You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2009.
It has been a Happy Halloween if I do say so myself:
* My mother-in-law arrived safe and sound.
* I’m off to a flying start on my Negotiation Theory paper.
* We had a fun & tasty dinner at the Le house.
* Today was so cool it took 25 hours to live it.
* This morning, the families here at the George Page Residential Complex had a super fun Fall Carnival for a bunch of cute kiddos. I took pictures, and I highly recommend checking them out! HERE’S THE LINK.
Reasons to Post “She’s a Witch!” from Monty Python today:
1. Posting “She’s a Witch!” from Monty Python is a good thing to do any day
2. My friend, John Dobbs, posted it
3. It is the day before Halloween
4. The scene is a good depiction of the law school’s Socratic teaching method
5. If you watch specificallly from 1:50-2:03, you will see exactly how I act in class during the aforesaid Socratic teaching method
So, justification complete, enjoy!
We have the privilege of going to church with a plethora of impressive teacher-scholars. Darryl Tippens is one of them. Many have probably read his terrific book, Pilgrim Heart. If not, I highly recommend it.
Today, my friend, Melissa, sent out a link to an article Dr. Tippens wrote about finding your vocation, and it is terrific, too. I thought I would pass around the link. You can find it HERE, and for all who have sought their purpose in life (and who hasn’t?), you ought to check it out.
Well, the World Series is starting. And with all due respect, I really don’t care.
As a sports aficionado, I like to rank things a lot. I’d now say that baseball is my second favorite sport. I love the strategy, the statistics, and the history. It’s a bit slow, but all in all, I appreciate baseball. But the Phillies and the Yankees? I couldn’t care less. I want to be a National League guy, but I grew up disliking the Phillies in the old NL East. And I don’t hate the Yankees as much as the average guy, but I just can’t root for them either. So I am indifferent.
Let’s talk football instead. Over time, football has become my favorite sport. It used to be basketball, but something about both the college and professional game has just lost my interest over the years. At the same time, both the college and professional football game has captured my attention. I love me a good football game.
Football was in the news today. Congress called a hearing about some very real concerns over the game of football. No, not the salaries. And no, not the steroids. Instead, there are some very real studies concerned with brain injuries coming from the game. Commissioner Goodell was taking heat in front of Congress today, doing his best to field the hard questions. You can read about it HERE.
I am interested in seeing what develops in this regard. I’m going to have a hard time loving a game if it gives people brain injuries. And it doesn’t take that many brain cells to wonder if a sport where human skulls violently crash into a variety of things may have a tendency to do so.
I do have a question myself that I haven’t heard addressed just yet, so if all you in Blog Land will tell me if it is ever addressed, I would greatly appreciate it. Well, let’s say I have two questions:
(1) Are helmets flying off football players’ heads much more frequently these days? (They sure seem to be to me. I’m saying a LOT more than ever before. The few friends I’ve asked about this haven’t really considered it before, but once I mention it, they tend to agree.)
(2) If so, what’s up with that?
I am obviously not an expert on much anything, definitely not helmet design. But I do think that the possibility of playing football without your helmet on your head – even in brief intervals – has got to do bunches to increase the possibility of brain injuries.
I haven’t had a favorite television show not aired on ESPN since the Andy Griffith Show, and even that was restricted to the black & white seasons. But all that has changed now. I officially declare my love for “Psych.”
We’ve been watching the first season on DVD on those rare occasions we get a chance to watch a show together. Thankfully, Psych is only in its fourth season, so I have faith that we can catch up.
Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, a little “Ebony & Ivory” by the show’s stars.
I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy our Sunday Bible class. If the only advantage to Malibu living was that particular class, it would be worth it.
John Wilson is the teacher, and he is the reason behind my high praise. Recently, John told us a little about Capernaum, the place Jesus called “home” as an adult. John is one of the leading experts in the world on Capernaum – how would you like to be one of the leading experts in the world on Jesus’s hometown?
John is unable to teach from time to time. When that happens, Randy Chesnutt fills in for him. This is like pinch hitting Alex Rodriguez for Albert Pujols.
Anyway, of all the cool classes, this past Sunday’s was one of my all-time favorites. We are working through the Gospel of Mark verse by verse (worth a mention – working through one of the Gospels verse by verse is my favorite Bible study all by itself!). We were spending some time in the early part of Mark chapter two when John mentioned an assignment he used to give his college Bible students. He would ask them to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and read through a Gospel noting on one side of the line the type of people Jesus had good things to say about, and on the other side the type of people Jesus have negative things to say about.
You could guess the results. John said the big surprise was how overwhelming the actual data turned out to be. The positive interactions were with the common people, the “sinners.” The negative interactions were with the religious leaders.
