“Take me out of this ballgame”

http://pres-outlook.org/2007/01/take-me-out-of-this-ballgame

Why is America so sports crazy? Why am I so sports crazy?

My eligibility to play on college athletic teams expired thirty years ago. I now have children older than the young men and women who are vying for national championships. Yet my interest in the outcome of those games — and, at times, my irrational responses to what I am seeing on the court and on the field — seem to be accelerating.

Why do millions of people experience happier days when their teams win, but feel sick to their stomachs after losses? Domestic abuse typically rises in metro areas whenever the local franchise chalks up an “L.” Sports stars aren’t only performers. They are “heroes.” The average annual salary for Major League Baseball players is greater than the lifetime earnings of tens of millions of American workers. Has our national sports fixation become a form of mental illness? ESPN advertises its NFL broadcasts with this slogan: “When you love it this much, nothing else matters.”  For the diehard sports fan no alternative view is imaginable.

Unquestionably the socializing that is frequently associated with spectator sports can be a welcome antidote to relational isolation. Fascination with athletic competition keeps a lot of people talking around the water cooler. Whole communities come together to experience The Big Game. Apart from sports some family members would struggle to find common ground. Think of that poignant scene from City Slickers in which Daniel Stern’s middle-aged character reflects that when he and his dad couldn’t find anything to talk about, they could always talk about baseball. Three cheers for the myriad ways that sports bring people together.

Other associations with seasonal games aren’t nearly so redemptive. It’s hard to overlook the symbiosis of major sports with gambling, alcohol, sexual images, and violence.

Theories abound concerning the rise of Sports Nation. Perhaps sports are a form of representative combat. Hating the Yankees is a safe and socially acceptable way of thumbing our noses at the Big Apple for its bigger-than-life arrogance. Others suggest that sports-crazed people (men, in particular) become ravenous fans because their own lives seem so dull and lifeless. Their personal dreams are stillborn. Vicarious success is just a televised touchdown pass or grand slam away.

As a pastor I am convinced that our church’s “competition” is not the Lutherans, the Methodists or that independent mega-church that’s mushrooming down the street. Would-be disciples of Jesus are torn between attending worship or supporting their kids’ 11:00 a.m. Sunday soccer league. The population thins in our sanctuary every time the local NFL franchise, the Indianapolis Colts, take the field at midday Sunday. (To be fair, our pastoral counseling opportunities soar every January when the Colts flame out in the playoffs.)

But the real effect of sports-as-life-itself cannot be documented as easily as attendance figures. We live in a culture of distraction. Our fascination with Hollywood, escapist vacations, political scandals, and the trivial details of the lives of celebrities — do Brad and Angelina truly love each other? — is symptomatic of the fact that many of those in our pews are not even acquainted with life’s great questions.

Addiction to sports can be a serious challenge to spiritual formation — that lifelong endeavor that requires relentless seeking of God’s kingdom through such disciplines as silence, solitude, and study. Manic attention to spectator events steals irreplaceable time from marriages, friendships and parenting. Today’s average couple works one thousand more hours per year than in 1975. Do we really want to turn on the TV as constant background noise when we finally find time to be with each other? Is it normal for dads to know more about the struggles of their fantasy players than the stresses faced by their own kids?

OK, I’m convicted. My name is Glenn. I am an addict. I watch too many hours of SportsCenter. I shouldn’t know (or care) about Chad Pennington’s double rotator cuff surgery. The beauty of autumn days should not be compromised because my favorite team may blow the World Series. With God’s help I will spend fewer hours in front of the TV and more time attending to the precious people in my home. As a pastor I will not dodge the issue of sports addiction as a major spiritual compromise for many of my members. God deserves my attention above all.

After all, when God loves us this much, nothing else matters.

Glenn McDonald is pastor of Zionsville Church, Zionsville, Ind.

The Poison of Bitterness

Bitterness is a poison that destroys the physical and spiritual health of an individual.  

