It ain't as easy as it looks to grow flowers in the dirt
So it turns out there is a song by a band called Fasball on an album I really like called "Sweetwater, TX". The lyrics are a bit abstruse, but the general feel from listening to it is about the same as the way you feel after living here for two months.
Last night, I was out running. My semi-weekly routine is to run to the high school, run a mile on the track there, then run home--about 4 miles in all, I think. Anyway, there were actually some people who sort of knew how to swing a tennis racquet out on the courts at the high school, which is the first I've seen of that in all my runs. There were two younger guys, who looked like they were on the high school team, and two older guys who could have easily been their fathers (turns out they weren't; the tennis community simply spans generational boundaries here in Sweetwater). I went up and talked to them after they finished their match, and our conversation went something as follows.
Me: "Hey guys, what's up? I was just watching and saw that you guys could actually swing a racquet. I was wondering if one of you want to hit sometime."
Old Guy #1 (in relatively strong West-Texas accent): "What part a' New Jersey you from?"
Me: "Excuse me?"
Old Guy: "You don't sound like yer from around here. I'm an English teacher and I pay attention to accents, and ya don't sound like yer from Texas"
Me: "Well, thank you, I guess. I'm actually from Arlington"
Old Guy: "Arlington, huh? Well my name is..." <continued conversation>
I would have like to have added something obnoxious like, "Oh, you mean because I enunciate and generally speak like an educated person?" However, I refrained. I stood and talked to them for a few minutes, and I'm going to go hit with one of the younger guys tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes.
I also just finished reading Donald Miler's (the author of "Blue Like Jazz") "Searching for God Knows What". It is much better than "Blue Like Jazz", I think. He is a wonderful writer, and the line between his thoughts and systematic theology doesn't get quite blurred in this one (not that he did it on purpose in the first book, but it sort of came off like that from time to time). Much of the book talks about how God is relational and the Gospel isn't about a set of rules that you must follow. The main thing I took away from it was that man is broken and tries to get our fulfillment from an extremely weak version (from people around us) of the worth we have as loved creatures of God. Getting our worth solely from God, through the person of Jesus, is the only fulfillment to the deep longings of the human soul, and so many of our little religious systems are just ways for us to try to get approval from others or feel important or worthy somehow (I am too systematic, and my explanation here still ends up coming off as theology -- go read the book). Anyway, he makes a lot of interesting points. I still think that systematic theology is very important to understand who God is -- it is hard to love a being without knowing that information. Plus, human nature tends to distort who God is when not kept in check. So read the book, but still go read Calvin and Edwards and Piper when you're done. I just get tired of this whole idea of, "man, I don't want to think about deep issues like God's sovereignty and the implications it has on man's free will, I just want to love God." Which God are you loving? Issues like this are integral to understanding the nature of God and therefore the nature of the love, grace, mercy, justice, jealousy, perfection, etc., that he possesses. Ok, sorry, I'm rambling.
Last night, I was out running. My semi-weekly routine is to run to the high school, run a mile on the track there, then run home--about 4 miles in all, I think. Anyway, there were actually some people who sort of knew how to swing a tennis racquet out on the courts at the high school, which is the first I've seen of that in all my runs. There were two younger guys, who looked like they were on the high school team, and two older guys who could have easily been their fathers (turns out they weren't; the tennis community simply spans generational boundaries here in Sweetwater). I went up and talked to them after they finished their match, and our conversation went something as follows.
Me: "Hey guys, what's up? I was just watching and saw that you guys could actually swing a racquet. I was wondering if one of you want to hit sometime."
Old Guy #1 (in relatively strong West-Texas accent): "What part a' New Jersey you from?"
Me: "Excuse me?"
Old Guy: "You don't sound like yer from around here. I'm an English teacher and I pay attention to accents, and ya don't sound like yer from Texas"
Me: "Well, thank you, I guess. I'm actually from Arlington"
Old Guy: "Arlington, huh? Well my name is..." <continued conversation>
I would have like to have added something obnoxious like, "Oh, you mean because I enunciate and generally speak like an educated person?" However, I refrained. I stood and talked to them for a few minutes, and I'm going to go hit with one of the younger guys tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes.
I also just finished reading Donald Miler's (the author of "Blue Like Jazz") "Searching for God Knows What". It is much better than "Blue Like Jazz", I think. He is a wonderful writer, and the line between his thoughts and systematic theology doesn't get quite blurred in this one (not that he did it on purpose in the first book, but it sort of came off like that from time to time). Much of the book talks about how God is relational and the Gospel isn't about a set of rules that you must follow. The main thing I took away from it was that man is broken and tries to get our fulfillment from an extremely weak version (from people around us) of the worth we have as loved creatures of God. Getting our worth solely from God, through the person of Jesus, is the only fulfillment to the deep longings of the human soul, and so many of our little religious systems are just ways for us to try to get approval from others or feel important or worthy somehow (I am too systematic, and my explanation here still ends up coming off as theology -- go read the book). Anyway, he makes a lot of interesting points. I still think that systematic theology is very important to understand who God is -- it is hard to love a being without knowing that information. Plus, human nature tends to distort who God is when not kept in check. So read the book, but still go read Calvin and Edwards and Piper when you're done. I just get tired of this whole idea of, "man, I don't want to think about deep issues like God's sovereignty and the implications it has on man's free will, I just want to love God." Which God are you loving? Issues like this are integral to understanding the nature of God and therefore the nature of the love, grace, mercy, justice, jealousy, perfection, etc., that he possesses. Ok, sorry, I'm rambling.
posted by Abe at 8:13 AM
6 Comments:
you cannot bench press 3000 pounds. typo?
are you kidding? I benched 2750 ten times yesterday. I had all the weights at the whole gym on the bar, and the guy who was spotting me jumped on, too. It was sweet.
I run up to Martin quite a bit and do sprints on the track - do you enjoy running?
keep postin', it's purdy enturtainin', ya hear?
Maybe i will give that other Miller book a shot. I was going to blog about Blue Like Jazz earlier this summer but it made me tired. I thought his prose was so painfully self-aware that most shreds of useful thought were too obscured to be appreciated. Hopefully the new book really is better and you're not just saying that as a joke to fool the Russians.
so does this systematic theology you speak of help you love poor enunciators?
yes, it does, tara. I can mock and still love.
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