LaMenting LaRue: Why La Russa Got It Right* (PART 1 of 2)

*even if he considers it an attack on his integrity to say so

Tonight, my hometown team, the St. Louis Cardinals, is playing in Cincinnati against the Reds as the second half of the MLB season kicks off.  "Kicking" was also a popular subject before and during the All-Star break, also with regards to the divisional rivalry between the Cardinals and Reds.  Actually, "kicking" wasn't mentioned explicitly so much as the "incident" from a couple of years back when these teams engaged in an on-field brawl.  You can watch it here.

The most recent flare up of this rivalry started with Tony La Russa's team playing in the World Series last year. Even though he retired after the Series, he was invited back by Major League Baseball to manage this year's National League All-Star team (as per baseball tradition). Part of this job was picking (in conjunction with MLB) a handful of players to round out the roster after the fans and players have had their say.

La Russa did NOT pick either Brandon Phillips or Johnny Cueto from the Cincinnati Reds, though statistically either would have been fine selections. Dusty Baker, manager of the Reds, perceived these omissions as snubs, and egregious ones at that. So flabbergasted was Baker that he suggested La Russa snubbed Phillips and Cueto NOT because there were better options, but because La Russa is still holding a grudge against those two for their roles in the brawl of 2010.

La Russa responded: "The comments Dusty made clearly disappoint me and are attacking my integrity. The All-Star experience is too important to let anything stand in the way of a decision like that."

Some disclosure: I am a Cardinal fan, but am highly ambivalent about Tony La Russa.  He has had a lot of success as a MLB manager.  Double switches and pitching match-ups aside, word is that keeping a team motivated day-after-day is often the most challenging aspect of being a manager.  La Russa did that, and many of his best players swear by his tactics.  That said, I always wonder if he could have held on to what made him effective, but without coming across as such a self-important bully to the rest of the world.

His response to Baker's criticism is telling.  Aside from offhandedly overstating importance of the All-Star experience, it's La Russa who elevated Baker's critique to an attack on his integrity.  It's La Russa who effectively proclaimed, "How dare he?"  It's La Russa who almost certainly would have said the exact same thing if the roles had been reversed.

Baker, on the other hand, didn't do any favors to Phillips, Cueto, or himself by including Phillips and Cueto in the same paranoia-infused proclamation.  We'll get to Cueto in a second, but first a word on Brandon Phillips.  He's having a good year.  Maybe even a great year, at least for a second baseman.  But it's not a slam-dunk All-Star type of year.  Among qualified NL second baseman, he's 5th in OPS.  He's first in RBI and 3rd in HR.  He's also last in doubles (actually, worse than last, since he's been outdoubled by an unqualified second baseman) and has only 5 stolen bases.  All things considered, the top half-dozen or so second basemen in the NL are pretty closely grouped, and Phillips is one of those.  I'd probably rank him fourth.

Though not quite on par with the bawling mother who tells reporters that her just-convicted-of-murder son is "really a good boy", Baker's perspective on Phillips seems just a tad biased.  Pretty much any reasonable fan with access to an internet site with MLB stats would conclude that Phillips is a borderline All-Star who could have been chosen, and could have just as easily not been.  Even most unreasonable fans would conclude that there are at least 3 or 4 explanations less extreme than "the manager is out to get us" that explain Brandon Phillips' omission for this year's All-Star game.

All of this makes Dusty Baker look like a doofus, as paranoid and oblivious as La Russa is arrogant and defensive.  (People in the know say that these guys are something like friends away from the field--oh, to be a fly on the wall...)

Now, had Baker mentioned only Cueto, that would have been more interesting.  On paper, Cueto may very well be the second most effective starting pitcher in the National League of the first half of the season (though that whole "tightly grouped" thing still applies--he could also conceivably be ranked near 8 or 9).  He certainly looks like a full-fledged snub.

There are several reasons why La Russa may have overlooked Cueto, but apparently, to suggest that one of them was payback for Cueto's role in the brawl is to attack his integrity.  Presumably, the unwritten baseball code designates such behavior as "uncool" or something like that.

Here's another reaction to the possibility of La Russa intentionally snubbing Cueto for his role in the brawl: So what?

Cueto didn't just have a "role in a brawl".  Cueto propped himself up against the netting above the backstop, pretended Jason LaRue's face was the mat of a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game, and started singing "Maniac" by Michael Sambello in his head.  "Why, yes, those are metal spikes, and I'm not at all happy to see you."  LaRue was severely concussed, and had to stop playing professional baseball forever.

A couple of notes on the brawl and its aftermath:
-I once thought that LaRue retired because he was going to retire at the end of the season anyway.  In my research, I found no indication that this was a foregone conclusion.  Maybe he would have.  Maybe LaRue doesn't even know that.  What he did know was that in the weeks following the kicking, "he experienced painful headaches and nausea....  He was unable to drive or ride in a car, cook for himself or watch television.  His doctors, concerned that he was in no condition to care for himself, sent him home from St. Louis to his family in Texas."  (This quote is from here.)

-Brawls are part of baseball.  They probably shouldn't be.  And maybe LaRue should have stayed in the dugout.  OK.  Instead, he stood around in the scrum, like 60 other guys on the field that day and hundreds of guys before him.  Maybe he was even "in the middle of it."  And then he got pushed and held until the next thing he saw was Johnny Cueto's spikes.  Did he "have it coming" for getting in the middle of things?  Mmm, I'd have a hard time saying that.  It didn't seem like he was trying to hurt or kill anyone.  Unlike, say...

