Rainy May...

T-Ball practice and a bunch of games washed out today. Rain in the forecast for days to come. It's the month of May in Indianapolis.

My new favorite team

Go Dodgers!

Our T-ball team had its first practice this morning on a lovely sunny spring day here in Franklin. What a great group of kids and parents! Should be a fun season.

At the ballgame

Jesse and I trekked over to Cincinnati last night to see the Cubs play the Reds. Both teams have been in a bit of a swoon lately, and the Cubbies kept it up. Ryan Dempster, previously undefeated, pitched well, but fielding foibles led to five unearned runs early, and the Cubs couldn't come all the way back. The ninth inning was especially frustrating, as the visitors loaded the bases twice and couldn't score. Final: Reds 5, Cubs 3.

Oh well, we saw Geovany Soto and Adam Dunn hit tape-measure homers, Ken Griffey make a leaping catch of a possible Soriano home run, Felix Pie do the same with Griffey's attempt at #598, some good pitching, and a few nice plays in the field. Plus, it was a beautiful night, the food was great, and nothing's better than being with my son at the ballpark.

Why I don't watch the NBA

This is what passes for basketball now?

I realize that this has been one of the most exciting NBA seasons in recent years, with many new stars and more parity, especially in the Western Conference.

But come on, any game that includes this level of blatant thuggery is not worthy of the name "sport."

Sure you say, Marvin Williams was ejected for this flagrant foul. So what? This is assault and battery!

The NBA is gladiator spectacle, a wild chaotic circus of flying bodies and sucker punches. It's a game virtually without rules that only vaguely resembles what was once known as basketball.

Handsome guy attends prom

Our youngest son, Isaac, who is a junior at Franklin High, attended the prom with his friend Marci last week. They and a group of folks from the Jazz Band hung out together and, by all reports, had a great time!

OPENING DAY!

Opening Day at Wrigley: Brewers-4, Cubs-3 in extra innings.

As disappointing as the loss was, how about newcomer Kosuke Fukudome? Three hits, including a game-tying dinger in the bottom of the ninth! As always, however, pitching (or lack thereof) was the key, with Cubs' relievers Kerry Wood and Bob Howry struggling. On a positive pitching note, Carlos Zambrano was excellent. Let's hope he gets more support next time.

Augustine's Advice to Christians Who Talk about Science

St. Augustine made the following remarks in his book The Literal Meaning of Genesis. This is excellent counsel for believers in our day who try to speak about scientific issues without adequate understanding.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]

Let him who has ears to hear, take heed to this wise counsel.

What I'm Reading...Frank Schaeffer

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, Frank Schaeffer's memoir of life growing up in a family of fundamentalist "stars" describes a wild ride through the tumultuous world of cultural and religious change in the second half of the twentieth century. Schaeffer's parents were Francis and Edith Schaeffer, heroes to many evangelicals, who themselves lived out the stormy history of conservative American Christianity in the 20th century--from fundamentalism to schismatic fundamentalism, to a more culturally-aware and accepting evangelicalism, to political activism.

Schaeffer as a writer is, by turns, affecting, irritating, stimulating, and arrogant and distasteful. I found the memoirs of his childhood the more engaging and enlightening parts of the book, as he reveals his enormous respect and admiration for his gifted parents, while at the same time shamelessly exposing their foibles, blind spots, and eccentricities. The Schaeffer family must surely have been a "crazy-making" clan, especially when you consider how the "Work" (with a capital "w") grew in the midst of the turbulent, mind-blowing '60s and '70s. Franky grew up for the most part on his own through all of this and had to figure it out with little serious parental guidance.

The result of his well-earned insights is mixed bag. I've always considered the younger Schaeffer to be something of a smart aleck--mean-spirited and full of himself and his own opinions. To his credit, he owns up to that, especially when he traces the downward spiral of his adult life and career from evangelical wunderkind to failed filmmaker stealing from his local grocery. But that doesn't stop him from being brutally blunt in his frequent assessments and attacks on others. And he still has the annoying adolescent tendency to throw sexual comments around merely for shock value. Though I share his disdain for what evangelical Christianity has become in America, at times his vitriol comes across like a tantrum or bad dialogue from one of his "B" movies.

