The NYT has a reasonably balanced piece on
prayer and football:
Every preseason for 30 years, Coach Bobby Bowden has taken his Florida State football players to a church in a white community and a church in a black community in the Tallahassee area in an effort, he said, to build camaraderie. He writes to their parents in advance, explaining that the trips are voluntary, and that if they object, their sons can stay home without fear of retaliation. He remembers only one or two players ever skipping the outing.Since becoming the football coach at Georgia in 2001, Mark Richt, too, has taken his team to churches in the preseason. A devotional service is conducted the night before each game, and a prayer service on game day. Both are voluntary, and Mr. Richt said he does not attend them.
On game days, Penn State players may choose between Catholic and Protestant services or not go at all. Coach Joe Paterno and the team say the Lord’s Prayer in the locker room after games.
As in politics and culture in the United States, college football is increasingly becoming a more visible home for the Gospel. In the past year more than 2,000 college football coaches participated in events sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which said that more than 1.4 million athletes and coaches from youth to professional levels had attended in 2005, up from 500,000 in 1990.
He goes on to speak of the growing opposition to any public (or private) expression of religion involving coaches and players.
Maybe we actually can reclaim the culture. And if it starts on the football field I’m okay with that.
Ian MacLure (and Tom) reminded me that in Islamic countries it’s said that when weaving a rug, the rug-maker must always include a deliberate error. To do otherwise was hubris, and an affront to God; since only God could create perfection. They say the same thing about Islamic builders of minarets and so forth, some minor flaw of alignment or straightness is introduced into the design for that same reason.
Thomas Aquinas would probably have said that you should in all things aim at perfection since it is impossible for a flawed human to make something perfect in any case.
Everything to the greater glory of God.
Allah might take offense, the Lord God Jehovah wouldn’t.
We can rest easy. Or not.
From
israelinsider
:’With the help of G-d, the soul of the Messiah has attached itself to a person in Israel’ [Hebrew: 'Hit'abra bezrat hashem nishmat mashiach b'adam m'yisrael'].
Kabbalistic Rabbi Yitzhak Kedourie, 104, after a 45 minute trance on Yom Kippur
And here we were worried about that whole rapture thing. Now I missed it. Dang.
A few weeks ago I was asked to teach our adult Sunday School class and on a whim/at the urging of the Holy Spirit I decided to teach on one of the Minor Prophets. Usually we don’t spend much time on these guys, but there is a lot of meat in those smaller books. I chose Haggai because I didn’t know much about him.
During the Babylonian exile, Haggai was part of the group charged to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. He gives a bit of a smackdown to the people who returned, because they were getting too comfy and hadn’t quite gotten around to starting on the Temple. Twice (Haggai 1:5,7 NIV) he tells them the word from God, “Give careful thought to your ways.”
Okay, hindsight has Lasik, but when the Lord and Creator of the Universe tells you to give careful thought to your ways, I’m going to stop and consider what I’m doing. These guys were focused on making sure they had nice houses and all the goodies available to the re-occupiers of an abandoned city. They lost track of the task that God had set before them.
My prayer for my life (and for this blog) is that I would give careful thought to my ways and make sure that my ways line up with His ways. You may see some frivolous stuff here on occasion [God has a sense of humor, too!] but hopefully most of it will reflect a life focused on the tasks that He has set before me.
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