March Madness

What’s mad about watching college basketball? Here are my random thoughts about the tournament so far.

The Pac-12 has once again shown how underrated a conference they are. Too many of the media pundits fall in love with one line of thinking–this year that the Big Ten is by far the superior conference. Of all people to be the voice of reason–surprise, surprise, it’s Charles Barkley who said more than once that the teams out west don’t get the respect they deserve.

I’m looking for at least one Pac-12 team to make the elite eight.

I don’t fill out my brackets like everyone else. I pick winners round for round. I mean, if you don’t have the right two teams playing each other in round two, how can you possibly predict a winner?

Last night I finished the night 11-5. Like many others, I missed on New Mexico vs. Harvard. I saw the Lobos play in the Mountain West final and thought they looked impressive, but I remember UCLA losing to Princeton some years back, so I know it’s unwise to take an Ivy League team for granted. Of course, New Mexico may simply have been experiencing the letdown that naturally comes after achieving a goal. You feel relieved, not hungry.

I lost all three of my upset specials. I chose Bucknell over Butler, but Butler won by 12. Then I picked Montana over Syracuse, but by over 40 points the Orangemen demolished the Montana Grizzlies who didn’t have their leading scorer due to injury. My third miss was taking Valparaiso over Michigan St. I saw the Spartans play in their conference tournament and thought they could be upset. But it wasn’t to be. Michigan St. won by eleven.

The game I’m second guessing myself about is Pittsburgh vs. Wichita. I wanted to pick Wichita. I started to write them into my bracket, but then I remembered Pittsburgh’s reputation for tough defense. I went with the number eight seed, and I was wrong! Wichita pulled off the minor upset.

Glancing at today’s scores, it doesn’t look like I’ll fare quite as well with this half of the bracket. As long as UCLA wins, I won’t mind.

Yea, March Madness!

Olympics!

After I lost the start to my original post, I decided I’d save that one for another day and send you all to your television sets to enjoy the Olympics. It’s a great time.

I’ve loved the Olympics for as long as I can remember, even before I had the privilege of attending a few events in the 1984 Summer Games held in Los Angeles.

My favorite so far this year are the women’s and men’s indoor volleyball matches. I’ve also enjoyed the water polo. The announcers explained some things that I’ve never understood before, so the game makes more sense to me now.

I watched cycling on the first day–just because that was on, and it was The First Day! I would watch all the US basketball if I had cable, but it’s probably a good thing I don’t.

Gymnastics–I watch, but I hate every recital of the horrible injuries these young people have sustained on their way to reaching this phase of their career. It’s horrible hearing about their concussions, torn ligaments, broken collarbones, sprained ankles, knee surgeries, and more. If any other kid had the collection of bruises and medical issues these athletes have, we’d be calling social services to investigate whether or not they were subject to abuse.

To make matters worse, the media praises “pushing through” or a quick recover. They make heroes of the kids that take the punishment in order to win.

But a good spanking to help shape their character? My no! How can you suggest such a thing?

Just a little inconsistency there.

So gymnastics isn’t my favorite sport, to put it mildly.

I’m sad that the media builds up athletes to be heroes before they’ve done anything. There’s the girl that was to win the gold medal in the women’s gymnastics all around who didn’t even qualify. And the men’s team slated for the gold medal that didn’t even get on the podium.

Then Michael Phelps and the anticipation that he would come away with the most medals of any US athlete ever. So in his first event, he barely qualified for the final and didn’t medal.

Or how about the man the media has been building up to replace him–the one whose time is now, but who couldn’t keep the French swimmer from overtaking him in the relay?

The question is, what happened? The implication is, you let us down. But it was the media who built the expectations and made us viewers think these are scripted sure things that we have but to sit back and watch.

Well, no, the other athletes who have worked and dreamed just as much as the media darlings just might have something to say about the outcome.

It’s time the media started reporting instead of trying to predict.

Now go, watch, and enjoy.

Fantasy Friday – Spec Faith Makeover

Speculative Faith, the team blog started in 2006 by a group of Christian speculative writers headed up by Stuart Stockton, almost died out a few years ago. One thing and another happened, causing regular writers to drop off.

I was the last to keep the home fires burning, and then my computer crashed–or, more accurately, performed a slow meltdown. For a month I struggled to log on to our old site. When at last my computer came through surgery, new and improved, I didn’t want to face all the spam that had accumulated on our old site.

Enter Stephen Burnett. He’d earlier taken on the role of regular contributor but went on a hiatus–some excuse about getting married, or something … When Stephen returned and saw the spam situation at the old site, we did a confab and agreed to start over, importing as much content as was feasible.

Hence, Spec Faith 2.0 launched at our present WordPress site in the summer of 2010. Since then we’ve had steady growth, in large part due to Stephen’s watchful eye and innovative work.

He created a Spec Faith Facebook page, for example, and added the Spec Faith library which now has over 400 books. (If only we could actually lend them out!)

Today he introduced the latest upgrade, Spec Faith 3.0. Besides tweaking the already classy look of the site, he has enhanced our library by bringing the creation of and access to reviews to the forefront.

Now anyone interested in seeing what’s available in Christian speculative fiction can go to the library and find, not just a book cover and blurb, but reader reviews and comments.

Of course, to make this feature viable, we need readers to actually post reviews and comments. For comments–a quick recommendation, perhaps, a response to a previous review, or maybe a report on how many stars you’d give the book–visitors only need to locate the book of their choice and click on the comment link.

For reviews, there’s a basic form where a visitor leaves their review, and an administrator will add it in the appropriate place.

I don’t know about you, but I have begun to pay more attention to reviews. How great, then, to have all these Christian speculative titles all in one place, along with reviews to help potential readers sort out which are the best books.

