Lenten Journey: Out of the Desert

The Lenten journey began this week for the faithful.  The Ashes of Wednesday remind us that we came from dust and to dust we shall return.  For 40 days we enter our own desert pilgrimage based on Jesus' own desert fasting and temptation by Satan.  Our time will best be spent in self- examination and reflection of our walk in Christ, confession and repentance of sin, and finding ways to improve our spiritual health.   Self-denial is also an important part of this journey.  Here we learn to deny ourselves something we would otherwise enjoy.   The emphasis is on our relationship not the sacrifice.  The goal is to grow closer to Christ and bring God glory.  

We will emerge from the desert at Holy Week looking forward to the oasis of Resurrection Sunday!  May God be our guide on this journey.  

P.S. I will not be blogging as much during Lent in order to focus on my own journey and some health issues.  

No Swish of the Net, The Sweetest Sound Never Heard!

Character isn't lacking in a boys high school basketball team from DeKalb, Illinois. Read their story of compassion for an opposing player and team in the ESPN story below:

ESPN.com news services

Updated: February 17, 2009, 7:46 PM ET

Two missed free throws, ordinarily the cause of a coach's headache, became the symbol of sportsmanship in a Milwaukee boys basketball game earlier this month.

Milwaukee Madison senior Johntell Franklin, who lost his mother, Carlitha, to cancer on Saturday, Feb. 7, decided he wanted to play in that night's game against DeKalb (Ill.) High School after previously indicating he would sit out.

He arrived at the gym in the second quarter, but Franklin's name was not in the scorebook because his coach, Aaron Womack Jr., didn't expect him to be there.

Rules dictated Womack would have to be assessed a technical, but he was prepared to put Franklin in the game anyway. DeKalb coach Dave Rohlman and his players knew of the situation, and told the referees they did not want the call.

The referees had no choice. But Rohlman did.

"I gathered my kids and said, 'Who wants to take these free throws?'" Rohlman said, recounting the game to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Darius McNeal put up his hand. I said, 'You realize you're going to miss, right?' He nodded his head."

McNeal, a senior point guard, went to the line. The Milwaukee Madison players stayed by their bench, waiting for the free throws. Instead of seeing the ball go through the net, they saw the ball on the court, rolling over the end line.

"I turned around and saw the ref pick up the ball and hand it back to the player," Womack said in the Journal Sentinel. "And then [McNeal] did the same thing again."

Said Rohlman: "Darius set up for a regular free throw, but he only shot it two or three feet in front of him. It bounced once or twice and just rolled past the basket."

"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal told the newspaper. "It was the right thing to do."

Womack, overwhelmed by DeKalb's gesture, wrote a letter to the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, which had first reported the story.

"As a principal, school, school district staff, and community you should all feel immense pride for the remarkable job that the coaching staff is doing in not only coaching these young men, but teaching them how to be leaders," Womack wrote.

DeKalb had traveled more than two hours for the game, and waited another two as Womack rushed from the hospital, where he had been with Franklin, to the school to gather his team.

"We were sympathetic to the circumstances and the events," Rohlman said in the Journal Sentinel. "We even told Coach Womack that it'd be OK to call off the game, but he said we had driven 2½ hours to get here and the kids wanted to play. So we said, 'Spend some time with your team and come out when you're ready.'"

The two schools had met twice previously, and this one ended with a Madison victory, but as in the other games, they also a shared pizza dinner "four kids to a pizza, two Madison kids and two DeKalb kids," Womack told the Journal Sentinel.

"That letter became a big deal in DeKalb," Rohlman said in the paper. "We got lots of positive calls and e-mails because of it. Even though we lost the game, it was a true life lesson, and it's not one our kids are going to forget anytime soon."

Womack, in his letter to the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, added this at the end: "I'd like to recognize Darius who stepped up to miss the shot on purpose. He could have been selfish and cared only for his own stats [I hope Coach Rohlman doesn't make him run for missing the free throws]."

