Stealthy Germans that made my weekend fun

and

but not

Mavs Thoughts

* Where was the Eva Longoria Cam in Friday night's win? Maybe she's stopped following the Mavs? I sure hope not.

* In the last 4 minutes of tight games, there are certain teams that just seem to get fiestier, more aggressive, and just like to clamp down. These teams win a lot. I think of the Shaq Lakers, the Pistons, and yes, the Spurs. These Mavs of mine, they are not like that. Where other teams increase in intensity, Mavs just start hoping more. They begin to say "oh. I sure hope we don't lose this game. I sure hope we might possibly make a shot or two, etc." I used to know another team like this--my old Rockets. They begin to get that butt-pucker, take weird shots, don't push the offense, etc. It's a lot like the Prevent D the Oilers have favored. My pal Chris Havard would always say, "yes, the Prevent D works: it prevents us from winning." I always liked that line.

* Same guy, different position:

Same mormony ineffectiveness, same striking whiteness, same sex appeal.

About School Spirit... Again

When I was 17 years old and starting Higher Education, I was pretty jazzed about the whole thing. I really loved the idea of being part of this academic community, where there was a commonness amidst incredible variety. I liked rubbing shoulders with would-be engineers, politicos, and poets, all in a day's span; I liked hearing lectures on subjects that I'd never think about again; I liked there being a gigantic organization that was forever churning out concerts, intramural sports, community service projects, etc. all for my participation and enjoyment. It was good.

Now, having said that, I also understood that what I (and, to a larger degree, my parents) had done was to buy into a CORPORATION. They were a service company that offered educational environments. We could USE the word 'family', we could propagandize some sort of birthright or brotherhood, etc., but our commonality was really on a par with everybody using the same brand of toothpaste. At my particular school, there was a very involved and complex system of expectations and inferences that presumably obligated people to act a certain way (raise your hands over your head at ballgames at specific times, based on what your year is), talk a certain way (always say HOWDY when you pass people on the sidewalks), and even buy into specific moralities (the hallowed "Aggie Code" which means that we never, say it with me Ags, "Lie, Cheat, or Steal"). Looking back, it was bizarre. I think I've chronicled here, before, about the appeal to the Spirit of Aggieland at bonfires and what not and it felt awfully religious and scary. But I now see that this is how institutions work, and communal buy-in is simply a way to 1) control people, and 2) propagate yourself. So we can say that telling your family members about your wonderful experience is just a way for them, too, to get the best out of their collegiate experience, or we can see that this is corporate marketing in a folksy dressing.


Either way, I came away from my university experience having had a wonderful time, loving all that it entailed, but being remorseful that I dropped $300 (or whatever it was) on my Senior Ring, which now resides in a box in our spare bedroom. I will occasionally wear a t-shirt with my old school on it, out of nostalgia or something, but I can't say that I have School Spirit in the strictest sense. I feel no ownership in that particular corporation. And I certainly didn't have a wedding cake that resembled this in any way:

And now for something totally different...

You may think this is "lame" or "pointless" or "megalomaniacal" or "Oprahlicious", but a WHOLE NEW BLOG has been created by yours truly. Think of it! Another page of MMMEEEEEE. Let me tell you all about it:

I do a little teaching thing here in Cincinnati, where I get a few friends together then tell them some stuff I'm seeing God saying in the scriptures and in the world around me. I make them listen to me for hours at a time. THEN, they sometimes insinuate that I haven't COMPLETELY and EXHAUSTIVELY covered a subject (can you believe this?) by wanting to ask QUESTIONS about what I've said. Unfortunately, I manage to be so seldom available for phone calls or conversations that I inadvertantly evade their inquiries. It's too bad, how it is. In any case, it's more efficient (and probably more beneficial to others) to create AN ENTIRELY NEW WEB PAGE ON THE INTERNET so that people can ask questions and throw them around to other people and we can all have input and think aloud, etc. [Yeah, basically, it's just another friggin blog. So throw a parade, already.]


