Listening to Rob Bell's message from last weekend sent me to Googling his name for an event he mentioned his participation in, along with Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. Mission accomplished.

But I also ran across another article profiling Bell. Dunno how it slipped under my radar, but it's been a busy stretch of time at the dayjob. Whether you know anything about Bell or not, I think it's worth the read.

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His speaking tours sell out, and a new speaking request comes in about every 10 minutes. But he'd rather talk about how billions of people have no safe drinking water and how you can help.

Bell is geeky-hip, with his black plastic glasses and skinny black jeans. He loves British transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard and U2 and rents vintage Rolling Stones concerts from Netflix and on his day off.

Bell embraces mystery. He asks questions. It goes back to his childhood, he said.

"My parents were intellectually rigorous," he said. "Ask questions, explore, don't take things at face value. Stretch. I've always been interested in the thing behind the thing."

He has become the kind of famous that breeds autograph seekers and stalkers and people who flock to him figuring he must hold the meaning of life. Like the pregnant woman in Louisville - in labor - who wouldn't leave until she got his autograph.

"There are dimensions to my life that have become surreal," Bell said, sitting in an office at Mars Hill. "The Time magazine thing ..."

He shakes his head.

Like I said, though ... read the whole thing.