A Cub fan perspective on the White Sox

This sums it up pretty well.

Go White Sox... Sort Of

By the way, NPR rocks. If you listen to podcasts I reccomend most e-mail stories of the day among others. They are all good and condense the previous days stories to a couple of hours.

Chad

Going for the tri-fecta

This is turning into my dream sports year. Yes, it's true. 2005 is shaping up to be the year of The Chad. You are probably asking yourself, how is it that he can be making such a bold claim? I'll tell you.

Since this is a tri-fecta there are three things, cool huh.

1. I won my fantasy baseball league. That's right, the Boise Bombers, after being in 4th and 5th place for most of the year I made a strong push at the end of the season and got into the playoffs. After a comfortable win in the first round (9-5) I came up against the 2nd place team who I beat 6-8. This put me into the championship round, 2 weeks of sleepless nights. Well I had no reason to worry. I put a schlacking on the other team 12-1. For much of that round I was up 13-0.

So that is part 1 of the tri-fecta.

2. THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!

See previous post. This must have included divine intervention.

Part 2 of the tri-fecta. Check.

3. I am tied for first place in my fantasy football league. I haven't always won pretty but right now I am 5-2. After this bad bye week I should be in pretty good shape for the rest of the season. In the end though it's all about match ups.

Part 3 of the tri-fecta - Holding.

Funny thing is as awesome as this tri-fecta would be it's not even the biggest thing in my life. That distinction goes to a very special woman, Tara. This month has been a blur and I paid much less attention to the Sox playoff run than I would have last year. In fact I probably watched more last year with the Red Sox than I did this year with my bleoved White Sox. I don't regret that in the least. I wonder how many more ways my life will change. I am sure I will never be able to keep track, or want to for that matter.

Chad

WHITE SOX WIN!!!

For the first time in 88 years the White Sox have won the World Series. This is so awesome. My brother and I have both been close to lifelong fans and as we talked about this week we will have a world series in our lifetime. If nothing else this puts us ahead of several generations of Chi Sox fans, hard to complain if they don't win another one soon.

How do a couple of boys from Idaho become fans of a Chicago team? I'm sure you are thinking this, everyone asks. The answer in simple. Our paternal grandma's dad, our great-grandpa, played for them. I don't know a lot of details and don't even know if he played on the Major league team or farm system. One of these days I suppose I will have to try and find something on that.

Anyway, congrats to the 2005 team. Winners of the most games, division leaders wire to wire and now World Series champs.

It's official?

Well I got confimation this morning that it looks like moving into the parsonage and taking over the custodial oversite duties is a go.

The following is fairly stream of conscienceness and so may be a bit all over the place.

This is going to be a big change in my life. For one thing I will be moving for the first time in 4 1/2 years. I like where I live, across from the golf course and will be sad to leave but I do live in an apartment and will not miss the extra noise that comes from my neighbors. Our church building is located on the outskirts of town and still has a bit of a rural feel. And it will be convient living next to the church building, it will save me the 3 minute drive I currently have to endure.

At this point it looks like I will be moving end of December so the already fun holiday season will be even more cram packed with excitement.

One direction I have been given is not to try and do everything myself. I am supposed to be more of a coordinator rather than grunt. I am sure that I will be doing plenty of the grunt labor because realistically I might have 4 or 5 people sign up to help, just like with everything else. The nice thing about being told to do it this way is that I think it will head off any grumbling people may do about why I don't pay rent and yet don't do all the work. I don't know that people will feel this way but I wouldn't be surprised if a few didn't.

One question that was asked was if the fact that I now have a girlfriend would change my plans. I had already given this some thought and the best I could figure out was that it might change the length of time I would want to do it but not immediately. In other words rather than staying there for 8 years it may only be 2 or 3. I have also talked to Tara and threw out the idea that she could move there with me and rent her house out (at the appropriate time of course) and she did not laugh at this suggestion. So who knows, it may still be an 8 year situation.

It is interesting that for someone who for my whole adult life has only had to think about the implications of decisions for myself only I am already thinking in terms of how Tara might be affected by the choices I make. For instance if we are going to spend as much time together as we have been does that leave room for this new thing? The reason I think it will work is because she works nights and so for instance this week we only had 1 night spent together and so it would not have been hard to do the church thing as well. Also, since changing my work hours a few months ago (best thing I ever did) I can now get home at 4:30ish which leaves me time to work at the building for an hour before doing something in the evening.

Does it sound like I am trying to convince myself that I can make this work?

