I’m an intercessory missionary, and it’s the end of the age
We’re in the process of trying a few of the suggestions - we’re particularly intrigued by Anita Hensley’s Heinz-in-a-can suggestion. If that works out, it’s dinner for the Hensley’s on me! I know a particularly good Heinz-in-a-can recipe that I could whip up for the occasion…
David
3 comments January 23rd, 2008
Back in the prayer room, returning from the once a year insanity of playoff football…
There are about three to four sporting events per year that capture my attention to varying degrees, though the number is dwindling. Playoff football is one of those things that still gets me. The biggest sporting event for years for me was the NCAA Basketball tournament - I would come home from school early in high school to catch some of the afternoon games. I still appreciate the first weekend of the tourney, but don’t pay much attention anymore after that. The one that I probably pay the most attention to when it’s happening is the NBA Finals. As I said elsewhere, I’m still a little bit of a baseball guy, so the World Series holds my attention when I have time. Every once in a while, randomly, I’ll watch a little bit of Wimbledon for old times sake.
So, I’m an unabashed sports guy, because I’m an avid fan of effective leadership (hence my man-crush on Bill Bilicheck), discipline, paying the price to reach a goal, team, strategy, etc. I could go on and on. Sports and the military are the two places where you still see continual sacrifices made for the greater good, where you see (when things work right) egos sublimated as everyone plays their role, and a “concert” of coordinated movement that has both free flowing spontaneity and rigorous structure through set plays that keep everyone of one mind, one accord. It’s why Paul so often to Timothy used sports analogies to make his point.
The two key analogies Paul made were about competing according to the rules (2 Tim. 2:5) and our need to be provoked by the sacrifice top athletes make (1 Cor. 9:25). Paul noted to the Corinthians (culturally not the most motivated, focused, or restrained of peoples) to watch the Greek athletes that competed with focus and hard labor for a perishable crown. These athletes, Paul noted, had to be “temperate in all things” to position themselves to win the prize. The vision of victory naturally leads to a life of self-restraint, or a level of self-government that dictates much of an athletes schedule, diet, and (as they gain a bit of wisdom) social life.
Contrary to the current stereotypes of the modern athlete, most are among some of the most disciplined, focused, and restrained you can find anywhere. In a relatively godless world, this fact is the reason that many of the best are idealized and idolized as worthy targets for the less focused to emulate. The ancient Greeks, who had a deep love for the human body, couldn’t help but elevate their top athletes and their physiques to the top of their social food chain. Of course, like any other group of wealthy, powerful, and influential men and women, without (and, often with) the motivation of a perishable crown the immoral quickly descend into depths of darkness and sin during down times of life that would be best not to examine.
The point, for Paul, was a bit of provocation. These corrupt, immoral athletes are able to restrain themselves to a measure, focus themselves with rigorous self-discipline, and sublimate their egos for the good of the team in a manner that most in the church are unable to emulate. These athletes give themselves to long hours, incredibly hard work, and pressure for the purpose of winning a crown no one will care about a billion years from now. Believers have forgotten that there is a crown reserved for them if they live a temperate, peaceable, restrained life before God - one that will be remembered and celebrated a billion years from now. Many who do not understand the God who rewards are so eager to cast their crowns before Him that they have lost their vision - and thus live unfocused.
The “prize” or the crown set before us is glorious, and worthy of our wholehearted pursuit. We need a revelation again today of what has been set before us to motivate us to play according to the rules, restrain our time, harness our strength, and demand the best of our resources to pursue the only goal that matters. This is my prayer today - that God would capture me again with the vision of a prize worth going beyond the labors of even the most disciplined athlete.
David
Add comment January 22nd, 2008
Just a couple of side notes for the folks reading this - a “behind the scenes” addendum as it were:
These asides were little two-minute notations related to things I was thinking while watching the game. It was an experiment in writing and analysis that I did for fun while hanging out with my kids. They like football.
I’m writing this aside because someone asked my wife after last week about me writing about a playoff game while being home on our day off. It’s totally doable (once a year) to watch a game, type a few thoughts randomly, and hang out with the kids on a cold day. It’s not part of our normal family routine. It’s not even part of our abnormal family routine. This is a one-off writing exercise that blows off steam for my active mind. So there you have it - a quick, behind the scenes look at how I pulled this off.
This aside only took one minute, forty seven seconds to do, for the curious.
See you this week, it’s been fun.
David
Add comment January 20th, 2008
One of the interesting things about this little experiment is noticing that some of you magically know when I post as I post. Watching the hour-by-hour stats spike a bit after these little articles went online made me shake my head - modern communication is really impressive, even for a relative neanderthal like me. There are guys out there that are really sophisticated and thus have a pretty impressive following. It’s quite different than my “write about whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it” strategy that, all things considered, seems to have the same payoff as the sophisticated, time-consuming, labor-intensive strategy. But as I said, I’m kind of a neanderthal when it comes to these things. There are late adopters, and then there is me - long after everyone has moved on (hence the slew of “is blogging dead?” articles that came out last summer), I’m just getting started.
