Winter Olympic Musings – Part III
The Dream Team
My suggestions for changes to the Winter Olympics were received with great enthusiasm by most people; however, there is one group who gave negative feedback. I received push back so powerful it could only come from the rough and tumble curling crowd. The suggestion that curling be dropped brought an onslaught of dissent. I have been hit with curling brooms by angry fans. Twice I have been getting into my car on icy parking lots only to be hit in the ankle by a curling stone. I didn't see who did it. I only heard cries of "It's about strategy, stupid."
Because of this I made a point to watch curling while on the treadmill a couple of times. I will try to ignore the irony of me working my guts out sweating and panting while watching four guys stare and slide rocks on ice for Olympic gold. C'mon guys please try to sweat a little. I guess I didn't ignore it too well. Sorry.
While I was watching the camera pan over to the stands and show a guy coming down to the ice. When he turned, I could see his jacket said COACH. I smirked and wondered, what does a curling coach do? Rather than spending sleepless nights wondering, I decided to call team USA's curling coach and interview him. Despite a rigorous schedule interviewing with various papers from Idaho and Montana, I was able to get a few minutes with him on Skype. Here is our enlightening discussion.
Me: Hi coach thanks for talking with me.
Curling Coach: No problem. Thanks for asking me, eh. Let me just finish this power bar.
Me: Uh....coach, that looks more like an apple fritter.
CC: Well for curlers this is training food. Its shaped like a curling stone, and they're huge which gives us something to do during matches. Also, about an hour after you eat a couple, you go into a sugar trance which prepares us well for staring.
Me: Don't they slow you down?
CC: Slow us down for what?
Me: Er...good point. Well, what do you do for training?
CC: We look everywhere for opportunities to sharpen our skills. If we are at a bar with an indoor sawdust shuffleboard game, we will work out there. We often go to retirement communities and use their shuffleboard games, but they have too much friction, and we also get friction from the retirees. (laughs) Anytime we can find opportunities to slide things into strategic positions we go for it.
Me: How about conditioning?
CC: Conditioning? Air conditioning?
Me: I mean getting in top physical form.
CC: Well we all want to be in top physical form, and we all plan to do that when we retire from curling.
Me: What about building your physical endurance for the Olympics?
CC: We do practice staring a lot. Its really quite difficult because we stare at rocks which usually don't draw much attention. We go to zoos and find owls to challenge to stare-offs. Mannequins work nicely for stare practice too.
Me: What about people who claim curling should be out of the Olympics because it is not a real sport?
CC: That's absurd. Let's see Lebron James work a curling broom on ice without falling down. I doubt he can even use a kitchen broom. There are no slam dunks here. Just because we don't coat our bodies with tatoos and hang out with rap stars doesn't mean we're not athletes. We get tired of people ripping on us on this. It almost makes us want to lift weights. This sport is very strategic and dangerous.
Me: Dangerous?
CC: Yes. If you doze off during one of our stare sessions you can fall on the ice and bump your head.
Me: Any advice for aspiring young curlers out there?
CC: Don't give up on your dreams.....maybe you can accomplish them after curling.
Me: Thanks coach.
CC: Thank mmm. (muffled as he bites into another fritter)
That sure helped me out with my negative thoughts on the sport of curling. I am going to go right out and buy my kids some curling stones.
Let's go back to Samuel - next post.
Worthless Sons
It's a bucket of icy water thrown in our face. It stings. Our mind is racing, trying to make sense of what is going on. The shock fades, but the starkness of the charge remains.
Eli's sons were worthless men.
Eli the priest, the man appointed to mitigate the relationship between God and Israel, could not father his own household. There is no nice segue into Samuel's next stage of life as told in I Samuel 2, but the story really isn't about Samuel. It is about God. As a parent, however, the story is a painful one to read.
One of the key moments for a parent is getting sincere evaluation of their children from an outside source. When they are young it could be something little like, "Your daughter is so polite and well behaved." We hear verification of societal acceptance and even a touch of admiration. Did they say their line clear in the Christmas program? Did they smile for their photos? Did they share well? etc....
When they are older it might be something like, "I am glad our son is friends with your son. He is such a good influence." Affirmation in the adolescent years often brings part sigh of relief and part crossed fingers for a journey not yet complete. Do his teachers like him? Are they establishing themselves in their sport, band, choir, grades, youth group, etc....? What's their ACT score? We want a sign, any sign, that we are succeeding.
Next it's their college choice or vocation, spouse (hopefully), and their general ability to get on with life that we use as a barometer of our success. Are they getting promoted? Do they have a nice house? Are their children establishing themselves? Reports, formal and informal, filter back to us, and we instantaneously assess the quality of our parenting.