Some Advice for the Doctor

I can't recall the last time I went to the doctor and he/she actually met with me beyond 5 minutes. Upon arrival the nurse records my latest vital statistics on a laptop. The doctor, or nurse practitioner enters holding another computer, says hello and never looks up from the coveted laptop, usually asking the same questions the nurse asked before she entered the symptoms or complaint on her computer. The doctor feverishly enters information like a beaver building a dam. These medical professionals spend so much time checking the right box, highlighting or clicking the correct entry that they never actually have to communicate face to face with patients except when they enter or leave the examination room.

Follow-up appointments become so frustrating because you are retelling the story, symptoms or pains from the previous appointment, which makes you wonder where is all the information they tenaciously entered on the laptop last time? Obviously it's not on the screen at the follow up appointment because if it was they wouldn't ask the same questions as the previous appointment, or they would know that this is is not a new condition, or you've never been on the medicine which was prescribed until last time, etc. It seems this is mainly a large practice phenomena and that makes sense. Sometimes big is not better and often far more impersonal. One physician actually asked my name and introduced her/himself to me as if I was a first-time patient. I had been seeing this doctor for three years! Obviously the fact that I was an established patient was not in the computer, or once again, she/he was not reading what was previously entered. Recently I had to call the doctor to let her/his nurse know that the prescribed medication (which they doubled at my previous visit) was not working. You gotta love this. Someone from the practice called and took me to task for "doubling" my medicine. Yes, the phone went very still when I said the doctor doubled the medication and that's exactly what I had stated in my previous message. In the race to enter all this information, someone isn't paying attention, or worse, they've got so many patients they don't really care!

Contrast this with a specialist I see who enjoys a very successful practice and is near the end of his medical career. He enters the room chart in hand, looks you in the eye, shakes your hand and asks what's wrong. He may ask about your family, work, or something else. As you talk he continues to look you in the eye and may, or may not make some notes on the chart. During the exam he talks to you. Upon completion of the exam he looks you in the eye, ask if there is anything else, and offers to explain anything he has just shared. Then he shakes your hand, or pats you on the back as you go to the checkout where the rest of the information comes out of a computer.

It would seem there are two schools of medicine. One attempts to focus on efficiency, the collection of data, and moving through patients like a thoroughbred at the Derby. The other focuses on the source, the actual patient. This is about more than personality. Obviously you can’t make a quiet, reserved person a stand-up comic, or extrovert and why would you? But is it too much to expect the one charged with our physical care to listen to us with an empathic ear? I've had car salesman who listen and communicate better. Technology seems to have unpersonalized patient-doctor (or in this day and age "customer-doctor") relations. Perhaps that's the real problem, it's big business. I'm learning that "non-profit" health care is very profitable.

Technology has made incredible leaps in our ability to communicate, but in some situations it seems to have actually retarded face to face communication. One need look no farther than the afternoon pick up line outside a middle school, or high school as students stand around each other all looking down as they text another student on their phone who might even been in the same crowd. Our march to impersonal communication is beginning to show up from corporate boardrooms to family, to doctors, banks and pick up carpool lines. One can only imagine where it will all end.

More often than not, upon leaving the doctor I observe, or overhear senior adults who are really not sure what was just discussed in the exam room and they seem very confused, or frustrated. Imagine how a senior adult must feel if I'm struggling in my ability to communicate with the doctor and I'm pretty tech saavy with relative few health issues. An old colleague in pastoral ministry put it well when he used to say, "We want our offices to be high tech, but high touch, and technology must never replace the touch." He was right.

Doctors interact with people every day. So do pastors. It's what we do. I'll bet the average minister could really help medical students learn a thing or two about listening and communicating so they are heard and actually hear, understand and appreciate what their patient, uh I mean customer is saying to them. I'm hoping my experience is an exception and not the norm. I have several friends who are doctors and others in the medical field. I can't recall any of them being out of touch with their patients. They are good listeners. Unfortunately, they are either retired, or they live outside my state!

People just want to be heard. There's a good lesson for the church. People come to us and they want to be heard. I sure hope we're better listeners!

Anointed songwriters

Chris Tomlin and Ed Cash are among the most prolific praise and worship songwriters of our time. Their gifts to the church have given a whole generation another word of praise to bring glory to God. Watch and listen as these anointed, soul poets talk about how God was in their midst as they wrote the song "Praise the Father Praise the Son" on Chris' latest CD "Hello Love". It's a song worthy of our voices lifted in praise to the Trinity.

