In this city sports

lately, the Kid is up on all the sports news. You benefit by having the opportunity for some of my hot opiniones.

I've been working on my house a little, which means lots of ESPN radio (thank you Cincinnati for FINALLY bringing ESPN radio to me one month ago. Can you believe I live in a mid-level city of over a million and ESPN just now came to us? Boy are we ever backwater! So sad.), and never missing a podcast from Kornheiser nor Bill Simmons. Let the thoughts begin:

-I am more informed now about the playoff picture in Major League Baseball than I have ever been since 1986, when my DisAstros faced Doc Gooden and his Mets in the championship series. And let me just reiterate what we've all known for a while: BASEBALL STINKS. It's just perfectly irrelevant. The only name anybody cares about in that entire sport is Barry Bonds, who's our biggest picture of going around the law since O.J. And O.J. could take that mantle back soon, making Bonds, and all of baseball, that much more of a footnote. Baseball was called America's pasttime, because people would tune in to pass the time. Passing the time is no longer an issue with anybody, as far as I'm aware, thus we don't have time to give 4 hours to watch a guy throw a baseball back and forth with his catcher, interspersed with occasion tip fouls and guys hitting the ball into the air, after which the ball is almost always caught by someone waiting below. I have more to say, but I'll move it to another point:

-I and Mrs. Kid were treated to a Reds game a few nights ago (verses... the LAstros! Alright! by the way, do you know how many names I recognized from the Houston roster? Two! Lance Berkman and Biggio! Alright! I would also like to point out that Cincinnati has a pitcher named Jon Coutlangus, which is a very private matter between a husband and wife and I don't know why that should be allowed at a supposedly family event like a baseball game), and we got to sit in the luxury box. This meant free food (disappointing, really--it was the pressed and ground pork products we find in sausage-based foods and other 'finger foods' like cheese quesadillas and Caesar salad. What I'm saying is that it was cheap food. By the way, anybody seen Fast Food Nation? I'm not a horror movie guy, but I bet even the most callous heart would be petrified and utterly revolted by their shots of the Kill Floor at a meat-packing company. I mean, some of the more horrible footage ever. Absolutely stomach-wrenching. Anyway, back to the quesadillas). It also meant being so close behind home plate that, while Mrs. Didi was up refreshing her grapefruit juice, a foul ball (they love those in baseball. It's one of the most exciting, get-the-fans-involved plays in all of the sport, and IT DOESN'T COUNT AT ALL) came SIZZLING at us, smacking right under her seat and careening to the box next to us. Why didn't you grab it? you might ask. Um, 1) I was eating cut-rate bratwurst, and 2) it was coming extremely fast, and 3) I couldn't name either the pitcher or the hitter in that situation, or the score, or even who won the game (that's a lie. The Reds lost). I didn't care.

Indiscrete.

-To football. I'm enjoying the Chargers' unravelling after all their mouthiness and talk of Tomlinson's huge season (And is he allowed to call himself LT? Didn't Lawrence Taylor already take that? Does Tomlinson intend to supplant one of the great linebackers of all time? And what would happen if Elton Brand started calling himself Magic? Wouldn't he be looked at ASKANCE? Kudos to me for using "askance").

-Hey, can anybody out there name a black tight end?


-I wish gambling wasn't so closely linked to football. Simmons spends a good 15 minutes each week just talking about the betting lines with certified meathead Cousin Sal. Why tarnish sport with the filthy lucre? Oh yeah, we're in America.

-Hey here's a newsflash: the Bengals secondary... wait for it... STINKS!! Hey, there's something you don't see every month! Nope, you have to wait till September to see that. Having a porous secondary helmed by Deltha (or is it Delta? I don't care to look it up) O'Neal is a Cincinnati tradition on a par with Tall Stacks (a riverboat festival. Sound awesome? It is, it is.) or funky chili. Man is that team poor. And Carson Palmer looked terrible last week. And our receivers didn't like catching (shades of Jeffires from Oiler teams of the 90s. Anybody?). But you know what? It wouldn't surprise me if they got blown out by 30 Monday night, or won by 12. They are that stupid.

