Prior to Penn State's homecoming football game with the University of Minnesota, PSU defensive lineman Jerome Hayes went to a corner of the end zone and silently prayed on one knee, head in hand. He was spotted by Minnesota's mascot, "Goldy Gopher," who derisively knelt in front of Hayes, got up at the same time and then tried to shake hands.
Hayes ignored the Gopher, turned and jogged away as a cheerleader bounded up to "Goldy" and gleefully slapped him a high five. The incident was posted on YouTube with a fan in the background saying, "He totally mocked his prayer. That's not cool."
The University of Minnesota has apologized. Goldy himself apparently has no comment.
It's just a little thing, but it's typical of "little things" that are out there all the time. The casual dismissal of the Christian faith (especially compared to the overwrought respect for Islam) has become rampant.
Since we're talking about football, it seems there are more demonstrations of faith among football players than in other sports. It's not unusual to see players praying before a game, having a team prayer, or giving thanks after a good play. The typical physical expression is a player touching a fist to his heart, then looking up and pointing his index finger skyward.
A friend once told me he found this irritating. Considering he's an unbeliever, I guess I can understand his annoyance. Personally, I think it's cool.
The media must have some code of conduct that prevents them from commenting on faith. If a player spikes a ball, dances or comes up with other antics (think Terrell Owens) he's glamorized. But when somebody like the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers has the camera focused on him while he's on a knee praying, then bounces up, taps his chest and points to the sky, the announcer's only comment is "That's Ben Roethlesberger getting his thoughts together before the game."
Anybody who hangs around the stadium after an NFL game sees players from both teams gather at the 50 yard line. They're part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and they have a group prayer after every game. About a third of the players are usually there, including a number of the big names. Once in a great while, network cameramen will inadvertently show this in the background of post game interviews, otherwise no one in the television audience would ever know it happens.
Trying to ignore expressions of Christian faith in a sport that's suffused with it must drive the media crazy.
Reader's feedback is welcomed! Click on "comments" to let us know your thoughts.
To add or remove and address from the Finding Faith email list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Random Acts of Kindness
My wife and I were in New York City for a few days of fun and relaxation (fun, anyway - I'm not so sure about the relaxation part). We did quite a bit, from a Broadway show, to a serendipitous rock concert at Rockefeller Center, to Ellis Island, the South Street Seaport, dinner in Little Italy and a late-night comedy club. Not to mention just walking around, which is entertaining in itself.
New Yorkers have a reputation for gruffness, but I ususally see a twinkle in their eyes that betrays a softness beneath the tough exterior. And I've found they can be a lot of fun. On the way home from college I used to come into the city on the train and walk up to the Port Authority to take the bus. Sometimes I'd stop at a lunch counter in the terminal where the waiter wore a white t-shirt, white pants, one of those white paper hats food service workers wear, a bearded stubble and well-earned wrinkles on a sixty-something face.
John Lindsay was mayor at the time. Mayor Lindsay was a handsome, youngish, urbane patrician who didn't fit in with guys like the waiter. Maybe that's why when he delivered your check, he'd loudly announce, "that's thirty-five cents for the cheeseburger, thirty for the fries, ten for the Coke and four cents for Mayor Lindsay, the Great White Father!" I had to laugh every time he belted this out, and he enjoyed the smile.
Lots of nice people are hidden under a veneer. Like the Asian woman who saw us standing at a bus stop holding paper money. In broken English she explained that the bus only took change,
then opened her purse and quickly exchanged our bills for coinage just as the bus arrived.
Or the tall, older black gentleman with flecks of gray in his hair who noticed our confusion in the 42nd Street Subway Station. He'd probably been in this station hundreds of times and seen many confused travelers. He approached us and pleasantly directed us to the Grand Central train.
I had my own opportunity when we needed to get on a subway going the opposite direction from the platform we were on, which meant you had to go down two flights of hot, steamy stairs to go under the tracks and then climb another set of steps up to the correct platform. As we were going down we came upon a small, older woman struggling with a suitcase that was just plain too big for her. She seemed a little shocked when I took it from her, but smiled when she realized I wasn't stealing it. She didn't speak English, but the wave and grin at the top of the stairs said it all.
Were we all Christians? Who knows? But we acted like it. Jesus taught that the second most important command is to love your neighbor as yourself. And in these small ways, that's what we did.
