Me, Myself, and Bob

I'm a huge Veggietales fan. The first VHS I ever owned was Madame Blueberry. It was given to me by someone who had only a cursory knowledge of my family and thus was unaware that we did not own a TV on which to watch said VHS. I can't even remember who gave it to me, so I don't know who to thank for my obsession. When we finally did acquire a television, I was at the age where I could appreciate Veggietales more fully, because I got some of the references that went right over my younger siblings' heads. And appreciate it I did. Throughout my middle and high school years, my appreciation for Veggietales partially defined me and connected me with like-minded friends. I made two new friends on my very first day of high school thanks to a Larryboy pen, which sadly broke soon after. The one girl remains one of best friends to this day. Our goal in life, a few years back, was to each discover (well, synthesize, really) an element. She was going to name hers Bob while I named mine Larry. I am now studying Latin and History at a liberal arts school and she is in Arts/Computer Science, which threw a wrench in those particular plans. While that particular dream may now be dead (or, at least, comatose) our love of Veggietales, however, has lasted far longer than it probably should.

So when my sister asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I decided I wanted Phil Vischer's autobiography (complete with a lovely Larryboy bookmark). I figured it'd be a great way to learn some little known facts about my favorite episodes, not to mention figure out what exactly had happened to Veggietales with the whole bankruptcy thing. I figured it'd be interesting and funny- after all, it was written by the writer of Lyle the Kindly Viking. It was, indeed all of those things. Did you know that the Hairbrush Song was originally the Razor Song? Mike Nawrocki had no children at the time and thus had no problem with that, but Phil and his wife Lisa (better known as the voice of Junior Asparagus) suggested the change to a more innocuous object. Perhaps my favorite piece of information was that it was college kids working in Christian bookstores who were largely responsible for Veggietales' mainstream success (we are a great bunch, aren't we?). It was enjoyable, even if some of the descriptions of the computer programming involved went a little over my head. The first 19 chapters were pretty much exactly what I expected.

Then the last 2 chapters hit me like a bit of a spiritual sucker punch. I wasn't expecting to learn much from a book called "Me, Myself, and Bob," except maybe that God made me special and loves me very much. But then he started talking about wrestling with God as he watched his dream of impacting the world for God through children's ministry- be the Christian Disney, if you will- die. QWERTY or no QWERTY, when he talked about what he'd learned today, I saw how much I had to learn too. I could ramble for pages about the things God taught me through this book, the dreams I put back into His hands yet again, but it wouldn't do it justice. I guess I'm a much for effective communicator when it comes to lampooning things, which in a way is kind of sad. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend this book, and thanks to Phil Vischer's story of talking vegetables I now have a better understanding of what it means to be right in the centre of God's will. Because if God truly did make me special, and He does love me very much, then there is no better place I could be.