-Speaking of Monday night, I'm going to be out of town, but I will NOT be missing that game. I'm still a Colts fan, and I know there are plenty of people who do not feel this way, but I'm fascinated by that Pats team. I wouldn't say I'm a fan, but I do enjoy watching that team and I definitely don't hate them. Can we all at least agree that Brady's PRETTY GOOD? Are we all aware that he's completing 80% of his passes, and that his rating is like 145 right now? That's crazy! So crazy, I have to move on to the NBA

-I fully expect the Mavs to put together a somewhat better-looking team this year. I expect that we'll shore up whatever miniscule weaknesses the front office thinks they see, then we'll look "pretty solid... pretty darn solid!" during the regular season, then get a bucket to the shins in the postseason. I say that team should be blown up. You can't have two playoffs in a row like we've had and not have it mess with your brain. You can't tell me that, come late May, in a must-win game 6, Dirk or Jerry aren't going to look around the floor and think to themselves, "Well, this is pretty much the same crew. What could possibly be the difference this time around? Nick Fazekas?" I would also just like to point out that Kevin Willis is on the team, and that Kevin Willis was playing professional basketball (for Atlanta? not sure) when I was in the ninth grade. NINTH grade. That means, I think, that Shaq was in the 8th grade. What I'm saying, I guess, is that Willis is old.

-If you think I'm going to go out of my way this year to watch as many Celtics as I possibly can, i think you're right. KG won't know what to do with PLAYERS wearing the same jersey as him. I'm intrigued to know what this will do to his fantasy numbers, but Daddy says they're going up. He's such a performer that he would never want to be perceived as the weak link, even surrounded by two other superstars.


-The dirty dirty sinner in me wants to see Marion traded to a nothing team like Utah, and Kobe to be exiled to bad L.A. teams forever. How dare Marion gripe about being with Scrappy Nash! Little Stevie's the best thing that ever happened to him, because he opens up the floor and makes the game frenetic. I find Shawn's trade request because he's 'underappreciated' reminiscent of Latrell Sprewell's insistence that $14M/year wasn't enough money, because he had "mouths to feed". I love that one. So Mr. Marion, here's hoping you find a contender on par with these fabulous Suns because, buddy, you won't. And when you're the only player on the floor, and the defense is cueing off you, and you struggle to put up 15 points a night, I don't know what to tell you. You'll have your ego to keep you warm, I guess.

-Enough sports. This took too long.

Please oh please click on the title of this post.

Strip it way back, way back, way back

I can't really explain what this does to me. This is the son of a friend of mine, playing with his dad. I have a permanent grin plastered on my face when I watch this. It nearly makes me cry. This isn't about trained skill trotted out for show, it's about joy and passion. And I could be wrong here, but I think the reason this 3-year old is cool with doing this loud, raucous thing on a stage in front of a hundred people is because he trusts his father. When he looks up at dad while he's playing (1:25), that gets me big time. Enjoy this on whatever level you want, Sam's time is pretty terrific, I mean listen to his fills! I ripped this off Thad's blog, which you can go to by clicking the title of this post.

My Big Balancing Act-o

I know that some people in some states (Texas) see me as the out-there, crazy charismaticky guy. I was certainly looking for dreams and visions and tongues and demons and miracles when many of my friends were not, so that's not an unreasonable thing to think about me. Fair enough. I chafe against the labels, of course, but I guess I did that to myself. I was also seen as That Guy Who Believes in the Kooky at my last job. Eh, okay.

What I've found in the last couple of years, though, is that I'm counseling more and more guys to just get stable; take it slow and be established by God. I'm very sensitive about people who're tempted to go after that spectacular stuff, but are a little ambivalent about discipline and faithfulness (maybe because that sounds a lot like me). It feels a little odd to be somebody who believes in that Spirit baptism stuff and thinks he's had dreams from God, etc., who then says to guys, "you need to get a haircut and a job and start faithfully paying a mortgage." You get me? There's some residual angst from my 20s that says "sellout! Go for the Crazy! Hey, do you want a combover to go with your American conservatism? Can I get you a latte, you loser?" But here's what really typifies where I'm at these days, ambition-wise. It's about Moses, the most humble guy in the world, and the guy that God talked to face-to-face. Listen to this:

Numbers 12 God says-

"When a prophet of the LORD is among you,
I reveal myself to him in visions,
I speak to him in dreams.
7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face,
clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the LORD.

