My first blog post was June 14, 2006. This is my 100th. I was hoping to write something incredibly insightful and witty for my 100th post, but that's not going to happen.
I enjoy blogging. I hope to continue. Thank you (all 3 of you) to those who take the time to filter through my lousy English to read these incoherent ramblings.
I just finished Fay Vincent's book The Only Game in Town. It is a charming book about a seemingly simpler time. It covers the periods of the 1930s and 1940s in baseball. Baseball was the American sport. In the middle of this period there was the massive upheaval brought on by World War II.
Vincent interviewed dozens of baseball players from that era, all of whom are getting "long in the tooth." He wanted to preserve their memories before they all passed away. This is certainly a worthy goal.
Ten players made the cut for the book. Some that are Hall of Famers, and others that I had not heard of. They are: Elden Auker, Bob Feller, Tommy Henrich, "Buck" O'Neil, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Warren Spahn, Larry Doby, Ralph Kiner and Monte Irvin. Auker is the only one I never heard of. Feller and Spahn are two of the greatest pitchers of all time, not just that era. Larry Doby was the first African-American in the American League. Vincent described him as the Buzz Aldrin of the color barrier. Jackie Robinson gets all the notoriety (and deservedly so) for breaking the color barrier, much like Neil Armstrong got the credit for being the first man on the moon.
One thing that is often glossed over in the history of baseball is the racism that reined in baseball in the 30s and 40s. Elden Auker played for the Detroit Tigers when Hank Greenberg was with them. Greenberg was one of the few Jewish baseball players of that time, and certainly the most famous. Greenberg dealt with harsh antisemitism. Once he burst into the White Sox locker room and threatened the "SOB" that hurled a racial slur at him.
The chapters from Buck O'Neil (why isn't he in the Hall of Fame?), Larry Doby and Monte Irvin deal with baseball from the African-American perspective. The ugly racism that existed that time can be seen. Even after baseball integrated, thanks in large part to Branch Rickey, the players endured fierce racism from other players and fans.
Buck O'Neil never got the chance to play with in Major League Baseball. O'Neil said, "Waste no tears for me. I didn't come along too early--I was right on time." Gracious words from a man who was banned simply because of his darker pigment.
Another thing that impressed me is the fact that most of these players lost up to three years in their baseball careers serving their country in World War II. In much the same fashion as Pat Tillman, they suspended their careers playing a game to participate in something larger than themselves.
If you are a baseball fan, you will enjoy this book. If you are interested in American history during this period, you will enjoy this book. I am a baseball fan and a student of American history.
There is one thing that I do not like about this book. It is part of an oral history project. Vincent taped interviews with the players. The book seems to be a verbatim account of what was said. This can be a bit annoying at times. The grammar is sometimes awful. The players change thoughts midstream. It would have been nice to have it "cleaned" up a little.
A lot has been made over the last couple days about Alec Baldwin's rant on his daughter's voice mail. I certainly won't defend Baldwin, but who of us has not said something stupid to our children in the heat of the moment. I remember wrestling with my three-year-old and a Lima bean.
What gets me is that the media is so bent out of shape about this. But, back in 1998, when Bill Clinton was in the middle of impeachment, Alec Baldwin went on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and advocated the murder of US Congressman Henry Hyde who was leading the impeachment charge. Not one word was said about that. Here is the quote from Baldwin:
"They voted on one article of impeachment already. And I come back from Africa to stained dresses and cigars and this and impeachment. I am thinking to myself, in other countries they are laughing at us 24 hours a day and I’m thinking to myself, if we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together, [starts to shout] all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death! We would stone him to death! [crowd cheers] Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No shut up! I’m not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we’d kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families. [stands up, yelling] What is happening in this country? What is happening? UGHHH!" (source: http://www.celiberal.com/showCeliberal.php?id=1, accessed 4/21/07.)
He gets a free ride for saying "we would stone Henry Hyde to death...kill their wives and their children," but get blasted for calling his girl a "pig."
This isn't about whether Alec Baldwin is right or wrong. (I think he was wrong on both counts.) It is about the media's response.
I listened to the complete message of Nina Gunter at the M7 Conference. She did say some good things about not beating our heads against the same walls. She talked about the need to know the context in which we minister. She said some good things about being forward thinking, especially in asking the question What kind of church are we leaving to our children? She also said that we should work together. She talked about being innovative and trying new strategies. She said that we should not get hung up on the method. All of these things, I can agree with.
The clip that is a couple blog posts below is kind of strange in that it seems to be a disconnected interjection. She does not expand on how these three challenges are really affecting the church.
It seems to be an unfortunate thing. I have done that in sermons. I have a thought that sounds good, but when it comes out of my mouth it really has nothing to do with what I was talking about. That seems to be the case here.
How is Calvinism and Reformed Theology a new challenge? Calvinism is only about 500 years old. Also, Calvinism is pretty much the same thing as Reformed Theology. When you search on "Reformed Theology" on Wikipedia, it redirects you to "Calvinism." How is the emergent church negatively impacting the church? I wish she would have expanding on this.
If you read, Dr. Mark Quanstrom's A Century of Holiness Theology, you will see that Calvinistic thought has been an issue in the Church of the Nazarene since the late 1910s and early 1920s. It certainly is not a "new" challenge.
The comments were not out of context, but it was a minor part of the message. I still don't see a Calvinist as a challenge. We are on the same team. The Baptist or Presbyterian is not my adversary. They are my teammate.
Phineas F. Bresee was called a "Man of the Morning." In fact, Donald P. Brickley entitled his biography of Bresee Man of the Morning. According to Brickley, Bresee got the moniker because whenever he would meet someone, he would say, "Good morning," no matter the time of day. That was Bresee's outlook on life. To him it was always morning. The best days were ahead. When he founded the Church of the Nazarene in 1908, it was a time of unbridled optimism.
