Lewis’ THE PROBLEM OF PAIN. It’s really great. I took a ton of notes on every chapter except the one about why animals feel pain because I genuinely did not care. I’m really sorry if that offends you but I just need to be honest.

Here is probably my FAVORITE paragraph from the whole book:

The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, please, and merriment, He scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

YES! YES! YES! That’s so good I could slap you right in the face. I love that. What a beautiful way to look at the happiest and warmest moments of our life. YES! I want to scream this paragraph at strangers on the street.

Also, let us never forget that C.S. Lewis wrote a children's book where Santa Claus shows up and gives everyone weapons.

Also also, did you know that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien went to the movies together and saw Disney’s Snow White? They did. And they hated it. They especially hated how dumb the dwarves were. They wrote letters about it. You can read about that here.

Things Got Awkward with a Magician

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I spent the last two days at youth ministry conference trying to convince youth pastors that I’m funny and they should use me at their church. I had my own little booth and brochures and everything. Very fancy.

There was also a magician who had a booth on the other side of the expo center and I was too nervous to talk to him. I think my magic is really cool and I was afraid I’d come off too strong and scare him.

I’ve watched hours of clips from Penn & Teller’s show FOOL US on youtube. This clip is probably my all time favorite because of how mad Penn gets when he realizes how freaking good the magic trick was.

There are also two really great magic related documentaries on Netlfix.

Make Believe follows several teen magicians as they enter in a worldwide magic competition. It feels like some of the kids were created by the writers of The Office. But they’re real. It’s fascinating. It’s funny. For some reason I couldn’t stop yelling at my tv.

An Honest Liar is about The Amazing Randi, a magician turned skeptic who debunked psychics, healers, and televangelist who claimed to perform miracles but were actually frauds. This is also great but for totally different reasons.

So anyways, I’m at this conference avoiding the magician until the last day as everything is shutting down. He walks by my booth, I try to ask a genuine question, and I guess he thought I was making fun of him because it got real weird real fast.

I’m so sorry, magician man.

A Guy Falls in a Hole...

I’ve been watching West Wing on Netflix. This is my favorite quote from the show. It's a little story one character tells. It's great and it perfectly illustrates why I do stand-up the way I do.

Here it is:

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. 

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.’

I love that.

And that’s the big idea behind my stand-up show, TELL A GOOD STORY. If you have a story of what God has done in your life, you have friends who need to hear it. You need to let them know you’ve been in the hole, too. But if you’re still stuck in the hole now, you need to know there are people who have found the way out, and it’s Jesus.

Watch the clip:

When Fear Gets in the Way of Your Big Ideas

Summer is the perfect time do something you’ve always wanted to. Even if you aren't a student anymore with a ton of free time, you can still check something off your “wouldn’t it be cool…” list.

That’s kind of what my new video series is about. It’s crazy how easy it was to do some of the dumb stuff I thought would be funny to try. For several videos all I had to do was post on Facebook and say “hey, does anyone know someone who can help me do this stupid idea?” And within an hour I'd get A TON of responses from people more than willing to help. A lot of times you never know until you ask!

A lot of you have a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” that has to do with making something or doing something creative. Record music, try stand-up, make videos, write, paint, design, perform, speak, OR WHATEVER.

One of the big obstacles that gets in the way of us actually doing the things we want to do is fear. Elizabeth Gilbert is an author who talks a lot about creativity and she made this video called “A Letter to Fear” that I really love. It’s basically the conversation she has to have with her fear before she starts working on anything.

Here’s a fun exercise I started doing to help me get over my fear. Think of one of your favorite movies of all time. Look it up on iMDB. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find user reviews of the film and read ALL of the negative and one star reviews.

You’re going to find people who HAAAAAAAATE movies that you love so much. It’s always funny to read people complain about scenes in the movie that are actually the parts you love the most.You’ll read review after review of people annoyed, confused, angry, or who just “didn’t get it.”

It’s such a relief to me when I do this. It’s nice to know that no matter what you make there will be people who don’t like it. There will be people who hate it and don’t get what you’re trying to do.

There are people who hate Elf. There are people who really don’t like The Muppets. When I remind myself of that it stops feeling like the end of the world if someone doesn’t enjoy my stand-up. If those movies I love so much aren’t able to please everyone, then it’s ok that I can’t either.

What's on your "wouldn't it be cool if..." list? What are you going to try and do this summer? What's been stopping you from doing it?!

Talking about Black Holes at Camp

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Two weeks ago I got to be a part of Mission 58 camp in Marshall, TX. I was hired as an MC, introducing each service, and performing stand-up one night.

