Olive Oil, Garlic, Plum Tomatoes sun-red-ripe;
Chipotles in adobo, cilantro whispy green;
Grilled tuna steaks, carmelized cross-hatched and pink-bellied;
Chardonnay, crisp, bold (to make glad the heart of man!);
Deckside chairs, a candle, crackling fire pit,
Black dog quiet at my feet,
At my side my love, my heart, wife of my youth,
While twig smoke, toasted oaks and chilies fill my soul.
I guess I’m working on a little series about “How Life is Like Golf” — see entries one and two for earlier thoughts. So here is today’s entry: “keep your eye on the ball.”
I’m still learning golf. One of my biggest problems is consistency. I’ve gotten pretty good at hitting off the tee, and my iron shots are getting better, but I seldom hit two or three good shots in a row. This was the case on the front nine when I played yesterday. I’d hit a good drive, giving myself a chance to be on the green in two, only to dribble my second shot a short distance or skull it into the trees. By the back nine, I realized what I was doing wrong: I was taking my eye off the ball.
In a good golf swing, your head has some lateral motion, but your eyes need to stay on the ball through the point of contact. If you rotate your head back or forward, you take yourself out of a strong hitting position, and often fail to make solid contact. If you keep your eyes on the ball, you’re more likely to shift your weight properly and hit a strong shot. And, indeed, later in the round, as I focused on this thought, my swings improved, until I finally achieved a straight, long drive, followed by a high, straight 6-iron onto the green (cutting a dogleg, I should add!), and two putts for a par.
There’s a similar principle at work in just about any sport. In fact, you could call “keep your eye on the ball” one of the Cardinal Rules of Sport.
And, the principle carries over into our spiritual lives. I’ve been reminded of this over the past week or so as I’ve been spending more time reading my Bible. I’d gotten busy, and had been neglecting to set time aside for Bible study and prayer. I took my eye off the ball, and the quality of my life began to suffer — my speech wasn’t as controlled as it should have been, my temper was more likely to erupt, my concern for myself was increasing while my concern for others was waning.
There are many good things for us to become involved in, and each of us have gifts to exercise. We’re all capable, through the Holy Spirit, of hitting a brilliant Tiger Woods-like “spiritual golf shot” once in a while. But we all need always to focus first on the basics of following Jesus. We need to come before him regularly in prayer and to regularly and purposefully study his word. We need to keep our eyes on the ball.
In last month’s issue of Books & Culture, Alan Guelzo published an article called Cracks in the Tower, which purported to outline problems with Christian liberal arts colleges. I wrote a letter to the Editor about Guelzo’s article, because I think it’s empirically and philosphically off-base. They didn’t publish my letter, but the editor told me there were many others like mine that were already in press. Unfortunately, the current issue of B&C contains only two letters about Guelzo’s piece, one of which is interesting but very narrow, and the other of which is anemic. So, for what it’s worth, here’s what I wrote:
My daughter had a sleep-over last night and I cooked the girls pancakes this morning. In a flash of inspiration, this song came to me. This is to the tune of “Deep and Wide,” which you will know if you’ve ever attended Sunday School, Children’s Church or Vacation Bible School:
Flat and round, flat and round, there’s a pancake cooking flat and round;
Flat and round, flat and round, there’s a pancake cooking flat and round.
Upon hearing this, my seven-year-old son promptly made up his own song to the tune of “Deep and Wide”:
My dad is dumb, my dad is dumb, my dad is very, very dumb;
My dad is dumb, my dad is dumb, my dad is very, very dumb
I hereby grant a Creative Commons license to anyone who wishes to use these songs. 🙂
A funny quote from the Sojourners e-mail bulletin, referring to Pat Robertson’s comments about assasinating Hugo Chavez: “Who would Jesus assasinate?” Unfortunately, you have to register to see the “Sojomail” columns online, so I can’t link you to it; actually, the rest of the commentary is a bit over-the-top, and I haven’t seen any Evangelicals defending Robertson’s comments, but you gotta admit the headline is funny.
I was reading in Titus this morning, and came to this statement in Chapter 2: “You must teach what is accord with sound doctrine.” If you’ve followed some of the things I’ve posted here, you’ll see that I’m at a place in my spiritual life where I feel the need to de-emphasize the details of doctrine and focus more on the Christian “faith story” as it is lived out in the Church. I hope you’ll also see that I don’t disparage the importance of doctrine; it’s more a matter of emphasis. It’s interesting, though, to see how Titus 2 both reinforces and challenges some of my recent thoughts about doctrine.
I’m happy to release the first edition of the Through a Glass Darkly podcast. Visit my podcast page to see the show notes and retrieve the MP3 file. And, subscribe to my podcast feed: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/tgdpodcast.xml (Note that this feed is distinct from the TGD Blog feed.)
The TGD podcast is a work in progress — the first episode is basically just me rambling about some thoughts I had during vacation. It’s kind of boring, I admit, but I’m getting a handle on how to set this up on the technology side. I plan to do some interesting interviews soon, and I also hope to set up a regular Skype conference for the podcast with other faith bloggers. If you have any ideas for interviews, or if you’d like to participate in a Skype conference for the podcast, please let me know. Meanwhile, load up your iPod, MP3 player, or computer, and enjoy!
I recently bought an iPod, and I’m quickly becoming a podcasting addict. What a fantastic medium! I’ll be highlighting podcasts of interest here on the TGD blog from time to time. Also, I’m planning very soon to launch a TGD Podcast, which will include some of my own stuff as well as interviews with theologians, scholars, and other Christian leaders who don’t ordinarily get highlighted on the “MCM” (I think I’m coining this acronym — “Mainstream Christian Media”!). For example, I’ve made contacts with Wheaton Historian Mark Noll, Regent College Theologian Hans Boresma, and a NYC “Emerging” church planter, all of whom I hope to feature on upcoming podcasts.
Now, for the Harry Potter podcast: No, this isn’t an anti-Harry Potter diatribe. In fact, I love the Harry Potter books. I just wanted to give a pointer to “The Secrets of Harry Potter” pocast produced by Father Roderick of The Catholic Insider. It’s an entertaining look at details in the Harry Potter series that you probably will otherwise miss. The most recent episode, for example, examines the classical allusions in the names of charcters such as Bellatrix and Narcissa, and draws some parallels with Biblical themes of courage and faith in the face of evil. Great stuff! Here’s the RSS Feed for the podcast.
The Christianity Today blog has a good story on the inaptly-named “Justice Sunday II” that recently was held in Nashville. (Hat tip: Mirror of Justice). I share the dismay of the CT and MOJ bloggers about this farce. Supreme Court nominees are important, and there no doubt are many problems with the Court, but these concerns are grossly overstated and miss the Biblical concept of “justice” entirely. Biblical “justice” starts with what we do in our daily lives. When the evangelical “leaders” who stage things like “Justice Sundays” present a deep and consistent picture of compassion for “the least of these,” then maybe I’ll listen to something they might have to say about the U.S. Supreme Court. For now, they haven’t convinced me that they’re capable of anything beyond serving as Republican Party shills.
I suppose I should have known of the St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer before my Irish sojourn, but it’s one of many things about which I’ve become educated since then. It’s a beautiful prayer for guidance, protection and wisdom. I particularly like this section:
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ
when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Amen.