Seriously, there has been no NFL since the first part of February and so it's no surprise that the draft gets a ton of coverage. Probably a disproportionate amount from what it really is which is basically a guess on which player will fit in with each team. It makes sense that the draft is popular. As popular as college football is in the country, it's a way to immediately follow your favorite player from your favorite team and watch them develop (yes, Tennessee fans, I know how many players were taken from there on the first day, especially compared to Vandy).
What's amazing to me is how much the NFL has surpassed Major League Baseball so much within the last 15-20 years. When I was a kid, it was baseball hands down. Now, baseball is more of a tradition and football is THE sport.
There are a couple of reasons I think for this...
Salaries. $250 million for ten years. Really? Now that's not to say that the money that NFL players make for playing a game isn't ridiculous as well, but it's not "stupid" money.
The length of the season. Yes, it's true that the NFL is now a year long sport. But so much of that is anticipation of the season. You get 7 months to build up your hopes and dreams for your team.
Your team actually has a chance. The Titans in 99 are the perfect example of this. 8-8 the previous three seasons. A team of wanderers from Houston to Memphis to Vanderbilt and finally to the (then) Adelphia Coliseum. And they go 13-3 and come within a whisker of tying St. Louis in the Superbowl.
Very little fatigue with the sport. Is it possible to get overwhelmed with all of the information that's out there? Sure, but the greatest thing to me about the season is that you have basically a full week between games, as opposed to baseball which plays 162 games, and basketball which plays 84. I think NASCAR has done this well also. You get the whole week to get your expectations up and analyze what went wrong the previous week. And with just a 17-week season, it's sometimes feels like it's over before it began.
It's a great sport and while the draft is interesting, I'll wait until 3 years go by before passing any judgment on how the team has done.
What would the implication be for Christianity if the Bible were proven conclusively to not be the 100% inspired Word of God? Would "orthodox" Christianity disappear or would it alter?
Is Scripture intended to be a standard we measure up to or the revelation of God's working throughout history as told through the eyes of the men and women who experienced it? And if it's not the standard we measure up to and it is a narrative, how does that change how we should use the Bible in everyday life and in worship? It honestly seems to me that the second way of looking at it lessens a great deal the use of the Bible as a bludgeon to beat sinners into submission.
Just some thoughts on a Friday that I'm curious to hear others' perspectives on.
So let's do it. Deep geeking on Heroes. Warning, if you haven't watched Monday's episode, don't read this.
I'm going to get my major complaint with this episode out of the way first. Is there a hero out there with the power to get people on a supersonic jet from Vegas or Odessa, Texas, and then to New York? Because it happened twice in this episode: Thompson (Bennett's boss) and Nathan Petrelli. Now you might say, "Well, Phil, you're watching a show about a man who can fly, a cheerleader who can regenerate, and an office worker who can move through time. Why question this?" Here's the reason. When a show starts, there is a contract between the show and the viewer. The show says, "Here's our world. Here are the rules in our world. We won't break them." So Heroes has established itself in our world where certain rules exist. Like getting to the airport an hour before hand and other things. So having someone in Vegas and then seemingly minutes later with no explanation is jarring and takes me personally out of the show. Even one sentence of dialogue... "Nathan, how did you get here so fast?" "Mr. Linderman had me flown back on his private jet." That would solve it. Ok, complaint over.
Onto the show. Already loving the Bennett, Parkman, Ted (Watch out... Radioactive Man!) combination. I loved Bennett communicating with Parkman in the OWI (Organization without Initials) cells. I also loved Parkman making fun of Bennett for being middle management in OWI. Also did you notice that the three of them were in the diner where Hiro and Ando met Charlie?
Linderman. He has powers too which you knew if you read the online comic during the hiatus. But now we see the concrete of his plan. He wants the bomb so that the Heroes can take over and then Petrelli can get into the Oval Office. And he considers the loss of .07% of the world's population an acceptable loss. Interesting too that he said that he'd worked with other heroes before and something didn't work out there. It looked like Nathan was going to refuse him outright, but he seemed to really like that picture of himself in the White House. Which he opened with the piece of glass from Peter's head. Symbolic? I think so.
Peter, of course, took that shard to his head, and I thought that the little battle between Sylar and Peter was pretty cool. I really hope there's a big confrontation between the two of them before the end. And this is when I knew the "death" that we'd seen in the preview was so fake. Good thing Claire was there to pull out the shard and wake her uncle up.
