Today is my day off! I don't always take it, but I needed to do some work on a paper concerning the history and propriety of adolescent and pedo-baptism. I thought today was going to be a great time to get some stuff done. I was wrong! Even though I've read an entire book today, I picked the wrong day to be home.
The reasons:
1. NCAA Basketball Tournament (More people call-in work sick today than any other day of the year--including people who work Thanksgiving and Christmas).
2. Congressional hearings on steroids in baseball. By the way, here's my Mark McGwire impersonation: "Uh, er, um, I'm not here to talk about the past." Can you imagine Michael Jackson or Scott Peterson saying that?
Prosecutor: "Mr. Peterson, did you kill your wife and unborn son?"
Scott: "Uh, er, um, I'm not here to talk about the past."
3. PGA Bay Hill Invitational (It was rained out, but pictures of a golf course are always soothing to my soul.)
4. Finally, I experienced car trouble this afternoon. I've gotta figure out something to do with my dying eight year-old car. Any of you got $20,000 so I can get an upgrade?
How was your day?
P.S. I--in a pathetic moment of hubris-- searched "Sean Palmer" on Yahoo!. This page came up #14. Yahoo! list sites by reference (Sean Palmer) and popularity. A few months ago I was #85. Now I'm 14.
I want to thank you all for your frequent stops by. Soon I will return to some more overtly "spiritual" material in this space in the hopes that your life will be blessed. I will try to honor your time with thought-provoking, life-affirming material. I'm humbled that people make "The Palmer Perspective" a stop in their web surfing day.
But if I ever become prideful for becoming the 14th most popular "Sean Palmer" on the web, you can remind me that my preaching hero, Mike Cope, is the #1 Mike Cope on the web.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Spring Season
Now that my mother-in-law has braved breast cancer surgery and survived with flying colors, it's time to get down to business: baseball!
All Major league teams have reported to either Florida or Arizona for spring training. You baseball fans out there will agree with me that the excitement is starting to build as you hear daily reports from your team. But before we get too head-over-heels in love with the coming season, we need to take a look at the past.
Yesterday, the Major League Baseball Players Veteran's Committee vote ZERO players into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
ZERO! NONE! NO, NOT ONE!
Can you believe this? There are three players who have won multiple "Most Valuable Player" awards in the history of baseball who are NOT in the Hall of Fame: Pete Rose, Roger Maris, and Dale Murphy. Rose isn't eligible because he was a cheater. But Maris' single season home run record (*61) stood for over three decades and the guys who broke it were juiced on steroids when they did it. Dale Murphy--as I wrote in this space over a year ago--is still not been allowed access to the Hall, and it is a great injustice.
Just check out the numbers:
18 Seasons
.265 Career Batting Average
398 Career Home Runs
2111 Hits
1266 Runs Batted In
.273 Career Post-Season Average
1982 and 1983 National League Most Valuable Player
But the numbers aren't the whole story. The Hall of Fame is about what players do on the field for sure, but it is also about the players' impact on society and the game. The truth is that if Dale Murphy were allowed into the Hall of Fame, he would have some of the less impressive numbers of the group. It's true that other players with similar numbers like Ron Santo and Joe Carter aren't in the Hall either.
But the numbers don't consider the effect.
I remember a second grader in 1982 who loved playing and watching baseball because he wanted to be just like Dale Murphy. He wore his socks like him, and wanted to wear his number (3). He tried to imitate his swing and his jog from the dugout to the field. That same boy was so excited on a family trip to Atlanta that he made his parents drive him to Fulton County Stadium two hours before the game so he could see Dale Murphy take batting practice. When that family moved to Atlanta, the boy asked his parents to stop taking him to Braves' games because every time they went the Braves would lose--and he didn't want that for Dale. When that second grader was in 9th grade, he cried when the Braves traded Dale Murphy to Philadelphia--he just couldn't imagine Murphy in another uniform. And that second grader turned 9th grader turned college freshman couldn't quite understand why the Colorado Rockies would release Dale Murphy in 1993.