-Johnny Cueto had an interesting explanation for his kickage.  Apparently, he was frightened.  Oh, just let him explain it: "When 15 people get over you, you get scared.  I did get nervous, a lot.  I put my feet up, trying to get out of the way.  I was trying to get up.  My back was against the wall and I was trying to get people out of the way so I could get up."

More disclosure: I'm one of those people who, when they heard Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers explain his elbow hitting James Hardin's head as an "unfortunate... unintentional elbow" and as an outpouring of "too much... erratic passion", sincerely thought, "Yeah, I can kind of see that."  So I'm someone who wants to believe ridiculous explanations for stupid behavior.

And I almost had that thought about Johnny Cueto's explanation.  Then I had a couple of other thoughts:

1.  His description of the incident just doesn't match the video.  I tried to watch the video with his explanation of it running through my head as a commentary, and it was like watching "Spider Man" with the audio from a "Batman" movie: "I guess this is the same genre, but the details just aren't matching."

2.  That "wall" Cueto was up against?  It was more like what most people would call "a net."  And it had a lot of "give."  I'm no physicist, but I don't think even the force of 15 men could have made Johnny Cueto go all Play-doh-spaghetti-factory on the fans of row 1.

3.  If Johnny Cueto was in genuine (or genuinely perceived) danger of being squished, sticking the feet up sideways like that would make some sense, as the legs of the squish-ee conceivably could be stronger than the force of the squish-ers.  But that protective leg power is significantly reduced when the squish-ee starts kicking like a Riverdancer!  If you're keeping someone at a safe distance by pushing them with your legs, "slow and steady when you're on the fence, 'cause fast and pokey makes no sense."

4.  Finally, let's grant for a moment that Johnny was truly overcome by nervousness, as he claimed; that his visions of soccer fans being crushed against chain-link fences by hundreds of other fans all trying to press in the same direction, that these visions were overcoming his vision of reality, which was 60 guys bumping around together with no particular target in a corner of a wide open expanse of a field while Johnny leaned up against a net-like barrier surrounded most immediately by people who had no interest in seeing him crushed.  Let's grant that he was truly and sincerely nervous, and was just trying to protect himself by "get[ting] people out of the way so [he] could get up."  If that was the case, why were no Reds punctured by his cleats?  There were plenty of them around.  If Johnny was so frightened that his "fight" defense overcame his reason and sportsmanship so drastically, could he possibly still be clearheaded enough to only puncture guys on the other team (Chris Carpenter also received some cleatage)?  Did Cueto just get lucky?

Or here's another way of wondering about this: If he HAD ended the career of a teammate--say, Scott Rolen (who was in kicking range)--would Rolen, or Brandon Phillips, or Dusty Baker have been all, "Well, he was nervous, and just trying to protect himself by 'getting up'.  Makes sense to me.  I mean, the man was nervous for goodness' sake!"  No, they would have been like, "Are you a freaking idiot?!"

And it would have been a fair question.  In fact, it's just as fair a question when the victim happened to be on the other team, because the explanation makes just as little sense.

To be fair to Johnny Cueto, his honest answer to the question "Are you a freaking idiot?" might actually be, "Yes."  But I have a hard time believing anyone is that idiotic.  A more believable (to me) answer is that, in those few seconds, Cueto saw an opportunity to stomp his spikes into Jason LaRue's face and get away with it.

(I was trying to find a clip online that actually shows the impact of Cueto's spikes into LaRue's face.  It was curiously difficult to find, even though I know the clip exists.  Maybe it's out there somewhere.  But while I was watching the broader-view replay on MLB.com, the video paused several times to buffer.  Three separate times, the video paused at such a point where Cueto could clearly be seen hovering just beyond the center of the scuffle and let me tell you this:  His eyes sure as heck looked like the eyes of someone looking for a fight.  Watch for yourself.)

Fortunately, baseball has all sorts of ways of disciplining men who manifest the flaws of their character in such a violent manner.

Unfortunately, if you're Jason LaRue and the guy who slammed his metal cleats into your face is the ace of his team, those measures of discipline... well, let's just say they become more like a net, and less like a wall.

Jason LaRue, a backup catcher on the back end of his career, got kicked out of his livelihood.  Last week, Johnny Cueto's manager whined about Cueto not making the All-Star team.  In between, a lot of forces that could have doled out some measure of justice to Johnny Cueto have--to put it simply--not done so.

In PART 1.5 and PART 2, we'll look at how those forces dropped the ball of justice, and why La Russa was right to snub Cueto even if he won't admit it.

Until then...

-THP

Putting the "War" in "Warrensberg," 2012 edition

Back in 2011, I offered an eyewitness account of one of the greatest fights ever to take place at a church conference between offspring of The Hungry Preacher which involved padded pugil sticks and a giant inflatable fighting arena.  Thanks to the miracle of Pay-Per-View, millions were able to witness this year's rematch, "Monkey 1 v. Monkey 2, II: the re-pugiling."

For those who blew all their pay-per-view coinage on the Bradley-Pacquiao fight, here are some snapshots from the re-pugiling.

The missing tooth was non-fight related

Pre-fight morale was high for both fighters.

They're all smiles now, but that part of the weigh-in where they stare at each other with their faces an inch apart?  It was verrrry tense.

"willpreachforfood.com" was actually not my first domain choice, but "willofferjoustingtipsforfood.com" was already taken, darn the luck.

Last year was all about not being able to stay balanced.  This year was all about not having the arm strength to extend the pugil stick far enough to make contact.

This was the closest thing to a knock-out blow in the whole fight.  Well, to any type of blow, really.

Here I'm seriously considering stopping the fight.  Not because of the reasons one usually stops a fight, but because there was a long line of people waiting to have a turn, and my girls had been going for about 4 minutes without having landed a single blow.