Anyhow, I wanted you peeps to be aware of it. It's asksteven.blogspot.com. I think you'll really enjoy typing in those letters (or copying/pasting them), then pressing return. And, watch out! This page's design features DOTS. Yowza!

So this is what it's like to be Ronnie.

(Oh, I think I need to release some gas. But right here at my desk? Is that appropriate? Okay, I'm kidding. [Bwoop.] Wait a second. That feeling of uncertainty tells me that this could be more than what it as first seemed. I'd better not push... oh crap. I feel wetness around my sphincter... don't tell me. Oh no!)

Man runs out of office. Zoom in on man's rear, which features a growing dark spot of wetness.



So now I'm sitting here, at work on a Monday, literally stewing in my own juices. And I'm not even mad about anything! I am excited, though, to have visited this place:

A Word About This Address

This is ALWAYS a painful subject to breech, but I find myself coming back to it time and again. It's basically this:

Ladies, I like you and all, but this web page is just not for you.

There, I said it. Again. I've had several uncomfortable conversations with the lady folk about this, and I just had another with my friend Rachel Peters, who chipped a couple of comments in last week, to my surprise and sadness. I know people like LeRay and E come here and look in, and I'm really okay with that: it's just the comments that weird us guys out. We need to feel free to speak openly and guyly one to another, and we might feel condemned or constricted with the fairer sex looking in. And that's really it--I want the locker room feel. As I've mentioned this dilemma with other guys, I am universally lauded by them for wanting to speak out about this.

I haven't done this in the past, I don't think, so let me now tell you why this page was born: I have friends hither (see hamster) and yon (see cardinalzen), to (theRod) and fro (Totila) who know me and with whom I'd like to talk more frequently than I'm able. As I see it, this medium simply allows me to scatter my stories over a wide swath at once. That way, I don't have to repeat experiences in Africa on the phone with each person, or tell each person what I think God's saying to me. I can talk to Washington D.C., California, and Texas all in one go. It's nice. Also, I forget a lot of stuff, and this is a good capturing spot. Unfortunately, I find much humor in body noises, my anatomy, etc., and I just want to be able to talk about these things freely with the guys I love, for right or wrong. I want the feeling of being on my back porch with ace, while I drink Sprecher Root Beer, and he drinks actual beer, and we both burp and get honest and not guarded with our words.

I have to say, here, that I might be wrong in wanting this at all, or maybe I want something I can't have. I'm open to correction on this from whoever may be listening in. Really. But I'm just stating my viewpoint. Open and transparent, as Mark tells me to be. Pity me, sure, but don't hate me. Please.

And there it is.


ps- I'm sorry to all onlookers I may have just now offended.
pps- Totila, I'm sorry you were labeled as "Fro". That is not an epithet.
ppps- now I'm feeling kind of... sheepish.

What hath God wrought?

This is a picture of a man so beaten down by life, so utterly destroyed by the banal, the colorless, and the mundane, that he resorts to novelty band-aids shaped like bacon and eggs for some sort of cheap thrill. This is a man who is so starved for activity and meaning in his life that he would inexplicably run a half marathon in a completely foreign state, at the Home of Country Music, just to see if he would still be alive at the end. It's a man who would let his own wife strong-arm him into rising at 4:45am, on a day off, to compete in a sport he doesn't even really enjoy. My God, look at this lump of flesh.

And this is a picture of that same man, with his eyes closed. He would run a respectable 2 hours, and his wife would convincingly beat him by something like 8 minutes.


Here are some of the 23,000 other lemmings that participated.

A dairy tale

My pal Kelly told me this story, and it blew my heart up through my nose:


Kelly has a son named Mac, and Mac can be petulant just like he's a 4 year old boy. Anyway, Kelly takes Mac, sometimes, when she's feeling generous and motherly, to go get ice cream. They have to walk by the United Dairy Farmers store, which, to all of you people out there, sounds like some sort of "tradin' post" where men wearing straw hats and flannel shirts trade with butter and cheese. It is, instead, a popular convenience store that happens to sell ice cream also (think 7-11 with a Baskin Robbins built into it). When they walk by the UDF (as we Cincinnatians call them), Mac throws an absolute FIT, acting like his mother has held out on him, and life is terrible, and my guardian is a liar and isn't even looking OUT for me, oh WOE IS ME!!! kind of thing.


