Whatever Happened to Me?

Whatever happened to me?

In 1971 I decided to run for president in 2000 because I would be 37 and new you had to be 35 to run for president.  From that moment forward I . . . did absolutely nothing about becoming president.

In the late 1970’s I decided I would become a football player so I could get a college scholarship and play in the NFL.  From that moment forward I . . . did absolutely nothing about becoming a football player.

In 1981 I decided I would become an engineer because engineering was a worthwhile occupation and would make decent money.  From that moment forward I . . . took a semester’s worth of engineering and science classes and realized it wasn’t for me.

In 1984 I decided I would become an anti-trust lawyer defending large corporations from the government.  From that moment forward I . . . actually went to a really great law school where I learned I wasn’t cut out to be a corporate lawyer at a large law firm.

In 2011 I told my wife of 27 years that it was time for me to start training to become a pastor, so I packed her, our stuff, our 13 year  old son and moved to Louisville, Kentucky, leaving behind our 25 year old son, family, friends, church, fantastic job, and a home to a place where I knew no one and about which I knew almost nothing.  Guess what?  I actually did what I decided to do. 

Funny how God moves, even when you’re old and out of touch.  I don’t wear skinny jeans (the thought is, frankly, disturbing), my glasses are round with thin wire rims, my beard is trimmed, so it is neither stubble nor Spurgeon-like, I don't have an I-Phone or a Mac (PC guy here) and, frankly, I don’t like Starbucks coffee.  Yet here I am in Louisville, closing in on finishing a Master of Divinity and contemplating maybe a Th.M. or Ed.D.  Crazy?  Insane?  Perhaps.

Here’s what’s even more spectacular – God isn’t finished with me yet. 

I teach the elderly every Sunday morning at a local assisted living facility and preach once a month at a local nursing home.  I tell these folks all the time that while their heart is still beating they have something to offer God and can make a difference in the kingdom.  One of those people is a fellow named Ray, who is 93.  His mind is still sharp and he’s forgotten more about Jesus than I know.  He’s also kind, funny, and thoughtful.  And I’m “teaching” him?  Yet, God has called me to be there at this time and in this place and guess what?  I’m doing it!  I’m actually doing it.  No deciding then not doing anymore.

I also teach some local home-schooled high-schoolers.  Wow, never would have thunk it.  Yet there I am every Tuesday, trying to pour into them whatever I can both in the subjects I teach (speech and government) and spiritually.  I get to teach on-line students through Regent University, where I'm not merely allowed, but actually required to make thinking about God and the Bible part of the coursework.  Amazing! Will it matter to any of them?  I don’t know.  Yet, God has called me to be there at this time and in this place and guess what?  I’m doing it!  No deciding then not doing anymore.

Will I ever have the impact of some great preacher or pastor?  I don’t know.  Maybe, maybe not.  Am I some great man of God to be emulated?  No.  I’m pretty ho-hum average.  So what does this “deciding and doing” really mean?  It just means God has found a place for me to serve where He is using the skills and abilities He already gave me long ago.

You see, God didn’t intend for me to be president (THANK YOU!!), nor a football player (at 115 pounds in high school I would have been crushed), nor an engineer (oh the agony of doing math problems day after day), nor a corporate lawyer (although I was a decent litigator for many years).  God intended for me to be just what I am right now, where I am, with the people around me, doing what I’m doing.

God apparently knows what He’s doing with me better than I do!  It’s a strikingly weird, yet confoundingly comforting thought.

Eli Manning and the Mizzou Crisis - the Link is Obvious

Given the normal matters about which I tend to blog, it would seem odd for me to write a post about whether an NFL football player deserves to get into the Hall of Fame.

Perhaps not?

Part of the "Raving" I have done on this blog over the past couple of years, is to point out the complete lack of logical consistency among those who oppose Christianity (and also those who simply oppose common sense).  The Eli Manning post serves the same underlying purpose.