Unfortunately, we continually look to the wrong places for evaluation. Eli's failure points us in the right direction.
A key point in the story of Eli and his sons is the rebuke Eli receives from God through the boy Samuel and another unidentified man. At the heart of God's rebuke is the charge that Eli honored his sons above God. He did this by not disciplining them as they developed practices that were blasphemous to God. The boys became evil and used their position to fatten their bellies and indulge their lowest desires. They stole the best parts of the sacrificial meats meant for God and ate them. Their abuses went well beyond this, but God brings this one to the forefront.
In response Eli does nothing. In fact, he partakes of the stolen meat. He fattens himself. The force of his disapproval is weaker than the force of his indulgence. Eli appears to fail in two primary ways. First, he was selfish and enjoyed the food. The account of his death makes note of his obesity. Second, he does not know what a family is for. His view of his children and his role as their father was broken and led him to honor his sons and himself above honoring God. His kid became his god.
The struggle we have raising kids can be traced back to both of Eli's problems and can be describe as three wrong understandings of what families are for. The three wrong views are: families as a burden, families as a sentimental end to themselves, and families as an extension of our own self-fulfillment. Eli's indulgence and the reluctance to enter his sons' lives can easily trace into all three of these problems.
How does Scripture answer the question of our family's purpose? Most of us never ask what the purpose of our family is, but it's vital to consider because our answer or lack of answer determines what kind of household we create and what kind of children we raise. There are no guarantees to parenting. Some good parents raise rebellious children and some awesome kids come out of terrible homes. Unfortunately, no method can guarantee perfect results. However, some methods work much better than others. The best methods flow out of a framework of thought with Christ and the pursuit of His Kingdom at the center of everything.
As we look at Scripture and learn from Christ who we are meant to be, we learn what families are for. Families are for developing foundational communities of character, by learning and living God’s story for our family, our neighbors, and the generations to come. Families are not for accumulating wealth, going to the right schools, producing athletes, making parents look good, etc.... These things do not bring God honor. Families are to be the embodied presence of the Kingdom of God and a primary redeeming institution that makes Christ known through all they do. These are big words, but it is a big job. In fact, there may not be a bigger job for your entire life. Don't be Eli and find it too difficult to try.
Sit down tonight and ask your spouse, what is our family for?
A Baptist Bent for Lent?
Before I give some thoughts on Lent from a Baptist perspective, here is a brief primer on the subject:
- Fat Tuesday: The day before lent begins. A day of indulgence before the 40 days of self-denial.
- Mardi Gras: Literally means Shrove Tuesday. Shrove comes from shrive and means to hear the confession of and give absolution to one who is repentent. Shrovetide is the three days before lent. Mardi Gras has become a three day festival leading up to Ash Wednesday. These festivals take place all over the world but are especially prevalent in Brazil and New Orleans. Most festivals include drinking, drugs, sex, and pagan symbolism.
- Ash Wednesday: Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists are the primary celebrators of Ash Wednesday. Traditionally, the ashes are from the burning of the previous years blessed palm branches from palm Sunday. The ashes are then consecrated, mixed with holy water or oil and administered to the foreheads of the people. Often administered in the sign of the cross, the ashes symbolize repentance. As they are administered the priest or pastor says "Remember man you are dust and to dust you will return." (Gen. 3:19), or "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel." (Mark 1:15)
- Forty days of Lent. The forty days begin on Ash Wednesday and end the Saturday before Resurrection Sunday. The Sundays within lent are not counted in the forty days. Fasting days of various length originate in the early centuries of Christianity and some evidence suggests that the apostles recognized a pre-resurrection Sunday fast. In 313 a.d. Christianity was legalized and Lenten practices became homogenized into a forty day observance. The significance of forty relates to Jesus' days in the desert, Elijah's days walking to Mt. Horeb, and Moses days on Mt. Siani waiting to receive the Ten Commandments.
- The meaning of Lent. Lent primarily has a two-fold meaning. The first is to remind us of our sinfulness, so we may be repentant and have our understanding of the resurrection sharpened. The second is to remind us of our baptism and its meaning in our lives.
- Why evangelicals (Baptists et. al.) don't celebrate Lent. At the risk of being overly brief I offer two reasons. First, Lent includes the blessing of the ashes and the mediation of grace and forgiveness by a priest or pastor. Evangelicals embrace a fully symbolic understanding of communion and baptism and abstain from rituals not specified in Scripture. Additionally, evangelicals also embrace Jesus' teaching on the priesthood of all believers and have abandoned practices involving mediation by priest or pastor. The second reason involves separation and had more merit in years past. Since the Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century both Catholics and Protestants have worked hard to draw clear lines of distinction from each other. That bent is particularly strong in evangelicals who have also found need to separate from other Protestants.