Moments earlier:
THE HUNGRY PREACHER: Sweep the leg.  Do you have a problem with that?
MONKEY 2: No, sensei.
THE HUNGRY PREACHER: No mercy.

Timber!

Remember, win or lose, it's all about striking a cliched pose so as to communicate your elation or agony in a visually concise manner.

Here are some bonus shots from after the main event.  In this competition, the Monkeys were strapped to one another with an elastic cord.  They were each given a ball and a basket to shoot for.  If one "drove to the hoop," the other one--theoretically, at least--would be yanked backwards by the cord.

Here, Monkey 2 is moving so fast, even the camera can't stop her movement.  (The spectators, the playing surface, and the building were also moving incredibly fast.)

She has her mommy's smile and her daddy's "ups"

She told me later, "I wasn't flopping--I was just trying to help the refs see the consequences of what actually happened."

These last two can be printed out and put together as a flip book.  What you will see is positively Jordan-esque.

Will there be a "Monkey 1 v. Monkey 2, III"?  We'll see, but check back next June just in case.

-THP

Inside Jokes and Other People's Emails: "A Hypothetical Eulogy for My Friend, Rod"

Beth and I have an inside joke from an episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”  The movie that gets ridiculed in this episode is called “Squirm.”  In it, a pack (herd?) of killer worms picks off, one-by-one, a group of common-sense-challenged adults wandering in and around an isolated house in the woods.  At one point, the hero and his girlfriend decide that their best chance for survival is for the hero to retrieve boards from a known-stash of plywood.  The couple would then board themselves in the house until, uh…  OK, I don’t remember the details of the plan so much.

Anyway, the hero goes to fetch the plywood, and instead trips and sprains his ankle.  He limps back to the house, where his girlfriend calls out to him, “Did you get the plywood?”  At this point, the peanut gallery who is watching the movie for the purpose of ridiculing it yells out on behalf of the hero, “No, but I sprained my ankle!”

For Beth and I, “No, but I sprained my ankle!” has become a code phrase for, “I didn’t accomplish what I was supposed to, but in attempting to achieve the desired goal, I actually made things worse (or discovered that things are worse than we realized).”

For example:

BETH:  Did you fix the leaky drain?

ROB:  No, but I sprained my ankle.

BETH:  Oh no.  What happened?

ROB:  When I was trying to detach the plunger from the drain so I could snake it, I snapped the mechanism holding the plunger in place and scraped my hand on the faucet.

So that’s our joke.  Hold that thought while I shift to about a year and a half ago, around Christmas time.  At that time, I exchanged a flurry of emails with a friend of mine (Rod, married to Niccole) who had recently moved to Kansas City and was looking for a new job and a new church, all while trying to deal with his own “demons,” as he put it.

I had sent him an email, talking about some of my own struggles with adjusting to homemaking and church finding and depression.  This is a portion of the email he wrote back (that I share with his blessing):

…We have had a pretty eventful past few days.  Christmas went well, other than waking up at 3:30 in the morning with a horrible toothache.  We went to Springfield on Sunday and Monday to see family.  Unfortunately my toothache never subsided and by Monday morning, was forcing my body into a pretty uncomfortable position.  I woke up Monday with my hands and feet swollen, my head just wasn't working right (which I thought was the pain) and frankly I was having a hard time coping with life at that point.  Niccole rushed me to urgent care where they determined that I was dangerously close to sepsis which is basically blood poisoning from your body's inability to fight a bad infection.  Apparently your body starts shutting down and limiting blood flow to extremities and you can eventually die.  From a stupid TOOTHACHE!  Sheesh.  I need to listen to my wife more often, clearly. She had been pushing me to go to the doctor since Christmas morning.  ANYWAY, I received a shot in the bum with antibiotics, some serious pain and antibiotic pills and a stern warning from the doctor about not letting things like that go too long.  Yep, I'm a mess.  No surprises there though.  We are now home and this morning I woke up with MUCH LESS pain than the past few days which was NICE!  It's still sore and achy but at least it's better.

I'm sorry to hear that you and I are battling the same demons.  I try and make myself believe that nobody else could possibly be going through this same kind of crap but reality tells me that I'm not alone with this. I wish there were a better way of removing these feelings of not being worth anything to my wife and children other than counseling but as Niccole likes to point out, that's why it's there.  I'm not all that comfortable in telling people about my inner-most secrets and fears either. As a matter of fact, I sent a prayer request to what I believed was my pastor’s personal email for him to disperse appropriately.  In the prayer request, I put that I'd like it to be kept in confidence because I really poured out my heart and soul in this thing.  I even mentioned my feelings about how I think Niccole and my oldest daughter would be better off financially and such without me.  Imagine how surprised I was to receive a copy of this email a few minutes later.  As did Niccole.  And anyone else on the prayer request email list.  It got sent out because of a logistical error, but I started receiving all sorts of emails from people I don't know about my prayer request.  These emails I received were amazing.  People I don't know and who don't know me were reaching out and letting me know that I'm loved and that while they don't know me, they were willing to listen if I wanted to talk.  What an amazing feeling that was too.  And still is.  The pastor and I emailed back and forth a little bit about how it's quite possible that God not only wanted people to get that email but wanted to use that as a tool to teach me about the gift of receiving help when we ask for it.  Good stuff.

So I'm rambling quite a bit here which means I should go.  Thank you for your friendship and for allowing me to ramble on. Have a blessed and happy New Year!

Rod

About a week later, I wrote a poem for Rod.  I sent it to him, with an explanatory preface.  I then sent THAT email to Beth, also with an explanatory preface.

