McBirthday
Yesterday was a good day.I made up for 3 weeks of early rising by getting out of bed at 10:00. After breakfast I flopped on the couch and watched a game recorded from the day before: Angels vs. Giants. It's only Spring Training, but it was nice to see my boys pummel Barry's boys. It was also nice to just lie there and spend some time not thinking. My brain was tired.The afternoon was spent finalizing a report for the church's Steering Committee then studying for and starting to write Sunday's sermon. The story of Gideon provides a lot of food for thought (or should I say "wheat for threshing?") Where do you go with a 15-minute sermon?- With God for us, who can be against us?
- God can use a wheat-threshing warrior just as well as he can use a left-handed man, an oxgoad wielder, or even (gasp) a woman.
- He speaks in different ways...through angels, through dreams, directly, through others...and we still wonder if that was really His voice.
- The greatest of servants can still falter at the end.
- God picks the right servant for the right service.
In the end, I chose none of the above. We'll focus on two things. First, that whereever we are sent to serve, God got there first and He will be there when we're gone. Before Gideon's army ever busted their jars, God was already working on them in their dreams. After the torches were revealed God kept stirring up the confusion. He leads like a shepherd and His presence outlasts us.
Second, we need to know that no service is too big or too small. We may not be sent to fight a war (I can live with that), but we will be sent to do something. Many things. We'll be sent to teach, to help a friend, to give something away, to show hospitality, to pay a visit, to make a phone call, to lend an ear. We must understand that God counts on us to answer His call. And even if the world around us doesn't know us by a single name like Gideon or Moses or Deborah, God knows us by the name He's given us. And that's all that matters.
So the sermon isn't finished, but at least it has direction.
The relaxing (slightly work-filled) day was much needed, because we celebrated James' birthday last night at McDonalds. The playroom was overrun with McFamily and McFriends. There was a lot of McScreaming and more than a few McTears. The place smelled of kid sweat and the floor grew steadily stickier as the night wore on due to the spilled soda in the corner. Some of the adults came back to pay James a visit and then spent most of the evening in the main McSection, away from the noise. Most of the parents though stuck it out and enjoyed watching the McPlay area fill up with kids. I'm fairly certain I saw some little guys going up the slide as others were coming down at the same time. I'm not quite sure how they pulled it off. James wanted me to go down the slide with him, but it was one of those enclosed plastic deals that ensures adult electrocution so, this time, he was on his own.
After lots of playtime, happy meals were served followed by cake and ice cream. Eventually, people started heading home and you could hear yourself think again. James' best buddy, Benjamin, was the last to leave. We gathered up all the McGifts (seized the booty), loaded up the Durango, and headed home. It was wild, but where else can you cater a party for 20 kids for 85 bucks? We noticed later that they didn't charge us for all the kids and wondered if the fact that our hostess used to be in my Geometry class was the reason. I didn't speculate as I wasn't sure if it meant she was being nice or she couldn't count.
James opened his presents when we got home and, as always, I was as excited about his stuff as he was. My mom got him a Toss Across game; she must have remembered how many times I asked for it as a kid. There were lots of Spider-man items and Hot Wheels tracks and Star Wars figures and James was up early this morning asking what we would play with first.
What McFun.
'Roids and Ruth
Two reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle have a book coming out detailing the steroid use of Barry Bonds. Bonds has never been a popular guy, mostly because he's a jerk. He has even admitted using steroids, though he claims that he didn't know what they were. Apparently, like most highly-paid professional athletes, people who make their living based on their health, talent, and natural ability, Bonds is okay with just randomly shooting, ingesting, and/or rubbing unknown chemicals into his body.
Y'know, the Angels played the Giants in the World Series once.
The book claims that Bonds started using steroids in 1999 because he didn't think it was fair that Mark McGwire should get to pump up and break records. So he set out to do the same. In all fairness, Bonds did later break the single-season home run record and it does take more than drugs to be able to put a bat on a ball and make it go a long, long way. It should also be pointed out that steroids were not illegal in baseball when Bonds was using them. And, before anyone says that I should be using the word "allegedly" in many places here, I think we're all past that with Barry.
It all got me thinking about Babe Ruth. All baseball lovers (and even some non-baseball types) know that Ruth's career home run total was 714. That record stood until 1974 when Hank Aaron surpassed it. And yes, of course I was watching that game. What few people know is that the career home run record before Ruth was held by Roger Connor. His total? 138. Babe Ruth didn't just break a record. He changed the game.
Here are some other fun facts about the Babe. Skip this part if you are numbers/baseball challenged. Ruth's career on-base percentage was .472. That means he was on base almost half the time he was up. Ruth had 2217 career RBI's which also puts him in second place. And did you know that he pitched in 10 different seasons, including 3 seasons in which he was primarily a pitcher? Not bad either, since he ended his career with a 2.28 ERA and had 18, 23, and 24 wins in those 3 seasons.
End of numbers. Take a breath.
There are a lot more reasons why I consider Babe to be the best who ever played. But what would those numbers have looked like if he was juicing? He would have had over 1,000 home runs! Of course, he might also have gotten into more bar fights. The equivalent to today's drug scandal was, in Ruth's day, called "drinking heavily."
And now for something completely different....
Today marks the 4-month anniversary of the Crash. Our guy came by yesterday to finish the cabinet doors which, basically, would have finished the job. I was looking forward to blogging this morning about how everything was done.
But the doors didn't fit. And they have to make them again. And they said it would take a month.
So, the odyssey continues. Hey, maybe I should buy the cabinet guy some steroids.