Back to the game.
7:35 PM
So much for what I said earlier about the Packers being the better disciplined team. Two killer penalties (albiet controversial ones) on third down gave the Giants new life on offense twice. And everyone in football knows that you don’t give an assassin like Eli Manning two second-chances. I’m just kidding, of course - anyone who follows football read that last sentence and wondered privately if I’m indulging a bit too much of Emiril’s Vodka Cream Pasta sauce. But Manning is making my earlier comment about his skills versus Favre’s more of a non-issue than I expressed.
His passing after those two penalties led to a huge play by the “Boss” (offensive lineman Bruce Springsteen, apparently. Or “Kevin Boss,” as he’s known by these days) to pick up a Brandon Jacob’s fumble just past the first down marker for the Giants. This key moment was then followed by, of course, a few more Packers penalties. They are determined to make me look like a neophyte relating to my earlier assessment about discipline, coaching, and patience. Showing their superior patience, the Packers jump off-sides before the snap to help the Giants score a go-ahead touchdown.
I told you Manning was a cold-blooded assassin. Of course, I could have been talking about Peyton Manning and his award-winning performances in the “Priceless Pep Talks” commercials for some company whose ad agency made semi-clever spots that semi-entertained me all season long. They worked so well that I couldn’t even tell you what company is sponsoring the ads. Oh well, another day, another multi-million dollar ad-campaign down the drain. Much more effective are Michael Jordan’s final attempts at cultural relevance before fading away altogether.
I greatly appreciate character studies - and if you do too, I strongly recommend David Halberstam’s Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made as well as Michael Leahy’s When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan’s Last Comeback. While Jordan and his will to win are an interesting subject, the flip side of that ego is an interesting examination on human nature and how badly we need the inward transformation of the Holy Spirit - regardless of personal success. No matter how successful you are in life, it all has to end someday. No one beats the system - and Jordan is no exception.
Back to the game, again.
7:56 PM
Penalties, penalties, penalties. Of course, the key here is that these penalties are the kind that often follow the aggressive, hard hitting play of the first half. Even the off-sides earlier by the Packers is the kind of mistake that follows the “overly eager to hit somebody” mentality that both sides are employing. Both teams need to reign it in a bit - and the sideline reporter for FOX Sports just reported that the coaches are saying the same thing as I am typing this. The players are jumpy, angry, and hyped-up. In some ways we’re approaching the phase of the game where the cooler heads tend to prevail - the Tom Brady types.
The two candidates for “coolest heads” (again, forgive the pun) happen to be the quarterbacks in this game. Favre looked like a guy that has been here before on his great touchdown pass to the Packers tight end, Donald Lee. Lee has been a key outlet guy for Favre all season, and his development is the least-talked about reason for the emergence of the Packers offense. Yes, Ryan Grant, their running back, is important to their success, but they were on the rise well before they settled on Grant at the position at mid-season. The reason is simple: Lee and Greg Jennings, their young wide receiver, both gave Favre dependable targets that he has been lacking over the past five years. Is Favre a better quarterback than he has been over the last decade, or have the Packers draft picks finally developed? I think the answer is simple, but you don’t hear many people talk about it for some reason.
8:08 PM
Eli Manning, cold-blooded assassin that he is, has grown tired of me talking about “Favre, Favre, Favre”. The Lambeau crowd seems nervous - and deathly silent - as he throws a nice touchdown pass to their rookie running back, Ahmad Bradshaw. The Giants skill at drafting running backs (Green Bay’s young star, Ryan Grant, was a fifth-stringer with the Giants earlier this summer) has to impress anyone that cares about that kind of thing. In fact, I’m impressed in general with how many of the Giants picks hit more than they miss. As a Chief’s fan, I’m slightly envious of their ability to find solid, cheap young running backs while fielding a punishing offensive line. Football isn’t rocket science in that sense - the teams with the more powerful offensive and defensive lines tend to win championships. Yet the Chiefs can’t seem to draft a helpful offensive lineman - nor have the inclination to.
That’s probably going to change this offseason, thankfully. It already has changed when it comes to defensive lineman - since the Chiefs hired their new coach, Herm Edwards, they have turned things around slightly related to drafting defensive lineman. Mysteriously, the defense improved markedly this year - despite the horrid record. Why so bad? I defy Tom Brady to complete a single pass behind that Chiefs offensive line - it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Ugh. Somebody forgot to tell the Chiefs that there are three phases to this game. Being terrible at two (I don’t even want to talk about the Special Teams unit) is, well, less than helpful.
No really, let’s get back to this game.