Around this time, I was getting ready to launch my blog.  I was pretty terrified.  It seemed like something God wanted me to do, but I was gun shy about committing any time whatsoever to writing.  My most recent attempts at changing the world through the written word had, by my estimates, succeeded in communicating mostly the opposite of what I had intended and had spawned far more pain and misunderstanding than they had clarity and vision (vague, I know).

Right now, as I’m typing these words, I don’t know if this post will communicate anything other than my penchant for prolonged and non-linear communication.  This may be one of those “It’s my blog and I’ll blab if I want to” posts.  My HOPE is that the hodgepodge of inside jokes and other people’s emails will exemplify the idea of writing (and reading) as a metaphor for leaning into the unseen work of God, even when the results are uncertain and the efforts seem futile.  Additionally, if God uses any part of this post to bring insight, joy, or conviction to anyone who reads it, then a theme of this writing may be that God can use even our most disjointed efforts and logistical mistakes to work for his good (a truth that I wrestle with almost every day).

Here, then, is the email I sent to Beth, which includes my response to Rod:

Hey, Beth,

This is what I was writing yesterday.  It’s a response to Rod’s update.  A couple of things:  First, I just wanted to share this with you, because I actually like it pretty well.  It was fun and it amuses me.  Second, I made a conscious choice to stick it out and finish it.  I was in the living room and had written about half of it, and started to get very antsy.  I kept thinking, "The house is a mess.  Clothes need to be put away.  Etc., etc., etc.."  I have told you before that, if I'm going to write, there will be some days where my "productivity" for the day will be "a paragraph", and maybe not even one that anybody will ever read.  And, if I'm lucky, the house will not be any worse than it was in the morning.  Having spent most of the last 3 years hating who I am for not being more productive and/or on top of things, choosing to ignore the "voice of the unfolded clothes" to do something like finish a poem is kind of a big deal.  It felt like a big deal at the time, even though I'm still pretty nervous about being able to tell when to listen to the "V.o.t.U.C." and when to finish the poem.  ("Did you get the clothes folded?"--"No, but I wrote a poem that maybe one person will read" sounds an awful lot like "Did you get the plywood?"--"No, but I sprained my ankle").  Anyway, all of this is to say what I did yesterday felt important and scary, and kind of like a dry run for what many of my days may be like if I'm going to write.  And I'm actually pretty pleased with the finished product.  So because of all that, I wanted to share it with you.  I'm also very, very glad that Rod liked it.  His short response--both the content of it and the urgency with which he shared it--felt like a divine affirmation.  That's all for now.  See you tonight.

Love,

Rob

Hey, Rod--

Not sure what this says about me, but after I read your last email, I started thinking about what if you had died, and then (more bizarrely) started writing a limerick of sorts that could have been read at your hypothetical funeral.  I had a window today to email you back, and ended up using that time (and then some) to actually finish and write out this little ode.  I realize this is, well, a bit odd.  ("Hey, I almost died the other day."  "Really?  Let me write a limerick about it!")  But it is what it is.  As darkly comical as it might be, I hoped it was poignant and affectionate as well, and that it goes without saying that I'm very glad that this is only hypothetical.  Do with it what you will, share it with whom you will.  I trust that we are enough on the same slightly-twisted wavelength that you won't find this offensive--or at least not in a long-term sort of way--so without any further disclaimers, here you go.  I'll copy 2 versions, the 2nd with the stressed syllables highlighted in case you want to read it out loud to people at dinner parties or something. 

Here lies Rod, a true servant of God, and a friend ‘til the end to Niccole

And though sleepless with sepsis poor Rod fought and kept his deep need not to cede his control

“I’ll be fine, it’s just pain,” to his wife Rod explained, puffy hands not withstanding this claim

“And if God wants control he will faintly cajole—not imbed in my head this great pain.”

Now he’s gone and we see that the pain in Rod’s teeth he ignored, from our Lord, was a call

With us still would he be if instead of his teeth had our God grabbed dear Rod by his balls?

Here lies Rod, a true servant of God, and a friend ‘til the end to Niccole

And though sleepless with sepsis poor Rod fought and kept his deep need not to cede his control

“I’ll be fine, it’s just pain,” to his wife Rod explained, puffy hands not withstanding this claim

“And if God wants control he will faintly cajole—not imbed in my head this great pain.”

Now he’s gone and we see that the pain in Rod’s teeth he ignored, from our Lord, was a call

With us still would he be if instead of his teeth had our God grabbed dear Rod by his balls?

Rob-

I am waiting for my daughter to get home so I can load her up to take her back to her mom's BUT I wanted to let you know I think this is AWESOME lol!! I am near tears from laughing so hard. I will try to email more later but thanks for this, it's just great!!!!!!

-Rod

Thanks, Rod.

And, reader, if you made it this far, I tip my cap.

-THP

Post Script: Rod’s response to my seeking his approval for this post:

Rob,

As a committed and diligent reader of your blog, I'm excited to get an insight on your blog before it's posted.  Even more so that you have included the limerick and some of our correspondence in it.  I wouldn't want you to change a word of it. I feel like God used those experiences and those difficult months to prepare me and to prepare Niccole for the ups and downs that were a mere six months down the road...foster parenting. I use the tooth issue as a reminder to see the doctor when my body starts telling me something is amiss.  My experience with thoughts of depression, loss and hopelessness helps me to both relate to our kiddos and get them the help they need. I see the hand of God when I get the chance to look back on emails and letters from days gone by. I see how He guided me, protected me and allowed me to learn so that I could be a stronger "me" now.  I pray you, Beth and the girls are all doing well. Hopefully we will see you soon!!

-Rod

Update on Updates

A wise man once said, "Never make an update out of material that could be a new post."  That wise man's name?  Rob.  But his friends and family call him "The Hungry Preacher."

