March 26, 2008
March 23, 2008
March 21, 2008
Relatively Missing
Not much to say. That's all. And not much time to say that not much in. I don't really want to waste anyone's time (including myself) saying nothing (as I'm doing now).
So if you're wondering where I am, I'm here. I'll write when I have something to write. Which just isn't now.
You can e-mail me at rustyblog (at) gmail dot com if you have anything you care to discuss.
So if you're wondering where I am, I'm here. I'll write when I have something to write. Which just isn't now.
You can e-mail me at rustyblog (at) gmail dot com if you have anything you care to discuss.
Why We Bracket
I have three different NCAA Brackets in four different pools. One office pool, one buddy pool (those are both comprised of my one entry at ESPN.com, and I'm winning both right now), one in John Canzano's B Pool at CBSSportsline (I didn't get in on time to be in the A Pool, though I should've been in it since I've participated twice before) where I'm tied for third with eleventy-nine other people, and one in the Utterlyboring.com pool at Yahoo (where I'm in second, which is where I finished last year).
Why am I in these pools? Canzano asked the people in his tourney pool why, and I decided to share.
The answer is a firm "I don't know." I don't follow college hoops, beyond keeping a loose awareness of who the top few teams in the country are and how the Ducks and Beavers and Zags are doing. I don't really even like college hoops. I probably should, but since they are composed now of a bunch of one-and-done exciting players coupled with a bunch of utility guys, it just doesn't interest me at all. I like teams with players I can follow for at least 3 years at a time.
So, it's not out of enthusiasm for the sport. And it isn't out of great enthusiasm for money, since the office pool is small potatoes (total pot = $70) and the others are essentially non-profit.
I guess it's just out of a desire to see if my knee-jerk, loosely-informed decision-making process will be vindicated. In my line of work, a lot of what I do relies on my ability to make quick judgments and to ride them to whereever they take me. So, like with my job, my pools are based on stuff I hear others say, my own gut feelings, and prejudice (Duke sucks, always bet against BYU in basketball, UCLA can never be number one, even if they deserve to be).
I will note that I broke my BYU rule this year. I decided to play that part of the bracket straight, and it's effed me. So that rule will be strictly enforced from now on.
How about you? Why do you bracket?
Why am I in these pools? Canzano asked the people in his tourney pool why, and I decided to share.
The answer is a firm "I don't know." I don't follow college hoops, beyond keeping a loose awareness of who the top few teams in the country are and how the Ducks and Beavers and Zags are doing. I don't really even like college hoops. I probably should, but since they are composed now of a bunch of one-and-done exciting players coupled with a bunch of utility guys, it just doesn't interest me at all. I like teams with players I can follow for at least 3 years at a time.
So, it's not out of enthusiasm for the sport. And it isn't out of great enthusiasm for money, since the office pool is small potatoes (total pot = $70) and the others are essentially non-profit.
I guess it's just out of a desire to see if my knee-jerk, loosely-informed decision-making process will be vindicated. In my line of work, a lot of what I do relies on my ability to make quick judgments and to ride them to whereever they take me. So, like with my job, my pools are based on stuff I hear others say, my own gut feelings, and prejudice (Duke sucks, always bet against BYU in basketball, UCLA can never be number one, even if they deserve to be).
I will note that I broke my BYU rule this year. I decided to play that part of the bracket straight, and it's effed me. So that rule will be strictly enforced from now on.
How about you? Why do you bracket?
March 04, 2008
SOAP Notes
Even more SOAP Notes...
March 4, 2008
Num 34-36; Mark 11
S: Mark 11:23-24
“Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”
O: Immediately proceeding this verse, the disciples pointed out a fig tree that Jesus had cursed, which within a day had withered from the ground up; Jesus told them to believe in God, and then gave them the above assurance.
A: Things like this are some of the most challenging things to me in the Bible, for a variety of reasons. Some are philosophical, some are practical, and some are experiential.
Philosophically: these verses do not equivocate or qualify. They speak absolutely. Any person who tells a mountain to move, who believes in his heart without a doubt that it will happen, will see it happen. All things for which I pray and ask, if I believe I’m getting it, will be granted. Of course, this can’t be right, can it? These verses, in and of themselves, don’t constrain the results as being necessarily within God’s will, or the desires by which they're sought of being godly in nature. Really, if a man asks for a mountain to move, and believes it will: will that occur if God doesn’t want it to move? If I pray for my enemy to die, and believe that he shall, will it happen if it isn’t a godly desire?
Practically: if anybody sheerly on the basis of whole-hearted belief could accomplish anything by simply asking it without a doubt of its occurrence, would we see so much suffering? Would we see so many people living without? Wouldn’t we see a lot of little girls with ponies and little boys with BB guns, because with the faith of a child they asked, believing it would be given? If simple faith was all that was necessary to achieve our dreams, wouldn’t more of us achieve them?
Experientially: I’ve seen people seek things with what appeared to be an earnest belief that they would be provided. Healing of physical issues, changes in another person’s course of action, reversals of fortune of all sorts. Sometimes there are definite changes. But, in my experience watching, most often there is nothing apparent.