8:17 PM
Play of the Game Award Nominee: Ryan Grant and Mark Taucher, Green Bay Packers. They could have possibly saved the season for Favre after his awful interception (the kind that he has generally avoided this year). Grant caused the fumble that Taucher jumped on, keeping the Packers moving forward rather than getting on their heels after a possibly game-turning turnover. Of course, the much hyped-by-me-Donald Lee may have swung momentum back the other way by throwing the worst block on a screen in the playoffs, letting a cornerback (!) blow him out of the water for a seven-yard loss, ending the drive.
We’re tied, late in the fourth quarter. This is a great, great game.
Before we do, however, I want to point out that the normally clever “I’m a Mac” commercials have run their course. The last few have been beyond bland toast and have entered the realm of the Taco Bell commercial. Now that I have found a forum to register that, we can move on.
8:26 PM
Boy, Manning is looking surprisingly sharp. The secondary reason for writing that last line was a lame attempt at juxtaposing “boy” and “Manning” to be clever and witty. Instead, I think I achieved “Taco Bell” commercial status. Meanwhile, continuing the discussion on “aggression penalties” versus “sloppy penalties”, we’ve seen both in rapid-fire succession here in the fourth quarter. The Giants’ wide receiver, Amani Toomer, had a sloppy offensive pass interference penalty followed by, on a gutsy “go-for-it on fourth down” call by the Giants, an aggression penalty (an iffy, so-so call) by Charles Woodson of the Packers.
Thus the sloppy penalty ends up being negated by the aggression penalty. Go figure.
So, after the Packers defense recovers and holds, the Giants are forced to…MISS A 43-YARD FIELD GOAL. Manning is playing the game of his life, and his kicker just handed control of the game back to one of the most clutch, big-game quarterbacks of the last 25 years.
Wow.
8:42 PM
Why was the last throw by Favre off? Because Osi Umenyiora, one of those great defensive lineman I was talking about earlier, made a Pro-Bowl caliber tackle look slow and dumb. Umenyiora went around Chad Clifton like he was standing still, and Clifton is one of the better tackles you’ll see in pro football. Back to Manning as the clock winds down to see who can get the winning score.
Whoa.
8:48 PM
The Packers have an answer to Osi Umenyiora: their own “difficult name to pronounce super fast defensive end”, Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila. I never want to type that name again - which is why some have come up with the not so clever “KGB” nickname that therefore portrays him as a shady, corrupt, covert murderer versus the “difficult name to pronounce super fast defensive end” identity that seems to be a better fit. Maybe it’s just me. Nevertheless, he beat the entire Giants offensive line off the ball after the snap to get to Eli (The Assassin) Manning and stop the Giants scoring drive. I mean, he went as the ball was snapped before the rest of the Giants had even begun to move. Um, nice play.
A few minutes later, the Packers forgot everything they learned in training camp about falling on a loose ball.
9:05 (and 9:15) PM
Twice the Giants put their fate in the hands of ex-Chief kicker Lawrence Tynes. Remember what I said earlier about the Chiefs? Yet, inexplicably, after missing twice earlier (critically at the end of regulation), Tynes connects on a 47-yard field goal to send the Giants to the Super Bowl.
Wow.
It’s been fun - but no more typing side points for me. I’m retiring as a wanna-be sports writer for quite a while. For now, I’m off to snuggle our kids.
David
5 comments January 20th, 2008
It’s now 6:30 and the second quarter is underway at a very cold Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconson. If you’re a sports fan, the fact that it is cold in Green Bay in January is not particularly surprising to you, since you could choose this morning from one of 731 articles nationally and 54,000 pages on the internet devoted to the subject. Can you imagine being the journalist who had to take on that plum assignment? “Hey, Jimmy, give me 2500 words on the cold weather in Green Bay Sunday night - and make it interesting!” Next up, a few stories about the sunrise.
Every football game has a few key moments that shape the outcome. I’m going to try to pick a few out as I watch the game and see how I do.
6:37 PM
After three (three!) consecutive references to the cold weather by the game announcers, Brett Favre shows why he is one of the greatest, grittiest quarterbacks of his generation. The Giants had spent a quarter proving me right related to my earlier assessment - that their defense was playing a bit better than the Packers defense over the past few weeks and seemed better equipped to take on the Patriots offense. Both teams played a pretty physical, heated (forgive the slight pun) quarter with talking, shoving, pushing, and hard hitting. The Giants are, to utilize a well-worn sports cliche, a physical football team. They feature big, strong, wear-you-down type players on offense and defense.
The first quarter featured some stereotypical cold weather, grind-it out, back and forth, move it up the field slowly offense by the Giants that produced two field goals and generally shut down the Packers offense (especially the running game which has been so key to elevating the Packers from a “could they?” team to a “hey! They could!” team over the past 10 weeks). Then, at 6:37 PM, somebody on the Giants coaching staff made the kind of decision that gets coaches fired at some point down the road - they played the Packers man-to-man. Donald Driver, an older, reliable receiver for Favre, shoved his defender aside and streaked down the field for a long touchdown. It’s the kind of touchdown that can blow a game like this wide open. Farve’s pass was perfect - Driver didn’t have to slow down or adjust after he freed himself up. As solid as the Giants are as a unit - offense and defense - I don’t see how Manning outplays Favre the rest of the way with the home crowd gutting out this (dare I point it out?) astonishing cold.