John almost seemed embarrassed to say it out loud, but he said that “the church today” has come nowhere close to comprehending the ramifications of this data. He said he has no political agenda and is no “bleeding heart” or anything, but the data is undeniable. There is a “side” that is the problem for Jesus. There is a “side” that Jesus takes.
I wanted to stand and applaud.
What this data means for those of us claiming to follow Jesus today is a discussion worth having.
Today’s sermon highlighted the #4 song of all-time according to Rolling Stone magazine – Marvin Gaye’s, “What’s Going On?”
Mother, mother / There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother / There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some lovin’ here today
Father, father / We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer / For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some lovin’ here today
Picket lines and picket signs / Don’t punish me with brutality
Talk to me / So you can see / Oh, what’s going on
Mother, Mother / Everybody thinks we’re wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us / Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some understanding here today
Picket lines and picket signs / Don’t punish me with brutality
Talk to me / So you can see / Oh, what’s going on
Friday night is my personal favorite, what with my declaring it “No Law School For Me” night. But as an overall day, Saturday is probably the best.
For one, there are no classes.
For two, there is football (though today not such a good thing for a Razorback fan).
For three, Jody & Hillary get to do girl things together while I study (girl things like haircuts today – and yes, I realize boys get haircuts, too, but none that live at our house).
For four, there is usually time for us to do something family-like, too. Like tonight.
Tonight is Law School Prom, but being the good Christian person I am, I do not partake in such lasciviousness. HA!!! Just kidding. But being the old man I am, Law School Prom (aka Barrister’s Ball) just isn’t that appealing. For one, there is dressing up involved. Well, that’s plenty to rule it out for me right there.
Instead, tonight we will be attending a Halloween/birthday party hosted by the stuffed animal of a set of kindergarten twins. There will be birthday cake, Halloween stuff, good friends, and no dressing up. My kind of event.
Saturdays are so nice. I like them a lot.
Sometimes I feel like I go out of my way to offend people, but I promise that’s not my goal in life. Well, not most of the time.
Os Guinness spoke at the law school a few days ago, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to listen. He is a brilliant orator, and as he held forth on the dastardly “speed” at which our culture lives, I thought he struck an important chord. He had terrific things to say.
(I also thought that his appearance and his accent combined to make him sort of a mixture between Ted Kennedy and Benny Hill, but that is beside the point.) 
Anyway, this is my attempt at saying that I really enjoyed listening and that I thought his topic, delivery, and message was great. The fact that I’m going to criticize his speech as potentially idolatrous may sound like I didn’t enjoy myself.
As a former preacher, I’m not fond of critiquing another person’s lecture on what they said or didn’t say. No one’s perfect. But I want to use Mr. Guinness’s impressive speech to highlight a larger problem I perceive in this religion called Christianity. Here it is in a nutshell: People are fond of saying stuff about the world taking Christ out of Christmas, but I think “the Church” has already taken Jesus out of his very own religion.
Oh, we like bloody Jesus as someone who paid off our debts. And we have the warm, fuzzy Jesus who looks like Mr. Rogers putting on his sweater. But Jesus as a life teacher–as someone who proposes a way of living life–is MIA. It just isn’t there. And we don’t even miss it.
This was glaringly evident during Mr. Guinness’s talk the other day, but I don’t think many noticed. Here we are at a Christian law school listening to a Christian speaker talk about how to approach the world in a Christian way as Christian lawyers. And Mr. Guinness nailed it. He really did. He honed in like a laser on a massive problem in our world, and he expounded beautifully on how this is a problem and presented ways to live differently.
But he never once pointed to the example of Jesus’s life as a way to approach it. Not once.
And we don’t miss it.
Please listen to me – I’m not criticizing Mr. Guinness. I’m saying that this is normal. We don’t even expect our Christian teachers to point to the “way” Jesus lived to teach us how to live our lives.
Again, Jesus is good for a bloody reminder of sin and that we should play nice with others, but we don’t even comprehend that the way Jesus lived would have any bearing on the size of our house or the busy-ness of our day planner or the amount of food we consume or the amount of time we spend watching television. Or anything else that makes up our “real” life.
I am convinced that this is central to what Jesus had to say. Jesus proposed a “way” of life and had the audacity to propose following his lead. This is critical to following – looking his way to see “how” to live.
If I die an old man and accomplish nothing else in life than getting a few folks to start noticing that Christian teachers aren’t offering this, then my life may have been worth the trouble.
We didn’t make it down to Blue & Orange Madness this year, but I expected nothing less than another spectacular dunk from Keion Bell. Last year’s Batman dunk over two teammates was simply amazing.
But I didn’t realize his dunk this year would be so good that it would end up as #2 on SportsCenter (last night)!!! I guess that’s to be expected when you jump over FIVE teammates!
To put this in perspective, Keion and I are the same height. I will add, however, that I once jumped over five pieces of paper on my way to the trash can. Back when I was working out.
Enjoy Keion Bell.
