Cool Image Of The Moment

Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA's Developmental League.

Still Excellent Uniforms, Though

Before today's game the Cardinals trailed the Reds by 3 1/2 games in the National League Central division. If the Reds played .500 ball the rest of the way (18-17), St. Louis would have to go 24-14 in its remaining games to beat Cincinnati. I haven't seen anything like a 24-14 run in the Cards this year.

I talked with a friend tonight who is a sportscaster and for many years did radio play-by-play in the minor leagues. His analysis? The Cards just aren't good enough.

He's probably right.

How You Play The Game

The University of Southern California's football program has begun a new era. Gone is highly successful coach Pete Carroll to the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. Gone, too, is the former athletic director, Mike Garrett.

The new athletic director is an old Trojan hero. Former USC quarterback Pat Haden has taken over as head of the athletic department. The school faces a shortage of scholarships as a result of running afoul of the NCAA during the previous administration and quite a bit of work and patience will be needed for them to return to prominence.

I used to root for these guys back in the early 70's when Haden was the QB. If nothing else they were often playing some team I didn't like in a bowl game, so I pulled for the Trojans. Because of that I'd be rooting for them now, but then I read this article and, in particular, a quote from Haden which caused me to admire him more.

He has expanded the school's compliance program and NCAA's Infractions report and the NCAA Manual are resting prominently on desks in the athletic department. "Winning any way other than the right way is not winning at all," said Haden.

That is a remarkable and rare statement in context of the atmosphere that permeates today's college athletics. 'Win at all costs' is much more likely to be the guiding philosophy.

Said another way, Haden's view is that one has not achieved any triumph, regardless of the scoreboard, if rules were broken to obtain it.

Or, like we said in the olden days, what matters is "how you played the game."

Cool Image Of The Moment

Tulsa 66ers of the NBA's Developmental League.

The Sacred Ordinary

My wife read something today that spoke to her heart and she showed it to me. After having read it, and being encouraged myself (can I admit that I was fed by a blog for women? Apparently), I thought I'd give you a taste.

"What is a 'significant life?' I think it is one which can be measured as having great worth and value - forged by carefully chosen crossroads leading to the sum of a life well spent. It is a life whose moments are not wasted on the banal and ordinary, but hallows the ordinary as sacred because God is there."

I had to stop and pray and ask God to help me to remember that He is here. Always. And He's there, too, wherever there happens to be. Many times I run on autopilot, steering my life this way and that, doing it all like I've done it umpteen times because, well, I've done it umpteen times. And then some.

It was refreshing to my soul to be reminded that the ordinary is sacred because God is there. The ordinary is not sacred because of time or geography or day or music or atmosphere or mood or me or you or any other human being. The ordinary is sacred because God is present.

In the early 80's I worked at a Pizza Hut here in town. I worked mainly as an 'opener' which meant I set up the salad bar, turned on the ovens and rolled out pizza dough. I also ate Club Crackers and drank Pepsi, but that has nothing to do with anything.

The point is, often as I rolled out the dough, I would pray. And honestly those were some of the sweetest times of prayer I can recall. I needed the dough, so I kneaded the dough and fed on the Bread of Heaven.

The ordinary had become sacred - and can again.

The Whale

This post is not about Dale 'The Whale', a villain in the recently concluded 'Monk' TV series.

No, this post is about the Hartford Whalers who concluded their run in the NHL back in 1997. It seems all their merchandise still sells well (and why not, it's SHARP!), but now there is interest in reviving the franchise according to this story.

I don't know how that would get done, but I assume it would mean moving a team. I don't sense an appetite for more expansion in hockey. In fact, the NHL probably over-expanded to the south and west 10-20 years ago and now some of those teams might be ripe to migrate to more ice hockey friendly climes, such as Hartford, Connecticut, for example.

In any event, it's a good excuse to run the Whalers logo again.

Prodigal God, Chapter One's Conclusion

Author Tim Keller has spent a good part of the Introduction and Chapter One drilling one idea into our heads: the two sons represent two kinds of people and two ways of being alienated from God. The two kinds of people are sinners and pharisees.

Keller winds up the Chapter with an interesting observation. Namely, it was the self-centered and licentious sinners who were attracted to Christ. It was the moralistic pharisees who were angered and offended by Him.

"Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of His day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think."

I would not presume to fuss with Keller about this last statement - he is a towering intellect. (Here he defends orthodox Christianity on the campus at Stanford) However, I am not as certain as he about the "mathematical certainty" he ascribes to his conclusion. In other words, does the fact that certain kinds of people are attracted to our churches "only mean one thing?"

On the other hand, I can't really poke a hole in his conclusion and it's worth serious discussion.

Cards Sweep Mouthy Reds

St. Louis Has Its Bats And Arms Do The Talking

They went, they saw, they conquered. Monday evening the Cardinals arrived in Cincinnati trailing the Reds by a game. Wednesday evening the Cardinals roll out of town leading the Reds by a game after sweeping the 3-game series.