Now God was very proud of his relationship with Moses, and he's bragging about it to Miriam and Aaron. What he says is "I have prophets who I speak to in flashy, showy, 'wonderous' ways, but it's not like that with Moses. With Moses (who was also a prophet), because of our FRIENDSHIP, I don't do all the fancy stuff. I just talk to him normal-like, and he gets it. He sees what I'm doing, and that's all I need. The spooky, mystical displays are unneccessary with Moses. He just sees me."

MmmmmMMMMM! Anybody smell that? You know, I really, really believe in the verse where Jesus says that we'll do greater works than he did. And I'm excited to see them. I just talked to my friend Dave last night, and he's seen 2 people in the last 2 weeks get healed of pinched nerves in their backs, with which they've struggled for years and years. And I say YEEEAAAHHH!! when I hear that. But I'm not asking God for those greater works. And I'm not asking to be taken to the third heaven like Paul. And I'm not asking for angelic visitations or open visions. I'm just not asking for anything 'amazing' to happen to me. I'm open to that, of course, but that's not what I'm after. I'm after friendship with God. If he wants to send those messages to me in crazy ways, okay, but I'd rather he talked to me while I'm rummaging around the fridge or working on the house. I'd rather I was an easy get for him, so that he could speak "clearly, and not in riddles." Also, I see here that Moses could see the form of the LORD. That's a clear parallel, to me, of properly discerning the Body of Christ (which is what Paul said had to happen before one took communion, by the way). I want to recognize the true Body, and the Kingdom, and just walk with God. Somebody else can have tongues in the night. I'd rather be like Moses, a humble friend of God's.

I did a little study of faithfulness last year, and GOD REALLY LOVES IT. To him, it's the defining trait that makes someone trustable. He would set people up as elders, make them the leader of his people, reccommend them before the devil hisowndamnself, etc. just based on the virtue of faithfulness. I have (silently) taken shots at faithful men in the past because I didn't see 'the electricity of the Spirit' running through their lives. Well, that was pure immaturity on my part. Humility and faithfulness have no equal in the LORD's eyes, and I feel like I'm coming back into balance on this stuff. SIMPLIFYING, ISN'T IT??

ps- I do not hate coffee drinkers.
Also- I found this. Always loved the idea of Frankenberry for breakfast, but was never allowed.

Today, I do you a Favor

You bettah wake up and smell a real flava
Cause 9-1-1 is a fake life saver, yo.

Our lives are too short to be wasting them on french fries and Steak-Umm. You fellas deserve deliciousness, and I'm the man to give it ya. Do not screw with this recipe. It's the spank. Also, be inspired by that out-of-focus photograph

Black Bean Dip- hells yeah
3 15oz cans black beans, rinsed
1 can Rotel (insist upon it)
1 chopped sweet onion
1/2 c. chopped cilantro
3 jalepenos, chopped and seeded (optional)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2T lime juice
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1T red wine vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 c. canola oil
2T Tony's seasoning
1/2 tsp pepper
1T Frank's Red Hot Sauce

It is worth every bit of it. Don't let the length of the items dissuade you. Nothing comes easy that's worth having. Even grace was hell to arrange. Praise God by eating this greatness with some sturdy chips (around my dump, we love Snyder's white corn tortillas). My God, the flavors!

Says So Right Here

I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God's wrath is COMPLETED. -Revelation 15:1

The steadfast love of the LORD NEVER CEASES. -Lamentations 3:22

Wrath will peter out. Love is built for eternity. Wrath sprints. Love is a distance runner.

I knew it.

She did that thing she do.

...some of those present were saying "why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly.
"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing..."