Wise as this advise is, the inquisitive blogger may ask, "But what if you have updates that really can't stand on their own as new posts?"  If this happens, wait until you have TWO posts that need updating, then mention both of those updates posts in a stand alone post.

Well, friends, the hypothetical is meeting the actual, even as your eyes are crossing these very words.  Pretty freaky, no?  If you're reading this post while under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, your head may be spinning right now.  I'm sorry for that.  Though (teachable moment here) the fault is probably at least half yours.

Anyway, as the foreshadowing-savvy reader may have guessed, I've updated two posts in the last week or so.

First, I have added a 17th item in my two-part critique of the names of Bruce Springsteen's studio albums.  "Wrecking Ball" was released by the Boss a couple months ago, and he's been getting on me to update my post ever since.  The good news for Bruce is that his newest album title scores very well in all criteria.  Well enough to bump "Born to Run" from its top spot?  Not sayin' here.  You'll have to read for yourself.

Second, my older daughter has created additional artistic pieces for her world-renowned "Mario Collection".  If you're into either Pixos or mosaics (or, of course, Mario), you'll love the updates.

Enjoy.

-THP

Jubilee and Me

NOTE: I wrote the bulk of this post a year ago, but didn't post it.  It's been in blogatory since then, until I dusted it off, made a few revisions, then decided to go ahead and post it.  Enjoy.

My first post on willpreachforfood.com included a list of my best guesses of the tags that would be attached to subsequent posts.   This list was both to prepare you, the reader, and to provide myself with some direction.  Some of the tags have been more used than others, which I expected.  But some have been strikingly (to me) unused.  Here are two of the unused tags and their initial descriptions from that post:

7. God & the Bible. At the time of this writing, I’m not a pastor anymore, but am still a Christian. It’s fair to say I’ve been struggling with God for a few years now. Maybe my relationship with God mirrors my relationship with writing in some ways; both connecting with God and writing take time, focus, and are easy to put off for another day.

8. Church & Ministry. Not sure what I’ll be saying about this yet.

Many of the readers of WPFF know that I was an associate pastor for 4 years at a fairly new, gen-X-ish church in my hometown.  It took me about 2 years to get the hang of the job, and another 2 years to dramatically burn out and quit under the weight of escalating, poorly-understood, poorly-communicated, and poorly-addressed conflicts between me and some of the leaders at my church.  This weight was in addition to typical ministry stress, and I felt that my walk with God was being overwhelmed by conflict-born waves of frustration and disillusionment.

The church—comprised of my closest friends—was also suffering.  So was my family.  With the goal of preserving most of the things that mattered most to me, I walked away.

Initially, things were OK.  I could breathe again, and I could spend time with my wife and daughters without feeling like half my heart was battered beyond repair, and that the half that was still alive was looking over my shoulder, bracing for the next round of conflict.

While I was waiting for my walk with God and my passion for ministry to resurrect, I instead found myself looking back at how everything related to my departure transpired, and I grew sadder and more confused.

I also felt more and more “set up” by God.  An old friend of mine was once backing out of his garage on his way to school.  The problem was that he forgot to open the garage door before doing so.  And the jaw-dropping aspect of the event was that his sister was in the car with him, and knew that the garage was still closed—and didn’t say anything!

As I looked back, I increasingly felt like I had spent 4 years backing out of a garage with the garage door still closed, and that God was in the car the whole time and didn’t say anything.  Or at least not loud and clear enough for me to hear Him.

Without trying, I have retrospectively come to view most of the characteristics of myself (e.g., easy-going nature, desiring to connect with the marginalized, giftedness at writing)—that I had once valued as uniquely God-given strengths—instead as flaws that kept me from seeing the garage door.  Disillusionment and embarrassment have grown.  My walk with God has not.

Starting this blog was a huge step for me to tread into the waters of making use of my strengths again.  And when I wrote the first post, I thought that within a month, I would have fresh and exciting things to say related to the tags that I copied and pasted above.

I’m not there yet.  I still don’t know what I would, could, or should say.

Today, as I was thinking about underused tags in the WPFF archive, I thought about forcing the issue a little bit.  What could I possibly write about that could be tagged either “God & the Bible” or “Church & Ministry”?

I thought about our new church, Jubilee Church.  I still feel funny calling it “our church.”  I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable calling a church that again.  But it’s the church that we’ve been attending for 2 1/2 years.

I thought that a safe, harmless, and edifying post—but one that could move me towards more individually substantial posts in the future—could be “things I like about our new church.”  So, without further ado, here’s some things I like:

1)  The Pastor.  Bryan is down-to-earth, conversational in his messages, and funny.  He actually carries himself a lot like I do, which is a trait I usually find pretty annoying in people, but Bryan pulls it off.  He once even wore a shirt identical to one that I own, and I am nothing if not world-renowned for my fashion sense.

He values people and the grace of God.  He really pushes the grace stuff, which is good.  He has experienced it, and he is eager to share it with others.  He comes across like a drifter who happened to get picked up by God and who is very thankful for it.

2)  The Sunday Morning “Schedule.”  I haven’t checked this lately, but when we started coming to Jubilee, the website gave the ending-time of the Sunday service in the form of a time-range.  When I first met Bryan, I asked him why this was.  His explanation was matter-of-fact and dripping with common sense:  No one at the church knew exactly what the Holy Spirit would be doing any given Sunday, and they figured they should at least give Him some time flexibility on finishing His work.  I loved it.