6:52 PM
It’s one of those little plays that everyone forgets later, but the Giants clearly have what they feel is their answer to Brett Favre and the big play: pound that Packers defensive line with their big running back Brandon Jacobs and that beefy offensive line. They are working the cold a bit better than the Packers - it seems as if their goal is a tired Packers defensive line in the fourth quarter. So they are hammering away - and here Jacobs lowers his shoulder and hammers his way to a first down.
The problem, of course, is a holding call that negates the play and moves the Giants back ten yards. Pounding away with a big running back and a powerful offensive line is, in many ways, tougher than it looks - and it looks tough to the viewer. It requires patience and extraordinary discipline to play this way because you are, essentially, playing for position on the field, looking to limit the number of times your opponent has the ball, and, as I mentioned, looking to wear down the other team for the endgame. Holding calls by your offensive lineman in essence negate your entire game plan by costing you the opportunity to do all three.
Sure enough, the Giants don’t recover from the holding call and are forced to punt the ball. I have a feeling that the holding call will matter in a bit, as it means that the Giants defense now has to spend more time on the field and the Packers have another shot at what is essentially the same strategy - but with a better passing game. What I’m saying is that the Giants seems to have the better team, physically, but the Packers right now are the better-coached team. They didn’t let that frustrating first quarter derail them and they are patiently (with more discipline than the Giants, taking their shots when they can get them) moving down the field again.
7:08 PM
I appreciate the “Plaxico Burress vs. Al Harris” montage of plays that FOX Sports is showing. It was a nice segue to a huge catch by Burress of the Giants down the field to give his team another scoring opportunity before halftime. Of course, if he hadn’t dropped a bomb by Eli Manning on the very next play, the Giants could have possibly taken control of this game again. That field looks (to say it yet again) cold, but more importantly, frozen. What would have been a catch in different conditions is, today, a critical drop. Thus the half ends with a sack and no score by the Giants instead of the road team going into halftime with, possibly, the lead and an opportunity to patiently smack the Packers around some more in the second half. Instead, they’ll have to pass more when the game resumes than I’m sure they wanted to.
Better lucky than good for the Packers at this stage.
David
Add comment January 20th, 2008
…you obviously have no idea who I am. You googled “IHOP”, found a bunch of IHOP-KC websites, and commented to me about your incredible research. You didn’t read this site, read about me, my heart, or why I do what I do. Appreciate your efforts to help me out, though.
One problem: one email doesn’t constitute “great research”. It’s journalism 101 - you simply reduced the subjects of your “investigation” to a “he-said, she-said” debate long after the fact. The fact that biased folks with an axe to grind patted you on the back afterwards doesn’t really help your cause either. All you get at the end of the day, for all of your labors, is a not-so-fun group to gripe with. Ugh.
For those of you reading who have no clue what I’m talking about, thanks for indulging me in my side conversation to a sincere but unhelpful helper. I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but I wanted to try be be helpful myself.
David
Add comment January 20th, 2008
I realize that I am breaking every “blogging” rule out there - and have from the beginning - whether it be the length of what I write or, in this case, deviating from what the weekly audience has come to expect from this space by writing about sports; but I can’t help it. I’m in the mood.
So I want to log a few thoughts going into the fourth quarter of this really good AFC Championship game that, again, only a few of you will care about. But I have to tell someone my observations and my wife doesn’t care about what I think about the Pats 3-tight end set.
1. Speaking of that 3-tight end set:
…here’s why it’s working so well for the Patriots against a talented, speedy, and athletic Chargers defense. The Patriots had a problem going into this game - the Chargers have one of the few defenses in the league with the talent to stay with that incredibly diverse passing game led by Tom Brady. Luckily for Patriots fans there are about nine different offensive “looks” they can give a team, making them almost impossible to completely stop for 60 minutes. The Chargers have done a great job to this point, but the Patriots are starting to pull away.
This may not get any publicity afterwards, but if the Patriots win it will be because of their ability to show the other team an offensive look completely different than any other they have run the entire year. That’s practically unheard of. The Patriots head coach, for the uninitiated, is Bill Belichick, who has won Super Bowls on a few different teams as a defensive coach (twice) and a head coach (three times).
Belichick’s defenses have been known for this kind of flexibility and diversity in the past (being able to confuse offenses with multiple looks - see Super Bowl 25 and Giants 20, Bills 19 - when Belicheck’s linebackers pummeled the Bills’ wide receivers and shut down one of the most talented offenses of all time). That philosophy has shifted to his offense as well - this is a Patriots team that has terrorized the league all year from a four and five-wide receiver set; Brady passed for 50 touchdowns and hadn’t thrown an interception inside his opponent’s twenty yard-line for the last two years…until this game.
