To start this essay off I need to be honest and say I am simply not much of a sports guy. Oh, I enjoy watching a good football, baseball or golf demonstration of skills but no one would ever ask me to umpire a baseball game or announce the color of a football game. I am just not qualified.

This past Sunday I heard a story about Bobby Knight and his basketball team's jerseys. Bobby Knight's team (in Indiana) only had the TEAM name on the front of the jerseys and no player's names appeared on the back, like other teams. So the guy who is known best for flinging chairs across the floor after an official makes a bad call had something right about the concept of teamwork after all. Wonder if this archaic idea of Knight had anything to do with Coach Skip Holtz, East Carolina football coach doing the same thing -- his motive? To promote team unity. Isn't it a shame that most will remember Bobby Knight as the guy whose temper got out of control and overlook or forgot Knight's principles of team unity? Tim Keown of ESPN dot com once wrote (about Knight): "He held to the idea that kids were there to learn basketball and go to class."

I wonder sometimes about our concept of "the church". How much progress is made when we stand by and carp about denominational dogmas? How many souls do we save from spiritual shipwrecks in the sea of life when we argue or debate about theological differences? What progress is made in the number of souls added to the Kingdom when we debate about "traditional services" as opposed to "conventional services"? The great (?) theological names as Melanchthon and Luther are mainly famous in some circles because of debates concerning the exact meaning of the Eucharist. To the persons whose faces stream with tears thinking about our suffering Saviour - they could care less about such arguments.

Could it be that if God had his way about this whole business of "the church", the only name on our jerseys (if we wore them) would be JESUS CHRIST, perhaps more to the point, THE CHURCH? When arrogant concepts and precepts abound in our world like the one over the entrance of a church here in Lancaster, it is no wonder people question or scorn "the church". The sign says: REAL PEOPLE, REAL LIFE, REAL FAITH. I would hope this motto does not convey the mindset concluding this is the only place where real "anything" is found. One item mentioned on their doorway at first puzzled me but as I thought further I have concluded they are probably honest (and real) about one thing--the TIME their worship starts: 10:09 a.m.. In most churches I have ever attended there are always some who simply cannot get their "on time". Obviously this congregation has tried to build-in this buffer for late-comers. My rush to judgment of this church's attitudes obviously needed fine-tuned a bit.

During the past couple decades I have come to the conclusion that the concepts of the Lord's church is going to happen [God's way] in spite of the sometimes idiotic and egotistic ways of man. There are going to be animated churches, shouting churches, hand clapping or no hand clapping churches, a cappella or instrumental music churches, and every genre of churches (as God deigned them to be) in spite of the denominational fences we have built in our religious world. Thank God that Jesus Himself said, "The Gates of Hades (or Hell) shall not prevail against the church." That is proof enough for me that God's church is still prevailing regardless of what many denominational groups want to claim as to be the ONLY REAL CHRISTIANS. Look around, and if you look close enough, I am sure you will find some spiritual virtues and values that might just be desirable in "your" church too. (My list above is a very short list.)

TRUTH is one thing - claiming to have all the truth is an entirely different matter. We are all to seek for the correct understanding of God's Word but none of us can claim we have arrived at the point where we have it 100% nailed down. Our big problem, it seems to me, is when we make our interpretations of God's Word sacred and binding on all other believers. It is so easy for us to become little "popes" and pontificate as if we alone are the ones who have the only correct understanding of what God means by what He says in His Word. Another problem comes when we magnify our opinions and make them authoritative as if they have come directly from Heaven itself.

Now I am going to look for a team jersey to wear and make sure my name is not on the back. I need to say THANKS to my good friend, Bob Tinsky, for some assistance in this essay.

THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Re: Our nation's present political program

Why is it that I just can't buy what our nation's leaders are trying to promote as THE ANSWER to our nation's problem(s)? I certainly cannot consider myself a genuine pundit but from the reactions and feed back I get from many of my friends I think I can honestly say ANYONE (just about) can come up with a better idea than the $pendthrift$ who claim to be thinking for the good of our nation.