The abandonment of Lent is not all good because, in trying to be distinctive and properly reject some things, we willingly gave up some valuable and godly things. I encourage you to embrace three aspects of what Lent attempts to accomplish: Fasting - denying ourselves of something valuable that we regularly partake in so we can focus on our sinful and lost state without Christ, prepares us for understanding the resurrection. Historical rootedness - a Lenten fast symbolically unites us with believers throughout history and lessens our usual ego-centric understanding of church. Confession - confession is healthy for us and is commanded in Scripture. These aspects of Lent can, and in many ways should, be embraced by all Christ-followers.
Don't worry about ashes or Mardi Gras parties, but consider a Lenten fast of some sort to enter into the passion of the Christ.
"Remember man from dust you came and to dust you will return."
Winter Olympic Musings – Part I
My seven year old son keeps asking me if he can watch the Winter Olympics. I don't know where it comes from since I have little to no interest. He seems to know its important so he starts asking to watch as soon as he is out of bed.
Upon his request we watched a little of opening night. If I am going to watch with him I want some changes. Like all good Americans I am quite certain that my opinions can improve just about anything. So I offer you seven (one for each olympic ring plus two for the continents not included - Antarctica and Atlantis) ways to improve the Winter Olympics.
- Change bobsledding. This event is won or lost in the initial push. However, we then have to watch the team go on a joy-ride for the rest of the race even though their fate is sealed. On top of that, they don't race against anyone and the difference between first and last place is about a nano-second. Consequently, there is no way for the spectator to distinguish a good run from a bad run. Unless we have announcers going apoplectic because Hans just passed Franz by .0000000001 seconds we don't know what is going on. They all look alike. I propose we change this into battling bobsleds where four teams enter the run from different chutes and then battle each other to the finish line. We did this with our red plastic sleds when I was a kid. It was awesome except we broke our sleds all the time. This would become a crowd favorite, kind of NASCAR on ice meets Ultimate Fighting.
- Eliminate curling. I don't want another video trying to convince me curling belongs in the Olympics by showing me all its complexities. Its shuffleboard on ice with brooms. Is it a skill? Yes, but so is ironing and we don't make that an Olympic sport. Maybe if we mixed ironing with billards they would. I could see the pool ball being hit and two ironers going in front of it trying to control its stopping point. Yawn.
- Since I eliminated something I will add something. Snowball fighting. This is the main winter sport I grew up with. This would be awesome. Each country has an army and a fort and they go to war. This could be the last event of the games and even replace the closing ceremonies. They fight until someone runs home, wets their pants, or gets hit in the eye.
- Change the biathlon. Skiing and guns are an odd combo but if you want to keep the event I would spice it up. Adding grenades and flamethrowers to the weaponry would help. It has potential as it is. It just doesn't go far enough.Viewing would increase dramatically as firepower increased.
- Change ski jumping. I would add an adjustable water hazard equal to the distance of where the leader is after the first round. Water hazards always intimidate me in golf and I think it would intensify things nicely. You might even see skiers being forced down the run by the officials.
- Change figure skating. I must be careful on this because many love these events, especially in my household. My problem is its judging is too arbitrary and political. I would allow the event to go forward unchanged. However, instead of the ruse of "expert" judges I would decide the winners with a playoff of rock/papers/scissors.
- End Winter Olympic discrimination. These games are climatist. Half the world cannot participate because of warm climates and lack of mountains. I am of Syrian heritage. What chance did my grandparents growing up in Damascus have of making the Winter Olympics? Generations of deprivation have made it nearly impossible for me to make them also. Level the playing field or at least warm it. I demand the following in the name of equality for all: all ski events are to take place on hills of sand instead of snow; Syria is to be given a hockey team that is automatically placed in the quarter finals and has the five best Canadian players forced to be on it; the next Winter Olympics will be awarded to Ecuador; and finally, skaters must perform without skates since climate challenged countries don't have any.
I think that is a good start. I will get a petition going. Feel free to send me your ideas.
This post is longer than I anticipated and I haven't gotten to the eagerly anticipated cultural and theological application. I will put that in part II.
Winter Olympic Musings – Part II
So much happens in a moment.
So many moments make up each of our days.
Life's situations are complex, change on a dime, and move with a fine line between success and failure.
With the finish line moments away, the race results for the men's 1500 speed skating were determined. Korea had a lock on all the medals. The picture to the left bears this out. The Korean team is the six legged royal blue caterpillar in the lead. The two Americans, Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski in the light blue/dark blue combo, are impossibly out of a medal finish.