I was looking out the window this morning at a little sparrow who'd found a crust of bread (yes, literally, a CRUST) and brought it to a little out of the way place (my porch) to eat it. He was spare and wan and just not a pretty thing. But as I sat there considering his odd birdly ways, I thought "no, he's not pretty... But he's beautiful. Wonderful work there, God." It's obvious when you consider a dog or a tree that a man didn't build this thing and never EVER could even hope to approximate it. It's a miracle. For me, the point to Creator Dad is all but impossible to miss.

Now, with people, it can be a little more convoluted. Our words and actions can point to us, not Him, and they can point to something base and wretched with which all of us are familiar but none of us desire. And we get calloused to it, because we like things pretty, sometimes, more than beautiful. And I think, I don't know... maybe there's a difference. So I was wondering, as I looked at this verse, if the definition of beauty is That Which Glorifies God. You can call that worship, I guess--making much of Him. Around my house, we dig O'Keefe and Lichtenstein and Renoir... and Bill Watterson, and Steinbeck, and Chris Martin. Beauty. So do we have the very creative power of God to look at something Not Pretty and declare it Beautiful, just by the way we see it and the virtuous power of our word? Um. Yeah. Yeah, I say we do. And I'm gonna say that's a version of worship. "He has made everything beautiful in its time. And he has also put eternity into the hearts of men." Ecclesiastes 3:11

That awesome hooker turned a proper dinner party into a worship service, and Jesus saw it in an instant. (Beautiful) worship-redeemed the standard into glory- never goes unnoticed by the Shepherd. When we're not thinking right, we might see a scruffy, worn-out looking sparrow. I think He sees beauty. And oh, that our sight would be more like his today.

God, beauty is hard to explain
dancing shadows and light through the rain
every kiss in the world wouldn’t make you feel better
Human formulas ravel in time
Strange equations of rhythm and rhyme
Could it be that we’re both just slaves to the weather

beauty
where to find it
can’t be far
beauty
where you hiding?
tell me, I'll go where you are

Is there precision in arcs or in lines?
Or is there truth in miraculous signs?
it made me wish we were back in our beds sleeping soundly
Dreams spin designs

Cause every tear your silly eye bleeds
Is it your soul or emotional needs?
I want to find a beautiful place
Is there a hope of salvation today?

beauty
where to find it
can’t be far
beauty
where you hiding?
tell me, I'll go where you are

------------
apologies to David Mead

Basketball's Mike Tyson

He cannot stop himself.


NEW YORK-Knicks guard Stephon Marbury testified Wednesday in the case of a fired team executive who has accused coach Isiah Thomas of sexual harassment, calling the lawsuit absurd while downplaying an encounter with a drunken intern.

After hearing about the lawsuit brought by Anucha Browne Sanders, "I laughed," Marbury said in U.S. District Court. "It was more of a joke than anything."

Marbury admitted he once called Browne Sanders a "bitch," though he insisted, "I didn't have a reason not to like her."

Browne Sanders says she is owed her vice president position back and at least $10 million for enduring a sexually harassing workplace for five years. Her lawsuit claims she was fired "for telling the truth" about vulgarity and unwanted advances by Thomas, also a team president. Thomas has denied the allegations.

Taking the witness stand earlier Wednesday, Browne Sanders wept while telling the jury of five women and three men that Marbury and his cousins, also Madison Square Garden employees, were part of the problem.

The plaintiff cited a conversation with an MSG intern who confided that she was having a relationship with one of the cousins and had gotten drunk on an outing to a Manhattan strip club in April 2005 that included Marbury. The intern claimed that afterward Marbury lured her into his vehicle for sex, Browne Sanders said.

"She said she basically did whatever he asked her to do and she considered it to be consensual because she got in the car," Browne Sanders testified.

When he took the stand, Marbury admitted pulling up and asking the intern, "Are you going to get in the truck?" He said she answered, "Yes."

U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch cut off any more questioning on the encounter, saying more details wouldn't help the jury decide the case.

After Marbury finished testifying, he rode down 23 floors in a crowded elevator, saying to no one in particular: "Money makes you do crazy things, man."