Oh for the days of Bresee. I think we have become a people of the night. We are scared. We are afraid. What are we afraid of? According Nina Gunter we need to be afraid of Calvinins, Reformed theology and the emerging church. We are so utterly pessimistic that we have sunk to slinging mud at fellow Christians. I am no Calvinist, but they are not my enemy. We have retreated into our four walls of the church hoping that nothing bad infects us. We are living in a bubble spraying Lysol at everything that moves outside the church. We are scared of the boogie man. We want to hold onto what is ours.
There has always been one thing that causes me to look for the nearest barf-bag. At any Church of the Nazarene gathering, you will hear this statement: "We are the largest holiness denomination in the world." So what? It is said with such arrogance, as though that means anything. In the scope of the Christian world, the Church of the Nazarene is barely a blip on the radar screen. Every time I tell someone which denomination I am affiliated with, the say something like, "Church of the Naza-what?"
My question is this: What are we holding on to? Further: Is it worth holding on to?
We are afraid of the dark, dark world. So what? The world is supposed to be dark. Jesus told us that we "are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). He further instructed us: "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). The world is only dark, because we have retreated and stored up the light in our church buildings.
Let's get over our fear of the boogie man. Let's allow our light to shine. Let's be people of the morning.
In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech yesterday, the two sides of the gun control debate are lining up to sling mud before anything is sorted out. Michael Daly of the New York Daily News had a column that touts more gun control in the wake of this. Another article in the Financial Times talks about how the NRA is lining up a defense of gun rights.
It is sick when either side tries to make political hay out of a horrible tragedy like this. Let the grieving grieve. We can sort out the policy later.
I was thumbing through the catalog of a local Christian bookstore yesterday. I should not say "book," as there were few books. It was mostly cheesy junk. There were doormats, candle holders, wall hanging, jewelry, clothing, and so on.
My wife was looking over my shoulder and commented, "Does everything have to have a Bible verse on it?"
Everything had a cross, picture of Jesus or Bible verse (or some combination thereof). It is now possible to everything to furnish your home that is totally Christian. Pens, t-shirts, ties, etc. It was all there.
Is this something necessary? Or, is this a marketing scheme to line the pockets of those who produce this stuff?
Is Jesus something to be marketed like a car or insurance? Or, is he someone whom we should be sharing with others?
Sometimes, I think that we put this stuff out so people can see it, and we think I am wearing a Christian t-shirt, so I've done my part sharing Jesus.
When will Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton apologize to the three young men from the Duke lacrosse team? Both of them called the three rapists. They have been completely exonerated. When will you apologize for your false accusations?
I've never been one who is into biblical prophecy, especially as it relates to the End Times. I haven't spent much time studying it, and perhaps that is my loss. I think it is because of these words that our Savior spoke:
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:36, NIV).
If we cannot know, why should we obsess about it? That has been my view. I certainly believe that Jesus is coming again, and we should be ready. Jesus went on to say:
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matthew 24:42-44, NIV).
We should be ready, but we shouldn't obsess.
I was talking with a relative this past weekend. He was talking about a magazine that reads. (Sorry, I can't remember the name of it.) The guy who writes apparently has figured it all out. There is some deal about the European Union (EU) where this guy is going to be the anti-Christ. He is going to make some treaty with Israel, which will start the tribulation and 3 1/2 years later there will be the rapture. What just a minute! I thought no one knew the day "your Lord will come." If no one knows the day, why do we try to figure out when it will all happen.
Really, the only thing that we accomplish by speculating is that we will look stupid when our prediction doesn't pan out.
Anyone (teacher or student) who has ever been in a math class has heard the question (or even asked it), "When am I going to use that?"
One of the math classes that I teach recently finished a unit on factoring. For those of you scratching your heads right now, let me refresh your memory. A trinomial is an algebraic expression made up of three terms, such as: x^2+4x-12. The factors are (x+6)(x-2). Most students find this kind of work tedious and pointless. Inevitably, the "question" is always asked. My response is that I use it frequently, mostly in teaching though.
The real reason is that we need to learn problems solving skills. Math is logic. Logic helps us solves problems. (See, those couple sentences are logical, and I couldn't said them if I didn't know how to factor.) We will probably never be called on in our life to factor a trinomial outside of math class, but we will encounter problems on a daily basis. If we can attack those problems, perhaps we can solve some of them.
It also teaches perseverance. Like I said, factoring isn't the easiest thing. I get frustrated with students that give up because they say (in a whiny voice), "It's toooooo hard." Most problems don't have an easy solution. Is there an easy solution to the immigration issue? Is there an easy to solution to terrorism? Life is full of complex issues. We need perseverance if we are going to address them.
So the next time you wonder, "Where will I use that in real life?" you will use, but perhaps not in the form you are seeing it.
For years we have heard that there is an east coast bias in sports. In that east coast teams get more coverage than teams from the western US. Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Duke, NY Giants, etc. get more coverage by the national media than the Dodgers, UCLA, Raiders, etc.
I would suggest that there is a definite west coast bias when it comes to the time of championship games. I was only able to watch the first half of last night's NCAA championship game. Advertisers wasted all that cash, because I never saw their commercials.
What moron puts a championship game on at 9:30 PM? What on earth are you thinking? Do you want me to watch it?
My kids were in bed an hour before the game the started. Do they want kids to watch? I can only assume the answer to be "no."
It's not just the NCAA. Major League Baseball starts the World Series games closer sunrise than sunset. The NFL gets it pretty close to right. They start the Super Bowl at about 6:30.
I can only see a west coast bias in this.
I felt like this poor yawning orangutan.