Just When You Thought....

Just when you thought we've gone about as low as we can go come two stories that make you do a double take. The mayor (Sam Adams) of Portland is back on the job this week after admitting last week that he lied about having a sexual relationship with a male teenager. Click on this link from the Seattle Times for more on the story. According to the story: The police union and four Portland newspapers had called for his resignation, but Adams found strong support to remain, including a Friday rally at City Hall that drew more than 400 backers.

Rumors of the affair dogged Adams throughout his 2007 campaign for mayor. The teenager, Beau Breedlove, told The Oregonian that he and the mayor did not have sex until he turned 18, the legal age of consent in Oregon, but the mayor had twice kissed him while he was 17 years old.
Now the shake your head part. People and the media were outraged that the mayor lied about the affair. No one seemed upset that it was a homosexual relationship with a teenager!

It doesn't get any better with the next one. A Sacramento State grad is trying to auction off her virginity to help pay for graduate school. I'm not making this up! From the Sacramento CBS affiliate's website comes this story:

The 22-year-old who is using the pseudonym Natalie Dylan for safety reasons is going through a legal brothel in Nevada to sell her virginity. "The main purpose of this is to finance a couple things in my life," Dylan told CBS13. "I think empowerment of women is picking yourself up and doing something on your own to better yourself."

Dylan says she's already taken a polygraph test to prove her virginal status, and is also willing to undergo a medical exam.

The auction will take place at the Bunny Ranch in Carson City, Nevada with bids coming in through their website. Owner Dennis Hof tells CBS13 that eBay rejected the auction, so he'll handle the entire process.

Apparently the Internet based auction is legal because prostitution is legal in Carson City, Nevada. Kudos to eBay for rejecting the auction! Apparently 10,000 bids have been submitted in the auction for flesh and one of them was reported to be as high as $4,000,000!

These events are simply sad. It's hard to point a finger when you've got a 4x4 log in your own eye, but the words of Jesus seem appropriate. Many non-Christ followers love to cite Jesus' relative silence on sins of the flesh and quote his words to the condemning Pharisees toward the woman caught in adultery in John 8. I don't share their interpretation of Jesus' stand on morality (because the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus too), but I'm saying this is a popular argument for people who need to justify their behavior. However, they seem to overlook Jesus' words to the woman in verse 11, when he says he does not condemn her but warns: "go and from now on sin no more." No doubt the Apostle Paul understood what drives stuff like this (1 Corinthians 6:18-20; Romans 7:13-24).

And notice I've resisted the temptation to add the recent and bizarre defense mounted by the now impeached Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted by his own legislature of trying to sell his state's Senate seat. He's gotten way too much air time already.

All of these are signs of depravity. These are not new sins. The sale of flesh has been going on way before any of us were occupying earth space. However, the blatant, willful disregard for morality seems to be getting worse. We are digging deeper and deeper in a pit with no escape. We have become more arrogant in our sin. We are simply reaping what we've sown. None of us is above sin, but those who are trying to order their steps after the teachings and example of Jesus should remember that the Father sent Him to rescue us from our depravity. Only Christ offers redemption from our continued path toward darkness. And He left the church to point the way by providing hope, clarity, a voice in the darkness, direction, help, and leadership to salvation through Him.

In Isaiah's prophetic word about the suffering Jesus we find these chilling words for our times: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;" The urgency for imperfect, but redeemed Christ-followers to model, share and talk about a different way has never been greater! One day it will be too late. As the old Apostle says at the end of his Hymn to Christ: "so at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Church, we've got a lot of work to do if we are to reach more people and impact their lives for Christ, so at His name they will bow obediently and willingly instead of by the force of eternal judgment.

Victory Without Honor Is a Great Loss!

A good friend sent me a link to a story on the Rivals High website about a Texas high school girls basketball team that has decided to forfeit a game they legitimately won. Here's part of the story:

DALLAS -- A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 game has a case of blowout remorse.

Now officials from The Covenant School say they are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the margin of victory.