So the Patriots had to adjust.
2. No really, it’s about the three-tight end set:
Stunningly, in the third quarter, the Patriots made a strategic shift that enabled them to widen a slim lead: they went to a power running game behind that all-star offensive line. It wasn’t their typical power game, however. Normally they line up Heath Evans in the backfield at fullback and let him lead the way, plowing over opposing linebackers and creating space for their quick, strong second-year running back, Lawrence Maroney. On a few drives, however, they showed a two and three-tight end set with no fullback. The fullback has been one of their weapons in the play-action passing game (faking the run, throwing to the fullback uncovered out of the backfield) and one of the key components of their running game all year long.
Here, during the AFC Championship game with the Super Bowl and an undefeated season on the line, they try something completely different. By removing the fullback and putting in two and three tight ends, the Patriots essentially conceded to the Chargers that they were going to run the ball. The Chargers, seeing the bigger formation, would then be free to stack the line a bit with their athletic, quick defenders and plug the spaces the offensive line would try to create, neutralizing the running game. The problem is this: without the fullback leading the way, the quick Chargers linebackers have been having a hard time anticipating where the run is going to go.
In the three-tight end set, the running back has a little more freedom to pick his space, cutting back one way as the offensive line pushes the defense the other. Maroney is a suprisingly quick, big runner who made the right choices about four to five times by my count. How do you stop a team that can adjust so completely to what a defense is trying to do? The Chargers, as close as this game has been, as well as they have played, can’t seem to answer that question.
3. Now for something completely different:
Now, in the fourth quarter, the Patriots are shifting back to an offense you could see them run consistently last year; bringing in a quick, pass-catching running back named Kevin Faulk. Brady has thrown him now a couple of easy passes out of the backfield for clock-killing bursts of yardage in the middle of the field. It’s an unfair change-up that moves the Patriots from power-running team to, in these formations, a “West Coast”-type offense that features short passes to receivers five to seven yards from the line of scrimmage. These types of short passes in space put the burden on the receivers to gain yards after the catch and places pressure on the defense to make tackles.
Normally, making sound tackles isn’t a problem for the Chargers defense. Today, however, there have been a few too many “looks” for them to adjust to. For all of their talent, they are up against a Patriots team that can simply do too many things.
To review, the Patriots have shown variations of three very, very different types of offenses (all of which require three different types of players and philosophies to run effectively): a power running game with three different sets; a West Coast look with a different running back; and a “run and shoot”-type passing game with four and five wide receiver sets, depending on whether or not the coaching staff wants to feature their big tight end as they get close to the end zone. All of these offenses have strengths and weaknesses that good coaches and defenses can learn to shut down.
Bill Belichick, as a brilliant defensive coach, understands what his counterpart on the other side of the field wants to do; he also has mastered what the opposing defensive coaches are able to do. Thus, as an innovator, he has crafted one of the most effective offensive strategies in pro football history: build a team with the kind of players able to implement diverse offensive philosophies that overwhelm even a talented, athletic, smart, fast defense like the one the San Diego Chargers have built. Many fast defenses can be overpowered by strength - but not the Chargers. They have the rare combination of being both quick and powerful; against the Patriots it didn’t matter in the end.
Most pro teams have their players master one offensive philosophy; their coaches refer to it as their “offensive identity”. Not the Patriots - they refuse to settle into one identity and thus are able to stymie what the other team is trying to do. This philosophy of innovation and flexibility has led to 18 wins and no losses thus far. One more to go - and waiting for them at the last juncture of their journey will be the winner between two more talented, young, athletic defenses. The Giants in particular (though I know the sentimental pick is the Packers - I’ll write about that game later tonight) showed on the last week of the season that they have the players who are able to improve a bit on what the Chargers defense wanted to do. One could make the case that it is the Giants, not the Packers, who are best equipped to stop the man I consider to be one of the most creative and innovative coaches of all time.
I’ll write more about that another time.
David
1 comment January 20th, 2008
One of the reasons I think that many are connecting to Malcolm Gladwell is that he skillfully asks the questions and frames conversations in a manner that hits the “yeah, I was just wondering that” button. Check him out if you have a moment at gladwell.com - the New Yorker articles in particular contain a wealth of interesting subjects, and his blog is currently examining the Major League Baseball steriod “crisis” from an interesting angle.
By the way, I think I am coming to grips, slowly, with the term “blog”. It’s taken me time, but it is quick and easy to say, for all of its “log”-like phonetics. I don’t think I’m ready to be friends just yet, but I think I can be in the same room and not feel awkward, which is a “win” for all of us.
Since this has become, at this point in the post, an official franchise of Zack Hensley’s “random rantings” initiative, I just want to take a moment and register my frustration with the sheer number of spaghetti sauces that are out there to choose from. I remember the days when it was just “Ragu” vs. “Prego”. Now, if I want Orange Cajun Habenero Beef Spaghetti Sauce, there’s a few options to choose from on the shelves of your local supermarket. I’m ready to find the perfect sauce, or at least the five best options, and lock in for the rest of my life; I don’t particularly want to spend thousands of dollars burning through all the options until I find my perfect match. What’s a pasta guy to do?