I don't truly care if Eli Manning gets into the Football Hall of Fame or not.  I don't know him personally, so I can't say if he really cares.  Here's the rub, though.  Reasonable, rational thinkers ought to see that Eli as a Hall of Fame quarterback is a no-brainer.  But I can tell you right now that, despite the prodigious numbers he already has and will  have by the time he finishes (barring injury), there will be many questioning his credentials because he doesn't have the kind of emotional appeal necessary to gin up support for a Hall of Fame run.

Thus, our problem.  As a society, we simply don't care to talk on a logical, rational level anymore.  We're much more excited by hashtag blahblahblah than we are about thinking through problems and analyzing them with any alacrity.

The recent upheaval at the University of Missouri and other colleges proves the point.  Students at numerous universities have made clear they are not the least bit interested in examining reality from varying points of view - no, they have made clear they are much more concerned about whether anyone is hurting their feelings.  According to several news stories, there were actually certain college student groups announcing they were angry at the media for turning its attention to the  recent Paris bombings rather than maintaining its focus on them.  Self-absorption hardly qualifies as a rational means of discourse about societal problems.  This kind of raw emotionalism, in which MY feelings matter more than any other issue fails the rationality smell test.


This, however, is where we are as a society.  Feelings mean everything.  Think about the recent gay marriage decisions by the Supreme Court.  Whatever you think about gay marriage, Justice Kennedy's persistent focus on the notion of animus against gays as a rationale for allowing gay marriage strikes me as a bit, well, emotional.  Making a ruling based on a rational understanding of the law I get.  Ruling that people should receive certain treatment under the law because some other folks don't like them, smacks of fourth grade playground nonsense.  Yet such is the currency of our social discourse these days.  When you offer any opinion that even smacks of logic or analysis, you are branded a "hater" and, if you are well-known, get a hashtag campaign mounted against you!  (I had to ask my teenage son a while back what all this hashtag nonsense meant - I still don't completely understand it).

We think emotionally all too often because we then feel justified in claiming offense (many Christians rush to get offended as well - the recent Starbucks "red cup" flap proves the point).  When we "feel" offended we get all smug and self-righteous, as if we're somehow not guilty of ever, ever, ever offending anyone or doing anything that could be considered inflammatory or (OH MY) . . . wrong.  Yet, of course, we pretty much manage to do wrong to others every day.  For instance, my wife is such an amazing gal because she puts up with me despite my massive flaws!!  Her emotions, no doubt say he's awful, but her mind says I love him and I promised to bear with him through all the ups and downs of being married because we made a covenant before the God of the universe to do so.  So despite being offended by me sometimes, she actually thinks about it and stays (I have one or two good points, as well, I suppose!).

Yet, ironically, it is Christianity, not secular humanism, that faces up to the reality of our flaws and our misguided-ness.  It is Christianity that acknowledges "there is not one who is good, no, not one."  It is Christianity that offers, despite our penchant for being petulantly pedantic, an answer that doesn't require we avoid offense.  You see Jesus accepted the greatest offense in human history - the perfect God-man, of his own free will, accepted death on a cross in exchange for everlasting life to those who would repent and believe the good news that the Messiah had come.  He didn't deserve that shameful and horrific death but he didn't whine and complain about how offended he was.

So we can go on being offended basing decisions on our emotions and we'll keep getting what we're seeing regularly across university campuses.  Or, we can begin to behave rationally and recognize that offense is part of the human DNA and anyone who thinks it will ever go away (until Christ returns) is, ironically, out of their mind.

Just like I'm out of my mind to think Eli Manning will be in the Hall of Fame?

Eli Manning Hall of Fame Quarterback?

Eli Manning, Hall of Famer?  I know that name and that term simply don’t go together.  Late last season, after a five interception game against San Francisco, some writer actually suggested it might be time for the Giants to “think about the future” and recommended they draft Jameis Winston in the 2015 draft.   Oddly, that writer apparently hadn’t been watching Jameis, who had been throwing interceptions like he meant it much of the season.  More to the point, that writer obviously hadn’t actually taken the few minutes it takes to track down Manning’s numbers.  The numbers indicate Eli Manning should be in the Hall of Fame when he finishes.  Allow me to elucidate.