Then he left the courthouse, smiling and singing a song out loud. When pressed to divulge more about his relationship with the intern, he instead commented cheerfully on a reporter's shoes

Poetry Co-nah, Ya'll

Cursed and vexed
Bereft of hope
Lies fruitless ground outside my door
Where dreams of
Gardens' satisfactions,
Dirt- and dung-stained, hit the floor
I tried repeated
Plots for planting:
Mint and melon, cumin, dill
And every swallow
Of its bitter
Failure was a bitt'rer pill
If fertilized;
Still derelict!
Infused with life; birthed only death!
Symbolic of
My own frustration:
Stilled a violet's guileless breath.
Finally fit
For desperation
I'd imported vibrant soil
But fallow, clayey
Languid land
Unearthed me! as the greener foil
Interred the
Nutrients I'd offered
Swallowed up without a trace
Unfulfilling
Unproductive
Muck and mud left in its place

Enough of madd'ning
Earth! I hear my
Brother Jacob's rung the chime
He's left another
Lady love and
Needs my comfort one more time.

Same Guy!

Both of these men threaten to taste their nose when they grin.

Fame II: Go Low!

These should be read in reverse order. Read the post below this one ("Fame") first.

And one more thing about fame. I forgot this part, but this was one of the first things that got me thinking this way.

My pal Bennythebull makes music videos and has worked with MTV and met a lot of famous people along the way. Recently, he went to a Big Country Music concert and was backstage. His colleague, a man who has also worked with famous people, was inexplicably jumpy about "being so close to this star! He's right THERE!" Bennythebull was rather disgusted with the lines of girls who just wanted to be close to someone they've seen in such a glamourous light. They wanted to kiss him, touch him, have some memento of their contact. Strangers. Weird.

Later's the big music star's video producer told benny that sometimes, when the star's down and feeling like he doesn't want to do his job (be it recording, shooting a video, or some other 'behind the scenes' work--BORING!), she loads him up in a car, takes him to the touristy parts of Nashville, and pops him into the public, who twitter and wriggle at his presence. When he gets back into the car after a half hour, he's magically motivated to go make the next hit.

I don't tell that story because I have anything against this country star. I tell it because there's something for us to learn, in the way we relate to The Famous or, if you're RK or TH or thad or jiff anybody who puts themself in front of others, how to deal with BEING that person.

Again I'll say that Jesus walks away from such things. In Mark 1, his disciples found him (praying all alone in the middle of nowhere! Come on, Jesus! That's not savvy on your part!), and told him "hey! Woo hoo! There's a whole bunch of people over there waiting for you! You can teach them the gospel and we can sell t-shirts and make a website! The kingdom will advance! They want you Jesus! Now go make the world a better place, sport!"

As you may know, Jesus unceremoniously turns around and says "then we'll go somewhere else. I have to go to places where they don't know me."

Fame, in my opinion, is just a hyped-up version of Being Cool, which is one of the greatest American virtues. The music star is COOL, and his fame and his coolness feed off (and inflate) one another until he pops (and he most likely will). It will always bother me that so many religious people want to make Jesus cool--that's the worldly way to credibility, and it's all we know when we take our cues from the world. Walk into a Christian Bookstore, if you dare, and see if Jesus is presented as a friend to sinners, the punk outsider who loved hookers and theives and completely demonized the religious machinery of his day. Or just save your time and take my word for it: you won't. Jesus is seen as safe and always sweet and, if you wander to the worship music section or the t-shirt section or the kids section or the men's or youth interest section, COOL. You know, I can't stand that "Real Men Love Jesus" bumper sticker; the macho one-upsmanship of that statement kind of makes me want to smash the rear windshield of that F150, because it lies to the world about what our familiar-with-suffering Savior is like. And when religious organizations' great desire is to make Jesus seem palateable, and even aspirational, to those who don't know him, as if joining forces with this guy is the very best way to get the things you already wanted anyway, man, I just want to vomit. Or cry. Or whatever. Go into a local Christian youth group (if you dare) and tell me how it comes across. Or just ask me or Peepee or moljer or Shane or jiff or hamster or whoever. Lots of times, it's good-hearted people trying to do a cool dance to kids who, deep down, don't want more cool posturing, they want to be loved and led. I think Jesus was probably pretty stinky. And mysterious and kind of hard to be around sometimes. And he told his followers they had to drink his blood. Okay... that's not normal. Or cool.

