Love Notes: Oprah & Living the Life

So many exciting things are happening lately, not only with our project, but in our personal lives as well. It’s tough to stay focused in these Love Notes because I want to share everything at once!

Today, however, I'm going to keep it tight and share just two highlights...

1. "LIVING THE LIFE"
Mat and I were asked to produce a segment for a great morning show called "Living the Life", which will air in January on the ABC Family channel, I think (specific details to come). In the middle of shooting a scene in a park yesterday, some comrades came by to talk love, marriage, and Santa Claus with Mat. Check it out:


(If you do not see the video player, please copy and paste this into your browser: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5286734497388050695&hl=en )

2. THE OPRAH VISION
I want to share with you, a vision I received in prayer/meditation about a month ago…




Mat and I were backstage with Oprah, holding hands tightly as we set our intention to give her global audience a message their hearts would never forget.

As God showed me this image, I began to weep, telling me that this is indeed going to happen, and I believe as soon as this upcoming spring (08).

What would the show look like? Here's an idea: Recently, Oprah examined how divorce affected young children in recently broken home. If you didn’t see it, you missed a depressing experience. Take that premise and flip it so that the focus is on the positive outcomes, and you’ll understand the show we’re proposing to Harpo Productions. We like a show that explores all of the positive actions America’s children of divorce are taking to proactively reinstate their intrinsic belief in lifelong love and healthy, fulfilling matrimony. I think you’d agree that Mat Boggs took lemons and turned them into lemonade when he decided to start interviewing married couples who'd not only “made it”, but thrived in their lifelong love. The cool thing about this is that Mat isn’t the only one out there in the world who has been fueled by a parents’ divorce to go out and proactively help himself AND others to believe in love and marriage again—I’m excited to be inspired by these heartwarming, “lemons to lemonade” successes! Do you feel the energy behind this show?

I tell you all of this because Mat and I would like everyone who supports this mission to hold the same intention, to visualize our Oprah segment touching people’s hearts in the same way Mat’s grandparents’ love story did for him, so that people once again believe in their heart of hearts that everlasting love is indeed possible.

Along with your prayers, we ask you to perform these 3 steps:

1. Email us your endorsement or testimonial, explaining to a Harpo producer why you believe this story needs to be on Oprah. To protect against spam, I won't post our emails here, but you can find them on our website here: www.projecteverlasting.com

2. Ask at least three of your friends to do the same thing. You may forward this Love Notes out to all of your email contacts if that will help (I would never limit you to three people!).

3. Visit Oprah’s message boards and post a note explaining how Project Everlasting has touched your life: http://www.oprah.com/community/index.jspa


Below, I’m sharing a letter we’re including in a package to Harpo Productions in Chicago this month. At the bottom of this letter, we’ll include endorsements from all of our believers, including you.

Letter to Oprah...

Dear Harpo Producers & Oprah,

Twelve-thousand miles across thirty-five states, from coast to coast, interviewing three hundred couples happily married at least forty years, capturing over five hundred hours of America’s Marriage Master wisdom and stories of love, compassion, respect, and commitment. What would inspire two twenty-something bachelors to take on such a mission? One simple image: Two elderly hands clasped together tightly.



Mathew Boggs, who’d begrudgingly agreed to chaperone his grandparents around Oregon one autumn in 2002, was accustomed to it by then. After all, Jack and Dorothy Manin had been walking hand-in-hand like this for more than 63 years. But something in the way their frail hands fit together in that moment struck Mathew’s heart in a way that he’d never forget. His jaded paradigms of love and marriage, plagued by haunting memories of his parents’ divorce, were shattered just as quickly as they’d been created, and seeing his grandparents’ embraced hands as they shuffled slowly up the sidewalk inspired him to remember an inherent belief that he’d almost completely abandoned…the belief that true, everlasting love is indeed possible. Lifelong love was no longer just the fairytale in movies and children’s books; it was real, as real as the couple walking together in front of him. He’d found a true source of Hope.

It’s that hope which birthed the vision for a book called Project Everlasting, a marriage manual written by two bachelors who probably had the most to learn about successful relationships. Mathew (aka Mat) asked me, Jason Miller, to be a part of this mission because we’d been best friends since third grade, and, perhaps, also because I was the kid getting A’s in English class! We set out to interview and document married folks from all walks of life, focusing on two central themes: 1. To discover what it takes to create a great marriage, and 2. To discover why a great marriage is worth all the commitment, the patience, the forgiveness, the sacrifice, the compassion, the tolerance…the great effort. As people began to experience our work via the promotional videos and the stories we shared on stage and local media, we realized that our mission was striking a chord in people’s hearts: people do want to believe that lifelong love is possible again! Before the book hit the bookshelves, we formed our core mission statement: We are dedicated to increasing love in the world, one heart at a time.

Based on feedback from people who’ve read the book and/or watched our documentary film, we strongly believe that we’ve succeeded in putting a message out into the world that has a ton of wisdom, a ton of inspiration, and a ton of heart. Because of this conviction, we also believe that we are prepared to share with your viewers the most authentic, most passionate television interview of which we’ve ever been a part. In a recent meditation, I was awed by a very clear vision of Mat, Oprah, and myself in prayer together backstage with the production staff before the show’s taping, holding it in our hearts and minds to create a show that resonates so deeply with people that they too are inspired to remember an inherent belief that had somehow slipped away as relationships came and went…the belief that true, everlasting love is indeed possible.

And so we write you today to ask you for your support in making this vision a reality: Will you please help us by doing everything in your power to give us the opportunity to share our mission with your audience?

We wouldn’t ask you if we didn’t believe we could give your viewers a segment they won’t soon forget, and so to help solidify your faith in our ability to present this material with great professionalism, clarity, and authenticity, we’ve asked some of our believers to share why Project Everlasting should be on Oprah:

[[[ YOUR WORDS WILL GO HERE ]]]

Thank you for holding this vision with me.

With love & gratitude,

Jason Miller
Co-Author/Producer of Project Everlasting: Two Bachelors Discover the Secrets of America's Greatest Marriages

* PS * Don’t forget that we have officially launched our 4-week church series called Project Everlasting L.O.V.E. Essentially, Mat has developed four great sermons for your minister to present in the month of February. It’s entertaining, it's inspirational, and—best of all—it's FREE! We’re still fixing up the videos, but you can take a sneak peek at www.projecteverlasting.com/churchseries.html You can help us get this message into the world by notifying your local churches and ministers of the site, too.

To Own the Book, Click Here:
http://www.projecteverlasting.com/buy_book.html

To Own the Documentary Film, Click Here:
http://www.projecteverlasting.com/about_film.html

To Get the Everlasting Love Package (autographed book + film) at a special rate, Click Here:
http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/netcart.asp?MerchantID=85711&ProductID=3746491