Fiscal disparity

A week or so ago, I noted on my Facebook page (yeah, I'm one of them, too) that it would take a USAF Master Sergeant 1,000 years to earn as much as the Dallas Cowboys mega-scoreboard cost. Today, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times included similar salary statistics from the Wall Street Journal that makes the head swim.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this is what is required to earn $100,000:

• Football's Ben Roethlisberger needs 3.6 snaps
• A-Rod needs six pitches in the batter's box
• LeBron James? 21.2 minutes on the hardwood
• Tiger Woods? A grueling 11.2 holes.
• You and me? Almost four years
  

In a culture that has grown increasingly giddy about income redistribution, such stats tend to raise the hackles. "Hey, where's my cut!" we scream, our feet propped up on the coffee table, our hand buried into an obese bowl of popcorn.

Why do we besmirch these guys for getting whatever they can for doing what they love? If it would only take Tiger 9.7 holes, I say, "More power to him!" If Ben can do it in two-and-a-half snaps, sweet! It's just money. Paul (apostle type) warned that loving such is a root of all kinds of evil. Yes, the wealthy have many cares of which we are unaware.

Our problem? "Greed is good," intoned Gordon Gekko in the middle of Wall Street, and we bought it. "YEAH!" we cried, not understanding that we were swallowing a line from a Hollywood bad guy like a fat bass sucking in a Mepps spinner.

Folks have been deluded into thinking that there were only x number of dollars in the world. No, wealth can be created. Plan one kernel of corn and you get hundreds. What a deal! It's not like your earnings are a sliced off of a portion of the fatted calf. It's not like Tiger gets 3/4 of the critter and the rest of us slobs divvy up the hind parts. We can raise another calf! Why stop there? Breed a herd; the cows don't mind.

Stats tend to make us focus on what we don't have. I don't have a 300 foot yacht. I don't even have a 30 foot dinghy. I do have a home (mortgaged) and a family. I have a couple of Suburbans for toting the family around (used), and a Suzuki (also used) for getting to and from work. We have food in the fridge and my wife knows some amazing things to do with it.

Discontentment seems more and more to be the park where we like to spend our days. We become embittered by what we do not have instead of giving thanks to the God of good gifts for the wondrous riches we do have. The writer of Proverbs nailed it when he said,

"...Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."

So, for those who are rich, well done! I hope you do well with the responsibility given you. For the man in the mirror, I hope you, too, do well with the few dollars given you and are ever thankful to the Lord your God for the abundance he has lavished on you beyond the monetary.

Thursday night lights

Highway 277 out of Wichita Falls, Texas deviates little from a straight line enroute to the southwestern horizon. The scrub mesquite that mottles both sides of the highway does little to obstruct the view to the earth’s edge. Civilization is sparse, too, with towns blossoming in the middle of nowhere every two to three dozen miles.

In these hinterlands, six-man football thrives.

Six-man football is to sport what George Gobel was to Johnny Carson, the pair of brown shoes amidst a sea of tuxedoes. If a town’s high school fields a six-man team, it has already submitted to the fact that it doesn’t have the population to put up an eleven-man team. No pretense. No arrogance. No flash. The townsfolk are thrilled just to have a team of their own to cheer for. The kids delight at being able to play.

Private schools play this game, too. Often situated in towns and cities permeated by eleven-man teams, the private schools will travel one hundred miles to find and play another six-man team. Thursday night, our journey was just shy of that.

This is what sport is meant to be. No colossal stadiums like those which dot Texas’ major metropolitan areas. Few lads are vying for scholarships at UT or Tech. No marching bands with choreographed displays that would wow USC. Six rows of aluminum bleachers for the visitors, always facing into the setting sun. Two extra rows provided for the home team and crowned with a plywood press box that fits three observers on metal folding chairs. A six button push-pad controls the scoreboard, and a microphone that’s 50-50 keeps you apprised of what you just saw. And since the season has just begun, most of the stadium lights are still in working order.