Assuming Manning plays four more years (after 2015), he will end his career in the top 10 (and very likely top 5) in the following statistical categories and every single quarterback ahead of him is either already in the Hall of Fame or a sure fire Hall of Famer: career touchdowns (he’ll be around 380); career yardage (he’ll be around 54,000); career completions (he’ll be around 4,700); career game winning drives (he’ll be around 44); career fourth quarter comebacks (he’ll be around 37); career consecutive starts by a quarterback (he’ll be around 226, behind only Favre).  Right now the only non-Hall of Fame quarterbacks ahead of him in any of these categories are Vinny Testaverde and Drew Bledsoe and Eli will pass both of them by late 2016 or early 2017 in any category he’s behind them.

Oh, yeah, he’s played in two Super Bowls, was on the winning side both times, and was the MVP both times.  And, by the way, his playoff work is phenomenal.  Here’s a list of quarterbacks who CANNOT say the same:  Peyton Manning, Favre, Brees, Namath, Fouts, Marino, Tarkenton, Kelly, Moon, Unitas, Dawson, Young, Jurgensen, Warner.  All of these quarterbacks are in the Hall of Fame or almost certainly will be (Warner being the one close call) yet none of them won two Super Bowls.***UPDATE*** Peyton Manning was on the Super Bowl winning Broncos team this year, so he now has 2 wins.  BUT he was already a hall of fame guy in everyone's mind, anyway, so it doesn't make that much difference to my argument.

Here’s my prediction: Eli plays five more years.  He ends up in at least the top eight and probably top five all-time in all the statistical categories I noted above.  He’ll prove to have been one of the most durable and reliable quarterbacks in NFL history.  He’ll have won close to 20 playoff games, at least two Super Bowls, been a Pro Bowl selection several times and kept his nose clean throughout.  He will retire as a top notch ambassador for the NFL.

Yet, after he retires there will be all kinds of massive hand-wringing by so-called “experts” (by “experts” I mostly mean people at ESPN, 98% of whom are not Hall of Famers) about whether he’s “really a hall of famer.”  They’ll trot out excuses like his propensity for bad games once in a while (Hmmm, you mean like brother Peyton’s recent 5/20 performance against the Chiefs, where he also threw four interceptions?).  They’ll say he wasn’t a great thrower of the ball (you mean like Sonny Jurgenson – yeah he always, I mean always, threw the tightest spirals around – NOT).  Then you’ll hear the “it’s not all about the numbers” argument (but that fails to explain how everyone with the kind of numbers we’re talking about is either in or will be in the Hall of Fame).

Why, then, does Eli seem like such a hard sell?  Because he is just too dad gum ordinary.  He lacks Favre’s pizzazz, or Peyton’s ridiculous numbers, or Brady’s machine like quality, or Montana’s wit, or Marino’s release, or Namath’s persona . . . the list could go on.  It shouldn’t be this hard to sell a two time Super Bowl winning quarterback with the kind of numbers he’ll have as a Hall of Famer.

Manning’s like the guy who works at the office who consistently shows up, works hard, even when he is sometimes a bit off, never complains, has significant moments of absolute brilliance, followed by long spans of ordinary but diligent and effective, and never gets in any trouble in or out of the office.  Sometimes you hardly notice he’s there because he never talks about how great his ideas are or how hard and long he works.  Yet, when he’s gone, you suddenly realize this guy was a rock.  You realize you were so much better off having him there working with you.  He really was a great guy and made a huge difference to the company.  That will be Eli Manning.  But those guys don’t get awards or honors.  They get a pat on the back and a kick out the door.

Here’s to hoping, if Eli Manning has the kind of career he’s poised to wrap up, that it doesn’t end that way.