3)  The Approach to Money.  Money is a huge topic in the Bible.  It’s also a topic that scares a lot of people away from church, never to return.  So what’s a church to do?  At Jubilee, the approach is to talk about money with roughly the same frequency that it is talked about in the Bible, while at the same time making it clear that Jubilee as an organization couldn’t care less about YOUR money.  For example, Jubilee is footing the bill for anyone at the church to attend a regional church conference at the start of June.  Registration is around $100 per person, but Jubilee actually printed a code on their program for anyone to use on the registration website that completely waves the fee.  Jubilee is covering thousands of dollars of fees, trusting that God will take care of the church’s finances as He sees fit.

4)  The Facilities.  A few years ago, Jubilee moved into a building that had been a funeral home.  Turns out, funeral homes make great church buildings.  Big foyer, lots of kids rooms, large meeting room, plenty of parking.

The interior design is contemporary but not showy.  The signage and layout are functional but not sterile.  All very nice.

5)  Worship.  Full band, regularly including a favorite instrument of mine that is surprisingly neglected in some newer churches: the keyboard.  The worship leading is solid across the board.  Songs continue long enough to build momentum, but not so long to seem manipulative.  Typos and technical glitches are rare, and are quickly fixed.

6)  Diversity.  In most churches, anything more than token diversity is fairly difficult to achieve, especially in mid-west cities and towns that are generally fairly segregated.  But several different ethnicities, nationalities, ages, and socio-economic groups are represented at Jubilee, and the level of diversity is one I have seldom experienced in a church.

7)  Prayer.  After service on Sunday morning, attendees are invited to walk down to the front and pray with any of the team of pray-ers that gathers for that purpose.  It’s nothing dramatic or showy.  They’re just there, ready and willing to pray with and for you for whatever reason you’d like.

All in all, Jubilee Church has been a blessing to me and my family for the past many months.  I am grateful, and I am glad to share some of its strengths with you while I continue to sort out and make use of my own.

Blessings.

-THP

Signs of My Times

Sometimes it's OK not to break new ground with profound insight.  Sometimes it's OK to be silly.  With that in mind, I freely acknowledge that I am not the first person (or the first blogger) to notice that public signs and product directions are sometimes completely cuckoo.  I hope that more established signage critics can make room for one more humble voice in their club.

In my defense, I've been taking note of signage atrocities since way back before even the five members of Tesla started jamming acoustically.  Do you remember cloth towel dispensers?  Maybe not.  Here's what they look like:

These were once very popular at so-called "scary gas stations".  As a wee lad, I once noticed (probably in Kansas) that the directions affixed to a cloth dryer included the warning: "Caution: Failure to Use Properly May Lead to Serious Injury or Death."

As a reminder, here is an example of what said death machine looks like:

I remember thinking, "How?  No, seriously, how?"  It's been a while, but cloth towel dispensers struck me as one of the least dangerous inventions ever, right up there with calf-length socks and bread (unsliced).  Like, if someone presented one of those how-did-it-happen riddles, and said, "A man is dead in a room.  The room is completely empty except for a cloth towel dispenser.  How did he die?"  I would answer, "He can't really be dead.  There is no way for this situation to exist as you've described."

Is it possible that someone--anyone--truly believed that misusing this product could cause death?  If so, did they believe that a completely non-specific warning could save even a single life?

Of course, "misplaced altruistic passion" doesn't get signs put up all by itself; it needs help from "fear of legal liability."  This begs the question of why didn't the legal team include in their warning other, equally likely ramificantions of misusing this machine?  You know, something like, "Misusing this product could cause serious injury or death.  It could also be misinterpreted as a signal to a distant alien race waiting to hear back from their disguised-as-an-Earthling scout who was left with the directive 'use the cloth towel dispenser properly if they are a people of peace, use it improperly if they are a people of hostility and we should come and probe and/or destroy them.'  Equally likely, it could make hummingbirds grow to the size of blue whales and decide that they like eating humans more than sugar water.  Misuse of this product could also function as the breaking of the first seal, as mentioned in the book of Revelation.  Better dry quick, smart guy, because the four horseman of the apocolypse may be well on their way.  For the record, if any of this happens, it is on you, not us."

So, yes, I've been noticing odd signage for a while.  I can't help it.

In recent days, armed with a phone that takes pictures, I have documented a few more of these peculiar signs, which I dutifully present to you today:

1.  "Good" Use of Quotes.

I can think of about a dozen different ways to use a word processor to highlight a particular word within a sign.  I can only think of ONE way of highlighting a word that actually causes a reader to wonder, "In what way is that NOT what they are wanting to say?"  Of course, if the "new" management is really just the old management having turned over a new leaf, then I retract this entry and tip my cap to the all-too-rare CORRECT use of "quotes for emphasis" within a sign.

2.  Worst.  Advertising Expenditures.  Ever.

 Is it black Friday already?  Target, to their credit, seems to have realized that providing customers the opportunity to exchange forms of currency at an exact 1:1 ratio was not, as they say in the advertising business, "worth mentioning".  Because a few weeks later, there was this:

Nice try, Target, but no dice.  My rule is that if it's not more than .07% off the regular price, I don't even think of it as a sale.



3.  Passing the Buck.

Yes, the directions are a bit circular, but the confidence with which they are given more than makes up for it.



4.  Abbrev Sig.

Directly below the bright orange "FOR SALE" is the word "LAWNMOWER".  Below that, obscured by the shadows, are some other letters.  This ain't perfect, but is a little more clear:

"LAMOR"

I was about to totally go off on this sign, but in doing some research, I discovered that "The Lamor Sign" actually won several of this year's coveted "Signee Awards."  Here is the complete list of its wins:

MOST OVERSIZED LETTER: "The Lamor Sign" for its use of "A"
MOST NEGLECTED LETTER:  "The Lamor Sign" for its disuse of "W"
MOST CREATIVE ABBREVIATION FOR "LAWN MOWER": "The Lamor Sign" for "LAMOR"
SIGN WITH A LETTER THAT TOOK THE MOST WORK TO INCLUDE, BUT WHOSE INCLUSION REALLY DIDN'T ADD THAT MUCH TO THE MESSAGE: "The Lamor Sign" for its use of "R"
MOST UNNECESSARY SIGN: "LAMOR", for being written directly below "LAWNMOWER" and for labeling a piece of machinery that is readily identifiable to anyone who may be interested in buying it.
So hats off, Lamor sign!  Or, "HAOF" (if you know what I mean)!