BUT ALSO on Thursday 4 of us camp speakers got to teach break out sessions on topics students and leaders wanted to hear about. This was the best part of camp for me.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on what I want to travel with after I finish performing my TELL A GOOD STORY show. I’ve come up with this idea to talk about “black hole topics.” These are the topics and struggles we don’t want to bring up with people because we’re afraid they’ll suck the fun and energy of any conversation away. We’re afraid if we share our black hole it’ll suck away our friendships. My break out session at camp was the first time I got to speak about this.

The first half of the session was about how to be the kind of friend someone would want to share their BH topic with. The second half I addressed anyone in the room who might be dealing with something.

It was a really emotional afternoon for me. There was a Q&A at the end where students would ask questions and then just break down crying. It’s so crazy that we have no idea what the people around us are secretly dealing with.

And so crazy how much people are willing to open up about their hurts and problems when we share what we’ve gone through. Some times we just need to know we’re not the only one who has experienced the type of pain we’re going through. Some times that’s all we need before we’re willing to open up.

I really like the name. I like calling them “black hole topics” but I also see a problem with it. A few times during my session it sounded like I was talking about a butt. I said “what if someone shows you their black hole” and when I heard myself say it I tried really hard not to laugh.

Wonder Woman Calls You Out for Compromising Your Beliefs

"Perhaps we’re too familiar and comfortable with the current state of the church to feel the weight of the problem. But what if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read? Imagine being rescued after twenty years and then attending a typical evangelical church. Chances are you’d be shocked."

This is a Francis Chan quote from Crazy Love but it’s also pretty much the plot of Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman grows up on an island, isolated from the rest of the world, until Chris Pine shows up and lets her tag along with him back to World War I. There’s a lot of goofs once they get off the island around how sheltered she is and how she doesn’t know how to act in “normal society.”

One of my favorite things to see happen in a story is when someone has to be taught how to be a “human.” I love it because there’s a moment that always happens. Whoever is being taught how to be a person turns out to be better at it than the one teaching them BECAUSE they haven’t yet learned how to compromise their beliefs.

Wonder Woman grew up being taught justice, fighting for what’s right, and protecting those in need. She doesn’t know about how we all are willing to add a “yeah but some times” to the things we know are right to do.

Wonder Woman hears a lot of “slow down,” “that’s not how things work around here,” “you can’t just do that” and she never listens to any of it. She still pursues what she knows is right and she always succeeds. She proves them wrong.

And the people trying to stop her aren’t the bad guys. These are her allies, those closest to her.

When we read the Bible we see people do some crazy stuff for Christ. People gladly go to jail for preaching the gospel. Others sell what they have to take care of the poor. It really sucks that some times when we try to follow the example of the New Testament church we hear a lot of “slow down,” “that’s not how things work around here,” “you can’t just do that” and we listen.

We compromise.

Last year the first season of Stranger Things premiered on Netflix and we were all obsessed with it because it’s such a great show. I loved it especially because it has this same element as Wonder Woman.

A major aspect of the plot is how this group of jr high boys find Eleven, a girl kept locked away, isolated from the rest of the world, for sake of scientific experiments. She escapes from captivity and her time with these boys is her first experience with the rest of the world.

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The boys have to teach her how to be a person. They teach her about family. They teach her about school. They teach her about “mouth breathers.”

Eleven is taught that “friends don’t lie” and she takes it to heart. In her mind, if this is true then it’s ALWAYS true no matter what. Even when you’re scared. Even when you’re embarrassed. And she calls one of the boys out when he’s trying to lie to her! Why would he lie if "friends never lie?”

After watching the show I got a little obsessed with this. If I found Eleven, what would I teach her? And then how long would it take for her to call me out for being a hypocrite? How long until I don't practice what I preach because I'm too scared to fully commit and I'd rather take the easy way.

What if I found Eleven and I told her what a Christian is? How long until she calls me out?

I don’t want to keep compromising. If I read Jesus say “take care of the least of these” I don’t want to listen to the “slow down,” “that’s not how things work around here,” or “you can’t just do that.” I just want to do it.

This Podcast Changed the Way I Looked at Being a "Christian Comedian"

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I was right out of college, working part time as a youth pastor and spending the rest of my energy trying to travel as a stand-up comedian. I had no idea what I was doing and I was dealing with a ton of insecurities. I wanted to find a way to make stand-up comedy my full time job but HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?!

I wasn’t good at “putting myself out there.” I barely knew what that meant. Most of the time I was performing in churches and, if I’m going to be really honest with you, I was embarrassed about that. I was becoming a “Christian comedian” and I hated it. It was embarrassing and I didn’t want to tell anyone outside the “church world” about what I was doing.

