Dat Foosball is da Debil

There is a special scent of woman’s perfume that has always captured my attention like no other. Romance by Ralph Lauren can sway my ship like a giant rudder and will cause me to actually float through the air and be lost like a love struck houndog. Its borderline obnoxious how possessed I become by the scent, but there is another smell that possesses my soul in a deeper realm and I would take any day of the week. It’s a scent that I usually only find the final weeks of July and most of the month of August. Unless you have a shared and like experience you probably can’t connect but this time of year I always catch a whiff of the humid dew rising off of fresh cut grass and it brings back a million memories waking up early to get to the field house to strap on 25lbs of football pads and helmet to walk into the hot morning sun for preparation on the field of battle.



The memories are so thick you can do your best to waive them away like flies but they won’t subside. The awkward feeling of the football pants washed in a hot dryer till they have shrunk to a size that you almost need Vaseline to squeeze into them. That jersey that you didn’t wash from the day before and the smell of the sweat that has soaked into it along with the early smell of mildew forming on the towels in the locker room. The cleat shaped clumps of dirt and grass dried hard on the cold concrete floor, which break up under your bare feet and you are forced to brush off as you slide on those hot socks fresh from the drye. The tightness of the helmet that is banded on your head and provides protection, but is so covered on the inside with padding you almost suffocate. I can still smell the sweet stench of Coach Price’s wintergreen tobacco, and see the brown string of spit that usually accompanied it as he screamed in the ear hole of your helmet when your actions were found less than desirable in his sight, and for me it was quite often. The grass, the sweaty jersey, that metal taste of blood in your mouth from the cut on your finger you just licked off to keep the ref from making you bandage it up…all these memories sink deep into my soul and summon the demon of football past and it comes relentlessly like a black magic voodoo woman haunting my dreams with her lustful and temptress thoughts of running at full speed and crushing the very bones of an opponent carrying that treasured brown trophy of pigskin and autographed signatures of former football greats. I have recently discussed these dreams out loud and to my anguish, my black magic lover visited my dreams again last night. I awoke to find myself racked with tension and the jet-fueled infusion of testosterone that always accompanies such things. It’s like that dream you have when you are flying, and even in the dream you know it’s not possible to fly but when you do and you are soaring… you wake up excited that you got to do it, but a little sad that it wasn’t real.



So where do I go from here? I was relating to a friend recently, you can’t just strap on pads and strike an unexpecting victim, because honestly, you’ll break out in a bad rash of hand cuffs. You can play a pick up game of basketball or join a softball league or even croquet somewhere, but why would anyone invent a sport with amazing weapons like bats and mallets where you aren’t allowed to extract any blood from your opponent. Fight clubs are illegal, and any kind of contact sport is simply off limits to guys like me. Granted you probably will never find a kinder more docile soul with giant paws of strength yet a heart of compassion and gentleness. Sort of a Ferdinand the bull if you will with a heart to see broken people healed and hatred of bullies. I’ve never been deer hunting even once as the sadness I would feel in taking the life of one of those majestic creatures as a sport or for a trophy would be gut wrenching. Many of my friends enjoy the hunt and the kill and live for the season, but for me it wouldn’t be a reality. So I find it odd the walking dichotomy of which I have become always desiring to fight for something I believe in, yet being a giant teddy bear with a gently touch. It occurred to me as I drove home from church today the generation of my grandfathers fought in a great war and their fathers fought in a war of nations before them, the men my fathers age fought for our country in Vietnam, but the men and boys of my era have never had anything they have felt the need to stand and fight for. They have nothing of which they can empty their passion into except their jobs. We have taken the warriors and hunters from the battle fields and jungles and reduced them to managers and factory workers who purchase their kill on a piece of plastic wrapped Styrofoam with a blood napkin which insulates us from remembering who we really are. Provision for our families is no longer the battle for survival but it is the accomplishments and the climb of the ladder to see how much air conditioned leather we can wrap our backsides in as we travel in a steel covered jukebox on our way to the next sporting event where we consume fatty foods and beer. We have twisted our need for purpose to a place of consumption and if we look around, the once great male of our species has left the place of muscle sculpted provider and high protector of the family to pasty white flab covered arrogance looking to be served as we drive around to the 1st window. I am disgusted by the figures of leadership in our nation, and many businesses and churches, although not as judgment as it seems to come across in my words, but in sadness as we have left the integrity of a way of life where men were men and our sons longed to be like their fathers who were their personal hero’s for the amount of provision and leadership they brought to the table.