Kentucky: Epicenter of the Moral Universe?

For the handful of folks who read this blog, you know I take my Christian faith seriously.  Now let me frustrate many of you.  Two current stories are being lumped together which are separated by a chasm of gargantuan magnitude.  Both arise from Kentucky, right in the heart of the Bible belt.

                                                               

One story involves a clerk in Rowan County Kentucky who refuses to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples because, she says, it violates her sincerely held religious beliefs and her rights under the First Amendment to exercise her religion.  The other story is about a volunteer Chaplain who has been working in a juvenile detention center in Kentucky for 13 years who was told to sign a document saying he wouldn’t teach what the Bible says about homosexuality or quit.  Both involve Christians; one has a beef, the other doesn’t.

First, the one with the beef.  David Wells was, for 13 years, a Christian chaplain from a Southern Baptist Church at the Warren County Juvenile Detention Center.  It’s not like the state of Kentucky didn’t know what he was doing all this time – he offered his services as a counselor who was explicitly Christian.  Moreover, he was volunteering – so he was there out of a genuine concern for young people, not to pick up a paycheck.  He also has a background that allowed him to empathize with these young people, having been a victim of abuse as a child.  He wasn’t coming into this with rose-colored glasses on, idealistically assuming every young person he met would immediately become an award winning citizen.  What he offered was a shoulder to cry on and hope through the power of healing that truly comes from only one person: Jesus Christ.

The state of Kentucky has decided that the biblical teaching on LGBTQ issues amounts to “derogatory language” that “conveys bias or hatred” towards young folks struggling with these issues.  Therefore, it is banned.  Sign or you’re out.  What could Wells do?  Lie?  Sign the document knowing he wasn’t going to follow it?  No, as a true Christian, he refused to sign.  Some might say, look at the good you could have done, you’re hurting the kids.  FALSE.  The message he was giving those kids was one of hope through Christ – he can’t offer that without honestly teaching what the Bible says.  He was given what we often call a Hobson’s Choice – take what’s offered or nothing.

He took a principled stand – and the state of Kentucky lost a sincere, decent counselor who can no longer impact the lives of desperate young people in need.  In the meantime, the state of Kentucky took a step towards Orwellian madness – it is now hateful to offer people an opportunity for eternal life in heaven with the God of the universe.  Moreover, it is biased against Christianity (and other religions, too, by the way) to prevent the suggestion that LGBTQ is not sinful.  There is bias either way. 

Then there is the Rowan County Clerk, Kim Davis.  She has three problems, in my view.  One is biblical, one is legal, one is ethical.  NOTE: Before you get too angry at me, I do agree with Ms. Rowan that the Bible does not condone gay marriage and that it is morally wrong.  Nonetheless, I don't agree with how she is handling herself; nor do I agree with the lawyers who are handling her case.

The biblical argument against her actions arises from reviewing the actions of Daniel in Chapter Six of the Book of Daniel.  In that situation, the King was getting ready to appoint Daniel as what we might call Prime Minister.  Daniel’s political enemies got the king to pass a dopey law requiring everyone to pray only to him for 30 days.  Daniel, knowing what was going down, nonetheless continued his normal practice of praying to the God of the universe, not the king. He was caught and thrown into a lion’s den.  You know the rest of the story (if not, read Daniel 6).  Ms. Davis is, likewise, a governmental employee confronted with an edict with which she disagrees.  Note, however, the difference: Daniel never once went to the king to ask for some sort of exception.  He didn’t croon about his rights.  He simply, and quietly, knowing the consequences, went about his everyday business, which was not related to his actual job, by the way.  Daniel obviously had significant sway with Darius, given the position he was going to be given (and was, in the end).  He could have made his arguments, could have attempted to use his influence to in some way make an arrangement with the king but he did not.  Ms. Davis is doing just the opposite: she’s specifically defying “the king” and thumbing her nose at the crown all the while.  She is making demands of the government, not humbly accepting the consequences her actions might entail.  Daniel acted in complete understanding that God is sovereign; Ms. Davis is acting like the First Amendment is sovereign.