In my mind Christian comedians are comedians that only Christians find funny.

I DID NOT WANT TO BE THAT.

My Brother My Brother and Me is one of my favorite podcasts. It’s an advice show. Kind of. People send in questions looking for advice and the three brothers use that a jumping off point for all their silly goofs.

I actually went to them for advice on what I was going through. I was insecure about being a Christian trying to do comedy and I wanted to hear from a non-Christian perspective. I knew all the things people in the church might tell me. I wanted to hear from a different voice.

It really freaked me out the week I heard them read my question on the show. They said some really incredible and encouraging stuff. I’ve listened back to this a few times as I’ve gotten ready to post this and, MAN, it’s still so good.

Here’s the clip from the episode. I’ll warn you here that there is some NSFW language.

My Favorite Moments:

Just be true to yourself and you’ll end up with something original and sincere that people will be more interested in than if you just did what you think would be popular.

You might actually be able to change some people’s minds about what Christians are like and that could be a really cool thing.

You can be anything and also be funny.

When Justin said the thing about changing people’s mind, that really hit me. I feel like with today’s culture a lot of what it means to share the gospel in America today is just doing PR work

A lot of people have some really negative preconceived notions about what it means to be a Christian. It could be from people in their life or just what they’ve seen in the media, but it’s our job to be open about our faith and also not be a jerk or weirdo or someone who makes them uncomfortable, you know?

The guys from My Brother My Brother and Me really helped me be ok with being a Christian (who is also a) comedian.

Thanks, guys.

Don Rickles and Bad Advice

Don Rickles passed away last month. He was a legendary comedian. Some of you only know him as the voice of Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story but I promise he’s so much more.

I had no idea Jimmy Kimmel was close to Don Rickles until I saw his very moving tribute the day Rickles passed. His whole monologue was dedicated to Rickles, filled with some really great stories. You should watch the whole thing. It ends with a montage of some of his best moments on the show.

But there’s one line Jimmy Kimmel said that really hit me. It’s one of the finest compliments you could ever give someone.

“He gave me advice, and good advice, not the advice people give you just to hear themselves give you advice.”

I want someone to say that about me.

I want to be someone you COULD say that about. I know I don’t always live up to that. Some times I don’t just give advice, I yell it. I need to learn how to stay calm during every social interaction.

When I argue with someone I I sound like someone has a knife pointed at my face. That’s the intensity. It doesn’t matter what it is we’re arguing about, I still sound like I’m trying to defend myself in a knife fight.

Friend: “That movie was dumb.” 
Me: “I WILL DIE FOR THIS!”

I don’t always yell. Some times I just give other people advice that’s really just for me. It’s the advice I’m too chicken to apply to my own life so instead I just throw it at others. The whole time I’m saying it I’m thinking “do you hear yourself right now? This about you, not them. Chill! NO ONE HAS A KNIFE ON YOU!”

Every once in a while something comes out of my mouth that surprises even me. In a good way. I say something that I know I’m not smart enough to think of on my own.

If only there was some way I could guarantee I’m the kind of person who knew when to say the right thing. If only there was some way I could have more love, peace, patience, kindness, and self control. The problems I just described would be totally solved if those things overflowed out of me. If only there was some way to make that happen. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…

P.S. I was talking about the Fruit of the Spirit, obviously. Those are things that come naturally out of you the more you walk in the Spirit. It's not like you force yourself to be more loving or patient. The more you walk with God, and the closer you get, the more you start to act like Him. That's all I gotta do.

Why do a house show tour?

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I’ve been doing stand-up for 8 years now. It’s taken me this long to feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really proud of some of the stuff I did to get me here. But now I’m about to start this stand-up tour and for the first time I feel like I know what I’m doing.

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What is this tour!?

It’s called the TELL A GOOD STORY tour. I’m going to travel around performing stand-up comedy in people’s living rooms. They’re house shows and they’re the coolest.

The shows are small and intimate. I tell a bunch of stories from my life and get people int audience telling their stories too. So if I talk about my first kiss I’ll ask if anyone else has an embarrassing first kiss story. And we go from there.

I did 3 house shows this summer to get ready for when the “tour” starts in September. I wanted to test it out and get a feel for things. The shows were so much fun. People opened up and told stories their closest friends hadn’t even heard. “I’ve known you for years and you’ve NEVER told me that story!” That was one of my favorite moments.

What does the name of the tour mean?

Good question. Glad I asked myself! On all the shirts, journals and everything supporting this "tour" is a symbol. It’s a bunch of triangles and it’s a hobo symbol. You can watch this video of me talking about it or just read the description below:

HOBO SYMBOLS: Back in the 1800s hobos would leave little drawings in chalk. They’d usually warn fellow hobos of what to expect when passing through a town. Symbols might mean things like “This is a safe place to camp” or “watch out for the judge here.”