Knox City’s football field sits on the east end of town. Its water tower could be seen from ten miles away, and despite the fact that the sun had an hour and a half left before its 100-degree presence would no longer be felt, the stadium lights twinkled above the Mesquite-line just north of the highway.

As I pulled into the visitor’s parking lot, my six-year old daughter exclaimed, “Look at the animals!” On the side of the lot away from the field was a home, and between the home and the lot, the family kept their critters. Goats. Dozens of them, all ear-tagged as though ready for showing at the county fair. They shared their pen with a handful of chickens and a donkey that delighted in chasing the goats around their enclosure.

Six-man football is a wide-open game played on a field 20 yards shorter and only 13 yards less wide than a traditional field. While the penalties for the most part remain the same, the actual play takes most of its cues from backyards and playgrounds. Everyone is eligible to catch the ball. The running holes are massive. Quickness and agility are a must. Size, while nice, is not nearly so important.

Both teams, Knox City and Christ Academy from Wichita Falls, sported new uniforms and looked sharp and proud on the sidelines as their captains measured one another during the pregame coin-toss.

From our perch at midfield, the brambled plains stretched out to touch the sky to the north and the south. Towering thunderstorms miles away circled the stadium and stoodd as massive gray sentinels to the game. As the sun set, they provided an awesome canvas on which maroons and oranges and indigos complemented the navies and the crimsons on the field.

Few ticks have dropped off the eight-minute first quarter before the scoreboard portended the coming touchdown torrent for Christ Academy. We munched homemade sandwiches. Others dipped into gloppy nacho dip from the snack bar. The cheerleaders belted out their script on both sides of the field often oblivious to what was going on between the sidelines. The American flag stood out with pride and pleasure in a place of prominence at the north end of the field for young men were cutting their teeth on the fields of friendly conflict while real men gave their all in fields of battle thousands of miles away.

At the end of three quarters, the game was mercifully called. The equivalence of Little League’s ten-run rule had been met. The teams shook hands at midfield, after which Christ Academy gathered in a circle, arms around shoulder pads, and thanked God for safety and for sport, for esprit and for His Spirit.

As we drove through the darkness to get my little girls home and into bed, I wondered if this game would even find its way into the next day’s paper. It’s football season, and eleven-man rules the night in Wichita Falls. No matter, really. Few who were there will forget the splendor and beauty of the first game of the season, and it had little to do with the score. The specifics of the game will soon fade for both teams and for all the fans, but the character and experience honed on that sun-scorched gridiron will last a lifetime.

Such is the glory of six-man football in north Texas.

Eurabia marches on

I'm a news junkie. Well, not so much the raw news. I enjoy a cogent analysis on particular issues. Toss in a bit of wit and a hint of mastery of the mother tongue, and you have me hooked. That's why you'll see me frequently citing Jay Nordlinger and Mark Steyn, both of National Review. You might not like the conclusion, but you'll find the argumentation taught and you'll likely find yourself chuckling (at least smiling) along the way.

As usual, I enjoyed Nordlinger's "Impromptus" at National Review Online this morning. You may find his topics today dull. I wanted to toss you one quote pertaining to his recent trip to Europe, France in particular.

"I saw signs and such translated into two languages: English and Arabic. When I first started going to France, the only translation was into English, and possibly German. This confirms an important change."

That last sentence? Understatement!

The first time I heard of the mass immigration from the Middle East into Europe was when I read Steyn's book, "America Alone." I've spoken about it at length before. His point is that plummeting birthrates in the west and Arab/Islamic immigration into the west (coupled with sizable birthrates) is hurtling us toward a cataclysmic clash of civilizations.

