Telling it like it is...

http://www.senatemajority.com/sen_landrieu_strikes_back

I'm in favor of moving beyond the left vs. right battles in our country, but I agree with this very blunt stand. We can't sit by and let things get out of control just because we want to create an atmosphere of non-partisanship.

Yes! It is football season!

It feels so good to finally have football season in full swing. In the last couple of years I've pretty much given up all my hobbies. I sold the recording studio, completely stopped playing or even listening to any music other than background music, hung up the golf clubs, and gave up trying to find or start a church. I've been a little bored in my spare time but really there hasn't been much spare time. Work has kept me pretty busy which has been a blessing since next year we will be adding a baby to the mix and I did these things intentionally to get my life ready for that change. Anyway, I've really needed a little fun back in my life and football is just the guilty pleasure I needed.

So far so good...

Georgia just had an easy win last night against a horrible South Carolina team. It is always nice to play bad and still win and SC usually provides that for us each year. Seeing the painful looks on Steve Spurrier's face all night was about as pleasing a sight as I've seen in a while. Talk about Karma, that man has a lot more of those painful weekends in his future. Matt Stafford got his first serious playing time and gave us a glimpse of his talent. He will be a star and It looks like that will happen sooner rather than later.

Today all the pro teams I've been pulling for have won too. Falcons and Eagles won and losses by the Broncos and Cheifs leave my beloved Raiders with a shot at sole possession of 1st place in the AFC West if they can somehow manage to win their opener against San Diego. I'm not holding my breath, but I do feel like the Raiders will be a step closer to respectability this year. This is the one week in the year when all my teams are in first place. Lets see if that lasts through 2 weekends.

Labor Day...

We managed to elude the hurricane and get a wonderful weekend at the beach. It rained for 5 minutes on the way to the beach Friday and for 5 minutes on the way back home Monday. It never rained a drop while we were there. The weather was perfect and it was a very relaxing weekend.

I managed to finish a great book called “The Sabbath” by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. I have a new respect for Jewish culture and the entire concept of the Sabbath. I’ve always viewed the day through Christian eyes which understands the need to take a day a week to publicly worship God, but the original idea had little to do with worship/admiration of God and more to do with modeling the vision of God for enjoying the world and the type of community we should aspire to. The Sabbath and its rituals and rules is not a burden or chore, it was originally a type of workers rights, a break from labor, a celebration of life, and a model for the type of community we might find in eternity with God. It is fitting that I read this book over Labor Day weekend. For me, this weekend was a sort of Sabbath in the original sense. I needed it and I felt much like a weary Israelite fleeing the Pharaoh and finding rest in the Promised Land developing a community built around the concepts of freedom, forgiveness of debt and justice. This book and my restful weekend gave me a new perspective about how to relate to the Creator.

I’ve written here before that I really think we have misinterpreted God’s heart when we waste so much time trying to worship him as if we could impress whatever created us. For Rabbi Heschel, the Sabbath is about a space in time not about a physical place or an event. It is a foreshadowing of eternity when labor, toil, and injustice will no longer rule our lives.

As Christians, our Jewish heritage has a great deal of joy to offer our communities if we can ever look past the guilt we inherited from our catholic ancestors and the anger of protest we inherited from our protestant reformers and the competitive obsession with being the "only" way that has been engrained in our modern flavors of Christianity. I’ve not practiced Buddhist philosophy long enough to take reincarnation literally, but if I did, I’d like to think I was Jewish in a former life. At a minimum, I can relate to the threads of Jewish spiritual DNA that makes up my post-modern Christian faith.