The games were spiced up by the eruption of bad feelings between the clubs, so much so that a shoving match broke out in the first inning of the second game. Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips is the one who started the ball rolling on the whole mess. Where he went wrong was the Cardinals didn't take it lying down. Phillips called them out and they came out.

Phillips and the Reds just need to look at the scoreboard.

Cool Image Of The Moment

Here's a logo from Down Under. Melbourne plays in the Australian Rules football league.

I saw this logo at Brand New, one of my favorite sites. The designers there seem to think this is too busy and are generally critical.

I'm no expert, but I know what I like and I like this. I am especially fond of the interlocking M, F, and C in the red field at the top.

The Economy Is Moving in the Wrong Direction

In an article by Lawrence Kudlow from Saturday Aug 7, he discusses the possibility that the Democrats controlling Congress will panic and may try to make something happen on the economic front before summer's end.

"Of course, Republicans will push harder to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy - as they should. But Democrats are now trapped by Treasury man Tim Geithner's statements that extending low tax rates for successful earners, investors, and small businesses would actually imperil economic recovery. This is his war against investment and capital formation.

Maybe the Democratic revolt in favor of keeping all the Bush tax cuts will gather steam. But Democrats are more likely to push for greater spending than investment tax incentives. They'd rather take your money than let you keep it."

Remember this come November.

No more Democrats. Ever again. In my life.

The Prodigal God, Chapter 1

Two Kinds of People

Author Tim Keller opens Chapter One of his book, "The Prodigal God":

"Most readings of this parable have concentrated on the flight and return of the younger brother - the "Prodigal Son." That misses the real message of the story, however, because there are two brothers, each of whom represents a different way to be alienated from God, and a different way to seek acceptance into the kingdom of heaven."

We talked about the two sons in the previous post in this series, but now we'll see what they represent. Keller reminds us of Luke's setting for this parable, that there were 'tax collectors and sinners' present, as well as 'pharisees.' Two kinds of people. The former were like the younger brother in Jesus' story and the latter were like the older brother.

The tax collectors and sinners were drawn to Jesus' teaching and the pharisees were indignant about that. And it is this indignant attitude that Jesus begins to address with the parable of the two lost sons.

Here's Keller:

"Jesus' purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories. Through this parable Jesus challenges what nearly everyone has ever thought about God, sin, and salvation. His story reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, but it also condemns the elder brother's moralistic life in the strongest terms. Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both life-paths are dead ends, and that every thought the human race has had about how to connect to God has been wrong."

Previous posts in this series:

The Prodigal God

The Text

The Introduction

Cardinals-Reds Begin Today

Series in Cincy Could Bury St. Louis

The St. Louis Cardinals are in Cincinnati beginning today for a three-game series that is extremely important to both teams as they fight for the top spot in the NL Central Division.

The home-standing Reds are presently two games ahead of the Cards in the standings, though the lead is only one game in the Loss Column. A Reds sweep would put the Cardinals down five games with about 50 more to play. That's hardly insurmountable ordinarily, but the Redbirds have not given any indication with their play this season that they could get hot enough to wrest the division away from a good Cincinnati club with any kind of lead.

St. Louis will have its two best pitchers going in the series, Chris Carpenter (12-3, 2.91) tonight and Adam Wainright (16-6, 2.07) on Wednesday. Jaime Garcia (9-5, 2.53) will pitch tomorrow.

Bernie Miklasz of the Post-Dispatch with more.

MLB.com coverage here.

J.C. Ryle On Prayer

From the book A Call To Prayer:

"Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer. I cannot forget this. I look at men's lives. I believe that few pray."

Tim Tebow, Straight-Arrow, Hated

From the Orlando Sentinel:

"These are the sins of Tim Tebow: He is nice to strangers. He's never been arrested. His body is not a canvas of unsightly tattoos. He sometimes uses the word "freak" as a euphemism for the F-bomb because he doesn't curse. He is one of the greatest football players in college football history.

How anyone can stand him is anybody's guess.

The venom spews daily, in the anonymity of blog posts, in cyberspace hate groups, in the voices of callers from Alabama to Alaska. Tim Tebow, party pinata. Everybody take a whack.

The chaos that surrounds Tebow is baffling. He is the most polarizing athlete of this generation, for reasons that remain murky."

Tebow is a guy who, for me, I had no strong opinion about one way or the other. But now I cannot help but root for him, despite my antipathy for the Broncos, because of the sheer amount of baseless antipathy that a vast number of people seem to have for him.

There are real questions about his level of talent and the development of his skills. But for those questions there is an impending and unforgiving exam about to be administered. It will be proctored by the coaching staff in Denver and defenses all over the NFL will have red markers at the ready for any wrong or incomplete answers. Everybody will know whether he can play at the pro level soon enough.

But there is one question that won't be found on the gridiron: What is it about straight-arrows that drives some people bonkers?