Compounding this frustration is my own failure. I pray most every day. Sometimes I have a general sense of belief in the Lord’s provision. More often than not, I pray simply out of a recognition that I need to embrace the fact that I need to rely on more than myself. But praying out of a recognition of that need is not the same as exercising an act out of that need. I very rarely, if ever, have prayed for something with a whole-hearted belief in the result. So I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that “move the mountain” moment in my own life, and there’s some comfort to me in the idea that they simply don’t happen.
But Jesus apparently says that these things can occur. I have to believe that there’s a “God’s will” qualification. The mere fact that I want something enough and believe that I’ll get it can’t overcome God’s will. I can frustrate God, but I can’t overpower Him. So, my reading is that a person acting out of a belief that God’s will shall be accomplished, who speaks out in that belief and claims the fulfillment, will see the fulfillment of that will. Or maybe my reading is that if you have a can-do attitude, you will get far.
I don’t think that Jesus was just telling me that perserverance and faith in an outcome is a guarantee that, with a little elbow grease and a happy heart, I’ll achieve it. No, I think He is telling me that an abiding faith in God and a declaration of my desire to see His will done will be rewarded. So, eventually, I get to the challenge in the verse. I need that abiding faith. And, just as much, I need an understanding of His will. If I can combine these pieces, I’ll begin to realize the whole of His glory.
P: God, my faith is so often weak, and my understanding so lacking, that I often feel not so much that my prayers fall to the floor, but worse that my words have no meaning at all. Give me faith where I am lacking. Begin a work in me that will change me from within, to allow me to be a man who believes and who abides in that reliance on You. And allow me to know Your will, that my prayers will have meaning and that they’ll be effectual and that, ultimately, they will work to reinforce my belief in You. Amen.
March 4, 2008
Num 34-36; Mark 11
S: Mark 11:23-24
“Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”
O: Immediately proceeding this verse, the disciples pointed out a fig tree that Jesus had cursed, which within a day had withered from the ground up; Jesus told them to believe in God, and then gave them the above assurance.
A: Things like this are some of the most challenging things to me in the Bible, for a variety of reasons. Some are philosophical, some are practical, and some are experiential.
Philosophically: these verses do not equivocate or qualify. They speak absolutely. Any person who tells a mountain to move, who believes in his heart without a doubt that it will happen, will see it happen. All things for which I pray and ask, if I believe I’m getting it, will be granted. Of course, this can’t be right, can it? These verses, in and of themselves, don’t constrain the results as being necessarily within God’s will, or the desires by which they're sought of being godly in nature. Really, if a man asks for a mountain to move, and believes it will: will that occur if God doesn’t want it to move? If I pray for my enemy to die, and believe that he shall, will it happen if it isn’t a godly desire?
Practically: if anybody sheerly on the basis of whole-hearted belief could accomplish anything by simply asking it without a doubt of its occurrence, would we see so much suffering? Would we see so many people living without? Wouldn’t we see a lot of little girls with ponies and little boys with BB guns, because with the faith of a child they asked, believing it would be given? If simple faith was all that was necessary to achieve our dreams, wouldn’t more of us achieve them?
Experientially: I’ve seen people seek things with what appeared to be an earnest belief that they would be provided. Healing of physical issues, changes in another person’s course of action, reversals of fortune of all sorts. Sometimes there are definite changes. But, in my experience watching, most often there is nothing apparent.
Compounding this frustration is my own failure. I pray most every day. Sometimes I have a general sense of belief in the Lord’s provision. More often than not, I pray simply out of a recognition that I need to embrace the fact that I need to rely on more than myself. But praying out of a recognition of that need is not the same as exercising an act out of that need. I very rarely, if ever, have prayed for something with a whole-hearted belief in the result. So I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that “move the mountain” moment in my own life, and there’s some comfort to me in the idea that they simply don’t happen.
But Jesus apparently says that these things can occur. I have to believe that there’s a “God’s will” qualification. The mere fact that I want something enough and believe that I’ll get it can’t overcome God’s will. I can frustrate God, but I can’t overpower Him. So, my reading is that a person acting out of a belief that God’s will shall be accomplished, who speaks out in that belief and claims the fulfillment, will see the fulfillment of that will. Or maybe my reading is that if you have a can-do attitude, you will get far.
I don’t think that Jesus was just telling me that perserverance and faith in an outcome is a guarantee that, with a little elbow grease and a happy heart, I’ll achieve it. No, I think He is telling me that an abiding faith in God and a declaration of my desire to see His will done will be rewarded. So, eventually, I get to the challenge in the verse. I need that abiding faith. And, just as much, I need an understanding of His will. If I can combine these pieces, I’ll begin to realize the whole of His glory.
P: God, my faith is so often weak, and my understanding so lacking, that I often feel not so much that my prayers fall to the floor, but worse that my words have no meaning at all. Give me faith where I am lacking. Begin a work in me that will change me from within, to allow me to be a man who believes and who abides in that reliance on You. And allow me to know Your will, that my prayers will have meaning and that they’ll be effectual and that, ultimately, they will work to reinforce my belief in You. Amen.
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