I wonder what Ohno and Celski were thinking at this moment. We will probably never know because at the moment of resignation for the Americans, two opponents, the almost silver and bronze medalists from Korea, disappeared. Gone! Vaporized! Because of the curve of the track and force of their motion, fallen skaters become debris that instantly moves to the edge of the ice. No need to step over them or change course. To the racers behind, they cease to exist. Such was the case in this event.
Ohno and Celski went from huge disappointment to unbridled jubilation. In a moment their lives changed dramatically. One writer claimed that by winning this race Ohno had secured his place in history. It is odd how we think. Did he not have a place in history before he won? Did it take the massive disappointment of two competitors at a crucial moment to make his life noteworthy?
And what of the two Koreans you see lying on the ice? Are they just bit players in the Ohno story, or do they have lives and dreams and disappointments? What were they thinking lying there? I don't know any Korean expletives, but something tells me I would have learned some if I were close by. Sports moments like these are real events, but they are also metaphors for understanding something of the way all our lives unfold.
Driving back to the office today, my route was redirected by a policeman because an accident had closed the road. Eventually, I caught a glimpse of one of the wrecked vehicles. It was a van with the front end obliterated. I don't know who was hurt nor how bad. I do know that several people and their family and friends and coworkers had their lives changed in a moment. Each driver was singing or talking or thinking about something else right up until impact.
Sports events and all the other events in our lives have winners and losers. However, winners and losers are people with stories that go well beyond the results of the moment. From God's perspective all events are about character more than results. The results are done. So to focus on them is to focus on yesterday. Conversely, character is about our response. So character is about tomorrow. Results are fickle and fleeting as athletes know too well. Character is not. It is chosen. It cannot be blocked and it cannot be taken from us.
For the people in the van I saw, the accident is over. All that remains is response. This is true right down to the small relational interactions of the day. The harsh words of my spouse from the morning or the years of accumulated distance and discord are all about yesterday. But, who will you be tomorrow is arguably the only question of substance. Our history is instructive, but it does not trap our future.
We don't secure our place in history with results. We secure our place in the future Kingdom with character.
Open Happiness? – 2010 Superbowl Commercials
After watching all the Superbowl commercials this morning I have some summary and somewhat random thoughts.
- The best rated commercial was the Betty White/Abe Vigoda Snickers commercial. I thought it was funny. However, advertisers are big these days on attaching their products to stories that really don't go with the product. Snickers bars as an athletic performance enhancer? Maybe that's what Barry Bonds was ingesting. Another example was Lance Armstrong working out and riding his bike in a beer commercial. Really? Scrap the cottage cheese and skim milk. Treat the team to candy bars and beer. While you're at it give them some cotton candy and cigarettes.
- The funniest commercials year in and year out are often beer commercials. The Bud Light stranded commercial, where survivors shun a lady who finds a radio to aid their rescue for the guy who finds the beverage cart stocked with Bud Light, made me laugh at first. However, it makes me wonder why beer companies often sell their products with humorous ads that depict people as beings without virtue. Beer is often shown as more valued than humans. Girlfriends and wives take backseat to men's love for beer. Life is an extended party. I laugh unless I think about them. I think the main storyline for funny beer commercials is the lure of irresponsibility. In many ways, especially for the younger crowd ,the lure of alcohol is irresponsibility. We want to be someone different than the person we are sober. Humorous ads draw us into that lie. We can always blame the beer for our behavior.
- Dumbest ad award - Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret - so off-beat and weird that it makes me want to seek out their competitor's products. Next time spend your $2.5 million on a blimp or something.
- Award for the ad that was too scary to be funny - Audi TDI Green Police. Meant to be funny but how far away from reality are they?
- I was disappointed in the Tebow ad. If I didn't know what it was for before hand I would not know what it was for.
- Charles Barkley - did you need the money that bad?
- Chicago Bears - same question I asked Charles.
- Homeaway.com ad with Chevy Chase was better than all the movies he made combined.
- Dove wants to rescue me from emasculation with skin care products? Are you serious?
- Flo TV wants to rescue me from emasculation with little tv sets? Sorry, Bestbuy all ready told me I need a big one.
- Dockers wants to rescue me from emasculation by selling me pants that will allow me to "wear the pants" in my life. To do this they show me disturbing visions of men in underwear. Who thinks these things up?
- Dodge wants to rescue me from emasculation with a fast car. How original.
- Careerbuilder - more underwear. Who made the shift from erotic underwear ads to grotesque underwear ads? Lose them both.