5.  Consider Us Warned.

My camera crew was hungover when they snapped this, so I had to find another, clearer image from my sister site, Flickr.

"INEDIBLE FAT  NOT INTENDED FOR HUMAN FOOD".
Same sign at the one I saw, but on a different truck--BUT, also with
Missouri plates.  Uh, shout out to my home state, I guess.

OK, so I know that we're an obese society with historically poor impulse control.  I get that.  And maybe I'm forgetting that not everyone learned the rule, "If you ever find yourself with the end of a hose stuck in your mouth, about to siphon the contents of an oil tanker into your stomach:  Stop.  Count to ten in Greek.  Then go buy some French fries."  That was a good, helpful rule, and I shouldn't stand in judgment over people whose parents never instilled in them such sound advice.

Maybe the real problem with this sign can be best demonstrated with a Venn diagram:

In other words, this sign needs a picture.  Like this one that I found on the internet:

It would have to be tweaked, of course, but I'm just saying there are possibilities.  The message CAN be conveyed, even without words.



6.  I Thought Everyone Knew These Things.

If you gathered a team of school marms and TSA agents and said, "I'd like you to come up with a list of six rules that can govern the refills at the beverage station at McDonald's," I'm pretty sure they'd be like, "Six?  That seems kind of high.  Can we do three?"

Hey, what do you know?  There are six!  And the best news is that I can still cup my hands under soda tap while pressing the "PUSH" button with my forhead and slurp my carbonated nector the way God intended--since it isn't expressly forbidden by the sign.  Whew!



7.  What Do You Think This Is?

Yeah, so this is a travel pillow.  You've seen them.  They look like a cross between a horseshoe and a padded toilet seat.  But don't be fooled.  It's a pillow.  Not an inflatable pillow, mind you.  Just a pillow.  What really makes this pillow different from other pillows is that this one is not a lifesaving device.

If the rest of you can bear with me, I'd like to close out this post by taking a moment to directly address pillow label makers in a constructive manner:

Pillow label makers, I appreciate the heads up that this pillow is not made to be a "lifesaving device" and should generally not be treated as one.  But what would you think of adding, "ON THE OTHER HAND, IF IT EVEN CROSSES YOUR MIND TO USE THIS AS A LIFESAVING DEVICE, YOU'RE PROBABLY IN A PRETTY DIRE SITUATION, AND YOU MAY AS WELL GO FOR IT."

That's just a little thing, though.  What I do take exception to, though, is your characterization of this pillow as a "device"--period.

See, when I say, "Honey, can you hand me that device, or is it in use?" I may be talking about an iPod, or a coffee grinder, or maybe a wheat combine.  But not so much a pillow.  That would be weird.

Also, I'm not sure under what conditions this "device" could be characterized as "in use" in such a way that would cause me to think it would be OK to leave my child unattended.  Don't I put it around my neck?  If I left my child, wouldn't this device leave with me (being around my neck and all)?  Does wearing a travel pillow sometimes instill in people a false sense of confidence in their child's ability to get along without being attended to?

Surely you're not meaning "in use" as "wrapped around a child's neck", right?  Even if that child was attended to?  OK, maybe that is what you're saying.  I mean, if I'm attending to my child, what could go wrong, right?  But--assuming my child is at such an age that he or she needs attending to--isn't that advice about not leaving my child unattended while this device is "in use" a good rule of thumb anyway, even if I haven't just wrapped a pillow around his or her neck?  Maybe you could change the last part to "FINALLY, LET'S FORGET ABOUT THE PILLOW FOR A MOMENT.  JUST DON'T LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN UNATTENDED, OK?  THAT'S A FREEBIE.  YOU'RE WELCOME."

Otherwise, the directions look great.  Good font, good color.  Keep up the good work.

You're welcome.

-THP

Stabbing an Evil King

About a week ago, I heard preacher give a talk on a passage out of the book of Judges, chapter 3.  A bad king named Eglon had taken over the Israelites, and the Israelites pleaded with God for relief.  God provided them with a deliverer very much like the Hungry Preacher himself in that he was left-handed.  This guy's name was Ehud, and I'm not making up the left-handed detail--it's actually in there.

In the story, Ehud hides a knife under his clothing and travels with a group of Israelites to give tribute to King Eglon.  They present the tribute.  The narrative is a little vague at this point, but it appears that the party--including Ehud--bids farewell and heads for home.  Upon passing some idols, Lefty Ehud sends his friends their way, while he pulls a 180 and heads back to the king.

This time, he tells the king Eglon that he has a secret message for him.  With assassination prevention tactics still being in their infancy, the king tells his royal court to run along so he can hear this message in private.  Ehud approached the king, then "reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly.  Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back.  Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it."  Ehud locked the doors then snuck away off the porch.  The king's attendents waited and waited, assuming that the king must be relieving himself (also actually in there).  "They waited to the point of embarrassment" and finally opened the door with a key to find their "lord fallen on the floor, dead" (at which point, we can assume they were doubly embarrassed).

It's a graphic and detailed story, one that--to my knowledge--not a single Vacation Bible School song has been written about.  And it's easy to get hung up on the reality that, in the Old Testament, God was often a bit more, well, "Old Testament" in how he brought justice to his people.

