We all know about the Axis of Evil coined by George Bush. I am officially declaring some new members effective immediately. Warn your children….
Large injection needles, cancer, Chelsea, Manchester United, Barbara Streisand, Philadelphia Eagles, NY Yankees, anything Sooner, and Aggies (okay the Aggies can be on the Axis of Semi-Evil).
Any others I am missing?
Watched a great ESPN program in their 30 for 30 series called Pony Excess. As a kid, I remember walking into the great open roofed shrine to watch the Mr. Peppermint clad band, the wealthy parents and boosters (seated much lower than me), and most importantly the galloping duo of James and Dickerson. S.M.U. looked unstoppable and Mustang fever was pervasive. Then it all came crashing down. Trouble began and by my senior year in High School, the newly initiated “death penalty” got dropped on them.
So what is clanging around in my head after watching it? I would love to sit down with Dale Hansen. At the time, I wasn’t aware that he was so key to the unfolding story though my family was and I still am a faithful WFAA news watcher. Hansen busted the secrets of S.M.U wide open when he interviewed a disgruntled player who had been paid by the boosters with official knowledge of the payments by the administration. What was it like for him from the time he found out that he had the interview of a lifetime? Was he excited to be in the middle of such a huge story? Was he fearful? Did he get any threats? Was he saddened to have to report such news as surely he was aware it would cause havoc? Watching the short shot of his face that they gave during the press conference with the NCAA official announcing the death penalty, it was hard to read what he was thinking.
So Dale, if you are available, I’ll be happy to take you out to lunch and we can talk all this over. Or you can just leave a comment as I am sure you are a reader of my blog.
Liam Neeson (fine actor and voice of Aslan in the Narnia movie)
“Aslan symbolizes a Christlike figure, but he also symbolizes for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.”
C.S. Lewis (fine author)
“The whole Narnian story is about Christ,” Lewis once wrote. He said he “pictured him becoming a lion” because it’s the king of beasts and because Christ is called “The Lion of Judah” in the Bible.
Mark Johnson (Narnia Dawn Treader movie producer)
The resurrection exists in so many different religions in one form or another, so it’s hardly exclusively Christian.
Winner = C.S. Lewis. Author’s intent when expressed clearly and openly always trumps interpretative comments by characters within the story or those who present them in voice, or those who organize and deal with finances of a film.
So it looks like the Rangers might have to roll out $23 million a year over 7 years to keep Cliff Lee. Here are my questions Ranger fans:
Ehhh?
In his public apology, Tiger Woods stated, “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.”
Regardless of whether Tiger lost track of what he was taught or instead walked away from it in willing rebellion, the golfer’s prescription for looking only within himself to try to repel outward cravings opposes the true functioning of our heart. Looking within leads to the failure of self-attempted morality. The answers to reducing desires are not pieced within us awaiting assembly. Our hearts are passion vacuums, seeking meaning from outside of self. Our heart, by design, will always be a passion pursuer. A wrong desire or habit is not expelled from our lives by telling ourselves it is not to be desired. We will not give up a previous passion until a new passion is in its place that has a greater satisfaction to empower us to release the first. Tiger might have been able to self-medicate his sin, or as he calls them mistakes, if his escapades had curtailed his greater passion to be great golfer. Since his escapades seemed to not impinge upon his greater passion of winning tournaments, he allowed both to exist. It will be most difficult for him to release his sexual addiction until he finds a newer, more powerful passion–even than golf or maintaining his “brand” which failed him– to sustain his recovery.
What we learn from all of this.
The cessation of a all desire means the cessation of what it means to be human, despite the claims of Buddhism. Instead of denying that we should have cravings or calling the fact we have desire wrong, we should instead find a higher satisfier of our passions. Something that draws us so deeply that we gladly abandon our previously wrong cravings for the satisfaction of the new passion. Their are differing levels of passion that each outward object or pursuit generates within us. us. Objects with higher levels of pull can displace older ones. To find the highest “object” worthy of our passion should be our life’s pursuit. The highest object of passion that fills our heart’s vacuum is God, known fully through His Son Jesus Christ. Having this proper and good passion allows us to release lesser passions that are temporal and fail to truly satisfy.
One of the best writers on this is Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) in his work, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. I am almost finished with a modernization on this which I will post this week. It is a great reading.