So I’d like to launch the National Spaghetti Sauce Taste Test Challenge. I need recommendations - and I’m not a Ragu or Prego guy. Hit me with your best sauce. I need your help. Thanks in advance.
David
p.s. I’m not looking for recipes - I’m looking for good, store bought, spaghetti sauce in a jar.
12 comments January 18th, 2008
Returning to the issue of politics, I want to take a moment and express appreciation and agreement with Lou Engle’s statement about abortion in America at the Call-Kansas City a few weeks back. His contention was that this is not a political issue - it transcends politics and is an issue of America’s moral failure whose logical outworking is the self-centered and callous manner in which men and women deal with their choices while claiming “personal rights”. It astonishes me how easy it is for wicked, ungodly, self-interested and self-centered men and women to frame the national debate on this topic. That we have so exalted individual freedoms and liberties in such a manner that they outweigh the corporate good is a clear indicator that greater atrocities lie in wait in the days to come. The madness that has gripped this nation - subjective morality and the elevation of individual choice - can only end in great bloodshed and tragedy.
Why would Tom Brokaw, as well as many actual sociologists that have objective data to study in drawing their conclusions, peg the World War II generation as “The Greatest Generation”? The Apostle Paul understood why this would be the case: athletes, soldiers, and farmers tend to have a different mindset drilled into them about teamwork, dependance on others, playing your part in a collective whole, service, honor, hard work, sacrifice, and other values that are instilled when working towards a common goal. While I’m not a fan of patriotism per se, it is far better than the alternative in which some tout and exploit their freedom to strike against the very mechanisms and persons in government that contribute to an opulent life of wealth that many ancient kings could never imagine.
We have come to a crossroads in our nation where individualism and the needs of the one far outweigh the corporate good and the needs of all. We have come to the days in which few are interested in self-restraint and self-discipline that serves the greater good. I think that part of the problem lies in the current state of morality and truth in our nation, by which few can even define what constitutes as “good” anymore. Thus “good” becomes what is “good for you”, with many of the popular preachers of the day willingly join the chorus of advertisers, politicians, and corporations happy to serve that subjective definition.
Thus, when talking about politics, I don’t necessarily want to discuss “who to vote for”. As we have seen in the comments section, angst about the quality of the candidates being offered up for public scrutiny can reach historic levels. We are in an age in which more information is so quickly and readily available than any other time in all of history. All of us can now be amateur researchers and reporters, breaking the news on blogs and web discussions about the impropriety and sheer humanity of the poor slobs that step up to volunteer for the thankless job of “leader of the free world.” I don’t say that to pity the corrupt and the ambitious, eager to shape the world according to their arrogant, unbiblical vision of how the world should be. I say that simply to point out that Lincoln would never have been elected to presidential office if they had the internet in 1860.
So we have come to this. Politicians are skilled at winning elections, but incapable of governing. They win because they are the best at tapping into the sinful, self-interested fears of a nation most interested in individual self-preservation. It will hurt us down the road if we exit Iraq prematurely. No one cares. It will hurt us badly down the road if we do not end abortion. No one is concerned. The general malaise that has gripped our nation leaves us more concerned about our personal security, our ability to buy prescription drugs, our buying power, and our interest rates than the life of an unborn child. While the majority of Americans believe that abortion is wrong, few believe it enough to actually take a stand and declare it to be wrong. Because making a definitive judgment on “wrong” then alienates and hurts the feelings of those with no conscience, making a dreadful profit on the shame of America. These are dreadful days, with worse to come.
And yet, the best days of the church are yet to come as well. For God’s eye is on something grander and greater than the next election. He is after a spotless, pure Bride - and will have the desire of His heart expressed on the earth. The manner in which He will bring this about is both great and very terrible. With all of the above - trouble and sin and murder and judgment - all of that in mind, why do I care about politics?
Because there is still time for America to repent - a season of restraint in which this nation can learn to fear God again. When I look at the candidates, I can’t look with an eye towards natural things. I have to look with a different lens, asking the Father to show me which man (or woman) is poised for a life-changing encounter that could serve as the “great equalizer”: a moment in time in which all of their humanity and weakness encounters a fearsome God…and everything is different for the rest of their lives. Who can be “turned”, not by interest groups or power, but by the hand of God Himself?
This is why Paul reframed the political debate in his day. It was not about Nero’s worth or skill in governance. Paul commanded the Roman church to pray for the man that would someday execute him. It is God that sets kings in place and tears them down - He is the great Humbler of Men. He also personifies our only hope for this nation.