Look at the result: it left each of the recipients grateful for the help and feeling better about his fellow man. It left the givers with the satisfaction of knowing they had done the right thing, a feeling that they made another person's day a little better and - in the case of a Christian - knowledge that they had done God's will.
These episodes illustrate the power and importance of biblical teaching. Loving your neighbor as yourself isn't an abstract concept that's wonderful in theory but difficult to apply in real life. In fact, it's applicable in tons of situations and it creates good will whenever it's practiced.
You have to wonder what the world would be like if everyone practiced the Golden Rule - God's Rule - all the time.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith email list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
New Yorkers have a reputation for gruffness, but I ususally see a twinkle in their eyes that betrays a softness beneath the tough exterior. And I've found they can be a lot of fun. On the way home from college I used to come into the city on the train and walk up to the Port Authority to take the bus. Sometimes I'd stop at a lunch counter in the terminal where the waiter wore a white t-shirt, white pants, one of those white paper hats food service workers wear, a bearded stubble and well-earned wrinkles on a sixty-something face.
John Lindsay was mayor at the time. Mayor Lindsay was a handsome, youngish, urbane patrician who didn't fit in with guys like the waiter. Maybe that's why when he delivered your check, he'd loudly announce, "that's thirty-five cents for the cheeseburger, thirty for the fries, ten for the Coke and four cents for Mayor Lindsay, the Great White Father!" I had to laugh every time he belted this out, and he enjoyed the smile.
Lots of nice people are hidden under a veneer. Like the Asian woman who saw us standing at a bus stop holding paper money. In broken English she explained that the bus only took change,
then opened her purse and quickly exchanged our bills for coinage just as the bus arrived.
Or the tall, older black gentleman with flecks of gray in his hair who noticed our confusion in the 42nd Street Subway Station. He'd probably been in this station hundreds of times and seen many confused travelers. He approached us and pleasantly directed us to the Grand Central train.
I had my own opportunity when we needed to get on a subway going the opposite direction from the platform we were on, which meant you had to go down two flights of hot, steamy stairs to go under the tracks and then climb another set of steps up to the correct platform. As we were going down we came upon a small, older woman struggling with a suitcase that was just plain too big for her. She seemed a little shocked when I took it from her, but smiled when she realized I wasn't stealing it. She didn't speak English, but the wave and grin at the top of the stairs said it all.
Were we all Christians? Who knows? But we acted like it. Jesus taught that the second most important command is to love your neighbor as yourself. And in these small ways, that's what we did.
Look at the result: it left each of the recipients grateful for the help and feeling better about his fellow man. It left the givers with the satisfaction of knowing they had done the right thing, a feeling that they made another person's day a little better and - in the case of a Christian - knowledge that they had done God's will.
These episodes illustrate the power and importance of biblical teaching. Loving your neighbor as yourself isn't an abstract concept that's wonderful in theory but difficult to apply in real life. In fact, it's applicable in tons of situations and it creates good will whenever it's practiced.
You have to wonder what the world would be like if everyone practiced the Golden Rule - God's Rule - all the time.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith email list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to....Plastination?
The skin and outer tissues have been removed to reveal the insides of the human body: bones, organs, muscle. They're posed in a variety of positions, like pitching a baseball, swinging a bat, falling backward to kick a soccer ball, sitting head-in-hand like Rodin's Thinker, throwing a discus, dancing or walking with a cane. One rides a bicycle. Often half the cranium has been removed to show a cross section of the brain. To illustrate MRI's, one was cut into 165 half inch thick slices separated by spaces that probably quintupled the specimen's original height. The eyes have been replaced with prosthetic eyeballs that seem to be looking at you.
Billed as an educational exhibit, Bodies Revealed presents brief and interesting facts. But despite the informational trappings, it's really a morbid curiosity fix.
These were once living, breathing people whose bodies have been preserved by replacing water and fats with liquid silicone rubber in a process called plastination. The process provides rigidity that enables the cadavers to be posed, turning them into bizarre sculptures. In years past, they would have been shown in a carnival tent and hawked by a barker or displayed in P.T. Barnum's American Museum next to the "FeeJee Mermaid," an attraction that turned out to be the upper half of a monkey sewn to the bottom half of a fish. They may yet wind up in a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum.
I found myself looking into the eyes and wondering, "Who were you? And did you really want to end up here....like this?" After being among them for a time, the message seemed to be that they - and we - are just "stuff" that's organized into an incredible machine whose parts function in magnificent synchronization. Even so, it's just stuff with no particular humanity.