Someone said, “Bitterness is like the acid you have inside that you want to spew on others; but it may well eat you alive before you get the chance.”

In April, 1995, Bud Welch’s 23-year-old daughter, Julie, was killed in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Bldg in Oklahoma City.  Three days after the bombing, Bud watched Tim McVeigh being led out of the courthouse, & hoped someone would shoot him dead.  Bud wanted him to fry.  In fact, Bud said: I’d have killed him myself if I’d had the chance.

Unable to deal with the pain of Julie’s death, Bud started self-medicating with alcohol until eventually the hangovers were lasting all day.  Then, on a cold day in Jan., 1996, Bud came to the bombsite – as he did every day – & he looked across the wasteland where the Murrah Building once stood.  His head was splitting from drinking the night before & he thought, “I have to do something different, because what I’m doing isn’t working”.

For the next few weeks Bud started to reconcile things in his mind, & finally concluded that it was revenge & hate that had killed Julie & the 167 others.  Tim McVeigh & Terry Nichols had been against the US government for what happened in Waco, TX, in 1993 & seeing what they’d done with their vengeance, Bud knew he had to send his in a different direction.  Shortly afterwards Bud started speaking out against the death penalty.

  

In Dec 1998, after Tim McVeigh had been sentenced to death, Bud had a chance to meet Tim McVeigh’s father, Bill, at his home.  Bud wanted to show Bill that he did not blame him.   Bill's daughter also wanted to meet Bud; the 3 of them sat around the kitchen table.  Up on the wall were family snapshots, including Tim’s graduation picture.  Bud said, “What a good looking kid.”

Earlier Bill had asked Bud, “Bud, are u able to cry?”  Bud had told him, “I don’t usually have a problem crying”.  Bill said, “I can’t cry, even tho I’ve got a lot to cry about”.   But now, sitting in the kitchen looking at Tim’s photo, a big tear rolled down his face.  It was the love of a father for a son.

When Bud got ready to leave he shook Bill’s hand, then extended it to Bill's daughter, Jennifer, but she just grabbed Bud & threw her arms around him.  She was almost the age as Julie but felt taller to Bud.  Bud didn’t know which one of them started crying first.  Then Bud held her face in his hands & said, “Look, honey, the 3 of us are in this for the rest of our lives.  I don’t want your brother to die & I’ll do everything I can to prevent it.”  As Bud walked away he realized that until that moment he’d walked alone, but now a tremendous weight had lifted from his shoulders. 

About a year before the execution, Bud found it in his heart to forgive Tim McVeigh.  It was a release for Bud rather than for Tim McVeigh.

Revenge & bitterness are poisons that will eat you from the inside out.  Forgiveness is the key that releases bitterness.

Ephesians 4: 32 says, “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”  Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7).

Finding God, by John M. Mulder

This is copied from http://www.pres-outlook.com/infocus-features/current-features/18447-finding-god.html.  I believe it's a meaningful story of one man's powerful encounter with the God who wanted a relationship with him, and this was after years of religious service.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the philosopher and psychologist William James published “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” one of the ten most important religious books published by an American author. In the book, James distinguishes between the once-born and the twice-born. The once-born, he says, never know deep traumas in life. They go from strength to strength. In a nice turn of phrase, he says these people are born with two bottles of champagne to their credit. In contrast, the twice-born know what it means to descend into the depths of despair and meaninglessness, and yet they come out on the other side — stronger and more able to handle the vicissitudes of life.

I always considered myself one of the once-born. One might say I was predestined to be a Presbyterian. I was born, baptized and confirmed in the Presbyterian Church. I was ordained to be a Presbyterian minister. Aside from a brief and intense period in college when I entertained some serious doubts about my faith, there really was no time when I thought I was not a Christian or didn’t want to be a Christian.

When our two children were born, they were baptized in the Presbyterian Church. I taught for seven years at Princeton Theological Seminary and then became the president of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I published articles, reviews and books about Christianity and the Presbyterian Church. I preached and taught in many churches throughout the U.S. I raised a substantial amount of money for Louisville Seminary, one of the fine seminaries of the Presbyterian Church, and helped rebuild its faculty, administration and board of trustees. Still, I thought of myself as once-born — a person who never knew himself as anything but a Christian.