So I don’t want to tout anyone just yet - I will wait until the primary season is over. Then, I will pick between the “lesser of two evils” - hoping beyond hope and racing against time that God loves mercy, and desires to establish a season of refreshing and restraint before the judgments come.
David
9 comments January 16th, 2008
Following up this weekend’s post on that strange feeling of inevitability, I thought it would be fun to tell a few stories before I get back to politics and the end of the age.
I.
I vividly remember in the mid-eighties watching a young boxer named Mike Tyson emerge from the streets of New York. His rough background and terrifying anger seemed at the time to make him more than a fighter, but a force of nature that would storm into the ring and tear apart his unfortunate victims. He wasn’t a boxer - but the masses never really watched the heavyweight division of boxing for technique and skill.
Side note: I took a missions trip to Mexico early on after starting full-time in ministry and our translator also happened to be an amateur boxer. So I spent long nights with some of the other guys on the trip learning boxing technique and trying hard to actually hit the guy. He would ask us to hit him as fast and as hard as we could - and we couldn’t lay a finger on him. It was fantastic - and I was hooked on the science of boxing.
No one, however, would ever imagine that Mike Tyson was a technical marvel. He was trained early on by one of the best trainers in the business, a man named Cus D’Amato, had had in earlier days trained heavyweight champions like Floyd Patterson. Patterson, to this day, is considered one of the greatest champions in boxing history and was the youngest heavyweight boxer in history - until Tyson became world champion at the age of 20. Though trained by the best, Tyson’s “skill” was intimidation and terrifying ferocity. He was a head-to-toe slab of muscle and impossibly fast. Of his first 22 professional fights, 19 ended in a knockout. 13 of those came in the first round!
As a young man in high school at the time, I had mostly heard about the fights. I remember, vaguely, watching him destroy Trevor Berbick and a guy named “Bonecrusher” Smith to unify the heavyweight title (if you’re still with me at this point, you really don’t want me to explain what that means, because it would mean explaining why no one watches boxing anymore). The fight I remember vividly is the one where I first felt that feeling of inevitability: when Mike Tyson got into the ring with a boxer named Michael Spinks, I turned to my friends and said simply, “Spinks is going to get destroyed in a minute”. I think I was actually scared for the guy.
I’ve described the feeling of inevitability related to sports in terms of it being about something more than a dominating team (or individual) on a roll where it seems like they can’t be beaten. It’s watching a team playing a different game, to the point where you know that they won’t lose, regardless of how well the other team plays. Here, watching the two men get into the ring, it was like Tyson was a different kind of human being. If this were Roman times, Spinks was, of course, the Christian. The announcers at the time were hyping the fight, telling us about Spinks’ superior “reach” and how his arm length could possibly keep this terrifying granite fighting machine away to get some punches in. I didn’t buy it. Those Spinks arms were twigs, relative bowling pins; Tyson was the human bowling ball.
Some of you who were paying attention to these kinds of things back then may remember how it turned out. 91 seconds after the opening bell sounded to begin the fight, it was over. It was a mauling. Pay per view audiences around the nation were horrified. Everyone knew that Spinks would lose - but not like that. Things for Tyson fell apart not long after this fight, for reasons that no one cares about any more. But I remember. That feeling tends to stay with you over the years.
II.
On my honeymoon, my incredible new bride suggested that we relax on the couch, open the doors to let the warm Caribbean air blow in, and watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals. I love that woman. For those that remember, Game 5 that year was the famous “flu game”. A dehydrated and exhausted Michael Jordan scored an amazing 38 points to shift the momentum of the series, which the Chicago Bulls would win the very next game. For a sports fan, it felt historic. It’s why you would watch sports: to maybe, hopefully, see a game like that. You felt like you were watching something impossible, and you were sure that anyone who watched the game would talk about it for years.
The next time I felt the feeling of inevitability was during a game far more routine and mundane than that one. The very next year a few of us grabbed some cheap tickets and hotel rooms in Toronto to watch the Chicago Bulls, and Michael Jordan in his final year, roll into town and destroy the floundering Toronto Raptors. Though it was unofficial, everyone knew it was Jordan’s last year. That game in particular made headlines because of the crushing demand for tickets. The arena at the time was the Skydome, where the Toronto Blue Jays played baseball during the summer. They would block of half the dome and set up a makeshift basketball arena with the other half; the full stadium could seat 60,000 for baseball games while the basketball arena had a seating capacity of about 18,000. For this game, they opened up the “really bad seats” (obstructed views from the seats near the partition that divided the arena in half) and squeezed about ten thousand more for the main event.
I, of course, snatched up as many of the “really bad seats” as I could get my hands on. From where we were sitting, a few in our group could see fairly well on one end of the row; those on the other side of me couldn’t see at all. We put the girls down at that end. I blocked out all conversations and just watched one of the best basketball teams in history play one of the 82 games they would play that year. There, in Toronto, it was remarkable how many of the fans early on were there to actually root for the Bulls.