Some evolutionary scientists propose that we're machines whose spirituality is the result of brain activity. The lifelessness of the bodies, now devoid of brain function, seem to reinforce this idea. Deliberately or not, it sends a message that our essence can be distilled into inanimate material with no spiritual component, just as atheists would have us believe.
This realization makes the exhibit feel cold, callous and unenlightening.
Noticing that all the eyes looked Asian didn't help. An earlier spectator observed this and launched an investigation into the source of the bodies. When I asked a docent where they came from, she told me they were Chinese people who had donated their bodies to science and were willing to have them used for education, which the exhibit does.
Reality is more disconcerting. When Bodies Revealed was accused of using the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners, it insisted all were donated to a university by willing donors. Pressed by the State of New York, it turned out proofs of consent weren't available. A separate investigation uncovered a source that collected about one-third of its cadavers from prisons. The controversy continues.
The exhibit included plastinated human embryos at various stages of development. The embryos, lit in a way that made them translucent, hadn't provided their written consents either. But in a setting that subtly dismissed God, the unborn children quietly affirmed His presence.
In a matter of weeks, embryos become recognizably human. At 8 weeks, the formation of bones begins with each one starting in the center of its destination. For example, two tiny parallel sticks can be seen in the middle of the forearm. Over time they grow longer and finally wind up at the joints where they belong. This happens simultaneously with all of the bones. And after nine months a baby with a full, properly connected skeleton emerges.
You can believe God created fully formed man, or not. You can believe in evolution, or not. But don't pretend that divine guidance hasn't played a role in designing this process.
I didn't leave with a Bodies Revealed glowing keychain, coffee mug, scrubs, refrigerator magnet, tee shirt, magnetic message board, poster or plastic eyeballs. I left with an appreciation of God's work and an understanding of how it can be arrayed to subtly deny Him.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith email list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Billed as an educational exhibit, Bodies Revealed presents brief and interesting facts. But despite the informational trappings, it's really a morbid curiosity fix.
These were once living, breathing people whose bodies have been preserved by replacing water and fats with liquid silicone rubber in a process called plastination. The process provides rigidity that enables the cadavers to be posed, turning them into bizarre sculptures. In years past, they would have been shown in a carnival tent and hawked by a barker or displayed in P.T. Barnum's American Museum next to the "FeeJee Mermaid," an attraction that turned out to be the upper half of a monkey sewn to the bottom half of a fish. They may yet wind up in a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum.
I found myself looking into the eyes and wondering, "Who were you? And did you really want to end up here....like this?" After being among them for a time, the message seemed to be that they - and we - are just "stuff" that's organized into an incredible machine whose parts function in magnificent synchronization. Even so, it's just stuff with no particular humanity.
Some evolutionary scientists propose that we're machines whose spirituality is the result of brain activity. The lifelessness of the bodies, now devoid of brain function, seem to reinforce this idea. Deliberately or not, it sends a message that our essence can be distilled into inanimate material with no spiritual component, just as atheists would have us believe.
This realization makes the exhibit feel cold, callous and unenlightening.
Noticing that all the eyes looked Asian didn't help. An earlier spectator observed this and launched an investigation into the source of the bodies. When I asked a docent where they came from, she told me they were Chinese people who had donated their bodies to science and were willing to have them used for education, which the exhibit does.
Reality is more disconcerting. When Bodies Revealed was accused of using the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners, it insisted all were donated to a university by willing donors. Pressed by the State of New York, it turned out proofs of consent weren't available. A separate investigation uncovered a source that collected about one-third of its cadavers from prisons. The controversy continues.
The exhibit included plastinated human embryos at various stages of development. The embryos, lit in a way that made them translucent, hadn't provided their written consents either. But in a setting that subtly dismissed God, the unborn children quietly affirmed His presence.
In a matter of weeks, embryos become recognizably human. At 8 weeks, the formation of bones begins with each one starting in the center of its destination. For example, two tiny parallel sticks can be seen in the middle of the forearm. Over time they grow longer and finally wind up at the joints where they belong. This happens simultaneously with all of the bones. And after nine months a baby with a full, properly connected skeleton emerges.
You can believe God created fully formed man, or not. You can believe in evolution, or not. But don't pretend that divine guidance hasn't played a role in designing this process.
