Not As Dichotomous As I Thought…
worlds collide
Just when you think your life is a dichotomy…Just when you think that, on the one hand, you write about the NFL and the Dallas Cowboys for one of the Internet’s largest and most successful sport sites, and on the other, you write a sometimes spiritually-charged blog about life and love, God and the world, giving and getting…Just when you thought one had nothing to do with the other, you find out just how utterly wrong you were.
I woke this morning to a message from a fellow writer at BleacherReport.com. I expected to find some seed of an argumentation over the Cowboys, the NFC East, or the NFL in general. Instead, I found a heartfelt message from a dad who could not sleep last night and turned on his TV. While surfing the channels, he came across the Joni and Friends program on TBN, which was running the episode featuring my daughter Holly.
This fellow writer/Dad/Christian, sleepless on a Saturday night, sent me a message about the experience this morning. I will not share all of the content of his message, but here is the heart of it:
I, like you, am the son of a minister. This puts a lot of pressure on a young man, I think, and I’ve always tried to do the best I can.
My wife’s brother has a son, my nephew, who was born with Spina Bifida. Holly has impacted the lives of so many people. My nephew has done well too.
I’m not sure what the whole purpose of this message is, other than to let you know how blessed I was to see the profile of your daughter on TV.
And so, just like that, my worlds collide. Someone got peanut butter in my chocolate. On a day when I am filled with worry about how the Cowboys will handle a surging Eagles’ team, on a day when I am all set to write an NFL article that tries to predict which will be the Team of the Teens in the NFL, I am reminded that, in the grand scheme of things, the scheme is grander than we realize.
And what’s wrong with that?
Thank you, Lord.
It’s In the Game: Confessions of a Football Junkie
My dad once said to me, “Son, if they were to open up your head and examine your brain, they’d find it shaped like a football.”
He wasn’t necessarily wrong.
Just about as long as I can remember, I have been in love with the game of football. I don’t really know why. I have tried to turn the analytical microscope on myself, but I just get burnt under its concentrated focus. Self-analysis almost always generates more heat than light…at least for me.
Maybe I, like Popeye, can say, “I yam what I yam.”
Or like the Apostle Paul, “I am what I am by the grace of God.”
I confess to being obsessed enough to have sat inTexas stadium with four other knuckleheads (can one call his father-in-law a knucklehead?) in sub-zero temperatures through, count ‘em, THREE Texas high school playoff football games. Nine hours in the elements, where the coffee we bought to warm our gizzards froze solid in the cups in less than thirty minutes.
I have arrived at that same stadium at 9am to stand in line outside a gate that wouldn’t open until 1pm, just to get our “special” seats, high above the crowd in a little box over one of the entrances to the arena…not once or twice, but every year for something like 15 years. For high school football.
No. I didn’t have a son or friend’s son playing on either team. No, the teams were not usually from the town in which I reside. I just wanted some…football!
I have canceled appointments and politely refused invitations to various gatherings so I could have the three hours when the Cowboys took the field all to myself. (My apologies if you were one of the victims. You understand.)
I have always been thankful for a wife who wasn’t into football, so I could avoid the endless questions and absurd comments during a game. I am just as thankful that she isn’t anti-football. She understands that would be anti-Gene. She has quietly enabled my obsession for going on thirty years.
Man, I love that woman.
I have plenty more to say on this subject, but it’s Monday and you know what that means.
If you need me, you know where I will be.
On second thought, don’t call me. I’ll call you.
Hip Shots
Blackie Sherrod, One of my favorite old-time newspaper columnists, wrote a column of random observations for the Dallas Morning News . He called it Scatter-Shooting. In the column, he would offer a collection of observations, opinions, and news items that were completely unrelated. Since imitation is the finest form of flattery, I tip my hat to the old scribe and here we go…
Congratulations are in order to the slim majority of American voters. The man you elected to put an end to the American system of government as we have known it is moving right along. While he diligently works on creating a nationalized banking system, he has happily accepted the role of chairman of the board for America’s largest auto maker. That fat arse sitting on the tax-payer’s shoulder just got fatter…and he isn’t going on a diet any time soon.
Is anyone besides me weary of the herd mentality? Whether it is reality TV, sports, or church-building, let one group have success with a formula and suddenly everyone is adopting the formula. Is it really essential to the success of your reality TV show to have at least one judge or host with a British accent? Is the Wildcat offense really that innovative, or is it just a glorified high school option play that defenses will soon stuff with regularity, and then watch while it is tossed on the heaping pile of tricked-up offenses that could never last? Is successful church-building really based on replicating the flavor-of-the-month preacher or church? And what exactly is successful church-building anyway?
I love Lucky brand jeans. I have owned three pair and each has fit and felt great. The problem is this: I cannot get my mind around paying 150 bucks or so for a pair of blue jeans. So, I shop Costco and Sam’s and Nordstrom Rack with the small hope that I will find them at a price most rational humans would consider reasonable.
It is an incredibly gratifying thing to have one of your kids demonstrate maturity and wisdom and, in effect, become your counselor.
Toilet paper should be rolled from over the top.
I was recently nominated for the Piss and Moan About Everything Club. Those nominating me were pissing and moaning about how I piss and moan.
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The JourneyMan by D. Gene Strother is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at genestrother.com.
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