Secondly, Ms. Davis cannot properly argue, under the law, that as a public servant she can willy-nilly decide which laws she will obey and which she won’t because of her Christian beliefs.  If such is the case, then she undermines the very principle of the rule of law on which the United States is based.  The rule of law says that government workers don’t get to determine for themselves what laws should and shouldn’t be obeyed.  For this reason, Jack Conway, Kentucky’s Attorney General was rightly excoriated by some for his failure to defend Kentucky’s marriage law during the Obergfell case (the recent gay marriage case).  One of the very arguments made about the tyranny of the current president is that he seems to think he can act without regard to the laws, making his presidency one based on the rule of man, not law.  Ms. Davis is doing precisely the same thing, just from a different perspective.  In this, she is just dead wrong.

Finally, and worst of all, Ms. Davis has an enormous ethical problem.  Before now, did she question every person who came in about their previous marital status?  To how many divorcees who divorced for unbiblical reasons has her office issued marriage licenses?  Were her Christian beliefs not frustrated by those marriages?  These are valid questions that many non-Christians (and at least this Christian) will ask, and rightly so.  It is an inconsistency of the highest order to suggest one’s religious beliefs concerning marriage concern only gay marriage and not other unbiblical marriages. 

Mr. Wells did what he had to do.  He acted on conscience and quietly left.  Ms. Rowan is making a mockery of her position and, unless she’s prepared to tell us she never once issued a marriage license to an improperly divorced person, she needs to rethink her position immediately.  She’s ignoring the lessons of Daniel, but instead is placing her faith in the First Amendment instead of the God of the universe.  

Michael Sam: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow?

On February 11, 2014, I wrote about Michael Sam, the football player who spoke out about being a homosexual.  I said then I thought it was odd that those who report on the NFL made such a big deal about it (by that I mostly mean ESPN).  I wondered aloud about it because I had always heard that what mattered most was “what happens on the field.”  Ask Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson if that’s true . . .

But I digress.  Here’s my question: now that Michael Sam has decided to take a break from football for “mental” reasons, can we draw any conclusions about his rapid ascension and equally rapid decline in the horrifically short-lived thing called the American mind?  Obviously, I intend to offer some thoughts.

First, Michael Sam was under no obligation to discuss his sexual proclivities.  My suspicion (just speculating here) is that he talked to someone: an agent, a marketing executive, an advertiser, who told him just getting drafted would make him tons of money because he’s gay.  Maybe he did it to put pressure on the NFL?  I don’t know.  So he “came out.”  His sexual orientation has no bearing, so far as I can understand it, on how he performed as a football player, any more than it would if he were an accountant, a doctor, a cashier, a plumber or any other occupation.  I don’t need to know if my plumber is gay; what I need to know is whether my plumber can install a dishwasher, unclog a pipe, or fix a leak.  Michael Sam’s sexual orientation was never important to most people, except ESPN and others who are militant in their desire to push a so-called Progressive social agenda.  Of course, the NFL is a media-savvy, advertising-savvy organization which knew full well that failure to draft Sam, once he announced his sexual orientation, would have resulted in the media erupting, Mt. St. Helen’s like, with a wall of hot ash scorching the NFL for homophobia.  Someone had to take Sam.  Whether Sam himself, or some adviser, thought up the idea, he put himself in a position to get drafted.  And it worked.