I have found recently in my prayers and study of the gospels, that to be a leader of anything means to serve, not to be served. To be a father or husband is to be like the example Christ gave us to lay down our lives and die to ourselves. It will never matter the response we receive from those we serve, we should continue to tirelessly serve until our death, never expecting a certain outcome. Our service should be in love to give until it hurts for those we love because love isn’t an investment to receive a return like stocks. It is a commodity we give a way. It is never selfish, its very nature only exists to give itself away…period. Jesus ministry on this earth at the time of his death in anyone’s opinion was a complete failure. He had ministered to thousands of people, teaching and healing and yet at the final day on the cross at his feet gathered only his Mother, his best friend and one grateful woman. Yet it was in the completion of his death that we find his victory and the next book to the right in the Bible we find the disciples forming the church that has changed the world completely since that time.

As men we will serve our families tirelessly, always giving, always providing, always teaching and in our lifetimes we may not see the fruit of our labor, and God bless those with long lives and fruitful offspring who love them in their old age because more times than not we fail to see what God was doing with our lives while we are on the Earth. I know that in my passion to be male I will pass on the wisdom I’ve acquired in dying to myself, and I will spend the rest of my life serving my family teaching my boys to raise the banner of Christ high, and learning the fine art of dying to my selfish desires. The fight we rage in my generation is not one of men and nations, but the fight to find daily that our wives and our children and our families will know that if they have to etch our names in a granite memorial that it will be because we fought trying to preserve the principals of the walk Christ taught us to share with him on this earth. Superman is a hero of the people. Little boys don’t wear the blue shirt with the red S because he celebrated touchdowns and shouted “look at me”, he stopped speeding trains, and flying bullets and rescued kittens in trees. Serving others with no thought of personal gain is the greatest battle we can wage. If I never play another day of that debilish foosball, that’s okay, but I pray the battle to be more like Christ and die to self daily will mark the rest of my days and they can brand a large S on my pine box when they lay me in the ground and print “he served” on my headstone. I can only pray I’m found worthy…

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Wicked Seed of Judgment

I was in the gym this morning and I learned a little something about myself. I was on one of the machines and the gym I belong to is really our local community center but they are pretty state of the art with the equipment they purchase. The trainer I was using has a TV monitor attached to it and can be tuned to whatever station I want to watch without fear of it being switched by some hyperactive overachiever who thinks they have become empowered.
There is a great sense of amusement in watching someone who gets lost in TV when they have rock music playing in their iPod… especially if that person forgets where he is when making comments. I was watching ESPN highlights and the women’s soccer match against Brazil was playing and I just blurted my opinion right out there. As I watched I said “Geez I hate women’s soccer” and only the movement of the heads around me cause me to break from the trance I had engaged myself in. The guy on the trainer next to me said “What’s wrong with women’s soccer?” I had to take my headphones off to have him repeat his answer, and it was then that I realized it was nearly silent in the room and my comment must have come out as very loud. I just looked at the guy and said “I just don’t like women’s soccer... I don’t find it interesting”. He looked at me like I was some sort of sexist pig-dog and looked ahead and kept plugging…
I thought a long time about what I had said. Why had I said that out loud? It DID sound ignorant and sexist, but I comforted myself by the words of the woman I had run into the day before who wanted the whole world to know that women’s soccer was more important than the cure for cancer and if anyone in the restaurant we had been in had wanted to change the channel that she was packing a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it… Okay she wasn’t THAT bad, but she was kind of militant. I thought about it and remembered a deep hatred for militant women and their stupid soccer game was growing in me… I realized I had allowed some bitterness in the door. That kind of nonsense won’t work in my life. A. Because it is toxic and painful to others. B. It's such a negative witness to others... I don't want to be a sexist pig...