"It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened," Kyle Queal, the head of the school, said in a statement, adding the forfeit was requested because "a victory without honor is a great loss."

The private Christian school defeated Dallas Academy last week. Covenant was up 59-0 at halftime.

A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers -- even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.

Now I know some die-hard sports fans are saying, "So what? It's our job to score and it's your job to defend." A paraphrase by the way of the Old Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier when he was coaching Florida and they scored a record blow out of my Kentucky Wildcats in football. If it's only about the final score then I will concede the argument. However, if it's about teaching young athletes character, dignity and honor, then we've got a whole different ballgame. Now there's another part of the story I need to share about the losing team:

Dallas Academy has eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school. It is winless over the last four seasons. The academy boasts of its small class sizes and specializes in teaching students struggling with "learning differences," such as short attention spans or dyslexia.

What a refreshing story in a day and age when the emphasis seems to be winning at all costs. These young women need not apologize for doing what they were trained to do, but it would seem they have learned an even more valuable lesson about compassion and character. So now the small in numbers girls team from Dallas Academy has a victory and will not finish this season like the previous four with no wins. What a gift from the larger and obviously more athletic Covenant School! If you would like to read the full story click on Rivals.

By all means sports, academic and character fans give me your take on this story.

A Dream Fulfilled?

The swearing-in of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States is indeed a historical benchmark and event. Members of the Boomer and Builder generations seem to echo a mutual refrain, "I never thought I would see this in my life time." Succeeding generations aren't always sure what to make of that comment. For the most part, regardless of their gender, religious or ethnic background they have lived most of their lives in an age of unlimited potential with few glass ceilings. Their memories of race riots, civil rights marches, and segragated schools are confined to history books and the stories of their parents and grandparents.

My generation knows this event did not come about with ease. Many lost their lives, suffered physical, economic and emotional wounds to make this happen. Racial tension improved during our formative years with the Civil Rights Act and other legislation, but the struggle was still taking place. In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court squashed any lingering opposition to the landmark 1955 decision against racial segregation in public schools (Brown v.s. Board of Education). However, the High Court's 1969 decision ordered immediate action in the segregation of public schools. It put teeth in the 1955 ruling. Finally there was no legal argument left for those favoring segregation. But racial division was still alive in our country. Congress can legislate and courts can rule, but changing the heart takes much more.

My point is not a history lesson in Civil Rights. I'm not qualified to give that lecture. However as a white, middle-aged male, I do have a great deal of appreciation for the significance surrounding our 44th president. Whether you voted for him or not, is a moot point. On Tuesday, January 20th, all Americans can celebrate another historical event in our ongoing national narrative. While the innauguration of "44" is a major milestone in our strife for equality, the truth remains that there is still much work to be done in fulfilling Dr. King's dream.

Consider that most of Wall Street's big guns are led by middle-aged white males. Consider that the majority of the U.S. Congress are white men. It's not just politics and business. Richard Lapchick co-authored a report that shows how much work we've got left to do in the world of collegiate athletics. In his report, "The Buck Stops Here: Assessing Diversity among Campus and Conference Leaders for Division I-A” found that, “the leadership in which the power structure in college sport remains overwhelmingly white.” The stats don't lie either:

In Division I-A, “92.5 percent of university presidents, 87.5 percent of athletic directors, 92.6 percent of faculty athletics representatives and 100 percent of conference commissioners are white. Only 3.5 percent of the faculty are African-American and 3.4 percent Latino,” Lapchick said. Only 12 African American coaches have been hired for the 199 Division I-A coaching vacancies since 1996.

We still have a long way to go. This is a great step for our nation. However, perhaps too many are placing the role of savior on the shoulders of our 44th president, a role that is humanly impossible and unfair regardless of your faith. He needs our prayers, ideas, support and commitment to make the necessary sacrifices it's going to take to restore our global leadership status. I believe much of the dream has been fulfilled, but there is still more. Imagine the hopes and visions an Obama presidency can launch in the hearts and minds of Americans of Asian, and Hispanic descent, not to mention those of women. If anything our nation's children need to cling to the words of the great poet, Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me---
Anything can happen, child
ANYTHING can be.