Claire is in such a weird spot now. She's found her real dad, who seems to love her (or the idea of her) but she's getting pushed aside again. I don't think she's really going to go to Paris. She has to be in the City when the bomb goes off. Hmmm, Bennett's going to NY, not knowing that's where Claire is. I'm sure there will be a reunion of some sort soon.
Mohinder... was he in the episode? Ok, yeah, he kind of was. Nice job knocking Sylar out, professor. Why didn't you hook him back up to the medicine and crank up the dosage?
Jessiki, DL, and Micah. Bad form, illusionist Candice! Not cool and the coming smackdown that Jessiki will lay upon you will be of Biblical proportions (Old Testament, most likely). And why does Linderman need Micah. What's happened to his plan that he needs a technopath for?
Hiro and Ando. IN THE FUTUUUUUUUUURE! Ok, they didn't have much this week. Next week, it looks huge for them. As long is Hiro doesn't cause a space time continuum rip by being so close to his future self. Nice of Ando to draw his gun in that final scene too to try and protect his friend.
And finally. Isaac. Here's where the questions get interesting. Isaac could paint the future. And apparently the future in Heroes is unalterable. Now, it doesn't always play out exactly how we think it will, such as with Hiro and the dinosaur, but it seems like whatever he's painted happens. Now, he painted the bomb going off, and Hiro saw the bomb going off. Which seems to mean that the bomb is going to go off, which would seem to make everything that the season has been about, including "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" has been in vain. Unless saving the world doesn't involve stopping the bomb, which would seem to play into Linderman's plans... So the question is are we dealing with a Greek tragedy kind of situation where trying to stop the future actually brings it about? Will all the work that the Heroes have put into trying to stop it bring it about? Does that include Isaac's attempt to figure out how to stop Sylar? And how will Sylar having Isaac's power play into all of this now?
And next week...
For one thing, I'm a little surprised the writers went this way. It seems like there's so much story left that to spend part of it in the future is a bit of a waste. But with that being said... here's what I see in the preview.
Some kind of eternal flame. Remembering the victims of the bomb?
A couple of quick shots of someone fighting in what looks like a government building. I think it's Peter.
Peter yelling at Jessiki that he was the bomb.
Soldiers pointing guns at someone. Possibly Peter who runs through a door. I guess he met with DL at some point. And I think the soldier holding the pistol and standing behind the soldiers is Parkman.
Nathan obviously as President and telling a brunette Claire that he's the most special person there is. Nathan is not the nice guy here.
Peter and Jessiki macking on each other?!? Oh crap, does Peter get a split personality or just super strength?
More shots of Peter doing Hero-y stuff, then a TV shot of Sylar and the caption "America Remembers."
Mohinder in an incredibly bad wig telling Nathan that something he's talking about is genocide. Killing the people with powers? And then Nathan looking pretty ticked off. And then asking if Mohinder is with him.
Interestingly, no shots of Hiro and Ando in the preview, which I assume is the catalyst for doing a show 5 years in the future.
So there it is. Deep Heroes Geeking and we'll do it again next Wednesday. What did you think of the episode? Did it live up to your expectations after having to wait for 5 weeks? What do you think of next week?
Was Heroes great? Yeah, for the most part, but we'll talk about that tomorrow. Next week looks very interesting too.
Connor took what some might describe a step last night. But what is probably more accurately described as falling forward while sticking a leg in front of him. Which, yes, I know that that's basically what walking is (knowledge gained from Pixar Animation DVD extras), and it's true that he's basically standing on his own when he doesn't know what he is doing. So his journey to toddlerhood continues. I wish this time would last about six months longer. Him doing his "pimp step crawl" (as my brother in law describes it) is so cute, especially as fast as he can do it now.
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Part 3 of the story. And you might have figured out that I'm not writing this exactly as I told it. I'm embellishing here and there with some descriptions and a little fuller characterizations (the Magician in particular). At any rate, here's part 3.
The magician whose name no one knew (he had one, he’d been called Magician for so long that even he had forgotten it), walked around the princess inspecting different parts of her: the bite wound, her eyes, her ears, her mouth. He listened to her breath and looked at her eyes. Then he stood up straight and gnawed on his beard for several long moments. He turned back to the guards and asked, “How large was this wolf?”