Since then we see problems with "troubled youths" rioting in France (Muslims), sharia law in conflict with civil law in Great Britain, and the Islamic political party becoming the fast growing political party in the Netherlands. When Geert Wilders makes a film warning about the intolerance of Islamic society, his indicted for hate crimes in his own country and not permitted entrance into Great Britain to speak at Parliament (how does one pronounce that?). This is not to mention bombings nor cartoonist beheadings.

We've had our own challenges with increased conflict with Islamic society in, of all places, Minnesota and Michigan. Young ladies who convert to Christianity from Islam our having to flee for their lives from their own families on our soil!! A TV producer ritually killing his wife garnered a bit of ink, but the relationship between Islam and such atrocities has been utterly ignored by the Obama-entranced media.

Much like immigrants into the United States over the past centuries, as long as folks are coming to be part of this country, swell! When folks move in and begin butting heads, now we've got problems.

Everything south of the Mason-Dixon is double-typed in Ingles y Espanol, how long before Arabic script begins showing up in St. Paul and those "troubled and uppity youths" start using cars to light up the midnight sky in Madison?

The Lutheran Church is falling down

I grew up Lutheran. ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), in fact. While my understanding of God, man and all of life has become completely focused on what the Bible says, it breaks my heart to see the ELCA untether itself from its sure foundation to sail the tumultuous seas of man's whimsy.

On Friday, the leaders of the ELCA voted to allow practicing homosexuals to be pastors (here and here). I suspect a contract of contrition regarding the horrible treatment of Sodom and Gomorrah, oh, about 4000 years ago is soon to follow from these folks.

Said it before, I'll say it again, homosexuality is no greater and no lesser a sin than adultery or sex outside of marriage. The church cannot stand mute at best while the culture declares a two-husband, zero-wife family as normal. Culture might condone. Government might bless it. The church, anchored on the unchanging, infallible, and inerrant word of God must declare it what it is. It is sin.

Understand this, too. I don't expect non-Christians to act like Christians. I would argue that the behavior encouraged by the Bible in our relationships with one another and within society provide for the most healthy and vibrant societies. It doesn't surprise me at all that one who does not have a relationship with Jesus Christ lives an amoral lifestyle.

But when a group of people claims to be a Christian church and then they live their lives more in keeping with the nations that God destroyed and that the apostles condemned, then my hackles rise. Don't go all goofy on me either about interpretations and context. There's very little in the Bible about sexual conduct that requires the Rosetta Stone or even a pair of 3D glasses. The Bible makes plain that the church is to put out any who practice sin, any who live lives of unrepentant rebellion toward what God has said. That goes for sexual sin...of all kinds (porn, adultery, etc.).

So what's an ELCA church to do if they oppose this policy? What are church members to do if their church embraces this policy? The church should leave the denomination. As Martin Luther stood on the ground of the Bible, so too must the church today. If it means a splinter within the ELCA to create churches anchored in God's truth, that is a good thing! That is what has happened with the disintegrating Episcopal Church. The ELCA has rejected reformation, the hope of some conservative pastors. It's time to go.

What are members to do if this policy makes their church leadership all giddy? They must find another church. Speak out boldly with the Bible as your foundation that the church must not condone willful sin, especially in the pulpit. If the leadership and the rest of the congregation laughs in your face, you and God constitute a majority. There are God-honoring, Bible-teaching churches out there. It's time to find one.

Nearly 500 years ago, Luther shook the Church by his unwavering stance on God's word. Last weekend, the Lutheran Church shook their shriveling denomination by stepping off of God's word, and the walls are coming down.

(AP Photo by Dawn Villella)

QotD: What's wrong with Hollywood

S. T. Karnick unintentionally summed up why Hollywood has lost touch with most of America in his recent review of Quentin Tarantino's new film.

Although Tarantino provides plenty of sensational and bizarre scenes in his films, they typically include vivid, interesting characters, occasionally clever dialogue, and strong story lines–while adhering to the contemporary cinema’s cavalier attitude toward both logical and psychological plausibility, its preference for the sensational over the sensible, its penchant for bad taste, its admiration for personal willfulness, and its advocacy of hedonistic utilitarianism.

