I’ve got a new guest post up at Stuff Christians Like today. SCL#541 Making an Idol Out of Sports. It includes a 20-question Idolatry Quiz I originally created for the book I’m working on, so be sure to check it out if you think you’ve got sports idolatry issues.
Not to get all sci-fi here, but with this new post at SCL I am starting to see a pattern developing. Take a look at my 4 posts:
- Stuff Christians Like #451 – 7 Sports Myths Christians Like – (December 2008)
- Stuff Christians Like #499 – Having a Favorite Book of the Bible – (February 2009)
- Stuff Christians Like #514 – Christian End Zone Touchdown Celebrations – (April 2009)
- Stuff Christians Like #541 – Making an Idol Out of Sports – (May 2009)
Other than #499, my other 3 posts include the numbers 1, 4, and 5. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe it means I’m going to live to be 145 years old??? Hey, only a fool would ignore proof like that.
In other, equally ridiculous news, I was thinking the other day about how sensitive I was as a kid. This sensitivity sometimes led me to have compassion for things that I probably should not have had compassion for. Here’s a few examples:
1. The other team’s pitcher – If the Red Sox were winning by a couple runs, I was cool with that. But if they broke a game open and scored 6 runs in an inning, I started to feel bad for the other pitcher. I pictured him crying himself to sleep later that night because of that 3-run double by Mike Greenwell that put the game way out of reach. If I was Greenwell, I might have let them tag me out at second, just so he didn’t feel so bad. Now I realize that pitcher is a multi-millionaire who blows his nose with 5-dollar bills and forgets about his bad outing before he’s even out of the shower.
2. The ant I just stepped on – Oops, I just killed an ant by accident. I wonder what his name was. Did he have hopes and dreams in life to someday carry a potato chip crumb that was 15 times bigger than he was? His mom, Phyllis, is probably up waiting for him to come home right now and he never will. I wonder how long she’ll wait for him in her little ant rocking chair? 2 hours? 2 weeks? This is so sad. Let me at least make sure he’s dead and grind his lifeless carcass under my sneaker until he turns into black powder.
3. The end pieces in a loaf of bread – Still to this day I feel sorry for that half-crust piece of bread on either side of a loaf. It never really had a chance to lead a normal “piece of bread” life. While other pieces are becoming toast, sandwiches, and french toast (what every piece of bread aspires to be), the end piece just kinda stays in the bag the whole time knowing he’s probably getting thrown out at the end. What a tragic existence.
That’s why I sometimes like to make toast with the end pieces. I feel like I’m redeeming a life that might have otherwise been ignored. I also once tried to make Parker a PBJ sandwich for school lunch with an end piece. Except I put peanut butter on the crusty side so it was facing into the sandwich so Erica wouldn’t see it. But she did. And she made me make him a new sandwich. I have to admit, it was the ugliest looking sandwich you’ve ever seen. Jelly going all over the place. I couldn’t just throw it out though, because then I was wasting two bread lives. So i had a few bites. Man, i was way too crusty.
Got any examples of misguided compassion from your youth (or even now)?