Most people won't believe this, but in the life of Dale Murphy, one little boy learned about life. He learned that you can hit a lot of home runs, but because you're a home run hitter it also means that you'll strike out a lot too. Either way you're still the best hope for your team. He learned that if you work hard and play by the rules the game will reward you--but nothing last forever. He learned that humility is an under-appreciated virtue, but a desperately needed one. Most importantly, he learned that in life you should swing for the fences in order to bring people home.
So, if you know anyone who has voting priviledges for the Hall of Fame, tell them to do Dale, me and the world a favor: Put Murphy in the Hall!
All Major league teams have reported to either Florida or Arizona for spring training. You baseball fans out there will agree with me that the excitement is starting to build as you hear daily reports from your team. But before we get too head-over-heels in love with the coming season, we need to take a look at the past.
Yesterday, the Major League Baseball Players Veteran's Committee vote ZERO players into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
ZERO! NONE! NO, NOT ONE!
Can you believe this? There are three players who have won multiple "Most Valuable Player" awards in the history of baseball who are NOT in the Hall of Fame: Pete Rose, Roger Maris, and Dale Murphy. Rose isn't eligible because he was a cheater. But Maris' single season home run record (*61) stood for over three decades and the guys who broke it were juiced on steroids when they did it. Dale Murphy--as I wrote in this space over a year ago--is still not been allowed access to the Hall, and it is a great injustice.
Just check out the numbers:
18 Seasons
.265 Career Batting Average
398 Career Home Runs
2111 Hits
1266 Runs Batted In
.273 Career Post-Season Average
1982 and 1983 National League Most Valuable Player
But the numbers aren't the whole story. The Hall of Fame is about what players do on the field for sure, but it is also about the players' impact on society and the game. The truth is that if Dale Murphy were allowed into the Hall of Fame, he would have some of the less impressive numbers of the group. It's true that other players with similar numbers like Ron Santo and Joe Carter aren't in the Hall either.
But the numbers don't consider the effect.
I remember a second grader in 1982 who loved playing and watching baseball because he wanted to be just like Dale Murphy. He wore his socks like him, and wanted to wear his number (3). He tried to imitate his swing and his jog from the dugout to the field. That same boy was so excited on a family trip to Atlanta that he made his parents drive him to Fulton County Stadium two hours before the game so he could see Dale Murphy take batting practice. When that family moved to Atlanta, the boy asked his parents to stop taking him to Braves' games because every time they went the Braves would lose--and he didn't want that for Dale. When that second grader was in 9th grade, he cried when the Braves traded Dale Murphy to Philadelphia--he just couldn't imagine Murphy in another uniform. And that second grader turned 9th grader turned college freshman couldn't quite understand why the Colorado Rockies would release Dale Murphy in 1993.
Most people won't believe this, but in the life of Dale Murphy, one little boy learned about life. He learned that you can hit a lot of home runs, but because you're a home run hitter it also means that you'll strike out a lot too. Either way you're still the best hope for your team. He learned that if you work hard and play by the rules the game will reward you--but nothing last forever. He learned that humility is an under-appreciated virtue, but a desperately needed one. Most importantly, he learned that in life you should swing for the fences in order to bring people home.
So, if you know anyone who has voting priviledges for the Hall of Fame, tell them to do Dale, me and the world a favor: Put Murphy in the Hall!
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Much ado...About Something!
Tonight I am standing in my mother-in-law's kitchen. Tomorrow morning she will be admitted to the hospital for breast cancer surgery. These are the times when faith's rubber meets life's road and we find out whether or not we have spent our lives building a strong house of faith, or whether we've been constructing a house of cards.
I don't have any clever alliteration or witty turns of phrases for you tonight; I just have a request.
Pray!
Pray for the doctors. Pray for the nurses. Pray for the patient. Pray for her care-givers. Pray that the cancer hasn't spread.