The first knight, named Cheena, said, “It was large. Perhaps the size of pony.”
The magician asked, “Did you see the color of its eyes?” Cheena shook her head.
However, the second knight, Charissa, spoke up quickly, “I did. They were yellow.”
The magician stopped and turned back to the princess. “That’s what I was afraid of.” He rapidly turned to a shelf with dusts and materials on it and began dashing them into a boiling cauldron. He spoke over the shoulder to the knights. “I need a hair from the wolf. It is a magical one and to create a potion that will wake the princess up, I must have a freshly plucked hair. Now hurry and quickly return. The hair cannot be plucked for more than an hour until put it into the potion.” He turned back to the cauldron and began muttering to himself, stirring and putting more ingredients in.
Cheena and Charissa looked at each other. “But, how do we know where it is? How can we find it? Especially a magical wolf?”
The magician looked disdainfully back at them. “Magical or not, wolves never leave the area where they have been denied their prey. This one will still be around. Now go, before it is too late.” He pushed them out the door and locked it behind him.
Part of what I do at Otter Creek as the tech/media guy is to also do work for some various groups that come in to use our building for shows. I've worked with a homeschool group on one of their annual shows. This week, I'm there every night with another group.
This last weekend, I worked with the Music City Chorus. MCC is primarily a barbershop chorus, and it wasn't what I expected. It was a group of about 40 or so voices. They did a lot of songs from the 20's and up to now. There were also several quartets that performed that were pretty good as well.
Now, I'll go ahead and admit that barbershop is not my preferred style of music and there were some part of it that from an objective observer that were kind of amusing to me. Watching the men choreograph their songs gave me a chuckle for example. And most of the jokes were "groaners," which seemed appropriate humor and I think it has a lot of history with it. It's definitely an older style of music and the audience reflected that as well. Most of it was probably over 50 or so.
The other part of the show was the TuneTown Show Chorus, an all-female chorus, that honestly blew me away. These women obviously put a ton of work into their performance, as evidenced by the fact that they're headed to an international competition in Calgary later. And while the men's choreography seemed a bit... to be honest, cheesy, what the women did really, really worked. I truly enjoyed what they did.
The greatest thing about the whole experience, though, was honestly feeling a bit like I was in a Christopher Guest movie, such as Best in Show or A Mighty Wind. There is this entire subculture that works within barbershop that the person with casual knowledge just has no clue about. Probably how some people feel like tech geeks or sci-fi afficiandos. Within barbershop, there are personality conflicts, and jealousies, and people who are incredibly passionate about what they do. There are some... interesting personalities in the whole thing as well. And I fell asleep on Saturday night wondering if I could parlay this whole experience into a screenplay of some sort.
It was fun.
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Tonight, the final five episodes of the first season of Heroes. I've kept myself unspoiled beyond the preview I showed last week, and I'm looking forward to it. Possibly some discussion about it on Wednesday.
Has the glorification of violence in our culture through entertainment such as music, TV, and movies been a factor in how people seek to resolve conflict?
If the answer is yes (and I think it is), what should the response of the follower of Jesus be?
I've heard bluegrass described as "men in suits playing acoustic instruments as fast as they can." Here are 10 doing it.
Earl Scruggs and Friends on the David Letterman show in 2001:
The friends are (in order of playing):
Banjo - Earl Scruggs (of course) Fiddle - Glenn Duncan Acoustic Guitar - Randy Scruggs Banjo - Steve Martin (yes him) Telecaster - Vince Gill (and his delay pedal) Mandolin - Marty Stuart Harmonica - Gary Scruggs Guitar - Albert Lee (on a Music Man Albert Lee model!) Piano - Paul Shaffer Dobro - Jerry Douglas (an absolute genius)
I'm going to comment on the tragedy in Virginia later. I'm still processing what happened there. It's just staggering. Until I do though, here is the continuation of Kinsey's story from last week.
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The two guards picked her up and carried her quickly back to the castle. They went immediately to the doctor’s room. He came out of his private chambers and gave a shocked cry as he saw the princess. “What happened to her?” The guards described the wolf’s attack and after they did, he took a careful look at the bite wound, then listened to her heartbeat and her breathing. He pulled open her eyes and looked at them. After this he looked at the guards and said, “This is beyond my expertise as a doctor. I can treat the wound, but I can not wake her. This wolf was no ordinary wolf and this needs someone who has experience with things out of the ordinary.” He turned back to the princess and said, “Take her to the magician.”
