One Pastor's Perspective

Oh, how I wish I could see a breakdown of the NCAA tournament (that started with the play-in game last night, but REALLY starts on Thursday). If they were ONLY talking about it on SportsCenter every minute of every show. Now, you know I love SportsCenter, but give me a little break. Let the thing start and then we will see which 5/12 matchup results in an upset, we will eventually see which (if any) of the number 1 seeds make it to the BIG dance, and we will see what Greg Oden has for breakfast (and we are all waiting so anxiously for that one).

On the upside, they just showed a clip of Elephant Day in Thailand and the elephants appeared to be bowling. At least it wasn’t another clip of Bobby Knight!

Maybe they call it March Madness because you can go CRAZY watching all of the lead-in material?! I say, “Knock it all off and just put Dickie V on there until the thing starts!”

It’s gonna be AWESOME, baby!

Yesterday was such a good day, and I guess I enjoyed it more than anyone. Mark Manning has been a really good friend since our seminary days. He and his youth choir are on their way to a ski trip and stopped off to sing for us yesterday. They did a great job and seemed to be a good bunch of kids. But what did my heart good was to see Mark and his family.

Lyle and Calland, who are 18 and 15 now, were just tots when we were in New Orleans. They were our family, as Mark and I would ride together on Sunday nights and Wednesdays over the river to Woodmere Baptist Church (where we both served). Diana and Krissy would ride over with Celeste, Lyle, and Calland. It was a good arrangement and a great friendship.

It is hard to believe how much their kids have grown and how much Mark has NOT AGED. The kids really don’t remember, but when they were up there singing, I could see Lyle carrying a stick around . . . (No matter where we were, Lyle could ALWAYS find a stick to play with).

And the cherry on top . . . UNC. Enough said about that!

I am sitting here on Saturday morning ALONE (my entire family is still in bed). That gives me the opportunity to indulge in something that maybe Drew would let me watch, but no one else: Kung Pow, Enter the Fist. This is a movie Steve Oedekerk made a few years ago by taking three (or so) old kung fu movies and cutting them together, green-screening himself INTO these movies, and completely overdubbing the vocals. It is HILARIOUS! The funny thing is that I’ve seen it probably six times, and it just keeps getting funnier and funnier.

Are all guys like this, or are Keith Pettigrew and I crazy?? (He does the same thing.) I personally think we need times to laugh at something so completely mindless. This IS a guy movie, but on the guy scale, a pretty good one.

WEOOOO, WEOOOOO, WEOOOOO

I KNOW . . . WRONG. But for the sake of alliteration, I had to!

Do the rules apply to YOU, no matter how dumb they might be?? Here are some dumb laws in the state of SC:

It is illegal to display a confederate flag on a courthouse.By law, if a man promises to marry an unmarried woman, the marriage must take place.Railroad companies may be held liable in some instances for scaring horses.A railroad my not remove itself from a town of more than five hundred people.Fortune tellers are required to obtain a special permit from the state.Dance halls may not operate on Sundays. No work may be done on Sunday.Musical instruments may not be sold on Sunday.Performing a U-turn within 1,000 feet of an intersection is illegal.Horses may not be kept in bathtubs.It is illegal to sell any alcoholic beverages on Sunday, unless you own a private club.A permit must be obtained to fire a missle.When approaching a four way or blind intersection in a non-horse driven vehicle you must stop 100 ft from the intersection and discharge a firearm into the air to warn horse traffic.It is perfectly legal to beat your wife on the court house steps on Sundays.Every adult male must bring a rifle to church on Sunday in order to ward off Indian attacks.It is a capital offense to inadvertently kill someone while attempting suicide.A person must be eighteen years old to play a pinball machine. (Laws courtesy of www.blufftontoday.com)

Okay, some of these are extreme, but the truth is, the rules DO APPLY to us. All of us. No matter how dumb, no matter if we like them or agree with them, they apply. Unless they are trying to force us to compromise Christ, they apply. Jesus and Paul both taught us to be good citizens and fulfill our civic duties as well as those of the kingdom of God. We are called to it. No question about it.

So, if I show up with my rifle this Sunday, I don’t wanna hear about it!

No big deal, just a checkup . . . Dr Dancy checking to see how the blood pressure fiasco is going. Things went well yesterday, even though I LOATHE having my BP checked in any doctors’ office. I have white coat hypertension . . . My bp ALWAYS reads high in the doctors office, then I will come home and have it read normal on my bp monitor (which I calibrated with them to make sure it is working). Like I told the nurse, I am a basket case.

I do enjoy talking to my doctor, though. He is a very pleasant guy, and HE LISTENS TO ME when I ask questions. He honestly tries to help me find answers to things. He is the first doctor (in a LOOOOOONG TIME) that has done that for me. Dr. Burnett is great, too. Krissy really likes her. Then, you have the office staff and nurses . . . Really good folks that make it a point to know us and work to build relationships.

I highly recommend them. The office is behind the McLeod Fitness Center. Tell them their favorite hypochondriach sent you!

Justin and I are showing “Facing the Giants” to our class this week. What a powerful movie about how God can take something BLEAK and use it for revival! If you have not seen the movie, I strongly recommend it. God’s call always invites us to step out on faith. Everything does not have to make sense to us, because we are really in control of very little. God is the conductor, we are merely instruments in His grand orchestra. If we play our way, things just don’t sound right. If we play HIS way, the music will be unbelievable.