A popular cigarette slogan really fits our political climate: "You've come a long way baby." YEP, that is for sure. We have come a long way from the right way. We have come a long way from the way our country was directed by the founders. We have a come a long way from the way of integrity and common sense. Perhaps I could come up with a few more "we've come along way" axioms but let's stop with this short list.

Initially I must say I am very much ashamed of the state of condition our nation is in and the folks (from either side of the proverbial "aisle") in Washington are to blame. We have become a nation of buzz words. "Stimulus" heads the list, but other words in this long list could be: No Deposit Required, Cash Discount, Rebates, Economy Size, and No Interest for 12 months.

Even the political powers who dreamed up this latest stimulus package (there have been several and doubtless others will join that train) have "honestly" (that's a strange word for politicians) said they do not know if this will work. What will work? Apparently no one knows, but I think the common people know but their voices are crowded out by the blaring trumpets of the professionals and the media who have their amplifiers turned up so high (and loud) that anything coming from the tax payers simply cannot be heard. The stimulus package is about as realistic as winning the Mega Bucks lottery after buying one dollar ticket. Unfortunately we are talking about MORE than one person being taxed for more than one dollar in this financial fiasco. Now they have me talking in terms of billions and trillions! Most working men I know are very conscientious about money they have worked for but unfortunately our government leaders act as though the taxpayers have deep pockets and empty minds.

One honest word that keeps surfacing is an explanatory reference to the past. "This is almost as bad as..." and they list days in former presidential administrations--sometimes going back to the days of President Eisenhower. (That is just one--so pardon me if I don't list the others that have been named.) Are we to take it then that this too will eventually be "over"? I am not sure any of our leaders know what a TRILLION anything is! How about a trillion lies for starters? How about a trillion bad programs. C-Span is a very interesting medium of information that has become an eye-opener. Whenever our politicians are standing there, sometimes asking for an "additional 60 seconds, or 3 minutes" to finish their great speeches and the camera pans around the house showing a bunch of empty seats making it evident the people who might just need to hear those words are simply NOT THERE. Oh, I suppose we are to believe those absent will have the congressional record that they can read what was being told but words imaged on paper are not nearly as exciting as the vocal presentations "from the other side of the aisle." Then too, the politeness exhibited by the senators and representatives is a little disconcerting, "The honorable... ...from [state named]" or some other accolade that makes you wonder if this might just be the same person that rubbed shoulders with the speaker (of the moment) in a local tavern or expensive restaurant where they all had a ball recounting their careers in Washington.

My hope is that all is not lost. My hope is that some of the fine people in Washington will honestly win and the charades of political semantics will cease to be weasel words. (Weasel words: words which have had all the meaning sucked out.) Specificity is a word you hear a lot today. Let's ask for some clearer words like, "I am to blame" or "It's my fault". "I will replace the money I stole..." Recently one of the hearings aired on C-Span got so hot that a couple of our nation's leaders resorted to phrases like, "How in the hell did this happen?" I am glad that phrase was not bleeped because you really have to wonder, "How in the hell has all this happened?" Those being examined or questions just sat there like they were in a vacuum.

The answer(s) are clear. Someone was not paying attention. QUITE A FEW "someones" have not been paying attention. The people in office (all the senator and representatives) cannot all be blamed obviously, but certainly some check-valves and precautions have been blown away by some flaws. I recently viewed a YOU-TUBE presentation where Harry Reid was being interviewed and Mr. Reid was trying to explain why our income tax system is a VOLUNTARY tax. If this video was for real, and I am sure some videos are doctored, how in the world can anyone believe our income tax system is voluntary? Most people I know were not asked, "Do you care if we take out tax money from your income?" If the system is voluntary, why does the Internal Revenue Service exist?

I believe life was much simpler before so many politicians learned words like "billion" and "trillion" and oh yes, stimulus and specificity. Tuesday, February 10, 2009, Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary, was asked if the amounts [being requested] of millions and trillions were in round numbers. (He said they were.) "My, what big teeth you have Gramma," said Little Red Riding Hood to the disguised Big Bad Wolf. Somehow these incidents seem rather similar.

In regard to this political mantra of "creating jobs", it would seem we already have enough government jobs.

THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)