Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Mount Rushmore

This morning some guys in our office were discussing various "Mount Rushmores" and who would be on it...so here goes:

College Football Coaches: Bear Bryant, Joe Paterno, Eddie Robinson, and Knute Rockny

College Basketball Coaches: John Wooden, Coach K, Adolf Rupp, and Bobby Knight

Pop/Rock Music: Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin

Actors: John Wayne, Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Densel Washington

Models: Christie Brinkly, Bo Derek, Cathy Ireland, Marylyn Monroe

Business: Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Sam Walton

If you have issues with any, you need to state who you'd add and who you'd drop. Also, I'd love to see other categories that come to mind.

Ready...Go.

Monday, November 27, 2006

TV

There are two shows I look forward to watching...

PTI and Jimmy Neutron.

PTI I Tivo everyday so I can watch in peace when the kids are all in bed. The two hosts (and even the guest hosts) make me laugh out loud at least once per episode.

Jimmy Neutron I usually walk in while the kids are watching and just sit down - which is rare for me to stay (think "That's so Raven" and "High School Musical" and "Cheetah Girls")...but I'll stay with Jimmy Neutron. I can't get the image of Carl and Shane being transformed into Doowap background singers...very funny.

Add PTI and Jimmy Neutron to my list of things that are good in my life. What TV do you REALLY like?

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Well Done Alan

Alan goes to church with me. The more I get to know him, the more I like him. This fact alone makes him unique.

A few years ago was my first interaction with him...we didn't know each other, even what the other looked like. I was coaching girls basketball 11 year olds and we were playing a team that had a very sick girl on the team. She was bald, I assumed it was cancer, and would come out to shoot foul shots for her team. We were playing against her, and it made things...well, different. She had some kind of cancer, and eventually would die within a year of that game. I never saw her again after that game. Alan is her dad.

Now that I've been going to church with Alan for about 6 months, and our daughters (he has more children) are friends, I'm getting to know him better. I never made the connection between father of the foul shooter and Alan from church until a recent article in the paper. Here's a paraphrase of a quote from the article:

"One day I was feeling sad, so I took God's Word where it says that one day on earth is like 1000 days in Heaven, and I extrapolated that I'm only missing about 42 minutes with my daughter."

That's how Alan sees everything...through those kind of lenses. I can't imagine losing my 11 year old to a year long battle with Cancer. I can't imagine anything nearly that bad happening to me. Crazy thing is...something will. I just pray I can have the kind of strength and impact that Alan has for the Kingdom.

Well done Alan.

Friday, November 17, 2006

A New Leaf...for now

Been talking about some very cool things lately...very positive things...encouraging things.

I wonder why a Senator from Florida who sends questionable emails to young men makes news above the fold and a lady I know who adopts 18 children from developing nations, giving them hope for a better life, has never been documented. You'd think the market place is ripe for at least one major media outlet (magazing, newspaper, TV channel, etc.) that focuses only on THESE stories.

I mean, ABC stages, and I do mean stages, one hour a week to do something nice for a needy family and it gets top 10 ratings...why won't a business capitalize on this.

So here's my new leaf...

On this blog...we're going to hear about what's going on GOOD in this world. I'm going to start documenting positive contribution...specifically people who, when you spend time with them, they make you feel as though your life improved a little because of that investment of time.

And you know what...I'm going to work at becoming one of those people.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

FCAT vs. Tenure

We had an interesting conversation around the lunch table today at work. It's election day and the Governor of Florida is up for grabs. One of the major topics is the FCAT test. This is the standardized test that we us in Florida to grade schools, teachers, and administrators on how well or poorly they are doing. I'm guessing it's used for funding purposes as well...better performers get more money, poorer performers get less. The buzz seems to be that teachers are teachingto the test, students are under extreme pressure, notes go home during FCAT week about good breakfast and lots of sleep (side note: why not food and sleep the other 51 weeks/year?).

My thoughts are, if we didn't have tenure or teachers' unions that harbored lousy teachers and administrators...would we really need the FCAT?

Friday, November 03, 2006

Spiritual/Political Conflict

How involved should we be? It's really weighing on me. So allow me to lay out the thought pattern...

On one hand we're called to be salt and light, a beacon on a hill to shine bright in a dark world. We're called to holiness, to pursue our personal convictions as the Holy Spirit has layed on our heart. If we are trained up with a Biblical World View, and find ourselves in a leadership position (a student in the lunch room, a co-worker at work, wherever...leadership can be in many forms....someone asking you...what do you think?), we should lead with our convictions...God would expect nothing less of us.

On the other hand, much of what were called to do above, even if done with the most eloquent of grace, gets immediately thrust into a corner of intollerance...bundled up with the funeral picketers from Kansas...and quickly pushed into a "religious fanatical corner" possibly mentioned in the same breath with the Taliban or the Crusades.

Let's get three dimensional and have a third hand...the Sovereignty of God. If His people pray, pursue their personal convictions (personally), allow others to grow spiritually at the pace God has for them, train up their children to deal with a dark world that may/will get darker before its over, and trust that God will sort things out in the end AND along the way...isn't that what got us from the 60's to now...isn't that how we arrived in a post-modern culture where a public school system that was created to teach children to read the Bible, now shuns all things Christian as non-inclusive. Isn't this why historical landmarks throughout the country, that claim our Creator as the Sovereign ruller of our country and it's history are being torn down one by one by the ACLU...is this happening because Christians are sitting idly by? Or, is this happening because a dark world is getting darker...as part of His plan?

So do we get active? If so, how active? The AFA although working diligently to not allow the 60's and 70's to repeat with different issues (most visible homosexuality), appears to have a following of 100,000 strong (me being one, who signed on 2 years ago because it seemed like a worthy cause). What about Dobson (Focus on the Family)? Or Falwell? How effective are they (or we)? Have we done more harm than good?

But what about convictions and TRUTH? Are we doing tremendous good as His "hands & feet"?

And let me be clear, I'm not talking about running for office. I'm just talking about discussions around the water cooler, with a lost world.

That's where I am right now. Praying for guidance. Desiring to lead. Asking for wisdom, so when my kids bring this up, I know where to point them. Wanting to be equally yoked on this with those close to me. That's where I'm at.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Politics talk takes a different turn...

My ops manager is a die hard democrat...me, I've never voted for one...I'm kind of anti-entitlement. She pegs me as "religious right", which isn't good at all from a Kingdom perspective, but the 6 year old tradition of bantering about this time of year took a unique twist this year...

You see, here in Florida, the Republican candidate for Governor is rumored to be Gay. It is very alleged, but a couple of liberal papers have reported the "rumor" and I passed one of his large signs the other day that someone had spray painted an anti-Gay word accross. The Democratic Candidate is standard fare...liberal guy being repackaged as moderate...but very traditional family.

So my ops manager asks, who are you going to vote for? I said, the "Republican of course". The insueing conversation included family values, issues, etc. But at the end of the day, I got to share the Gospel again...share that his alleged Gayness is no different than my Pride, both sins that need redemption...and that people change from the inside out, not the outside in.

Progress...