I like pie. I like pie a lot. So there is very little arm-twisting involved when the opportunity to judge the Malibu Pie Festival heads my direction.
Several years ago in my first pie-judging experience I met Linda Hamilton of The Terminator fame who served as a fellow judge. I had chosen the “fruit” category, but she mentioned that she had decided to take one for the team and judge the pies submitted by children. This led to an ongoing moral dilemma in my life. Do I judge wonderful strawberry, peach, and blueberry pies? Or, do I judge pies adorned with gummi worms and breakfast cereals?
I have gone back and forth over the years based on my current walk with Jesus.
This year, I may have found a happy compromise by judging the pies submitted by older teens. There were three lovely pies to judge, including a cannoli pie, a pina colada pie, and a strawberry pie. All of them were terrific, and I left with very little guilt. Win-win, as they say.
My friends at the Malibu United Methodist Church have put on the annual Malibu Pie Festival for twenty-eight years now as a fundraising effort for the many good works they perform and support in the Malibu community, including a weekly community dinner for our homeless friends. I preached at MUMC one Sunday morning several years ago and was shocked to learn that it is a small church in terms of numbers. Malibu really is a small town. But MUMC is a huge church in its heart.
So sure, it is quite a privilege to judge pies at the Malibu Pie Festival, and sure, it is wonderful to see friends from the community out for the fun alongside celebrities like Jamie Foxx and Kelly Osbourne. More importantly, it is inspiring to know that good hearts seeking to serve the underserved make it happen.
My friend, Danny, unexpectedly brought Sister Rosemary by my office last week during her visit to Pepperdine.
With the world apparently spinning out of control, I thought I might as well join the dizzying ride on an indoor bicycle.
On Wednesday evening I will join several friends to present Jesus, Malibu, and the Immigrant at Pepperdine. The event will focus on the Malibu Community Labor Exchange and discuss its work in the context of a Christian worldview of immigration and current political debates about immigration in the United States. It should be a fascinating evening.
Our youngest daughter started middle school when we moved from Mississippi to Malibu in 2008 and needed certain shots to enroll in school, (make up your own jokes friends from Mississippi and California, but be nice!) so we went to a local urgent-care facility and waited. There in the waiting room I met a super-friendly Pepperdine student who was the incoming president of the College Republicans at Seaver College. He excitedly shared with me his plan to place a large American flag on the magnificent front lawn of Pepperdine University for every life lost in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. He said it was going to be awesome. I was impressed by both his initiative and enthusiasm.
It is a big day. My office sits in the heart of Pepperdine University’s main campus in Malibu, and today is the first day of classes for undergraduate students. Next door to my office is Pepperdine’s high-tech, newly-renovated Payson Library complete with a full-functioning Starbucks, and you can feel the highly-caffeinated energy in the air.
Starting to Look Up 