ESPN

I could be an addict.

But we simply can't afford the money associated with what would most certainly become a controlling habit that would suck the life out of my datebook for outside activity and instead replace it with Cheetos eating, blanket wearing, bloodshot eyed sports fanatacism.

It wasn't meant to be.

We are among those who have our needs met and most of our wants, but sometimes you just have to draw the line regarding what is appropriate expenditure and what is money that can be best spent elsewhere.

So, we don't have ESPN.

Alas, although we can get ESPN 360 on the computer thanks to our internet provider, the tiny little broadcasts are BEHIND the time of the television broadcast just enough to have some tenderly considerate person call and tell me what happened before I get to see it. Grrr.

Of course, in this day and age of telethons for various causes and little jars next to cash registers all over the land, perhaps there is a way to feed my sports mania without breaking OUR budget to do it . . . "SUPPORT ATHLETICS" the jar would say, carefully omitting what version of support was being offered. I might make enough for the monthly bill . . .

No, no, no! That would be fraud, wouldn't it? Or would it?

OOOPS!

Sorry, the very thought of instant score updates and 24 hour news on my teams' standings made me temporarily morally bankrupt.

Oh, well.

I guess I am back to what the father of a guy my sister used to date used to announce at the end of every football game at Hartselle High School. "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter."

He honestly had NO CLUE why everyone in the stands was falling all over themselves laughing. Until his son Rusty informed him. But that didn't stop him from saying it. Once he knew what people were thinking, the crude old country boy in him figured that if they didn't know that he knew what he was saying, they would just think he was a dumb hick.

But the slick veneer of professional broadcasting got wiped away tonight at the Georgia Dome and revealed the ESPN sports guys for what they really are.

Some inclement weather moved into the metro Fulton County area and caused a bit of disturbance at the Dome. Lights flickered, overhead light and camera scaffolding began to rock and the fabric of the dome rippled like window sheers in a strong breeze. A tornado passed perilously close to the game and the previously erudite announcers became Bubba and Earl at the trailer park telling the world about how a sound "like a freight train came right over our heads".

Oh my goodness!

The truth is that in a crisis we are all little country folk who can't articulate our thoughts in complete sentences and who, for all of our fancy eddicashun, cain't strang togetha a whole thought without soundin' like we do our wash over'n at the Washerteria or the Wash-n-Gossip.

After all, them high fallutin' dee-plomers don't mean nothin' when an F-3 is a'comin' right fer ya.

Now I know that everyone is more 'little bit country' than they are 'little bit rock-n-roll'.

We want to be a finery and slipcovers, but the reality is that we are more crocheted doilies and drinking from a mason jar. But that's okay.

I fully expect ESPN to show up and cover the "Southern Olympics" this summer in Georgia. Mac Davis needs the publicity and the world needs a good laugh. But what we really need is an alternative to the glossy version of sports as the corporate talking heads want to present it.

We need more "Golden Flake Potato Chip Football Show" and less Sportschannel. And who wouldn't enjoy seeing a broadcast of Hunting and Fishing by Donnie Mack (who really HAS a show locally). He even fell out of his own boat on one show. It was hilarious!

And can you imagine the redneck broadcast of the Olympic Games from "Chiner"?

The color commentary would be straight out of Steel Magnolias!

Y'all go on home and practice tossin' your toilet seat for the horseshoes event, y'hear? We might be filming in your town real soon. . .

Homemaking, purses and cake

So, I go tonight and discover two very important things at the meeting tonight.

Number one, my purse contains WAY TOO MUCH JUNK and number two, cake is more of a weakness that I would like to admit.

We had a fun night tonight but I sometimes go home feeling disconnected from the reality that the other women face on a daily basis. Has it really become so easy to be cocooned in MY world that I have forgotten that there are other people and other needs?

I used to be more involved but I have come to realize that part of my so called involvement was propping up people who didn't really want to participate at all.

Talk about junk in your purse!

Where do we draw the line between helping someone along and nurturing them through a hard time and simply dragging them around like dead weight in our purse because we don't want to hurt their feelings when it's time to say goodbye? Is is possible that some of that is more than an act of simple self preservation and is instead the kindest thing we can do for someone else to cut them loose? I read somewhere "Sometimes the best helping hand we can give is a firm push."