So here's me today, saying to my friends: please don't chase cool. Please don't honor fame. Please take the low place; that's where the grace is, and that's where your Best Friend used to hang around. And when you see me peeking up too high, invite me back down where the grass is soft and the music makes you cry and the laughter isn't mixed with shame. let's go low, my friends, and never go back.

Fame

I had lunch with my friend Kevin today and told him about a story I have yet to relate here, that being the one where I leave my job and jump off into nothingness. Did that a couple of weeks ago. Working for a religious organization always made me a little uneasy, but I knew that's where God had me, and I did find him there. But there was an aspect of the job that always kind of worried me: standing on a stage and having thousands of people listen to your words week after week. I mean, the nonverbal communication is clear in those settings: what the guy up front has to say is more important than what anybody else in here has to say. Right? That's obvious.

Now, our 'public' is those people whom we see casually, the people who comprise the backdrop of our lives. Your public includes the people you see in stores, restaurants, your neighborhood, and at church, school, work, etc. My public was oftentimes the very people sitting in those seats, agreeing to the communication structure that said my words got waaaaay more airtime than theirs. So I might get spoken to in a grocery store by someone I'd not met, but who regarded me anyway. Let me restate: someone was disposed to elevating me even though they didn't know me. That on-stage position alone made people defer to me in many situations, including my work (as ALL of my colleagues also sat in those seats week after week after week). Is this sounding weird yet? It is to me. On some micro-level, I was experiencing what we'd call FAME.

I just heard a TEDtalk by Rick Warren, who's sold over like 30 million copies of a book. Rick was saying that he asked himself why God had given him all the money and influence. I don't know that God gave him those things, but there you have it. Rick concluded something like "I will use this fame to propigate 'goodness' and make the world 'a better place'." So he does the speaking tours and the television shows. Put that on one side.

I was recently talking to an earnest young believer named Michael, whose pure heart and zeal I really love, and we were discussing the subject of Body, Soul, and Spirit. We were reviewing things like "your flesh is in league with the world. You shouldn't let it lead you, because it doesn't go to Godward places." and "your soul is to be protected and guarded, because it's kind of flaky and good at faking you out and you gotta handle that guy with kid gloves." Michael shot out with this comment, which impressed me for its insight and simplicity: "so we should avoid fame and glory at all costs. Is that right? Won't that damage our souls because our flesh likes it so much?" Understand that Michael is an NCAA golf stud, and just played at the US Amateurs in San Francisco. Glory is right there handy for him, in his world, if he wants it. As of now, Michael's take on fame is different than Rick's.

Now, I know that our bodies like rich foods, and rich foods are okay if taken in moderation. They're not in themselves evil. Maybe this is the same with glory, but not a lot of people actually find identity in food. We DO find identity in glory. Jesus, though, had every right (and plenty of opportunity) to be famous and glorious, and he just never took the bait. Instead, he ran from it all. What we see in the scriptures is Humble Yourself, Humble Yourself, Humble Yourself. If you do that, says God, I'll lift you up--to me. OoooOOOO! Now we're talking!

This is one thing I've been thinking about, because of my new unemployment. When I was on the way out, I could actually feel my flesh sometimes saying "are you sure you want to give this up? These people think you fart potpourri, dude! How great is that?" Not the kind of greatness I want, I think. "Guard your heart" says Proverbs 4:23 "for out of it flows the wellspring of life." "Watch out," said Jesus, "be on your guard against all kinds of greed."

.................................

As I've been writing this, I feel that my opinions could come across as arrogant or whatever. If that's so, that's so. But this is what I'm thinking today, and this is where I've been. I'm just throwing it out there.

There Are These Hard Times

Trouble will come and find you and you won't have to look.