Kelly rolls her eyes a little then smiles sweetly and keeps dragging along this frustrated Mac-boy until they get to the Graeter's Ice Cream place. Graeter's is "Oprah's Favorite Ice Cream"; it is very rich and sweet and indulgent--much better quality ice cream than what UDF has on offer. Also, there's a big park/playground right by the ice cream store where Mac and Kelly can dawdle and lick their cones and swing a little bit--way better than the cigarette butt-littered intersection where the UDF store is situated. It's just a better world, all the way around. But Mac couldn't see that. Mac wanted Cheap and Quick. Mac would sell out INSTANTLY to expediency.


Kids sure are stupid, huh?

About titles

Don't you think it's weird how the guy at the front on Sunday mornings always holds the title "pastor"? Maybe not. I do. I started feeling that way in high school, since that guy had no idea who I was or what my life was like. How could I call him my pastor, since pastor means "shepherd", and shepherds are generally thought to know something about their sheep's whereabouts, health, anxiety levels, etc. I realized that the guy who wore the title was NOT the guy who had the function.

Back off that example, and the same thing happens all over the place. People want titles to compliment their giftings, so that everyone can know at a glance that they're leaders, they're proven, they have some pull. I mean, once you've spent a few years serving people, why go through the whole thing again? Just let your past speak for you via a title, and you don't have to go through the ignominy (and time waste) of serving people that don't know how great you are yet. It's a nice shorthand. Give me a title, and I don't have to prove myself anymore. Trust the title. I AM the bishop. Or the apostle. Or the evangelist. Etc.

Am I sounding negative? I hope not, but I'm quoting bad examples. They ARE bad. What I see more and more is that gifts are really just functions within the body. Functions. Do you receive pastoring from me? Then, as far as you're concerned, I function as a pastor to you. Let me know that, that will help me. But if Bob receives TEACHING from me, then to Bob, I serve as a teacher. And maybe I'm that way to him today, but not as much tomorrow. And that's fine. But if, over years, Dan sees that I serve as a prophetic voice to many people in many situations, then Dan can call out my function there, over time. Gifts are called out by body members, not by people themselves. If somebody tells you "I'm Steven. I'm a prophet," you will naturally be wary of Steven. He will concern you. John wrote that Jesus didn't give any credence to man's testimony about himself. He could see what he was by how he interacted with other people. Here's a snippet from Matthew 23:

6[Pharisees] love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;
7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

8"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.
9And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.
10Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.
11The greatest among you will be your servant.
12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

What planet does Jesus live on? This is NOT the way it works. The whole point of the institutional system, if you traffic in it, is to be Noticed and Given a Platform and Recognized. And that stuff is filthy, absolutely filthy. I don't know if you know how it feels to be introduced as a "great worship leader" or have people say that you're a teacher, or something like that (not like that's your function, but as if that office is Who You Are), but it feels great. Trying to get off that pedastal and back to the Mat. 23 place where we're all brothers is like killing yourself, over and over. And I guess that's the point. But how can we possibly avoid the fact that when organizations label their people with religious terms like Head Pastor, they're in direct violation of this passage? Well, we can't. We're all brothers, and that's where the titles stop.

Here's what Paul said about all this mind-numbing jockeying for honor, in I Cor. 3:

3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
10...each one should be careful how he builds.
11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
18Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise.
21So then, no more boasting about men!

We're just fellow workers. So we'd better be careful about talking about people as if there is some sort of division between those who're REALLY gifted and "the rest of us". And we sure as hell should be careful if you're ever treated as one of these "specially gifted ones." Hello? Paul also says in I Cor 12 that "those parts that SEEM 'honorable' require NO SPECIAL HONOR." So we'd be wise to get off the high horse that our flesh (and that of others, too!) likes for us to be on, and humble ourselves and get some grace. This titles thing is dangerous ground.