Where have you gone, Gary Cooper?

Lockerbie: Ripping open a tragic wound

Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi received a hero's welcome when he set foot on the soil of his native Libya. He had been residing in Scotland. No, not as a guest. Not as a tourist. Didn't get to play St. Andrews or Troon. Nope, he was residing in Greenock Prison for the murder of 270 people which blew up in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

A hero's welcome?

Really, from what has spewn from the Muslim world, such a spectacle should come as no surprise. The celebrants were not the lunatic fringe. Muammar's own son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, welcomed the man back to his homeland amidst wild crowds waving Scottish flags. The US and UK suggested the Libyans had "overstepped their bounds."

While as vile as the Islamic response may be, the true atrocity in this nightmare came at the hands of the Scottish government: they let a murderer go free. Not of one, not of two, not of dozens, but of 270. In trying to be compasionate to a man dying of cancer, the Scots ground the scales of justice into a pile of haggis.

Such an aggregious abrogation fair play seems obvious to the masses. The families of the victims cannot believe what they are hearing (here). What a disgrace to the memory of those who died so horrifying a death. The Scots are embarrassed about their government (here). Civilized humanity cries out for justice.

The problem is that justice was never served.

Really, it's not that this human stain was let go, it's that he is still alive. Within the nature of man, with the marrow of his soul, life calls out for life. This is not surprising either for God created man uniquely, "in his image" is how God created man, Genesis declares. That same God announced to Noah after the flood that if an individual shed the blood of another, that man's life would be forfeit. Within the fabric of the cosmos, blood cries out for blood.

The Scots, by banishing capital punishment, rather than showing a higher level of humanity, have shown themselves to have a blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life. The crime itself was a horror. The sentence for the smudge was worse.

To release him is surreal.

QotD: The Magician's Nephew

I never did post the second quote from C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair. I'll have to in the near future. The crystal clarity with which Lewis saw the world and then transformed that vision into wondrous children's stories still staggers my mind after this my sixth reading of these books.

Tonight, reading through the second to the last book (NOT the first) of the Narnian Chronicles, The Magician's Nephew, with my girls, I came across this passage. Listen carefully to the words of evil Uncle Andrew.

"Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I'm sure, and I'm very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys--and servants--and women--and even people in general, can't possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures..."

As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle's face the moment before Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew's grand words. "All it means," he said to himself, "is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants."

Oy. The applications for that in America 2009 are endless. I'll leave you to chew upon it while your stomach turns.

Perhaps some Marshwiggle philosophy later in the week...

Josh Hamilton: Just a man

One year ago I wrote a post about the herculean hero of the 2008 All-Star Game, Josh Hamilton. Okay, he was the hero of the Home Run Derby the day before, but his monstrous 28 homers in the first round alone proved the story of all the festivities.

What made Hamilton's story extraordinary was how he frittered away first-round draft pick status on drugs, alcohol, and women only to have his life and his baseball career resurrected by his relationship with Jesus Christ. During his phenomenal success during All-Star Week 2008, Josh Hamilton repeatedly deflected the accolades heaped upon him toward his Lord and Savior Jesus Chris. None could deny that the breath of life his life and career received came from none other than God Almighty.

The quiet, humble Hamilton became a national hero.

On a January evening in Phoenix, Arizona, his humanity reared its ugly head.

For whatever reason the man who went with him whenever he went out on the town to keep him from alcohol and drugs either a) didn't do his job or b) was not with Josh. One drink. Just one drink. But one led to two and then to three. Pretty soon the married and inebriated Hamilton was being photographed with women doing things that would jeopardize any marriage and that would tarnish any hero status.

The photos didn't surface until this week. Hamilton pulled no punches and laid no blame. He accepted full responsibility for his inappropriate behavior explaining that right after the incident he confessed to his wife and confessed to the Rangers.