However, Frank Schaeffer does demonstrate that he has a genuinely wistful side, able to look at self and experience and an assortment of people in his life with more generous eyes. Descriptions of his mother, Edith Schaeffer, for example, are nuanced and complex, and the picture he paints of her as an elderly dancer is as lovely and heartbreaking as life gets.

Recommended, but watch out for the occasional craziness.

Understanding Science and the Bible

Today I want to recommend some videos on the internet that deal with the subject of how science and Bible relate. These are found on Gordon J. Glover's blog, BEYOND THE FIRMAMENT.

In three video slide presentations (found here), Glover deals with:

1. What is Science? What is the Bible?—Understanding the differences between these two ways of knowing lays an important foundation for maintaining a proper, intelligent perspective on both science and biblical religion.
2. What "Science" does the Bible teach?—Tracing the history of astronomy, Glover shows that the Bible tells its story in terms of the Ancient Near East model of cosmology, and that its point is not to teach this model as unchanging scientific truth, but to communicate God's timeless theological message to its first readers in terms of a worldview they would understand.
3. How should Christians relate to the natural sciences?—Modern science is at odds with the teachings of the Bible. Of course it is, since the Bible tells its story in terms of a 6000-year old cosmology! But it does so for certain theological purposes, not scientific ones. The key for a proper Christian view is to learn to distinguish between the timeless truths of Scripture and the time-bound models of language and science God used to deliver those truths to humankind.

Highly recommended.

Valentine's Treat

As a special treat for Valentine's Day, Gail and I traveled up the road to Goshen for a concert at LVD's Concert Hall in the Old Bag Factory. On stage was our favorite folk singer, Bill Staines.

We've been following Bill for 30 years now, since we lived in Vermont and spent our TV-less early marriage listening to the radio together each evening. I particularly remember one show he did on a New York public radio station, guitar in hand. When he played "Roseville Fair," my heart melted, and I knew I had found a muse for life.

If you like storytelling, gentle love songs, winsome melodies, dry and insightful wit, and a wise seer who can share well-earned lessons about life, I'd urge you to give Bill a listen.

Clemens' Mindset

In the bottom of the sixth inning in the 2004 NLCS, Roger Clemens faced Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen with runners on base. To anyone viewing the game, it was obvious that the Cardinals' batters, at first blown away by Clemens' fastball, had caught up with it after a couple times through the lineup. Yet the Rocket continued to challenge the hitters, thinking he could put them away by sheer force of will with the high hard one. Didn't work. In that fateful sixth, Pujols doubled in a run, and Rolen hit a two-run homer that proved to be the game winner for the Cards, sending them to the World Series.

I had a chance to talk with Scott Rolen later that year, and the one question I had for him was, "What made Clemens think he could throw a fast ball by you at that point in the game, in that situation?" Rolen's answer was basically, "That's just Roger." What made Clemens great, and what sometimes cost him, was his enormous hubris. No matter the circumstance, no matter the odds, he always believed he had one good fastball in him that no one could catch up with.

Apparently, Roger hasn't learned his lesson. All this bluster and clenched-jaw determination that we've been seeing from him lately is getting blasted all around the Congressional and media ballpark. He's been tipping his pitches, and when good hitters know it's coming, they generally hit it hard. The Rocket's back is against the wall and despite his grit he is getting hammered and it seems very likely the game is lost.

Hope springs...

On the day when Roger Clemens died (metaphorically) and baseball lost its last semblance of credibility in the minds of many, I'm heartened by the return of pitchers and catchers to HoHoKam Park in Mesa, AZ, there to start tuning up for the 100-year anniversary of the Cubs winning the World Series.

A good friend of man actually died yesterday at age 83, and they placed a Cubs cap on his casket as part of the mourning rituals. This year, it's for you, Jack. I'm still believing, and if you have any pull with Providence where you are, put in a good word for the boys, will you?

And to you...yes, you--if you have an ounce of humanity in your blood, don't let the misguided "Rockets" of the world cause you to lose your childlike delight in what is still the greatest game.

What I'm Reading...N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright's revolutionary book on eschatology and the church's mission, SURPRISED BY HOPE, is now available. You can follow an excellent discussion about this book at Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog.