The symbol I'm using for the tour means "TELL A GOOD STORY." I love that. Hobos were outcasts from society and usually looked down on. They knew the fastest way to connect with a community was with a good story.

That's what the shows are all about. When I tell a good and honest story about my life it is the fastest way to connect with other people.

When you tell a story of something you've gone through, and you're able to laugh through the tragedy, it can be powerful for someone else going through the same thing. It'll let them know they can get through it too. They can have a similar story.

Tell a Good Story BundleIf you would like your own TELL A GOOD STORY shirt or journal (for writing down your own story) you can go here: http://www.taylorjohnsononline.com/product-category/merch/

Why did it take you 8 years to get to this point?

Don’t go asking personal questions like that! How dare you!

The truth is I wasn’t ready. Until now. I tried doing house shows a few years ago but it didn’t work. I put the call out to see if anyone was interested. I got one response and did that house show. It went ok. But just ok. Looking back, I wasn’t a strong enough performer to make it great.

This year was stressful for a while there. I knew I was supposed to be traveling full time as a comedian but I was starting doubt everything. I couldn’t get booked to save my life. My calendar was empty for months and it was getting harder to support myself.

Over the summer I was so discouraged. But a conversation I had with Garland Owensby changed it all. It was a great “who cares about success? Do what you love!” pep talk and it was exactly what I needed. I had wanted to try doing house shows again and this conversation pushed me over the edge. Literally. I fell off a cliff and died. This a ghost writing. Help me haunt Garland Owensby! He’s responsible for my death!

None of that is true. He gave a great pep talk and it FIGURATIVELY pushed me over the edge.

That weekend I recorded a video pitching the idea of the house show tour. I thought I might get 5 or 6 people interested. Maybe. But over 200 people shared the video on Facebook. It has over 17,000 views. A TON of people from all over the country contacted me wanting to do a house show. It was the right thing at the right time. It’s been the biggest blessing this year.

Soon the tour starts. When does it end? I don’t know. When people stop contacting me.

In September I’m performing around Texas.

In October I go to California.

A lot of people reached out from the east coast. I have to find a way to get to all of them. I don’t know. Being this busy is a new thing for me. I’m still learning. These are exciting new problems to have.

Does it sound like I’m bragging? Hope not.

I think I was struggling as a comedian this year because I was trying to fit into this box of “Christian comedian who performs in churches.” In order to get churches to look at me I felt like I needed to act a certain way. I needed to go about “marketing myself” in a certain way. It was fake. It was garbage. I was bad at it. I WAS REALLY BAD AT IT. But a friend told me it was ok to be myself. It was ok to do something different. If I’m bragging on anyone it’s Garland. This is the first thing I’ve done as a comedian that feels like it’s 100% me. That’s a new feeling.

I love these house shows. I can’t wait to do more.

When I am Insecure

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A while ago I posted a video about living in my van.

Some times I feel weird telling people what I do with my life because I feel like they'll look down on me. Like I failed or screwed up and that's how I ended up here. I know it's not true but I can still feel insecure.

It reminds me of a blog I wrote 4 years ago when I was about to graduate from college. I was freaking out about my future and jealous of everyone else's plans in life. This what I wrote:

God makes it happen at different times for different people AND in different ways. You can't cop someone else's spiritual journey. And you can't rush your own.

If you want to read the whole blog post, it's here: http://www.taylorjohnsononline.com/god-makes-it-happen/

If you want to watch my video about living in a van, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cpOutE37yA

I asked everyone who receives my weekly email newsletter if they ever deal with this. Do they find themselves comparing their lives to people around them? Do they get jealous? Does it make them discouraged or feel like giving up? I wanted to know how they dealt with it.

Here's what they said.

This is what Casey said. “I have a hard time thinking of anyone who's 100% secure in where they are right now. Especially if you get them alone and ask them. I've struggled with that, having only ever done restaurants and service industry type things since college. I struggle defining success, what that looks like, and if God and my vision of success align.”

Heather talked about a season where she made decisions based on what people around her were doing. “I wish I would have done better at keeping my eyes on what we really wanted/needed and not what we thought we needed.”

Andrew said “I always have to remind myself that, even though my job is not my favorite thing to do, I am lucky to have it, and it has taken away the huge stress of financial worry.”

It's nice to know I’m not alone on this. And neither are you.

If you'd like to receive my weekly newsletter and be a part of that awesome community, you can go here: https://madmimi.com/signups/201144/join