What's the point? Really, there are lots. Every sports venue is weighing in some comparing the contrition of Hamilton with the "I'm-sorry-I-got-busted" attitude of steroid users (like Big Papi). I've heard nary a peep about the devastating, far-reaching consequences of sin.

A known alcoholic cannot touch alcohol. Can't. Josh knew that. His wife knew that--and trusted him not to touch it. Josh broke that trust.

Let's toss some napalm on the fire. Let's bring a few bar vixens into the mix. And a dude with a camera. Now your wife gets to see you in living color, not jacking homers deep into the Arlington evening, but letting a trio of tarts clinging to the triceps she thought were hers alone. Love? Honor?

What about his kids (does he have kids?)? Want that poster of your dad on your bedroom wall?

And what about Christ? The Bible says Christians are ambassadors for their risen Lord. How's that reflect on Christ? Now, Christians understand that they are not immune to sin, but the world only sees hypocrites.

What else? Who else? Fans young and old? Teammates? Endorsements? Mom and Dad?

One night. One drink. One indiscretion.

Can a man take fire to his bosom,
And his clothes not be burned?
Can one walk on hot coals,
And his feet not be seared?

Now here's the kicker. Josh is high visibility. I am not. The malignant consequences for my sin extend no less far for me than they do for an All-Star Texas Ranger.

Oh, that I would see the fetid nature of my sin as God sees it. To then repent and confess and to receive the cleansing from sin that only the triune God through the blood of Christ can offer.
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(This morning, my pastor delivered a searing sermon on the consequences of the hidden sin of one man and our willingness to fondle sin. Listen to it here. It'll run you 35 minutes. It's downloadable, too, if you'd prefer.)

QotD: Mr. Politically Incorrect

Heard this on the radio this evening and thought it warranted QotD status.

"...unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins."

Jesus Christ (John 8:24)

He left no out. Hard to call him a "good teacher" when he makes such audacious claims. If he was false in that claim, he was either demonic or psychotic (C.S. Lewis).

But his life, death, and resurrection leave us face-to-face with that claim with not a micrometer of wiggle-room. We must bow or rebel.

This is why Christians are dying at the hand of Muslims in Pakistan and the world utters nary a peep. This is why biblical authority has been all but squelched in America and why the Christian God has been driven from the public forum.

It's no wonder one of Jesus' biographers declared,

"And this is the condemnation, that the light had some into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil for everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come into the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."

John 3:19-20 (just after "for God so loved the world...")

Fasting

Consider fasting the lost Christian discipline. Go ask five friends of yours who call themselves Christian how many times they have fasted within, say, the last five years. Too big a stretch? Tighten it to the last year. If the number is greater than zero, I would be surprised. Not pointing a finger. Just looking in the mirror.

For something that's mentioned on over a dozen different occasions and for something that Christ expected of his disciples (Matthew 6:16), fasting has all but evaporated in the church.

The unchurched fasts. You hear about celebrities fasting in conjunction with Eastern religions or to rid their system of "inorganic poisons." The wrestler fasts to drop weight. Actors will fast to emaciate themselves for a role. So what gives in the church?

Last evening my pastor, Lukus Counterman, took a rabbit trail off of his Sunday morning teachings on the Sermon on the Mount to teach our church what God's word says about fasting. Awesome! It's a tight, twenty-five minute message that you can listen to right now by clicking here. (No fee. No viruses. No future e-mails from our church...we're too small).

If you'd like to download it, follow these steps (again, all the "No's" above still apply):

1. Go here
2. Scroll to the bottom to the sermon titled "When Ye Fast"
3. Right click the link
4. Select "Save Targe As"
5. You can then save the 6 mb mp3 file to your computer to then download to your iPod or whatever

For any facing trials, considering major changes in your future, facing danger, determing God's will, or dealing with sin, Pastor Counterman's biblical insight on fasting will be a fruitful listen.