Wright sets the stage like this: "This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope as 'going to heaven,' of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated....But if the Christian hope is for God's new creation, for 'new heavens and new earth,' and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other. I find that to many--not least, many Christians--all this comes as a surprise: both that the Christian hope is surprisingly different from what they had assumed and that this hope offers a coherent and energizing basis for work in today's world" (p.5).

PERFECT NO MORE

Tom Brady spent a lot of time in this rare position Sunday night. The NY Giants' defense looked like the '85 Bears as they shut down one of the most potent offenses in the history of the NFL.

Even so, Brady led the Patriots to a touchdown in the fourth quarter that would have won the game, were it not for the theatricsof Giants QB Eli Manning and his receivers. On one key third down, Manning somehow escaped the Pats' rush and fired a pass to David Tyree, who made a circus catch in heavy traffic to keep the drive going that led to the eventual winning touchdown.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

Are you telling me that the Cubs couldn't have ponied up four fairly unremarkable prospects to get this guy for their pitching staff?

What a 100-year anniversary gift he would have been!

Baseball Hero

For many years, my boys and I have looked up to one player as the epitome of what baseball is all about—Cal Ripken, Jr. We had an opportunity to hear him speak and answer questions today here in Indianapolis, and it was a real treat.

His basic message? There are no shortcuts to success. It is all about heart and hard work, desire and effort. Just the kind of talk you'd expect to hear from a guy who went out and did his job to the best of his ability every day and showed us what it means to love the game.

Thanks, Cal.

SMALL VICTORIES

My friend, Jeff Mercer, has written a book about his son Daniel that I highly recommend to you. Daniel Patrick Mercer was one of a kind, and he was taken from us when he was far too young. A star athlete, honor roll student, and fun-loving character, Daniel died of a brain tumor at age 18. This book records the poignant story of his family's experience and the lessons about "small victories" that we all learned from being with him on his journey.

Go to SMALL VICTORIES and order your copy today. All proceeds go to support young people through the Johnson County Community Foundation.

PRAYING FOR KENYA...

We are praying these days for the people of Kenya, who are in the midst of violent strife after recent elections. A humanitarian crisis is looming if circumstances do not begin improving soon.

NEXT SEASON IN THE CHURCH YEAR...

Advent and Christmas is now past, so my "Advent Thoughts" blog will be inactive until November, though you can still access it.

I will report on journeys through the rest of the church year on my "Baching through the Church Year" page. That's right, "baching"—I will be using Bach's cantatas to guide me through the seasons of the liturgical calendar.

I'd love company! Feel free to drop by any time!

What I'm Watching...

Mira Nair's gentle meditation about cultural disorientation is a quiet film in which nothing much happens, that is, besides the ordinary events of life. An immigrant couple in New York from India has two children. The children grow up in suburbia and become adults. Key characters work, have relationships, and die in the natural course of their lives. A rather mundane story, after all.

Nair's genius lies in two aspects of telling this simple tale. First, life through her eyes is stunningly beautiful. This film, like her others, exhibits the lush sensuality of India itself--its vivid colors, textures and sounds. Whether it is the dramatic decor of a Bengali wedding, the striking whiteness of a Hindu funeral, or the common streets, apartments and work places of New York, sights and sounds burst all around with life and vitality. The awkward and tentative lovemaking of a young couple whose marriage was arranged, or a single shot of samosas sizzling in a pan on a hot stove can evoke intense passion and yearning.

Second, her characters are genuine and reveal the depth of ordinary life experience. The three primary characters, father Ashoke (Irfan Khan), mother Ashima (Tabu), and son, Gogol (Kal Penn) all demonstrate remarkable capacity to be quiet and patient in their roles. Words like modest, graceful, gentle, thoughtful and careful describe them well. We learn the full force of ordinary events by watching them simply be real people who feel that force and don't by their acting try to persuade us how significant these things are.

The film's title and much of its subplot refers to the name "Gogol" given to the son. Nicolai Gogol was a Russian author, and it is intriguing to watch how a Russian name given to an American boy by his Indian immigrant parents helps him negotiate the tricky journey of figuring out one's cultural identity and place in the world.