The reason that I will make it work is financial. I wish I could say otherwise and there are certainly parts of the decision that are being made out of a sense of obligation and a desire to serve my community of believers but the fact is that by doing this I will be 100% debt free by May 2007, at the latest. This will be such a freeing feeling I can't even tell you. When people talk about the burden of debt I know exactly what they mean. I was like most people when I was in my late teens/ early 20's and did some really, really stupid stuff with money and am still paying the price for that but this is an oppurtunity to finally free myself from the evil clutchs of stupid debt. It is hard not to see this as deliverance from God. A true answer to prayers. Of course that is pretty selfish thinking, aren't there other people who could use this chance as well? But it is being offered to me and I am taking it.

And so all that said I am left as with all things this request:
God, please help me with this.
Show me how to be Christ to others in this situation.
Give me the wisdom to determine your will for me and those around me.
Thank you for being God and loving me.
Amen

What's your bent?

Last night in the intro to theology class I am taking we talked about the idea of why Jesus had to die. What did his death on the cross accomplish?

One thing that had been going through my mind was although there are the 4 general ideas that are somewhat mutally exclusive we take and use them all. I wonder what the original proponets of these ideas would think when on a Sunday morning we sing "He Paid A Debt", followed bu "The Old Rugged Cross". Would they have a negative reaction?

We also talked about the fact that people's views of why Jesus died are reflected in both their Lord's Supper comments and or prayers. Thinking some about this I realize we all probably espouse the "Ransom" idea one week and "Penal substitution" the next. (huh, huh he said penal). When I realize things like this it makes me realize that in many ways when it comes to theology most of us act like we are at Golden Corral. "Yeah, I'd like some of the Anselm with a bit of Calvin on the side."

Is this good or bad? Does it really matter?

Chad

Picture perfect

Ok, here is a picture of Tara. I hope she doesn't kill me. What's not to love?

Chad

Welcome to "The Enforcer"

This post is a shout out to Tara who as of last night offically has "girlfriend" status. This is a big deal for me.

She makes me feel all funny inside and has cost me sleep. I haven't even noticed. If you know me and I think the 2 people reading this do, you know that I am a bit particular in how I live my life. I like routine and get a bit freaked out when I have to break it. But I have gladly changed large parts of my schedule with nary a second thought. Weird, huh. Not to mention the money I am spending on her :)

Anyway tonight is her birthday party. We are going to Red Robin and I can't wait to see her turn 5 shades of red when they come out and do the birthday speil.

HAPPY 1/4 Century!!! Doesn't that make you feel really, really, really old?

Chad

God's fault?

Last night I caught a few minutes of a preacher in Boise on the local access channel. His sermon was titled "Hurricane Katrina: Why God caused it". Yet another person saying that God is punishing America for not following him. Newsflash, America has not followed God possibly ever but certainly for the last 200 years or so. I guess we are not very good at paying attention to God's warnings.

If natural disasters are God's way of calling us to repentance is that why L.A. had the fires last week? I mean that is certainly a prime den of inequity. Then again, New Orleans does have Bourbon street. What about the small earthquakes in Cascade that have been fairly steady the last couple of weeks? Is that like God shaking his finger in reproach and if the people of Valley County don't change their ways a bigger event is on the way?

How big does the natural disaster need to be in order to be in order to be a message from God? Is a thunderstorm really God crying?

I better give a significant gift just to make sure I'm safe.

Chad

Old vs New

After thinking about doing it most of my life this year in January I made a commitment to reading the entire Bible by December. I admit there were large chunks of the OT that I had never read and as a general rule reading the Bible was not one of my stronger disiplines. Wanting to change this I figured what better way to get into a daily reading habit and just do it. The plan I found was really simple, read 3 chapters a day Monday thru Saturday and 5 chapters on Sunday. They even send daily e-mails to help you track where you are supposed to be.

As of Monday I finally finished the OT, and that is ahead of schedule. This really gave me some perspective on just how big the OT is in comparison to the NT. 10 months versus 2 months. With this in mind why is it that so often we place very little emphasis on the OT? I have heard people say that there is no salvation in the OT. I think my bs meter is going off. After just finishing it how can you not see that the whole thing is about how God wants his creation to be saved and that he is going to do whatever it takes, time and again to see that accomplished?

I will admit that there were some parts that seemed a bit "dry" and I thought I would never get through but I did not skip anything. And there were some nights where I probably did not get much from that days reading but now looking back on it I see that rather than detailed small pictures, I have a big picture to reference. I am surprised at what a different perspective I now have.

As I move into the NT it is in many ways like reading it fresh for the first time. Knowing that God had been promising a messiah for hundreds of years (and actually reading those promises instead of just "knowing" about them) and then seeing his arrival almost gives me goosebumps while reading the first chapters of Matthew. I know this may sound stupid but in many ways it is like a movie trilogy. You have a big build up and then the moment you've been waiting for arrives and the hero arrives to save the day. Jesus as Aragorn?


If you have not done so before I encourage you to do a yearly reading plan and see how it changes you. If you have let me know what your experience was.

The Chad