I noticed a few things that surprised me. Jordan was clearly coasting, it seemed as if he was hardly trying. He would score if the game came to him, but he wasn’t trying to make anything happen. It was strange to watch one of the greatest reducing himself to role player status. But that’s what he was - the spotlight was clearly on Scottie Pippin that night, who was destroying any Raptors defender foolish enough to try to stop him from scoring. Most of the night, it was a young man named John Wallace, who had led the Syracuse Orangemen to the NCAA Finals a few years earlier (only to lose to a far superior Kentucky Wildcats team with six future pros).
The other thing I was impressed by was how good their troubled forward, Dennis Rodman, looked in person. Rodman, on the court, had a reputation as a stunning rebounder and defender; but in person he was more than that. I have never seen a player give 100% effort for entire game without dialing down - Rodman went full speed with maximum energy for the entire game; nearly impossible for even the most well-conditioned athletes. But it was clear that Rodman possessed a stamina that was abnormal. I found myself watching him more than the established offensive stars of either team - he was giving an almost inhuman effort against the last-place team in the league.
While their defense was terrible, Wallace and another young veteran named Doug Christie were playing the game of their lives on the other end of the court. A young Marcus Camby blocked a few surprising shots and provided energy by the basket - he would finish with 23 points. Two rookies showed flashes of potential that occasionally wowed the crowd - a point guard named Chauncey Billups and a forward named Tracy McGrady. It seemed as if the Bulls were going to put this last-place team away often throughout the night; yet the Raptors had a scrappy resolve that helped them close the gap early in the game - at halftime the Bulls were only winning by two. About midway through the third quarter most of the tourists who came for the event began to file out. Chicago had widened the gap in the score and the Raptors were seemingly well on their way to another of what would become 66 losses that year. The third quarter ended with the Bulls winning 78-69.
Yet, the most surprising thing happened: the Raptors began to make things happen. Turnovers by the Bulls, unbelievable off-balance jump shots by Christie, baskets from surprising no-name guys who would soon be out of the league, and a burst of energy on defense propelled the improbable comeback. The Bulls (save Jordan) turned up their energy level a bit, wanting to put the Raptors away before they really began to believe they had a shot at winning. But it was too late - now the Raptors and the crowd believed that this last-place team could really beat one of the most powerful basketball teams to ever play the game. Every seemingly fatal “dagger” inserted by Pippen at his finest was answered with authority on the other end of the floor by Christie and Wallace.
I had moved seats by then, occupying a row long abandoned by tourists who had left after getting what they had come for - the ability to say, “I saw Michael Jordan”. As for me, I joined the rest of the crowd in cheering and hollering wildly as the Raptors went on to outscore the Bulls 31-22 in the fourth quarter. Improbably, the final seconds were ticking away and the Raptors had tied the score at 100. With twenty seconds left and the ball, after a Raptors mistake, the Bulls called a timeout. The scattered crowd that remained was breathless and alive.
After the timeout, the Bulls inbounded the ball directly to Jordan, who calmly dribbled the ball down the full length of the court. Suddenly, that feeling gripped me again. I think it grabbed the entire crowd, simultaneously - a hush fell over the newly converted Toronto Raptors fans. As the clock counted down to ten seconds, I knew - everyone in the building knew - that this game was over. The Raptors had, collectively, played the game of their lives - but they couldn’t win. Not tonight, and not against these Chicago Bulls. The basketball gods could add five, ten, fifteen more minutes to the clock and it wouldn’t help them. They were still young novices at this game and the master was about to show them what championship basketball involved.
As calmly as you or I drink a glass of tap water, or brush our teeth, or read the newspaper, Jordan dribbled to a spot on the floor and casually launched a twenty-foot jump shot. Time expired as it spun perfectly in the air. It swished beautifully through the net to give Jordan his 33rd point of the night. The crowd gaped in unison, cheered for a moment, and then it was over. Without so much as a fist-pump or a smile, Jordan calmly trotted off the court as if it were the end of the half. He simply turned, ran off the court to scattered, stunned applause, and disappeared.
III.
That feeling came over me again as I watched the Patriots put away the Jaguars coolly on Saturday night. It was much more akin to the coolness of Jordan rather than the earlier ferocity of Tyson. Brady completed all but two of his passes (two “shoulda had it”-type drops by his receivers) with the same calm that comes over you or I when we relax on a couch or eat a burger. It didn’t matter what the Jaguars did, the Patriots simply went about their business with an other-worldly efficiency. I saw about four or five mistakes by the offense all night - one sack allowed, two dropped passes, and two missed blocks. It was easy perfection.
That’s why, for all of the speculation that followed my last post, I am sure (as sure as I have been of anything) that the next few weeks are all but done. It doesn’t matter what the other teams do, or how well they play. Their highest level would have been championship-caliber football on any other occasion. But not this year - this year, we are seeing something that you see maybe once or twice in a lifetime.
Three times if you’re lucky.
David
2 comments January 14th, 2008
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