So I kept watching and the guy next to me spoke again and when I slipped off my headphones, he was saying he wasn’t a fan of women’s soccer either… I hinted around that I was too judgmental and as we watched the highlights, one of the players butted the ball into the net with her head and we laughed as I suggested I was not in the physical condition to criticize women’s soccer.

We talked a bit more and I introduced myself and shook his hand after we finished our 30 minutes on the trainers and we agreed to meet up again another day. But I realized if I hadn’t isolated the criticism from the day before, it could have turned in to full blown hate. I am susceptible to viral anger like many others, but it’s hard to keep an eye on it at all times, but it IS important. I know I look foolish from time to time, and making blatant judgment calls about women’s soccer is one of those silly things I shouldn’t do, but catching them and fixing them quicker than I used to is one of the many miracles God is working in my life. I wanted to share this story because it’s really a glimpse through the transparent window of who I am and sometimes we all need to know we aren’t alone in our boogerhead decisions we make in life… : )

character

The side of town where I live is the older district. Not the part of town that was built in the 50’s with a lot of ranch style homes nor is it the new homes area that sprang up ridiculously in the 1990’s, but the old district… the one built when the town was built in the 1850’s which in Missouri is about right. The homes in this area are very colorful and each one different in construction as if to say people used to appreciate the differences and took the time to instill quality and diversity.
The house I live in isn’t even a house at all, it’s a basement. The actual house is a ranch style home built in the post war era and the two walk out basement apartments were actually a part of the home when it was constructed. It’s by far the newest home in the neighborhood. All the newness has actually worn off by now with the numerous amounts of tenants that has lived here and there are a few things here that just need updating from time to time.
The other day I flipped on the switch of the garbage disposal that was added years after the house was built I’m sure, but the switch failed to kick on the disposal. The funny thing is I wasn’t surprised. The disposal has been failing to kick on for several years and I have to kind of smack it with my hand against the switch for it to come on. For most people that would be a curse because we are a group of people who just want things to work. I mean obviously we want our cars and computers and airplanes to work. Airplanes working right are a very good thing to a guy who’s the size of a football player with an unhealthy fear of freefalling from 35,000 feet, but when my disposal doesn’t work the first time, I don’t have an anguish or frustration… I honestly kind of like it. I know that probably sounds a little weird…but its true. I get this little quirky smile on my face when it happens. It adds character I think. My home has a lot of things that work right and I like it like that way, but when that disposal doesn’t kick on right and I have to go all Fonzi on the thing and bump it to get it to work, I personally find the character it possesses as an endearing trait.

I’ve noticed there are friends of mine who have some character flaws. They might overeat a bit, or complain about things too much, or worry too much or they might be too much of a mother hen, but if we took these small peccadilloes away from these people? Would they cease to be endearing? I know there is a difference between endearing and annoying… sometimes it’s a fine line, but the endearing stuff is what makes a person have great character. Without that kind of character, we’d have no great stories to tell. God isn’t into cookie cutter types of people. If we all looked and acted alike, he’d probably get bored. He likes go getters, he likes compassionate folks and yes he really must love the knuckleheads because he made so many of them. He is a God of diversity, and that is a good thing, cause so many of us are different.

If you are like me, you are working hard at writing a great story with your life. Personally? I think I have tons of character… in fact probably a lot more than what you find on those slick sporty models with the stripes and perfect lines. In my own way I am kind of like an old jeep. You know, not a new one, but a red one that’s a little sun faded you’d see parked in front of a café somewhere in the mountains in Colorado, with the stickers of where it’s been and seen. You know the kind, with a bikini top on it and big tires, a loud stereo and maybe a little dab of rust on the fender well, and a “Have a nice day” tire cover with the yellow happy face on the spare in the back. I know the author of perfection is doing his work in me lately and yeah we are overhauling the engine… but the same great character still exists and kind of makes you smile because you know it’s the only one like it around... ; )