The guards picked up the princess and carried her through the castle to the back tower. Quickly but carefully, they brought her up the stairs and banged on the magician’s door. There was great scrambling before the door opened and a long bearded man in a red cloak opened the door, yelling, “What do you wan---!” He broke off as he saw the unconscious body of the princess. “Bring her in, right now.” He quickly cleared off one of his couches and the guards set her on it. “Leave us, now.” The guards started to leave, but the magician called to them, “No, wait… I may need you to answer some questions.”
I got a bit sick on Saturday and that wasn't fun. Scared Kinsey at one point, but then I had to work at church Saturday night. Thankfully, I was feeling much, much better yesterday, and able to fulfill all my churchly and family duties.
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I left my phone at home today. It's amazing how much perspectives can change in 10 years (which doesn't seem like it was as long ago as it should be). Back then, it was just cool to have a cell phone. Now, it's an appendage that you almost feel naked without. And especially, since I have the PPC-6700. Which connects to the Internet as well as being the phone. Well, I guess for today, I'll have to live back in the 1990s. Except with email, and instant messaging, and the other ways of keeping in constant contact with pretty much anyone in the world.
I was talking with a friend the other day about some people who are leaving Otter Creek to go to another church. The question I wanted to know (as I'm sure do many others) is not necessarily the specific reason these people are leaving (although Adam Ellis and I did some thinking on this on one of the PostRestorationist podcasts), but kind of generally why people leave Otter Creek, which is generally known around Nashville and Church of Christ circles in the country as a progressive Church of Christ.
What I started to wonder is why people would go to a progressive Church of Christ. Now my thought process here is going to take some explanation.
The traditional Church of Christ thinking (or most conservative) believe that the Church of Christ is the only true church, or rather the only people who are truly and completely following the New Testament. Most progressive Churches of Christ have come from that kind of background and have become "more enlightened" in matter of faith, grace, worship, and fellowshipping other denominations.
So my question is why go to a Liberal/Progressive Church of Christ with the implied addendum there being "as opposed to something else, like a community church or Baptist or whatever."
Here's my thinking and it's limited to my perspective of course, and just to let you know, I've got a point I'm getting to.
I think one type is the people who have grown up or gone to a church for a long time that made a transition from a "traditional" church to a "progressive." These people (like me) are comfortable in the setting with the people they know and have known for years.
I think another type is people for whom denominational boundaries don't really mean anything. They've been invited to visit a church and find something appealing about the community or worship or ministries or whatever and something about this keeps them there.
I think a third type is people who have chosen to leave a "traditional" church and are looking for some other kind of Church of Christ to attend. They feel comfortable within a Church of Christ setting, but felt stifled or bound by the strictures of a "traditional" setting. There might also be some people in this group who want to be able to tell parents or family members that they go to a Church of Christ without lying to them, and probably hope those family members don't ask what the name of the church is or if they do, don't know enough about it to be worried that they attend an "apostasized" church.
It's the third group I want to think about. I think this group is the most likely to leave a "progressive" Church of Christ, because at some point, they've had to expand their theology. It might be in terms of grace, or the ability to use praise teams on Sunday morning or even instruments on Sunday or Wednesday night. But it had to expand somewhere. I think this opens them up to even more theological expansion.
However, I also think these are the people that leave because of worship. I think there are a lot of "traditional" Church of Christ people who leave their church because they are dissatisfied with the worship, and so in finding a church that is more open or (forgive the term) charismatic, they enjoy that time and that freedom. But then they start wondering, "So... why not instruments?" Or whatever else.
And here's the important thing. If those people have not made an effort to get plugged into a church more than superficially, if they haven't become invested in the relationships, or invested in the ministries of the church, and what's attracted them is freer worship, why wouldn't they leave?
This is where the Randy Harris philosophy of What you win them with is what you win them to comes in. If the church is attracting with exciting worship or great speaking, and the worship becomes tired or the speaker leaves, why wouldn't people leave that congregation as well?
