Random Blogging

Here are some random things that I wanted to share.

Sending of the Saints
Saturday, January 26th, a friend, Jan, and I did a Sending the Saints presentation on Small Groups Ministry. It was a lot of fun, and Jan and both enjoyed the event. We appreciated the interaction of the "audience," and we are excited to be doing this again February 23rd. If you want to see the presentation, let me know by commenting. I'll get a .pdf file to you.



Yael Naim




My friend Jeff introduced me to this song and video, which I absolutely love. The naive innocence of the song springs hope in the heart. It's by Yael Naim.



Boiler Basketball!



How 'bout them Boilers!?! Purdue is now 7-1 in the Big Ten and tied for 2nd place midway through the conference season. IU has yet to play Wiscy, MSU, or OSU, while Purdue has played them all once. There is a lot of ball yet to be played, but Purdue is set up nicely to finish well in the Big Ten this year and receive an NCAA seed.



Mind you, Purdue starts 1 Sophomore and 4 Freshmen! Coach Painter is doing a superb job, and the players are responding well. Is Purdue basketball back? It sure looks that way! Boiler Up!

NCAA Football 07 and bowls

I've never written a sports blog post before, but here's my lame attempt....

Well, another year and another OSU loss in the NC. It really is beginning to look like the Big Ten has fallen behind the other conferences. Aside from Michigan thumping Florida, the Big Ten looked rather weak, slow, out-talented, and out-coached. On the bright side, Purdue won the MAC championship by defeating Central Michigan in the Motor City (toilet) Bowl.

What is even more worrisome is that some of the Big Ten programs, like Purdue, are looking from within the conference to replace coaches. If the conference as a whole is struggling, why are we recycling coaches? Wouldn't snagging a SEC or Mountain West (which went 5-1 in the bowls) assistant or coach be a better solution? I like it that Michigan tried hard to land Les Miles. I like it that Illinois went for the Zooker (even though I think he's a terrible coach). They are trying to dip deeply from the well that is the dominant SEC.

Rumor on the street is that Purdue will soon be naming Danny Hope the soon-to-be head coach. The speculation is that Purdue searched for a candidate willing to sit in the passenger seat for Tiller's last year (2008), ready to take over in 2009. Hope is the HC at Eastern Kentuck, and he was a former assistant at Purdue when Tiller first came. He had brilliant success coaching Purdue's o-lines 97-01 (those five years produced 7 NFL o-linemen!), and he has had pretty good success at EKU fielding teams that have beaten the likes of Appalachian St. while challenging for their conference's title.

From my perspective, I think Purdue set the bar too low as the three candidates most commonly spoken were all very under the radar. If Tiller isn't footing the bill at 7-5, shouldn't we be after a coach who has taken other teams to a better mark? Peterson at Boise St. would be a great catch. The coach at Tulsa is another example. Others have mentioned Sumlin or B. Kelly at Cincy. However, name doesn't make you famous, and Purdue is a unique school. Perhaps, Hope is the right man at the right time.

We'll see. Morgan Burke, Athletic Director at Purdue, has a long track record of picking good coaches. I really hope Danny Hope is able to take Purdue and the Big Ten by storm just like Burke's last head coach did in 97'.

Go Boilers!

Zombie!

I hate zombies. I have never seen Day of the Dead, 28 Days, Dawn of the Dead, or any other zombie movie because I’m pretty sure I would scream like a little girl. My most memorable nightmares are of me trying to flee from zombies...if they catch me, I turn into one too! Once I had the very same zombie nightmare for about 10 nights straight! So, yes, I am terrified of zombies.

However, I was flipping through the channels watching TV and I saw a humorous beginning to a movie. You see this guy’s feet lumbering, you hear moaning, and a sub-human grunt. Just as I’m ready to flip the channel (zombie!), the camera pans up, and it’s this English guy waking up and walking to the bathroom. Hilarious. Turns out the movie was Shaun of the Dead. An English spoof of the Zombie genre. It takes horrifying zombie situations matches them up with this guy’s struggle to win back his ex-girlfriend and viola…one of the best comedies I’ve seen.

After watching Shaun of the Dead and laughing hysterically (and cringing in fear), I began to wonder why I was so afraid of zombies. Why is this mythical creature so repulsive and blood-curdling to me? I had always chalked it up to dead people walking around being just generally freaky. Though true, I began to see something bigger. Mythical creatures always represent something. They are symbols for the great, real-life forces that are arrayed against us. Jungian Psychology suggests that these images represent something deep in our conciousness...

Suddenly, it dawned on me: I’m afraid of zombies because they are the living dead. They are “alive,” but they are dead. They move around. They consume people. They do their thing, but really they are dead. That is what I fear the most. Thinking that I am alive, doing my thing, but really I’m just another walking dead, consuming others in my path. Perhaps the fiends of my nightmares are a mirror for my own soul screaming out what I fear most.

Thoreau in Walden puts it this way:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…”

First reading this quote was a pivotal moment in my life. At that moment, I saw so many people just existing. They slept, ate, consumed, went to a job to earn money, and they repeated that day after day. Marriages, children, and friendships were neglected. The true treasure of life itself seemed lost to so many. Here we are consuming while being consumed.

What could be more zombie? What could be more terrifying?

The Cranberries' hit song Zombie was a diatribe against all those who did nothing when Ireland was attacking and killing her own children with terrorism. Dolores' voice screamed out, "Zoawmbie...Zoawmbie...Zoawmbie, ie , ie, ie," accusing, condemning. Who could let the innocent die? Who does nothing in the face of such violence? Apparently, only those pretending to live.

Are you a zombie? Are you living for something or just pretending to live? Do you treasure life and live it to its fullest? When you see wrong does your life scream out against it? Are you truly alive?

I live because I choose to live. It’s a choice I make to flee the zombie existence, and I run and struggle and gasp to keep my life. To do anything other is worse than death.

I am terrified of becoming a zombie. I am terrified of living a meaningless existence. It haunts my dreams and my waking hours. For when I die, I want to have truly lived. I start this new year as I've started many: Determined to suck the marrow out of life.

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.
- Ecclesiastes 7:2

P.S. I would advise against hitting zombies in the head with cricket paddles.