That's how it seems these days. I feel surrounded by pain, and it's not that fun. I have recently encountered the following:

-a couple who've been denied AGAIN for international adoption
-a couple who've been told that their newborn is possibly mentally retarded
-a friend who's talking about divorce
-a couple trapped by money's deceiving powers
-a friend of a friend who's slowly being sucked into a cult
-a friend whose entire church was recently devestated by a very spiritual-seeming deception
-a couple who're witnessing the slow physical demise of a loved one
-miscarriages galore
-a couple having to deal with the pain of her past and the non-stop accusation and strife that creates
-a family being torn apart by arrogance and greed

Whee!

Seriously, this stuff has me out of sorts. I was having some sort of internal crisis last night considering all this. "How could God let this happen?" is not an unfamiliar question around my house, and while I hate that question in itself (as it's not my place to ask such things), I find to not have great answers. My best is "God allows freedom because of love, and that means that this kind of pain will be part of the deal," but that doesn't provide a huge amount of relief for people inside the crap.

It's funny and kind of adolescent how we grab onto such things, but Rich Mullins' simple chorus has been ringing in my ears like the promise of something secure:

That where I am, there you may also be
Where the truth, the truth will set you free
In the world you will have trouble, but I give you my peace
That were I am, there you may also be

It's part of an old discussion that me and Peepee have always had: when you get promised healing and deliverance like we've been, what do you do when you pray for healing and deliverance and don't get it? It makes you want to kick a rock. But Jiff says that the longing this creates is part of the process, and the building desire is actually God-glorifying. I'm down with that, that helps. But oh how we want faith to be sight, no? It gets a man down, is all I'm saying.

Not a Magazine

Jiff cut this sucker together, and I have to say, it's dark and kind of creepy and also beautiful. What can I say? It moves me.

The Purest Thing

I won't make any promises about a daily submission or anything, but here's today's song. I'm grateful when God lets them get birthed. And such as.

It was the first word said
When the world was a thought in God’s head
Friends, it will be the common thread
In all hist’ry’s loom

One day, when the cursed relent
It will have made those souls repent
It’ll take all the fear we’ve sent
From the grave to the womb

Love is the purest thing
Love is a diamond ring
Love is the song we sing until the day we die
Love is meek and strong
Love could never be wrong
Love is a lifetime long and an ocean wide
Love is the Final King
Love is the purest thing

What has a war ever done
But show us who’s best with a gun?
What could violence ever do
But break a heart in two?

Someday, hearts united, ignited into one
Like a bride and a groom, like a father and a son
Think of the power and the sweetness and the zeal
When death is put to death, and hate’s under our heel

For there’s no army greater than love
And it won’t wait for a sign from above
There are some things we know without being told
And, in the face of all fear, love is bold

Love is the purest thing
Love is a diamond ring
Love is the song we sing until the day we die
Love is meek and strong
Love could never be wrong
Love is a lifetime long and an ocean wide

Love is the Final King
Love is the purest thing

Wowee!

John McEnroe is one of very few announcers whose commentary actually excites me. Regardless of the match, I could simply hear his thoughts and be quite entertained. Tennis was in such a wonderful place when I was in jr. high/high school: I saw Borg and Mac and Lendl and Edberg and Becker and Wilander turn into Courier and Chang and Sampras and Agassi and Ivanisevic. My dad couldn't stand big Mac for his manners and, while I recognized his stunning immaturity for a man with the world looking at him, I found his skill and spirit fascinating. I like the guy.

So when I casually flipped by the USOpen today and saw Tommy Haas and James Blake playing, I wasn't totally interested. I'm not much of a Blake fan (kind of boring guy, strange sleeveless shirts, bald-with-beard look popularized by Isaac Hayes), but when I heard John McEnroe's snide voice, I measured the negative of having to hear the intolerably masculine Mary Carillo piping in with her 2c between Dick Enberg and McEnroe, and stuck in. I was rewarded with a thrilling match crowned by a fifth set tiebreaker and another heart-wrenching concession by James. Viva nothing going on Labor Day and a little quality tennis viewing!