Discount Religion

Consider

14On a good day, enjoy yourself;
On a bad day, examine your conscience.
God arranges for both kinds of days
So that we won't take anything for granted.

Uncle Charlie

This week must see tv for me has been the Little League World Series. I love the drama & the passion w/which these amazing kids play the game. It allows me to escape for awhile, forgetting the pompous arrogance of over-paid big leaguers & ultimately letting me revisit a time in my life when I donned the uni.

My time in the sun now done, I think of Cam & all the potential housed in his 3'7" 47# frame. I love to watch him, not only because he's mine, but mainly because he loves to play & does so w/passion. His passion for the game is not unlike those in Williamsport now & so I watch.

He even prays for skills to play the game better every night. Although they've become repetitive & habitual, we cut him some slack since he's only 5. They include line drive requests, homeruns, speed & improved glove work.

However, Cam's been reluctant to get in the yard w/his old man & put into practice what his prayers are all about. Guess he's saving it for the games. Whatever the reason, Amy & I have tried to tell him that Jesus won't honor his prayers for increased baseball prowess w/out some effort on his part.

It wasn't long after that that those very words begin to bounce around my head like a passed ball to the backstop. They've flown completely passed my catcher, slamming off the rear fencing w/a mighty clang & a cloud of dust. How like me.

For too long I've prayed a good game w/Jesus, but have more often than not, found myself doing little else besides. I save my best 'stuff' for the games that, by the way, are played w/& against my own team, never truly seeking to take it to the next level or to compete the way/where that I should. Since the game is little more than I supped up scrimmage, I maintain at best & atrophy at worst.

I've heard all the cliche's about getting off the sidelines & into the game, but I'm not so sure that this truly reveals what's happening here. Maybe the game we were so pressed to enter was not the real game, but merely a scrimmage. Scrimmages can prove valuable, but not as an end all. Our effectiveness is in the realization of this non-game scrimmage for what it is & how it should apply to our taking our passion to compete to the real thing.

The game I play now is in a ballpark bigger than I could've ever imagined. I love to hit the field & just be, always dreaming of the call to join the parent club. Play is defined by absolutes, but style is nothing but the identity of the player & how he approaches the game.

No doubt Jesus could hit a curveball & he's teaching me how too. Although he's still in love w/the sacrifice. Unfortunately not enough glory in it for me...but I'm learning.

I would pray that we'd all stop practicing the pretenses w/each other, because we think that that's what the other wants to hear. Let's all get down & dirty w/the rough kids down the street that are always dominating the sandlot. If we hurry we'll all be able to get our hacks in before the sun goes down.

Who's w/me...?

Play ball!

Give a Shit?

"I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

Loaded God Complex

I guess nothing expresses the love of Christ better than an assassins bullet. All this time I thought that tracts & street corner screamers were annoying. I didn't know how good I got it...



Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1988, supported Bush's re-election last year and said he believed Bush is blessed by God. Robertson also told viewers of his "700 Club" television program that God had told him Bush would win re-election in a "blowout."

Speaking on the same program Monday, Robertson said killing Chavez would be cheaper than starting a war to oust him. Getting rid of Chavez would stop Venezuela from becoming a "launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism," Robertson said.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

The 75-year-old religious broadcaster has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device.

He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Potty Talk

I'm pretty hesitant to even write the following, but I guess that that's never stopped me before. I have this re-occurring thought about prayer at a particular time & place. I just hope that I'm not the only idiot that's thought about this before.

We're instructed to pray w/out ceasing, yet I know of 1 place, for me at least, where it seems totally inappropriate & down right irreverent to do so. It's a place where I find myself a lot during the day. It's also the only place, at times, where I'm ever truly alone.

Humor me here for a sec if you will, 'cause the place I'm talkin' about is probably a taboo sanctuary of sorts for you as well. I'm talking about a place where the work isn't over till the paper work is done. Some call it the can, the john or whatever, but does God not want us to call Him from it?



I'm not trying to be overly ridiculous here, but honestly, what do you think? I know folks that have trouble talking on the phone if they don't happen to be clothed & others that don't have a problem at all talking to their better-half while dropping the kids off at the pool if you know what I mean.

Should it be any different w/God?

I tend to lean towards it being disrespectful, but wonder why when I don't have the same feelings when conversing w/Amy.

If it not be an offendable act, just think of the marketable...I mean ministry opportunities for those that are prayer deficient due to lack of time. Everybody's gotta go sometime right? Don't even get me started on the number of aides that could be available...

The John's Book of Prayer
Establishing & Maintaining Your Own Prayer {Water} Closet
Allowing the Spirit to Flow w/God's Drano (A Practical Approach to Spiritual Fluidity)

Unregretfully

I thought the day would bring relief & some sense of joy.
It brought on lamentation instead.
It was an unregretfull anguish that comes with letting go & the fear that rushes in when you just don't know.