Pray for a miracle!
No matter who you are, or where you're from, take a second and pray!
I don't have any clever alliteration or witty turns of phrases for you tonight; I just have a request.
Pray!
Pray for the doctors. Pray for the nurses. Pray for the patient. Pray for her care-givers. Pray that the cancer hasn't spread.
Pray for a miracle!
No matter who you are, or where you're from, take a second and pray!
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
The Evangelism Question
Evangelism has become a dirty word. It's the spiritual equivalent to a four-letter word. Christians--by and large--don't like to do evangelism, and non-Christians don't like evangelism done to them.
I guess that's the problem. Evangelism often feels like some kind of medieval torture that hurts and distorts both participants. I suppose the main reason for this is the church's historic approach to evangelism; door-knocking, street preaching--which is more like street shouting, hellfire and brimstone. The Spanish Conquistadors came to the New Land, marched natives to the river at gun point and gave them a great option: Be baptized into Jesus, or be drowned. Either way, you were going under the water.
I've often wondered, "If the good news is good, why does it so often come in bad presentations?"
I remember being in elementary school in Mississippi and having Jehovah's Witnesses ring our doorbell early on Saturday mornings. I didn't care what they had witnessed; I just wanted to sleep! Sure enough, my dad would invite them in, begin a discussion about Biblical interpretation, get angered, and eventually kick them out. In that case, I don't think evangelism was spiritually beneficial for my dad or the door-knockers.
I always figured the "Witnesses" weren't very good at evangelism, because they would be back in the same neighborhood the next week, knocking on the same doors and getting the same results.
The issue--at least from my vantage point--is that evangelizers (if that is a word), are so determined to see results that we often jump toward the fastest, easiest, most convenient way to teach people what we believe rather than enter into long-term spiritual conversations in which we embody the nature and spirit of God--at least to the best of our human capability. We are often so eager to share faith that we forget about the experience of faith--both for ourselves and for others.
Brian McLaren puts it this way in his book, More Ready Than You Realize. "I suppose we faith-sharers need faith--faith that God is working in the the person's life from many different directions; faith that it is not all up to me and that it does not all depend on this one friendship; faith that God will not give up on the person: faith that God's Spirit is so pervasive that even after desire recedes, it will resurge again."
I guess that's the problem. Evangelism often feels like some kind of medieval torture that hurts and distorts both participants. I suppose the main reason for this is the church's historic approach to evangelism; door-knocking, street preaching--which is more like street shouting, hellfire and brimstone. The Spanish Conquistadors came to the New Land, marched natives to the river at gun point and gave them a great option: Be baptized into Jesus, or be drowned. Either way, you were going under the water.
I've often wondered, "If the good news is good, why does it so often come in bad presentations?"
I remember being in elementary school in Mississippi and having Jehovah's Witnesses ring our doorbell early on Saturday mornings. I didn't care what they had witnessed; I just wanted to sleep! Sure enough, my dad would invite them in, begin a discussion about Biblical interpretation, get angered, and eventually kick them out. In that case, I don't think evangelism was spiritually beneficial for my dad or the door-knockers.
I always figured the "Witnesses" weren't very good at evangelism, because they would be back in the same neighborhood the next week, knocking on the same doors and getting the same results.
The issue--at least from my vantage point--is that evangelizers (if that is a word), are so determined to see results that we often jump toward the fastest, easiest, most convenient way to teach people what we believe rather than enter into long-term spiritual conversations in which we embody the nature and spirit of God--at least to the best of our human capability. We are often so eager to share faith that we forget about the experience of faith--both for ourselves and for others.
Brian McLaren puts it this way in his book, More Ready Than You Realize. "I suppose we faith-sharers need faith--faith that God is working in the the person's life from many different directions; faith that it is not all up to me and that it does not all depend on this one friendship; faith that God will not give up on the person: faith that God's Spirit is so pervasive that even after desire recedes, it will resurge again."
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