Second, it is obvious after stints with the Rams and the Cowboys that Michael Sam was never going to be an NFL player.  He had one really great season with Missouri which landed him an award as the conference’s best defensive player.  Skill at college football doesn’t always mean skill in the pros.  Skill at the second best level in any arena of life doesn’t necessarily translate into skill at the next level.  The kid who wins the high school talent contest may or may not become the next great actor, singer, or whatever.  The accountant who works for the best firm in a small town may not find his or her skills really quite meet the standards when moving to the fast paced and cutthroat environment in one of America’s major metropolitan areas.   That’s just an assessment of how life works.  That doesn’t slight Sam – many high school football players never get to the “big” leagues of college football and labor in obscurity in much smaller venues, often (very often) without scholarships.  After all, Sam was drafted only 7 places before the very last player drafted, the man who gets named “Mr. Irrelevant.”  There was no shame in him not making it – many 7^th rounders don’t.  For that matter, there are plenty of first round draft choices who bombed out!

Third, one wonders what it means that he’s leaving his current team, the Montreal Alouettes for “mental” reasons.  He needs a break.  From what?  He  hasn’t truly played a significant amount of football since he was drafted back in 2014.  My guess (again, speculation) is that Sam thought he was cashing in and is at a loss to understand why everyone isn’t rushing in to get a piece of the action.  Sam is feeling the pressure of not truly making the cut.  From what I understand, he didn’t play in his first game for the Canadian team, either.  I predict he will never play professional football, ever.  For whatever reason, it’s not where his skills lie.  Seems maybe he invested too much in the fame of being the “first openly gay” professional football player.

I am a great lover of irony.  There is an irony here.  Now that gay marriage is the law of the land, and being gay is okay, nobody actually cares anymore!  It’s no longer a big deal for anyone to come out as gay.  Michel Sam can’t cash in because there’s nothing about his situation that demands cashing in.  Yes, ESPN dutifully ran a story about his leaving his current team (it’s on the website, if you really look hard for it).  I don’t watch much ESPN, so I don’t know how much TV coverage it got, but I’ll bet it got one quick mention then a move on, at best; more likely, it was relegated to the crawler at the bottom of the screen.

This is where the all the gay rights activists have made a mistake.  You’re always a darling when you’re an outsider trying to get in, but once you’re there (wherever “there” is), you are part of the inside gang.  Nobody cares anymore.  Now you can’t complain about how you’re treated because you’re part of the group that is doing the “treating.”  I suspect Michael Sam is wondering what happened to all the fame and notoriety that was supposed to come his way?  He may well have built his well-being on this idea.  Now that it’s not happening (hey Sam, you missed a tackle, hey Sam, you look slow, hey Sam what the *%$#^ were you thinking) it doesn’t surprise me he may be struggling.

This is why Christianity actually has a worthwhile answer to life’s problems.  The Christian world view says when I place my spiritual well-being in the hands of other human beings or myself I am in for problems.  No matter how well-intended, no matter how thoughtful, other human beings will always (yes, always) let me down in some way.  I’m not a perfect husband and have let my wife down over the years in different ways.  Fortunately, she knows I can’t supply her spiritual well-being.  Any well-adjusted person knows their own shortcomings.  The Bible paints a picture of maladjusted humans finding solace in one place: the Messiah of all humanity, Jesus Christ.  The Old Testament describes him as the coming Messiah, the New Testament describes him as the now-here Messiah, and both describe him as the “as to come” Messiah. 

Michael Sam apparently put his spiritual well-being in the hands of ESPN, maybe some advertisers (he had one credit card commercial), the NFL, and the CFL.  Unfortunately, none of that is working out, so he now has to “take a break.”  He’s cracking under the pressure that he doesn’t measure up and being a homosexual won’t solve this existential crisis.  Either the Bible is true and accurate in its reporting of the human condition (read it and you’ll find it’s blunt about the human condition) or it’s not.  If it is, and the living God of the universe is speaking to us through the pages of the Bible, then there is only one place for Michael Sam to solve his problems: in the waiting arms of Jesus Christ. 

ESPN doesn’t care that Sam didn’t make it.  Neither do the Rams, the Cowboys or the Alouettes.  They’ve tossed him aside like yesterday’s fish.  God, through the atoning power of the blood of Christ will never do that.  I hope someone is able to talk with Sam and get him to hear this message before it is too late for him.