I truly believe that, otherwise I'd probably still be living at home and letting my parents take care of me forever.

Let's just postulate a thought here: could it be possible that when we carry people along in a sympathetic vein we are simply preventing the growth that SHOULD happen because we are worried about hurting them and ironically enough, they ARE hurt by the fact that they are crippled by our 'care'.

It's a hard decision to make.

We can't just stand by and hope for the best without being active participants and players in our own lives! It just doesn't work that way. For better or worse, we have to make choices and skin our knees and do unpleasant stuff to get to all of the goodies that are truly wonderful.

Sort of a right of passage gig.

But back to the purses. If I carry all of someone elses collected junk for them in MY purse, how can I find MY stuff when I need it? The same is true of our lives. If we carry around someone else's life for them, we have little strength left for our own.

I don't believe in 'tough love'. But I do believe that sometimes if you truly love someone, you have to tell them the truth and say, "I have carried you as far along the path as I am willing to do. Now, you either have to walk on your own, or wait for someone else to pick you up."

I know it works because a woman whom I used to visit teach and give rides to all over creation is now coming to church. I have to believe part of it is because I finally told the people who 'assigned me' to take care of her that I was DONE.

Now, they come because they want to.

They are finally carrying their OWN purse.

Maybe that is the reason that we should carry a purse. They are all different because they reflect who we are, but they hold our collective junk for whenever we need it. They need to be large enough to serve, but small enough to prevent voluntary slavery to someone who won't carry their own load.

Just ramblings of an almighty disturbed mind . . .

Password Protected

While sitting here dripping sweat after my workout (don't laugh, it's beginning to show), I realized that much of what we do in our lives becomes, for better or worse, an open book.

I remember reading on the Yahoo Answers last night the question of a sincere young girl who wanted to know how to avoid sin.

As I answered her question with the answers I have learned over the years, I felt like I was going through the process myself.

How much simpler would it be if our lives could be password protected against sin?

It dawned on me this morning as the early light streamed through the window that we CAN and ARE password protected.

Just by calling upon our Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ during our moments of weakness and temptation, sorrow and distress, we CAN be password protected from the evil influences of the world we are compelled to live in.

I know that may sound simplistic, but sometimes getting all complicated and full of the technicalities of daily life is what puts us on the edge anyway. So why not back away from what we know caused our problems and instead do what we did when we were little and scared and just say a prayer?

Last night, I was having some issues trouble me. Some things had happened through the course of Sunday that just set me on edge and gave me not only pause to think but some serious reflection over my own past. I can't change what has already transpired! I don't know why that became a sleep preventing understanding, but it did.

And with my heart pounding as if I was about to die, I began to pray. Nothing fancy, no ornate words or phrases that would impress, just talking to My Father. Asking for what to do to make the scary feelings of inadequacy and shame of where I have failed go away for at least a while.

As if I was listening to a radio with an unseen hand adjusting the tuning towards various stations, music flooded my soul and as the different pieces came through my head, the thought came again and again "No, this is not the right one."

Finally, the overture to Handel's Messiah began to play. It was an instant calm in the storm of my emotions. Then another beautiful piece was brought to my mind and the new installment of peace was added on the previous layer of peace until sleep came.

I wish now that I could go back and tell that young girl that we can all learn to password protect ourselves from the influences of the world around us. That we can insulate ourselves from the cold and harsh treatment that is the worldly show of power and strength. And that we have the ability to rise above mere circumstance to find another place of spirit that cannot be touched by the stain of mortality.

Perhaps the Spirit will tell her these things from what I wrote to her from the beginning.

I don't know. But I do hope so.

We all need to feel like we are safe from the onslaught of the world. And only through our Father and His Son can that safety be brought to pass. Though we are not guaranteed safety of the body, we are offered a guarantee of safety of the spirit if we will just follow in Their Footsteps.

I hope that you find a place within your life that you can indeed come to a protection that defies the hackers who would destroy and that offers a level of encryption far surpassing the 126 bit rate that can be overcome.

Jesus Christ can heal the breaches, restore the lives and reclaim that which is lost in a way that makes beautiful that which had become darkened and corroded through the effects of sin.

How wonderful to know that I am protected and safe from the world that is evil by the security and safety offered by the Good Shepherd.