But the preacher had us hone in on the pivotal moment of Ehud's mission, when he pulled the 180 to head back to the king.  He suggested that Ehud was having second thoughts--maybe doubting his calling or his opportunity.  Realize that in the context of the Old Testament, this isn't a crazy man having second-thoughts about assassinating a duly elected leader.  This is a man clearly chosen by God to deliver his oppressed people from a tyrannical king.

Regardless of the details of his interior monologue, Ehud initially left the king alive, then decided to head back and follow through with what he knew God was calling him to do, even without knowing how things would turn out.

The preacher suggested that we all have little callings that we accept, then don't follow through on.  The "evil kings" that we need to slay are, of course, metaphorical.  But Ehud's example of following through should be a model and an inspiration.

Truthfully, I was not consciously thinking about this story 6 days later, this past Thursday morning.  I was running late for a meeting, and was walking briskly through the parking garage to the elevator.  As I approached the glass doors to get to the elevator, the elevator doors opened, and a man began to walk out.

It was an old man, and he walked slowly.  I resisted the urge to spryly slip through the glass door and shimmy around him into the elevator, even though there was a button he could have pressed to open the glass door.  Instead, I held open the door.

For the next 30 seconds, my life moved verrrry slowly as this man walked through the door.  The man was probably around 80, with the top of his head completely bald.  A ring of gray hair circled the sides and back of his head, and it needed a trim.  The man had sunken, brown eyes, and he looked sad.  He was a little overweight, but not obese, and for as slow as he was walking and as old as he was, he was surprisingly upright in his walk.  His eyes looked forward and down, but he held his head up.  He held a cane in his left hand and had a brace of some sort laced over his left ankle.  Each step moved him forward about a foot.

Behind him, there was a woman spotting him.  She was saying things like, "You've got it.  You're doing it."  All the while, she had her hands on his hips like in a conga line.  At first I thought she was his therapist or nurse, but she wasn't wearing any sort of uniform, and there was something deeply personal about her tone and disposition towards the man.  I wondered if she was his daughter.

She briefly thanked me.  I was glad that neither of them took my standing there waiting for them as a prompt to hurry things up.  I was intentionally taking this time out, but I was worried my eyes or body language would look impatient.  I didn't want that.  I wanted them to feel blessed.  I thought about saying to the man, "You're doing great."  But then I had the thought, "You don't actually know how he's doing."  That was true.  I didn't know if he was REALLY trying his best, or if he was just going through the motions to humor his daughter.  I didn't know if he could be doing more and was just taking it easy.  I also didn't want to sound patronizing.  He wasn't a baby.  What if my saying "You're doing great" embarrassed rather than encouraged him?

I didn't say anything.  They shuffled through the door.  I got in the elevator.  From the first floor to the third floor I had only a few seconds--not enough time to form a logical, rational case one way or the other for saying "You're doing great" to a guy I'd never even met.

Instead of forming a case, I gave myself a choice: "This could be a time that you made a sincere effort to bless somebody--even if you didn't know how it would turn out--or it could be just another time you thought about doing something nice, only to spend the rest of your life vaguely wishing you had but feeling somewhat justified because at least you thought about it."

With my left hand, I pressed the "P" button on the elevator.  When the doors opened, I was ready to sprint in front of any moving car if it meant stopping this man and his daughter so I could say "You're doing great."  I plunged through the door.  In the first spot, 5 feet away from me, was the man and the woman.  The man was in the passanger seat.  The woman was standing next to him, with the door open.  She may have been buckling him in.  Her back was to me.  Trying my best not to look like a mugger, I said, "Excuse me!"  The man turned only his head to the right to see me--moving his torso may have been impossible.  The woman turned around to face me straight on.

Her eyes were blue, and her hair was long, wavy, and stringy.  It was probably bright blond when she was a kid, but now it had faded into a weathered-looking shade of light brown.  Her eyes were bright blue, but didn't look very lively.  Really, she just looked sad.

I didn't want to just say, "You're doing great," so I opened my mouth to see if anything else would come out.  What I said was, "Hey, I just wanted to tell you that while I was standing there holding the door I had the thought, 'This guy is working his tail off.'  Then I got to the third floor, and I thought, 'Maybe he'd like to hear that someone noticed that.'  So I came back down.  Anyway, I saw you working your tail off, and I was inspired."  I paused to emphasize each word of my next sentence.  "Seeing you inspired me.  And, since probably not very many people would make it a point to tell you that, it's probably a safe bet that for every one person who actually tells you, there are at least another 100 people who are thinking the same thing."

At that last point, the woman's eyes filled up with tears.  She said, "Thank you so much for telling us that.  He had a stroke a year ago, and he's had to learn to re-learn how to walk."  The man was looking at me, too.  I was glad that, in looking in his eyes, I didn't see any self-pity or excessive pride.  He just looked like a man, a soul, hurting, trying to work through the trials in his life.  His eyes were also filled up.  He said, "Thank you for saying this."  I said, "Thank you, sir."  Then I said, "Blessings," and went on my way, back up to the third floor.

When I got there--now an extra few minutes late to my meeting--that was when I thought about Ehud again, how he appeared to walk away from an opportunity only to think, "I gotta go back.  I gotta do this."  Then he went back.  My 180 wasn't nearly as dramatic as his, but it's where I was at.  On that day, at that moment, I pulled a 180 and "stabbed an evil king." 

I have heard that there are many evil kings in this world, in my life and in yours.  Be watchful.  Be ready.  People are not blessed by what we "thought about doing."  And if you give in to inaction or compromise, don't be afraid to pull a 180.

-THP