Then, I crashed. It was September 11, 2002 — exactly one year after the World Trade Center towers came down. I was physically, emotionally, spiritually broken. My crash, I later learned, was the result of undiagnosed bipolar illness and a pattern of drinking that had progressed into full-blown alcoholism. But I was also morally broken. Alcohol had eroded my moral core and my moral code, and I had done things that were wrong and made me deeply ashamed.

I had to resign as president of Louisville Seminary, and in the following year I struggled to deal with the physical, spiritual and moral wreckage of my life. I went to 12-step meetings, and I drifted in and out of abstinence — sometimes for four weeks, sometimes for six weeks, but never more than two months. All the while, I prayed, “Please Lord, forgive me.”

Finally, a friend and fellow alcoholic, my doctor and my wife convinced me that I could never get sober without going into treatment. With a heavy heart and an anguished conscience, I left for a rehab program in Atlanta. All the while, I prayed, “Please God, forgive me.”

When I arrived, one of the counselors described me as carrying “a toxic level of shame and guilt.” And I continued to pray, “Please Lord, forgive me.”

Nothing happened. I had no sense of God’s forgiveness. I had no sense of God’s love. As another counselor said, I was “spiritually bankrupt.”

After two months in treatment and after praying continuously for God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of others, I simply gave up that prayer. Instead, I prayed, “God open me up. Please open me up.” I am not exactly sure why I prayed that prayer, except that I had reached the end of my rope and didn’t know anything else to say.

On the morning of December 9, 2003, I was making breakfast in the little kitchenette of the apartment I shared with three other men. They were still sleeping. I was spreading peanut butter on an English muffin, when suddenly I was surrounded by white light. It was not blinding or frightening but warm and embracing. At first, there were no voices or sounds, but as the light subsided, I eventually heard, “You are not alone.” And then the light faded.

The staff at the treatment center told me later that this event marked the beginning of my recovery. After I told my story in one of the small groups, the counselor, who was a Jew, said, “All right. Get on with it.” That’s an Old Testament way of summing it up: God says, “Turn around. Get on with it.” It’s a perfect way of describing what it means to find God.

That encounter with God made a huge difference in my life. It was a return from what was surely a form of physical dying and a spiritual and emotional death. I had been dead to myself, to others and to God. I had prayed for more than a year for God’s forgiveness, but then I gave up and prayed: “God, open me up.” Only after I prayed to be open to God did God again become part of my life.

Since then my life has been different. Most of the people I have wronged have forgiven me, and we have been reconciled. Those in my family, especially my wife, have recognized my sorrow at what I have done and welcomed me back to life and health.

What I knew intellectually about Christianity has traveled what’s called the longest distance in the world — the 18 inches from my head to my heart. It’s like talking about Jesus for years and then, suddenly, meeting him personally. What I have realized is that God didn’t simply want my repentance in exchange for God’s forgiveness. No, God didn’t want a transaction; God wanted a relationship. With me. Just as I am. Only after experiencing God’s presence did I know God’s forgiveness.

Was it a conversion? Maybe, maybe not. Before my epiphany, my life and ministry had been so abundantly blessed by God, and surely that means I had some relationship with God. But at some point, I walked into the swamp, and there I found God again. With the help of my wife and my family and wonderful friends, I began to walk the path in what 12 Step groups call “the sunshine of the spirit.” Perhaps the best way of describing my experience is that it was the most powerful moment in my continuing conversion. And it came in an epiphany from God.

It all began with a simple prayer: “God, open me up.”

I offer this story as a footnote to the moving and insightful stories of 60 Christians in the book I’ve published called “Finding God.” It’s a personal explanation of why I think their experiences and their lives are so powerful and compelling.

These are the words of Jesus: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8).

We are not alone.

by John M. Mulder