I pray that those concerned would try & understand.
The burning desire ignited in me drives me & nothing else.
Immobility now would fill me w/compromise that benefits none.
I long to be faithful to only the One.

Into the unknown is where I'm headed.
Hopefully not seeking solace or comfort, but merely a yoke that fits.
My place is w/the plow.
The questions are just when/where & how.

Where would I be w/out your love?
Where would I be w/out your arms around me?
I shudder to consider it & know.
The time for me to move is now...it's time for me to go.

Please pray for Amy & I as we seek a new church home...

Words are things...

The text has always been there. It has to have been, for I've spent more time than I'd like to admit under it's weight. Seeing it in the black of print in contrast to nice tan stock does nothing but confirm the obvious as one would blame his burn to a strange orb hanging aloft that he likens to call the sun.

The judge smiled. It is not necessary, he said, that the principals here be in possession of the facts concerning their case, for their acts will ultimately accommodate history with or without their understanding. But it is consistent with notions of right principle that these facts--to the extent that they can be readily made to do so--should find a repository in the witness of some third party. Sergeant Aguilar is just such a party and any slight to his office is but a secondary consideration when compared to divergences in that larger protocol exacted by the formal agenda of an absolute destiny. Words are things. The words he is in possession of he cannot be deprived of. Their authority transcends his ignorance of their meaning.

Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West
Cormac Mccarthy

I struggle daily with what gospel truth means to me in my goings & comings in the world in which I live. Should I have...or could I have...or why did I or didn't I do/say/whatever...

The answer remains...only the questions seem elusive.

Like nailing jello to a tree...

The only thing I can gladly say is that I'm in possession of the words and cannot be deprived of them. Beyond this I know not much else. Thankfully their authority transcends my ignorance...

Words are things...

Thankful For?

What am I thankful for...


PRYOR THANKFUL FOR MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Comedian RICHARD PRYOR claims multiple sclerosis has had a positive effect on his life, because it ended a downward spiral further into drug addiction.

The 64-year-old was diagnosed with the debilitating disease in 1986 and is now wheel-chair bound and cannot speak - but he insists he has lead a more fulfilling life since his diagnosis.

Pryor - who attempted suicide in 1981 and battled drug addiction throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s - explains, "I found that my life, instead of ending because of MS, changed.

"Perhaps it was God's way of telling me to chill, look at the trees, sniff the flowers rather than the coke and see what it's like to be a human being."

That Kind of Promise

XII

Where you went out the back door of that house there was a stone water trough in the weeds by the side of the house. A galvanized pipe come off the roof and the trough stayed pretty much full and I remember stoppin there one time and squattin down and lookin at it and I got to thinkin about it. I dont know how long it had been there. A hundred years. Two hundred. You could see the chisel marks in the stone. It was hewed out of solid rock and it was about six foot long and maybe a foot and a half wide and about that deep. Just chiseled out of the rock. And I got to thinkin about the man that done that. That country had not had a time of peace much of any length at all that I knew of. I've read a little of the history of it since and I ain't sure it ever had one. But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasnt that nothin would change. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know bettern that. I've thought about it a good deal. I thought about it after I left there with that house blown to pieces. I'm goin to say that water trough is there yet. It would of took somethin to move it, I can tell you that. So I think about him settin there with his hammer and his chisel, maybe just a hour or two after supper, I dont know. And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I dont have no intentions of carvin a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think that's what I would like most of all.

No Country For Old Men
--Cormac McCarthy

I just finished this book today, on loan to me from a friend and am left in wonder. This book was a great departure from what I've been reading lately, but has me filled with questions that are yet to be answered. The book itself presents as a drug deal gone bad on the Texas/Mexico border, but has found a way to get to me.

The exert from above is from Sheriff Bell who finds himself at the end of a career as he goes about questioning himself as to the legacy that he has grown to leave. As a reader sucked into the story, I can't help but ask myself the same. I'm yet to turn 34, 9/10 for those interested & longing to send gifts, but events in my life beg me to wonder.

Cam just finished his first week of school today. I'm proud to say that he still considers me his pal. I plan on trying to retain the top spot as long as he'll let me. For some reason I feel obliged to leave that ball in his court. I've got 3 daughters too, but for some reason I know that a large part of the legacy that I'm to leave behind will be molded by the man my son turns out to be.

I reflect on me & my dad. I feel a tinge of guilt about the words that will follow. He lost his cousin a few weeks back & while I talked with him on the phone about it, he told me that he'll have to find another 'runnin' buddy' since he had just lost his. I'm now officially jealous of a dead man & probably owe him an apology.

But the past remains there, with no way to be changed, but only to be learned from. I hope that I do it well. Too many exchange the unlimited potential of their tomorrows for their hopelessly limited yesterdays.

I have no idea what the next day holds for me or the next 5 minutes for that matter.

I dont have no intentions of carvin a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think that's what I would like most of all.