However, if the congregation is attracting with a focus on ministry and service and community, then the rest becomes secondary. It's important, but the other becomes more important, and honestly the other stuff, like praise teams and that junk, becomes secondary because people are focused on the mission of bringing the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven.
Perhaps it then doesn't matter if the congregation is "traditional," "progressive," or even Church of Christ.
There has been a saga developing about Kat Coble's experience with a "recruiting" "firm," JL Kirk & Associates. Brittney Gilbert at Nashville Is Talking has the play by play run down. I won't say much on this because many others have already said it. What's different about all of this is not the apparent bullying tactics that the law firm used with Kat. I'm sure every day. It's not the practices of putting fear into unemployed people about finding a job. I've been there. I've been to that firm's previous incarnation, Bernard Haldane.
What I am going to say is that I cannot believe Kirk felt like this was a good idea. Here is someone who has posted her honest feelings about an experience that she and her husband had with them. If Kirk felt like she was unfair, they can discuss with her and if she still doesn't agree, then they can change their practices. What this has done has given Kirk publicity, but it's incredibly bad publicity. This has been put on Digg (by me, in the interest of disclosure). Instapundit picked it up. And in fact the verb "Kirk" is starting to gain a little traction. This is a verb with the definition: “to have your reputation ruined for trying to stifle a blogger’s free speech." This also doesn't work very well if you're a "religious organization."
I've also liked how the blog community has come to Kat's defense, and given this story some real legs. It shows a loyalty that I'm glad to participate in. We don't like bullies, and we especially don't like bullies who mess with our friends. And there's power in numbers. And there's a lot of us. Or as this blogger said...
You see, no one likes a bully, but you know who hates a bully more than anyone else? Nerds and geeks and lookie here, they came onto our playground to harass one of our own. We’re all grown up now, we have millions with whom we interact and connect with. We’re no longer relegated to a corner of the cafeteria watching everyone else have fun. Sure, some of us might still look and feel a little awkward in public, but now we know we’re not alone.
Just for you, my faithful readers and fellow Heroes fans. Just for you, I scour the interwebs, riding the tubes, to find new Heroes videos and little snippets to hold us over until the 23rd. Today, I have found one. Similar to the one from back in October, this one holds some secrets for the next five episodes. If you're wanting to remain completely unspoiled, don't watch or read any further.
I'm now going talk about what I'm seeing in this. I haven't read ANY spoilers, but now I have video to do some speculating with, so I'm diving in headfirst.
Obviously the first part of it is repeating stuff from "Parasite," the last aired episode.
New stuff.
Claire hugging her dad in prison, in her cheerleader uniform. Obviously, this is the shapeshifter trying to trick Bennett into revealing something.
Somebody flying at Peter while he pinned to the wall with his head bleeding. Probably Sylar who didn't get far enough into taking off the top of Peter's head to actually do it.
Matt trying to break out of his prison cell, then someone shooting electricity (?) out of his hands?
Claire and Nathan hugging. Awwww. A new daddy for Claire. Still not as good as Mr. Bennett, even if he can fly.
Claire, in brown hair (hmmmm) talking about wanting a normal life. Sweetie, you can heal yourself. Your biological father can fly. Your uncle saved you with his empathic powers from a (probably) brain-eating psychotic sociopath. Normalcy left you at the station before you were born.
Isaac. "I finally get to be a hero." While on the floor. Leading up to what Hiro saw in the second episode?
Hiro meeting FUTUREHIRO!?!? What the....? And now for some pure speculation. Why do we think FutureHiro is good? Just because Hiro is now doesn't mean that he can't change. And can't the lopped off heads because by a sword just as much as Sylar's telekenesis? The only reason I thought of this was because of Isaac in the shot right before. I could and probably am completely wrong.
Some random shots. Stuff from before. Claire talking to her grandmother.
Jessiki shooting a gun and then apparently Hiro pulling his time thing to stop the bullet.
Mohinder telling Mam Petrelli that Peter is dead. Yeah, right. Do they really expect us to believe this? I hope they don't spend much time on this plot line.
And then..... Linderman asking Micah if he wants to save the world, and Jessiki giving a very weird evil yet proud smile.
All in all, it looks good. But now I'm thinking that if they're trying to wrap up a lot of things and even introducing more in five episodes without much carryover to the next season of too many plotlines. Oh well, 10 more days...