The funny thing is, we're supposed to recognize our leaders--we're told that. And we should look for the pastors, teachers, evangelists, apostles, and prophets. We should know them, since they're gifts to us from God. But it gets sticky when we laud them as something other than us, as a cut above. We ARE to bless them for their service, but maybe not HONOR them. We're to obey them, but not... well, I'm not sure how this all works.

Do I sound a little confused on this issue? Well I am. I'm just talking through the stuff I'm thinking. It's swirled, like the last generation pudding pops that Bill Cosby used to tell me about. I miss those. I really do.

This just in!

Research journalist Matthew McConaugheyhey has recently made some incredibly perceptive statements about professional baseballer Barry Bonds, who's embroiled in a sticky scandal because, now follow me, he has genetically altered his body in a way that his predecessors and competitors have not. So his body is artificially bigger, faster, his head is gigantic, etc. People are talking about this, and getting upset. Luckily, McDonaughey is there to set us all straight:


"If Barry Bonds did take steroids or not, even if you think he did or didn't, you gotta root for him because, whatever is true, or whatever you believe, he's clean now. Fact and perception. So every home run he hits, like the mammoth 452-footer he hit in Philadelphia May 7, is a hit, a home run — for Barry, for baseball. It's a clean pursuit of the record, by maybe the greatest home run hitter ever to play the game. ...'Roids or not, this man has more than the ability, but the talent, to be the greatest home run hitter in baseball history, and I think he is. So, believe what you want, guilty or not, what the future tells or not, we should, and do, all root for Barry Bonds to break every record in baseball's home run history."



Man, this helps me, coming from a respected physician like McConaughey. Wait a second... now I'm seeing... hey, this guy's not a journalist NOR any sort of doctor! This guy's a freaking ACTOR! He's a dope-smoking actor doing that Tom Cruise-style "Up With Everything" cheerleading! His opinion has no merit whatsoever!


Oh, okay. Uh... oh. Nevermind.



Ps--I'll say again that the guy should've been put away after making "A Time To Kill", which was a film I rather enjoyed.

South Africa Part One

South African people are better than us. Well, I can't really say that, can I?

South African people are not better than us, they just sin less. Wait, no, that's not right, either.

South African people are not taller than us, but they're nice and happy and give of themselves like crazy. Well, that's a little patronizing. The people I met were like that, but I only met SOME of the South Africans. I have not met them all.

My Didi and I stayed in a house one night in a township. A township is something that white people made up when they decided that they wanted to legislate a separation between them and black people, so they sent the black people to the far, far outskirts of town without money, to sort of scrounge around and make things livable for themselves, even though all the money and power and jobs were controlled by the white people. It wasn't fair. But that's the way it was, and though the machinery that made those divisions have been dismantled, the divisions, for the most part, are still there.

For instance #1: Didi and I were told we were the first while people to EVER stay the night in the township called Nelson Mandela. I will remind you that apartheid was made official in 1948. That's 58 years ago.

For instance #2: My friend Andrew went to buy supplies at the hardware store in Pretoria, and they were all excited about our big American purchasing powers. The guy just happened to ask Andrew what it was for. Andrew told him we were going to build houses in the townships. The guy suddenly became mysteriously unhelpful: "No, sorry, we don't have CAULK. You'll have to go somewhere else to find that, I guess." "Nails? No, I don't really know where we could find NAILS for you. Maybe some other store will have NAILS for you." We eventually got what we needed, but Andrew wanted to twist that guys sack right off its moorings. I don't know that that would've solved anything, but it's how he felt.

--Fortunately, some things ARE gone. Like the law that said that black people had to register parties in their homes with the police, or else the police could come in and throw everybody in jail since it might be political; or the law that said all black people had to be out of the cities by 8pm or you'd get thrown into jail; or the law that said that only 2 black people could walk side-by-side in the cities, and 3 was a mob and you get thrown into jail. Those laws are no longer enforced, like they were in 1992 when I was a junior in college and knew nothing about any of this.

