Softball, Success, and God

Behold, the 2011 Boomers of the Fermilab Softball League!  We played our final game of the season on Aug. 25.  All of the teams in the league make it to the playoffs, which are a double-elimination tournament.  We lost both of our playoff games, all but one game (out of 12) of the regular season and all but 2 games of the previous season.  Given those records, you might be able to see why being on this team reminds me of an article that my wife sent me: "Why You Need To Fail."

This might prompt you to ask why I am smiling in the photograph above, something that my wife will confirm is too rare for me.  It is because, in addition to the lessons of humility, reliance on God, resilience, compassion, humility, wisdom, and simplicity, failure has helped me "learn what really matters" and what doesn't.  God has used it to teach me that being a "successful" softball player is far less important than doing my job well, which is less important than loving my wife well.

Also, I have learned that success and failure are not always as easily defined as one might think, and they are often defined by one's goals.  I am certainly a much better softball player and in better physical shape than when I began playing; that can be considered a success.  If the Boomers' goal was to win the most games, we were certainly not successful. However, if we our goal was to follow my wife's motto for our team, "we lose the most games, but we have the most fun," I think we were a success.

Words I Have Learned Playing Wordfeud II

Ail

Ala

Ar

Bi

Dei

Feh

Gos

Meane

Oho

Rin

Ti

Un

Ut

Thoughts about Slavery from my Daily Bible Reading

For me and probably for many other American Christians, slavery is one of the most uncomfortable topics to read about in the Old Testament.  Given the horrors of past and modern slavery, I have difficulty understanding how the loving God in whom I believe and trust could condone such an institution.  I want to find the language of the 13th Amendment in the Torah, but it is not there.

However, some time ago during my daily Bible reading, I read this passage.  Though I must have read it multiple times before, I didn't remember it.

If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

- Leviticus 25:39-46

This prohibition seems absolute to me, but it only applies to Israelite "brothers;" ownership of "strangers" and members of other nations was still explicitly allowed and regulated.  However, in the New Testament, the difference between brothers and strangers becomes much less clear.

In fact, Paul says that gentile believers are grafted onto a Israelite root.

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

- Romans 11:13-24

I wonder if this is why Paul asked Philemon to accept Onesimus, his slave, back as a brother.

For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

- Philemon 1:15-16

Cool Memories for a Hot Month

As we prepare for sweltering August, I thought I would share a few cool photographic memories from the Groundhog Day Blizzard (a.k.a. my wife's Birthday Blizzard) that was about six months ago.