I didn't leave with a Bodies Revealed glowing keychain, coffee mug, scrubs, refrigerator magnet, tee shirt, magnetic message board, poster or plastic eyeballs. I left with an appreciation of God's work and an understanding of how it can be arrayed to subtly deny Him.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith email list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Zozobra
The sad, dark eyes and gaunt expression projected a deep sense of misery. He hung helplessly on the hill, surveying the surrounding tumult. Over twenty thousand people had gathered to watch his immolation as they gleefully shouted "Burn Him!"
This happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It's happened annually since 1924, when an artist named Will Shuster built a marionette he named Zozobra and playfully burned it in the company of friends. He got the idea from the Yaqui Indians "who mark the week before Easter by parading an effigy of Judas through the streets, then blowing it up with firecrackers."
Today, Zozobra is five stories high and filled with symbols of worries, bad memories and dark personal events. Over the summer, items to be placed in the marionette are dropped off. They include no-longer needed engraved wedding invitations, a husband's ashes, a cast from a broken limb, a hospital gown from a cancer patient, foreclosure documents, divorce papers, credit cards, pictures of ex-lovers, and handwritten notes expressing worries about health, love or anything else that crushes men's souls. Zozobra's nickname is "Old Man Gloom" and devotees save their troubles all year in "gloom boxes" they ceremoniously dump into his lap.
As dancers wielded torches, fireworks ignited and the crowd cheered, Zozobra burst into flames and symbolically extinguished the hurts and troubles he had taken on. As one celebrant put it, "I wanted to say goodbye to my worries. It feels good. It feels freeing."
The event illustrates the inescapable downside of being human. We're imperfect, self-centered and hurtful. Sometimes we hurt others, other times others hurt us and we all carry burdens unless something's done to relieve them. Zozobra can provide a quick, temporary catharsis as you're caught up in the moment. Times Square on New Year's Eve does the same thing. But the day after always comes, Old Man Gloom is gone until next year, and you immediately begin refilling your gloom box - often with the same stuff as last year.
It's a real hoot to symbolically torch your troubles in a giant puppet, but once Zozobra is in ashes he's gone until the carpenter builds a new one next year. On the other hand, Jesus died on the cross burdened with our personal sins to relieve us of our intractable, compounding hurts. He grants us forgiveness and strength that are real and available 24/7 all year long.
Zozobra supplicants would be well served by getting to know Him.
To receive notice when a new weekly post is up, please enter email address at www.triadpress.us/contactus
This happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It's happened annually since 1924, when an artist named Will Shuster built a marionette he named Zozobra and playfully burned it in the company of friends. He got the idea from the Yaqui Indians "who mark the week before Easter by parading an effigy of Judas through the streets, then blowing it up with firecrackers."
Today, Zozobra is five stories high and filled with symbols of worries, bad memories and dark personal events. Over the summer, items to be placed in the marionette are dropped off. They include no-longer needed engraved wedding invitations, a husband's ashes, a cast from a broken limb, a hospital gown from a cancer patient, foreclosure documents, divorce papers, credit cards, pictures of ex-lovers, and handwritten notes expressing worries about health, love or anything else that crushes men's souls. Zozobra's nickname is "Old Man Gloom" and devotees save their troubles all year in "gloom boxes" they ceremoniously dump into his lap.
As dancers wielded torches, fireworks ignited and the crowd cheered, Zozobra burst into flames and symbolically extinguished the hurts and troubles he had taken on. As one celebrant put it, "I wanted to say goodbye to my worries. It feels good. It feels freeing."
The event illustrates the inescapable downside of being human. We're imperfect, self-centered and hurtful. Sometimes we hurt others, other times others hurt us and we all carry burdens unless something's done to relieve them. Zozobra can provide a quick, temporary catharsis as you're caught up in the moment. Times Square on New Year's Eve does the same thing. But the day after always comes, Old Man Gloom is gone until next year, and you immediately begin refilling your gloom box - often with the same stuff as last year.
It's a real hoot to symbolically torch your troubles in a giant puppet, but once Zozobra is in ashes he's gone until the carpenter builds a new one next year. On the other hand, Jesus died on the cross burdened with our personal sins to relieve us of our intractable, compounding hurts. He grants us forgiveness and strength that are real and available 24/7 all year long.
Zozobra supplicants would be well served by getting to know Him.
To receive notice when a new weekly post is up, please enter email address at www.triadpress.us/contactus
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