Anyhow, Didi and I stayed in this precious stuccoed cinder block house without running water, and were hosted by Conny Mthombeni and her boys Sempiwe and Nkosinathi. We bathed in a plastic tub, and used an outhouse. We saw that, in this community of poverty, people are CONSTANTLY reliant on one another for basic needs, and everyone is happy in that system. We went a few doors down with Conny and visited Bopi, and while we were there, 19-year-old Niko stuck his head in to say that his father was out of town for a few days and did anyone have some food for him? Conny said "I'm making dinner for these people in an hour. Come back then and I'll feed you." I thought, "way to go, Conny."

Niko did come by, along with about 8 others (we were told it's a custom that, when someone has a visitor, everyone is to come by and meet the visitor. A good custom), but Niko was the only one who, after dinner, asked us to tell him all about God and then responded by asking Jesus to love him and save him away from all the pain and sickness in his heart. Wowee.

Conny's friend Daphne came by with her girl, also (fathers are a rarity in South Africa), and they brought a dish along to the dinner feast: Mautwana. This is boiled chicken's FEET. I know that sounds really great, but remember what you know of a chicken's foot: it's really hard skin. So when you boil it, it (eventually) absorbs water, and becomes fat and puffy and slimy like okra. Now, I'm not a fan of chicken WINGS because you have to fight through so much nonsense to get to the MEAT part, and with FEET, the problem is even worse: there's a tiny tiny SLIVER of meat under all this freaking SKIN and TENDONS and CRAP. I said with gusto that I'd try one, then proceeded to dismantle the foot in an effort to find the food inside. I was told that, no, what I was removing IS the dish, so I sheepishly ate it. IT WASN'T VERY GOOD.

I have a habit of throwing stuff like chicken skin away. But South Africans not only eat the skin, they eat the tendons and EVEN THE BONES. Yup: crunch, crunch, crunch. Bone eating. Awesome. We left Conny 100 Rand, which is about 15 bucks. This was equivalent to two weeks' money for their household. Are the South Africans better than us? Maybe not at everything, but at eating bones and being hospitable? Yes. Yes they are.

This time, I'm ready

I have not been prepared in years past for the disintegration of the Mavs at the hands of the Spurs. I have been disappointed and frustrated. But I think those things are behind me. I believe that I am, as Paul encouraged me to do, putting behind childish things. I am now quite ready for the Mavs to stumble on their own shoelaces, for whatever random reason, and JUST ALMOST win, but not quite. I am ready. It feels good, this preparedness.

No, that bracket isn't from this year. But that's not what this is about.


Also, this:

SAME GUY

Today's War Story

I couldn't have known when I pulled up to the toll booth of the $4 lot that I would meet that thin, aging black man. I couldn't have known about his Purple Heart baseball hat, and that if I'd ask him about it, he'd tell me all about being injured in the artillery in the war in Vietnam, and that the next thing out of my mouth would be the only thing I could think of in response:



"You did that for me? You did that for ME?"

At which point his eyes would meet mine (for the first time), then he'd pause, and with a smile steadily eating up his face, he'd say:

"Yes. I did. Yes, I most certainly did."





I pulled into my spot and sat there and cried. It's not every day you get to meet a savior who defends you against an enemy you've never seen for freedom you didn't know needed defending, be able to live your life as nothing more than a beneficiary of wars fought for you outside of your awareness, and then, at just the right time, be able to thank the one that did that for you. What could I possibly give this guy? A candy bar? [Yes, do that.] Could I buy him a Coke? [Yes, do that, too.] But these are simply tokens of gratitude; they could never come close to REPAYING him. And you know, he didn't want that. He certainly doesn't want me to go experience the hell he endured, taking a mortar from a guy named Charlie and have schrapnel splatter me against the ceiling. He doesn't want me to have to load 16-inch mortars all day and blow my eardrums out.

But he loved hearing thanks. And I loved saying it. I said it three times, and got a high five from my savior.

It was a good day.