Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

In Christ alone I place my trust And find my glory in the power of the cross In every victory let it be said of me My source of strength, my source of hope is Christ alone - Michael English, In Christ Alone Thump, thump, thump, thump... The Iron Pigs were down 8-0 early in our first playoff game last night at the ball park. Now we found ourselves down 14-11 in the bottom of the sixth inning. It was nerve wracking enough that we were seemingly mounting a comeback of epic proportions and had the bases loaded with 2 outs. Then, the winning run strode to the plate. This was no ordinary batter mind you; he was the winning run. And he was my son. Well, he managed to get two strikes on him. Thump, thump, thump, thump...take a breath, Son.  Take a breath, Dad. Well, then the pitcher made a mistake and gave him a pitch between his belly button and chest. My son swung and drove the ball between the first and second basemen and the rally continued. We were now at the top of the...

Fearless people,  Careless needle. Harsh words spoken, And lives are broken. - Seal, Prayer for the Dying It is fearlessness that got me into the sinful condition I am in. This fearlessness hurtles me headlong into indulging in these fleshly desires rather than embrace what God made me to be. It seems to me that the opposite of fearlessness is not courage but something much more like wisdom.  Courage itself is subject to a grand ideal in the least case and God himself in the best case. Can you (like me) see courage bending the knee to something greater than itself? Perhaps, to further the anthropomorphism, fearing something greater than itself? Zeal is subjected to that for which which we are zealous. No, the fear I have will allow me to react both with great courage and even great timidity when the situation presents itself. Do I fear when timid and throw it to the wind when courageous? No, not at all. I act in fear in either situation and subject myself to the ...

I have been known to do some smack talk from time to time and always in a light-hearted way as I am not all that competitive. When my boys are the victims of a legitimate diatribe, and if they actually won the game that is the subject of the smacking, I always tell them to just say "Scoreboard." The scoreboard doesn't lie. Well, it isn't supposed to. But it did last night at my son's baseball game. We were playing a beatable team and the score was tied going into the 5th inning out of 6. We were the home team and when we took the field for the top of the 5th I winced a bit when I heard this boy was going to be taking the mound. Our pitching was a bit shaky but I knew that we would be in further trouble when he was going to be pitching. He hadn't pitched all year and when I think of the boys that I would want to see on the mound at this stage in the game his name is not on the list. It is not even last on the list. I knew that this would result in a loss for ...