Flag Football

I was asked to join an all female flag football team that will be competing in Fuller intramurals against co-ed teams. Apparently, they are boycotting the co-ed teams. According to my sources, there were so many rules and regulations regarding female players that the females rarely got the football. Their hypothesis is that since female players have to have two flags pulled and males only one, they have a competitive chance. Of course, I couldn't resist the challenge and controversy, so I said yes. Unfortunately, the only real football skill I have is running fast. My Oakhurstian rugged lady friends told me last weekend that I "throw like a wimp" (names and exact wording has been changed to protect the...uh...sort of innocent). Of course, I took that feedback very graciously(well, I mean after I pushed them into the lake I really took it like a saint). So, my question is, are there any football positions which only involve running up and down the field?

P.S. Of course all this practice means that if I ever play in the famous Barker Thanksgiving football game again...I might school some people.

They haven't thrown tomatoes at me yet

Today I had orientation all day for my new job. I am really looking foward to the diverse bunch of people with whom I will be working. So far the people I have been meeting have been extremely friendly and intriguing. I am not so much looking forward to selling products...time will tell if I have any salesperson in me at all.

I learned many new things today (for example, I didn't know it was possible to spend $66 on six hangers... I guess it is), but at the same time I was listening, I had many internal exclamations. I will share a couple.

Trainer: "So many people come in here for one thing, but they don't even know what they really need. It is your job to open up the doors so they can see they are really lacking a whole lot more than they thought.

My inner dialogue: "But what if they are in debt and have maxed out their credit card? What if they have a shopaholic problem and can't afford it?

Trainer: "So these wooden hangers are an example of our stock that goes from better, best, to finally extraordinary. This extraordinary wooden hanger is about the best you can get(only $11!)...notice the fine, thick wood, and the natural shape that will not crease your clothes."

My inner dialogue: "Holy cow...did they use half of a giant sequoia for that hanger? You could hang a 50 lb weight on that thing."

The second part of my training is on Thursday, and then my actual job starts on Friday morning, 5 a.m. So I have from now until then to learn how to be organized and help organize others. No problem.

With joy we contemplate the grace
of our High Priest above;
His heart made of tenderness;
it overflows with love.

(Isaac Watts)

Mullet Images

Well, here are side and back views. Anybody have any opinions?

Mullet Concerns

I got my hair cut at Supercuts(maybe a mistake) the other day, and now I have a growing concern that my new haircut may be subtly mullet-like. I don't know anyone down here well enough to feel confident that they would tell me the truth about it.

Quote for the Day

"It's not the church that has the mission of God, rather it is the missional God that has the church."

Eddie Gibbs

Power of the gospel

My professor challenged us today as to whether we really believe in the gospel as being the power of God in our increasingly secularized and pluralstic culture. He said that perhaps many Christians secretly think that the gospel is just for nice people in the Christian culture, and that we are intimidated and embarrassed at the thought of somehow making the gospel fit in with the outside culture. Upon examining myself, I found that I have indeed had this sentiment in the past and perhaps even now. Sometimes when I am not in a Christian context, I feel intimidated because the gospel feels so "uncultured" so "other", and how could anyone really hear it and respond to it..someone with no church background? This is what I want to see experientially..the gospel transforming someone's paradigm; not through someone's eloquence but simply because it is the power of God.

One Thought

Today, for some reason, I am very aware that no one down here knows me. Perhaps it is because it is Tuesday night, and I wish I could be with my friends who are meeting together tonight. Oh, the comfort of long friendships! (Even if the coffee pot is broken)

Poet-Priest

Ernesto Cardenal was a poet/priest/revolutionary all combined in one man. Born in Nicaragua in 1925, he underwent a dramatic conversion at 31(my age, by the way) and entered a Trappist monastery where, incidentally, Thomas Merton became his mentor. Later in his life he took a major role in a post-revolutionary government. The following poem moved me...it seems to me almost identical to some of David's Psalms but in more modern terms.

Lord O Lord my God
why have you left me?
I am a caricature of a man
People think I am dirt
they mock me in all the papers

I am circled
there are tanks all around me
Machine-gunners have me in their sights
there is barbed wire about me
electrified wire
I am on a list
I am called all day
They have tattooed me
and marked me with a number
They have photographed me behind thh barbed wire
All my bones can be counted
as on an X-ray film.
They have stripped me of my identity
They have led me naked to the gas-chamber
They have shared out my clothes and my shoes
I call for morphine
and no one hears me
In my straitjacket I cry out
I scream all night in the mental home
in the terminal ward
in the fever hospital
in the geriatric ward
in an agony of sweat in the psychiatric clinic
In the oxygen tent I suffocate
I weep in the police cell
in the torture chamber
in the orphanage

I am contaminated with radioactivity
no one comes near me
for I am contagious

Yet
I shall tell my brothers and sisters
about You
I shall praise you in our nation
and my hymns will be heard
in a great generation
The poor will go to a banquet
and our people will give a great feast
the new people
yet to be born.

Eavesdropping

My intense curiousity gets the better of me in public situations. I was trying to study at the Starbucks this morning, I really was. But there were so many interesting conversations going on around me...my ears almost grew Legolas-shaped as I attempted to listen in (listening in sounds a lot less harsh than "eavesdropping"). In one particular conversation between an older man and a younger female, a statement he made grabbed my attention. He said, " You can't trust anyone until you figure out what their self-interest is. Everyone is motivated by some kind of self-interest...once you figure it out, you know what they will do and what they won't do, and so you will know how to protect yourself. Then you can trust them." Wow, what a statement that sums up the way that so many people love and live...this is one of those things that seems like the best way to keep yourself safe...but what a limiting, fear-based way to live. I really don't want to love and live like this.

Bold claims

For those interested in emerging political situations:

The T.A. from my class just got back from Dubei(which I didn't know where it was and so had to look it up) and he did a 15 minute presentation on his docterinal thesis as a result of his extensive research and travelling. His claim was shocking, that the 21st century superpower will not be China, and in fact will not be a country at all, but rather a religion: Islam. He just released his website...feel free to browse it if you are interested. This guy talked a mile a minute, and his life has been threatened several times in the desert as he meets with various imams who don't understand why a white american is doing what he is doing.

http://www.islam21stcenturysuperpower.com

Reflections of today

"An undiscovered gift is an unlived life." This was just one of the great quotes from my Professer today in class. He was referring to the majority of people in churches that never discover their spiritual gifts and so the gifts "atrophy". My professor is a cheerful, quite likeable British man who seems to have a rollicking sense of humor. He chuckles just as much as he teaches.
My mind is whirling with a thousand questions and possibilities as I sit in class.

In contrast, the other day I crossed the street without the proper green pedestrian light. A car with two old ladies(when I say old I mean they looked like my grandma) honked for about 30 seconds, flipped me off, and rolled down their windows so they could scream obscenitites at me. This happened, of course, on Sunday afternoon when the street was crowded with people. I felt this was a little over the top. This never happened to me in Oakhurst