Connor is standing. It's not very much and it's not very long, but he is pushing off of whatever he's using to support himself and stand up. It's been so cool to watch all of this again and to see how different he is from Kinsey, just in his bravery about where he will climb and crawl. He's so much fun and this time for him is just one of the best times of life for a baby.
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And now for something completely different...
Over the last month or so, I've been developing a story for Kinsey. One night she asked me to tell a story to her, with her as a princess in it, so I did. And about every other night, we'll continue the story, and we've been doing it for over a month. I've written down about the first quarter and I'm not going to produce it all right now, but I'll serialize it over the next little while for you if you want to read it.
Now, realize I made most of this up as I was saying it. And it's a story for a five year old, so you will find some very derivative things in it, but I have had fun doing it and it's been interesting enough for Kinsey that she's wanted me to continue it. And it's in purple because that's one of her favorite colors.
Once upon a time, there was a princess named Kinsey. She was a beautiful princess who lived in a wonderful land with her mother the Queen and her father the King and her brother Prince Connor. She was someone who loved going out and wandering around the countryside looking at the lovely flowers and strolling through the woods.
One day while she was walking through the woods, she had wandered further than she had ever been before. It was a dark part of the woods, and she was starting to turn back when she heard a deep growl behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw a large wolf right behind her. He was growling and snarling and starting to run toward her. Kinsey screamed and started to run faster, but her skirts were keeping her legs from moving as quickly as she wanted them too. She broke out of the woods and started running closer and closer the castle with the wolf getting closer. Just as she was within site of the castle, the wolf caught her skirt and dragged her down. She screamed so loudly that the guards at the castle gate started running toward her. As they got there, the wolf bit into her arm. Instantly, the princess fell into a deep sleep and the wolf started to drag her back towards the woods. They struck at him with their spears and he let go of her arm, running back into the forest.
I am happy that Easter is over. Unfortunately, where church is concerned, Easter has become an extremely stressful time. Almost as stressful of Christmas, with the productions.
Friday was going straight from my "real" job to church to set up sound with the incomparable Scott Hernbeck for the band and was at church from 5 until 10 that night. Then back to church on Saturday at 10 for the annual Easter Egg hunt, in the FREEZING cold. Amazingly, I think it was colder on Saturday than it was on the last day Kinsey and I were in Colorado. The rest of Saturday was nice though with the weekly shopping and then watching one of my favorite movies ever, Die Hard.
Sunday, we got to church at 8:10 AM. I had two amazing guys in the booth for me this week, Scott on sound and Pat Ford (who really doesn't need to move to Idaho) on MediaShout, so I got to sit in the congregation with my wife on a Sunday morning. I think the last time I was able to that was the week before Connor was born, so almost 11 months ago. We got to go to lunch and Kinsey got to play at a playground for about 30 minutes before getting back to the building at 2:30 and doing more sound stuff with the band and the chorus got there at 3:30 and we did a run through. We worked more sound issues and relaxed for about an hour until 6 when the show started. Scott Hernbeck ran the sound and Sheryl ran the MediaShout, so I got to sit on the floor again and hold Connor the whole time. We then broke down all the sound equipment and loaded it up and Sheryl and I got to leave with the kids at 8:10 PM.
It was a long weekend and it was stressful. But Sunday morning was pretty incredible with some of the testimonies that were given in lieu of a sermon. And not that I have anything against sermons, but there are a lot of times that I would prefer to hear someone's story rather than didactic teaching. And Sunday night was a great time of worship, but there are times that I do get tired. It's nice to be in the moment of worship, but it's always in the back of my mind that I'm going to have to get to work as soon as it's over. Sometimes like an anvil over my head.
At any rate it's over. And I'm back at work and can relax a bit... comparatively.
I wrote this two years ago from the perspective of Peter on the Saturday between Jesus' death and resurrection. I've always imagined how the disciples must have felt on that day when all of their dreams had been shattered and were living in fear for their lives. They had been supporting a crucified Messiah after all, a man they thought was going to bring the Kingdom of God and throw out the Romans. And now he was dead and they were in hiding. At any rate, here it is. I hope it puts some of this weekend into perspective.
He was the one. He was the Messiah. He was the one that was going to lead Israel back to prominence, back to God.
And now he’s gone.