- Best line from all the commercials - etrade baby girl accusing boy of not calling last night because of another girl - "and that milk-a-holic Lindsey wasn't over?" Milk-a-holic. Pretty funny....not sure what it has to do with investing but I'm in.
Coca Cola cuts to the chase as to what modern advertising is mostly about. Coke promises that when you open their soda you open happiness. Unfortunately, shortly after, you burp and life is the same. See through broken stories. Live the true story. The one that's not for sale.
The Cost of Busyness
A short piece from The Inner Life by Thomas aKempis a 15th century monk. He also wrote the well known devotional work The Imitation of Christ.
Whenever a man desires anything inordinately, at once he becomes restless. A proud and avaricious man is never at rest; but a poor and humble man enjoys the riches of peace. A man who is not yet perfectly dead to self is easily tempted, and is overcome even in small and trifling things. And he who is weak in spirit, and still a prey to the senses and bodily passions, can only with great difficulty free himself from worldly lusts.
Therefore he is sad when he does so withdraw himself, and is quickly angered when anyone opposes him. Yet, if he obtains what he desires, his conscience is at once stricken by remorse, because he has yielded to his passion, which in no way helps him in his search for peace.
True peace of heart can be found only by resisting the passions, not by yielding to them. There is no peace in the heart of a worldly man, who is entirely given to outward affairs; but only in a fervent, spiritual man.
The Barren Womb
She must have been special. Something about her personality made her unique. Maybe she was warm and kind in a way most others were not. Maybe it was her smile or her care-free manner when in his presence. Maybe it was a soft and inviting humor over-lying a steadfast depth that set her apart. Maybe it was a character of integrity and humility that drew him to her. We know she was righteous, but we don't know how her righteousness was uniquely presented in her person.
We do know that he loved her. This was not the plastic, artificially flavored, buy-one-get-one-free, I'll-say-it-if-you-say-it love we are used to today. The story writer went out of his way to say he loved her. Rarely is there a husband-wife relationship in this book where the writer takes time to note their love for each other. So we must take notice.
He loved her.
The way it sits in the story resonates a permanence. It's not boyish or fleshly. It is anchored in something beyond this world. We are not told why, only that it is. It is beyond reproach.
He loved her.
But she was barren.
She was barren and had a rival wife who was fertile and would push her face into the starkness of her infertility year after year. To be barren today is sad. To be barren in ancient Israel was a disaster. Kids weren't had out of sentiment. They were an economic necessity. Survival was dependent on household production. Children brought affluence along with promise of future generations. A barren womb sent a husband reeling into financial anxieties present and future, and brought his manhood into question. A barren womb sent a wife into an abyss of worthlessness. Often, it sent her out of the family ostracized in shame. She was barren.
But he loved her.
Elkanah loved Hannah.
The presence of God floats in the backdrop of this story, but is He just in the shadows? Elkanah must have been special. He loved Hannah, and her infertility seemed to only increase his love where most would have cast her away. Upon scrutiny, he is as unique as Hannah. Elkanah is often criticized for asking Hannah if he as her husband was not better than ten sons. But what if Elkanah represents God? Elkanah displayed an other-worldly type of love in the rest of the story. Is it possible that in questioning Hannah as to his worth to her that he is questioning God's worth to Hannah? I'm not sure, but I am not ready to write Elkanah off as self-centered. He may be asking her the question that needs to be asked. He may be asking her the question that God wants asked. The story teller does not give us that. He moves to the next scene.
Hannah was shrewd. She knew how to make deals with the creator of the universe. She knew He was the Redeemer God. Her barren womb was a pallet on which He could show Himself to the world. To deal with Him, you must have a good heart. She did. Deal made. "God if you give me a son I will give him back to you."
Samuel was born to Elkanah and Hannah. Hannah, remembering her bargain, readied to give Samuel over to Eli the priest once the child was weaned. Elkanah emerged from the shadows again. His response to her plan could have been, "What? Are you crazy woman? I finally get a son out of you, a laborer, a means of production, a return on my investment in you, and you want to give him away. NO!!!"
But he loved her.
And he loved God.
Instead, Elkanah responded, "Do what seems best to you; wait until you have weaned him; only, may the Lord establish his word." In this sentence we see the summary of Elkanah's character. He gives honor and importance to his wife, so that the Lord may receive glory. This is the story of Elkanah and Hannah and Samuel. It is also our story and our future. The barren womb becomes fertile - the dry bones dance - the slaves leave with the treasure of their oppressors - the dragon is thrown down - the land is healed - the orphan is taken in - justice is established - and the rightful King takes his throne. Jesus Christ reigns forever! And we can be part of it because....
He loves us.