Last week I traveled to Portland, OR for the Storyline Conference put on by Donald Miller.  While there I got a free copy of Bob Goff’s new book called Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World, and I got a chance to hear Bob speak.

He blew me away.  Seriously.  The guy is a tsunami of love.  He told the gathering stories that fall under that cliche of truth being stranger than fiction. Like how he became an honorary consul of Uganda.  As in diplomat with cool Ugandan flags for his car.  Did I mention he’s a white guy from California?

Or how he does a lot of work sitting outdoors.  At Tom Sawyer Island.  In Disneyland.

I’ve never heard the word whimsey used so frequently, and yet I realized how desperately I wanted both whimsey in my life and the deep love that Bob had for every single person he meets.

When I got him to sign my book, he gave me a huge hug.  I’m an Episcopal priest who regularly  gets schooled on the need for proper boundaries; I don’t often do hugs.  He didn’t care.

And the book is like that.  Lots of stories of the way he does life and love.  Love is an active verb for him.  Each day is opportunity to experience life, get the bad guys (he’s a lawyer), and share love.  Who wouldn’t want more of that?

Each chapter is a stand alone essay on life, like the time a woman hit his Jeep and sent him flying or the one about the boat race or what happened to his wedding cake.  Bob then takes that incident and talks about what he learned from it, not in a pat-answer-make-you-wanna-throw-up-a-little-in-your-mouth way but a serious-questioning-faith-trying-to-make-sense-of life way.  And that makes all the difference.

The writing at times is a little repetitive, but it’s easy to overlook that when you have an engaging story. The world needs more of us to take just a few ounces of Bob’s charisma and love and share that with our world. An incredible life can be had by each one of us if we did more love and less fear.

Bob shows us how.

I would have easily bought this book. You should too. Unless you’re in my congregation.  I’ll let you in on that “caper” (as Bob would call it) pretty soon.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Bob Goff as part of the “Storyline Conference.” I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”