I just can’t believe it. I saw him do things that I could believe. Even seeing them with my own eyes, I had to convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming. I saw him raise the dead, cast out demons, make bread out of nothing. I watched in amazement as he took the fever away from my wife’s mother, calmed storms, and walked on waves.
I heard him teach about getting back to God. He talked about loving our neighbor. He talked just a couple of days ago about making the Temple into a house of prayer again. He was the one who was going to lead the way to God. He was going to remove the Romans and their lapdogs and set up God’s Kingdom.
And now he’s gone. I watched yesterday as he died on a cross. A cross! He was killed like a criminal, in between two thieves! He was the Messiah; he was the chosen one, and he was killed like all the others. Even John the Baptist was beheaded.
And I tried, I tried to get him to do it right. When he started talking about dying, I told him he had it wrong. And when he talked about that he came to bring a sword, I made sure I brought mine to the Garden two nights ago. I was ready. I knew that he’d set it up there and he was about to start the revolution. I didn’t know if he’d strike dead the Temple guards or convert them to our side.
But then he just went with them and that bastard traitor, Judas. I wasn’t going to let that happen. If he wasn’t going to start it, I was going to. I took it out and I slashed that servant of the High Priest. But Jesus even stopped that.
So I followed and when I got to the courtyard, I… I…
And now he’s gone. He like all those other Messiahs, dead by a foreign hand. I guess I could keep talking about the stuff he talked about. That was good, loving your neighbor, taking care of the poor, visiting the sick. That was good stuff.
I’ll probably go home now. I was making a good living as a fisherman. I was supporting my family.
I just know that I’m going to miss him, the twinkle in his eye as he got ready to heal someone. That look of righteous anger as he was going to confront those self righteous Pharisees. That smile of love when he got around children.
Three more weeks. That's it. Three more weeks until Heroes returns, and it's felt like longer. I am glad that it will be coming back soon, so I've been trying to find ways to pass the time.
For instance,
Browsing the boards at TelevisionWithoutPity.com, where Heroes seems to be one of the few shows people there actually like some. Of course, they liked Lost when it first started and now they're acting like Lost is an actual person that dumped them, took their dog, and smashed their Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD collection.
Reading the online comic on NBC's site. They're going through a 6 week series talking about a Vietnam war experience with two main people who people are speculating are the Petrelli father and Linderman. It's not certain, but it would be interesting if that turned out to be true.
Well, two weekends ago, the entire family was down in Florida. This last weekend, Kinsey and I spent 5 days in Colorado, doing some spring skiing with my parents and one of their friends. I expected it to be really bad skiing with a lot of ice and slush, but while we were there, we got about 8 inches of new snow and it was actually a great time.
This was Kinsey's 4th year to go skiing and she has really gotten braver each year, thankfully. Kinsey will never be a mountain climber or cliff diver. She just doesn't have the courage gene in her. So I was afraid that she would never really enjoy skiing that much, but by the last day, she was skiing all by herself and just flying down the slopes, and most importantly, having a ton of fun doing it. There were a couple of situations where she ended up unintentionally in the trees and got a bit scared. But once she got "rescued from her tree adventure," she just went flying back down the slopes again.
As for me, I skied the first two days, because it is something that I just love. I went up high and did some beautiful and difficult skiing. On the last two days (Sat and Sun), I decided to try my hand at snowboarding. My parents have really loved it and I wanted to give it a shot. And I loved it. It was very hard work for me to do and get used to toe-ing and heel-ing and edging, but once I got it down, I was going down the green slopes (easy) fairly well, with only a few head knocking falls and fewer face plants.
At any rate, it was a great time and I look forward to each time I can go which has been 3 times in the last 4 years. I already can't wait for next year.
Kinsey and Gee (my mom) getting ready for the day of skiing
Kinsey and Dad (my dad) ready for the slopes
Kinsey and me skiing together.
Me after falling on the snowboard and Kinsey sympathizing
Kinsey and I got home late last night from a late season ski and snowboarding trip. We're at home today but getting back to school and work tomorrow. I'll try to have some pictures and stories tomorrow.
I would ask for prayers on an issue that has come up. I cannot go into details but I need peace and wisdom in dealing with a sibling in Christ. Thanks.
I am a pragmatic idealist trying to figure out what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and what it means to live in the Kingdom of God.
I'm married to Sheryl and the daddy of Kinsey and Connor.