Yes, Virginia, He really DOES have a plan . . .

Let me tell you what happened this weekend at the Pee Dee Pitchoff. It was one of the most courageous things I have ever seen. We have all heard battle stories of Iraq and Afghanistan that display great courage, and this is not one of those, but it is a tremendous testament to the coaches and girls that comprise the JV squad.

Friday night we played in two pool games. Games of little consequence but to get the girls used to the venue. We won the first game and lost the second. No big deal.

On Saturday morning, our first game was at 9:30. We beat East Clarendon High pretty well . . . Put them out in five innings. The next team to face in the tourney was one that has traditionally knocked us OUT every year . . . Darlington. They hit the ball like crazy (most of the girls play travel ball together when not playing JV). They had a girl hit one out of the park in the previous tournament game (right before ours). The way the bracket was set up, you played THREE games in a row with no break (if you won) and that was that . . . A tough thing for young girls to do. We were able to score a few runs on Darlington and the game went the full seven innings. They were home and had the last at bat. We were winning 4-2, but they were able to get two on base and the home run hitter came up. Our pitcher had struck her out two previous times, but this was one of those heart-pounding endings that is very exciting, but could cause the pitcher’s dad to have heart failure (but I made it). We got this girl to pop up a foul to the third baseman, and the game was over!

We were now the first WF JV team EVER to make it to the championship of the tourney to face, you guessed it, South Florence. SF is the host of the tourney, traditionally wins it every year, and they had a bye in the first round (perks of being the host). In other words, their finely-tuned machine had only played ONE game to our TWO to get into the champioship game. I am not sure anyone had even SCORED on them at that point in the weekend. Anyway, they played, they hit the ball, they scored, and our girls were so tired they looked like the Team of the Living Dead. Both Sara and Krissy pitched in this game, and SF jumped out to an 8-0 lead. It looked like they would win handily. But those WF girls kept going out there. Kept on, in spite of mental and physical EXHAUSTION. They just kept on. In the sixth inning, we scored SIX runs on them. Their fans were deathly silent. It was amazing.

In the seventh, they got a girl or two on base, but Krissy was able to strike TWO out and get one to hit a soft grounder back to her. Her dad was so proud. We could not score in the bottom, so they did win the tourney. But I have never been so proud of a loss in all of my days of sports. The courage our girls showed in going out there and never giving up was amazing. And they almost won it all! In my heart, we DID win that day. And right now, those girls are my heros!

I have seen plenty this weekend . . . The WF JV softball team made it to the championship of the Pee Dee Pitchoff on Saturday for the first time EVER (according to Coach Herb). Our girls played in their third game in a row (with no rest) against a South Florence team who was playing in their second (they had a bye . . . go figure). Our girls showed class and some real guts as they hung in, but they lost 9-6.

Then, as if there had not been enough excitement, UNC beat Duke in a game that ended in dramatic fashion. Did Gerald Henderson intentionally pound Tyler Hansborough in the nose at the end of the game?? Henderson says no, but the video tape is questionable at best. The intensity in that game was incredible.

Why don’t we have the same emotion and intensity as we serve God? (Not that we need to bloody any noses in the name of God, but how much do you think that will be talked about TODAY?) Why not bring that kind of attention to worship? To ministry? Is our relationship with God and our role in the kingdom of God as important as a couple of ballgames?? We say that is a ridiculous question, but we REALLY answer with how we live our lives . . .

Deep thought for a Monday morning.

Jay Bilas said it well on SportsCenter this morning . . . “If the Tarheels want to be in Atlanta in a few weeks playing in the Final Four, they will have to rediscover the toughness they have lost in the last three weeks.” You are correct, Jay! Georgia Tech played a great game last night, but there was plenty of room for UNC to win that game. And, they lost. Again.

I think they need to go a read the legends of the Tar Heel. Interesting to read the legends (there are five or six) of how that nickname came to pass. Somehow it is related to the fact that North Carolina used to be a huge supplier of tar and terpentine. It is said to have been an insult, OR a compliment of how NCers don’t run in battle. My suggestion is that Roy Williams gets some tar and really sticks it on their heels . . . It couldn’t make things any worse!

Do you have a living will? That was a question asked of me before I had my gall bladder surgery two years ago. It really freaked me out. So, when I pre-registered for my surgery, I produced one.

As we talked about it, I wanted to say “Dr Bollick said this was A SNAP! Why do you keep asking me this and what more is there to this that I am not getting??” Then, when I got there the day of the surgery, they could not find it and made a HUGE deal out of it. That really did not do much to instill confidence, but we all got through it. (And, as Dr Bollick said, it WAS a snap)

Truth is, I have been in those hospital halls long enough to know that anything can happen, and those nurses were only doing their jobs when they made the big deal about the living will. And I appreciate them for it. We are fortunate here in Florence to have the level of medical care available to us. I have been in the new part of the Pavilion Tower at McLeod several times lately, and it is really nice and MODERN.

Back to the topic: Do YOU have a living will? Have you ever thought about the extent to which you would want your families and doctors to go in preserving life? Now, ALL of us want them to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to save us in an emergency, but what about life support when there is zero quality of life? At what point would you want your family to stop and allow nature to take over?

A hard thought for younger adults today, but something I see all of the time. You might want to think about it and write something down. You could be saving your family from a horrible decision by having a living will . . . Do it for THEM!