Not only that, but the reviews will also post to Facebook, so the influence of each one is magnified. For reviewers who are re-posting from their own blog, there is also a link (I’m pretty sure) to the original site, so it’s also a way to attract visitors to the reviewer’s blog.

OK, enough of my chit-chat. It’s much more effective if you click on over and take a look at the site yourself. Enjoy.

Flagrant 2

In professional basketball, a personal foul — contact with an opposing player not allowed by the rules of the game — is a violation and results in either free throws or possession of the basketball by the opposing team. A flagrant foul is a personal foul that is excessive or violent and could injure a player.

There are two levels of flagrant fouls. The first level, deemed less severe by the referees, results in a technical foul — free throws and possession of the ball by the opposing team. The flagrant 2 is the most serious, results in immediate player ejection and may also bring further suspension by the League office.

No dirty tricks, the NBA is saying. Basketball is not going to sink into violence. Players are to play by the rules, which admittedly allows some contact, but they aren’t to deliberately hurt anyone either by intentionally trying to do so or by playing so rough, that’s the inevitable consequence.

These flagrant foul rules came into the league a few years after Boston’s Kevin McHale close-lined Lakers forward Kurt Rambis and threw him on his back as he was going up for a lay-up. As I remember, McHale was called for a foul, received no technical, and was not ejected from the game.

Professional hockey used to be known more for the fights on the ice than any actual skating and scoring, but their league also took action and has done much to clean up the game so that it is growing in popularity.

Schools are beginning to call a flagrant 2 on bullies. No more purposeful, intentional, harmful bashing — physically or emotionally — of another student. The damage is too great and the repercussions are unacceptable.

The problem, however, is that the flagrant 2 is a penalty, not a prevention. Yes, in sports and perhaps in schools, the penalty may act as a deterrent. That would seem to be the case in hockey, and fewer players are being thrown on their backs these days in professional basketball.

But the flagrant 2 does not address the heart of the matter — the heart. Bullies of any stripe in any venue don’t care about the rules. They only care about not getting caught.

How else can we explain a professional football coach paying players to go out and hurt athletes on opposing teams? Rules don’t matter to guys like that, so no flagrant 2 ruling is going to change a person like that.

What will?

A heart transplant.

Chuck Colson, who died on Saturday, is proof of what a new heart can do. He was involved in the greatest political scandal of US history, and ended up serving jail time because of it. But in the midst of the finger-pointing and cover-ups, he found Christ, and the world began to see what a changed life looks like.

No, Mr. Colson didn’t turn his life around. His personal flagrant 2 didn’t set him straight or even scare him straight. He actually entered prison as a Christian, and as God so often does, He used what appeared to be the lowest point of Mr. Colson’s life to do something of greatness.

It was in prison that Mr. Colson came to understand what life was all about and what his purpose was for. A year or so after his release from jail, he founded Prison Fellowship. The change in this man’s heart began to have widespread affects, not just in the lives of the inmates who had the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ but in the Church as it came face to face with the responsibility to reach beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone to our neighbors we’d rather flag with a flagrant 2 and be done.

Mr. Colson has given the Church far more than we may realize today. I suspect his legacy will be among the great Christian thinkers. Well, it already is.

“Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of His godly ones” (Ps. 116:15).

Good Teacher

The guy was conscientious, the type most moms would like to see their daughter date. He was law-abiding, a man of some standing and quite successful, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to go above and beyond the rest, even when it came to the all important issue of religious things.

In that vein, he approached Jesus.

“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Like so many men, this guy was all about doing. Give him a task, and he’d see to it. I suspect he was the Type A personality, the alpha male. He lived by his check list. Keep the Sabbath, check. Give to the poor, check. Do the ritual washings, check. Honor his parents, check.

Then Jesus showed up. So why not cover all his bases? Why not find out from this New Voice, this radical, authoritative teacher, what he himself might be overlooking?

So he asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I think I know what he was hoping. It’s the same sort of thought process I go through as a writer when I give someone pages to critique. If I’m honest, I would really, really like to hear them say, This is brilliant; don’t change a thing. But realistically, I expect to hear some bit of advice or insight that can help me do better. From what they say, then, I’ll go about improving.

Undoubtedly Mr. Got-It-Together was approaching Jesus the same way. Just maybe, the teacher would be complimentary — even impressed, with the very question and certainly with the long list of done-that’s he’d discover upon probing further.

But at the worst, Jesus would give him some obscure tidbit that would put him ahead of the game and would put him that much closer to assurance that he not only had it together now, but for eternity.

How surprising, then, when Jesus didn’t settle into critique mode right away. Instead he asked an odd question. “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”

Technicalities. I mean, wasn’t that question like someone today saying, Why do you call me a good editor or a good writer?

To Mr. Got-It-Together it was probably nothing more than a way of saying to Jesus, I respect your role and therefore your opinion. What you say to me matters. I want to know what you think about this subject because your view holds some sway.

Jesus, however, pulled that technicality. No one is good but God.

Sure, sure. Mr. Got-It-Together knew that. So maybe Jesus was saying, About this eternal life thing, back off from any terminology that might be construed as insincere flattery or even from any language that has the taint of the blasphemous. Quickly, the petitioner amended his reference. Teacher, I’ve kept the law …

But hadn’t Jesus already given Mr. Got-It-Together what he asked — that something he needed to inherit eternal life?

Only God is good, and God in the flesh stood in front of the man. If he could have answered, I called you good because you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, wouldn’t Jesus have gone straight to “Follow Me”?

But Mr. Got-It-Together was hung up on what he needed to do, not what he needed to believe. Hence Jesus had to show him his true heart: there was something more precious to him than eternal life, something he was unwilling to do, some quest he refused, some idol that kept him from what he said he wanted.

And the man walked away.

He didn’t like the critique he got. It wasn’t a generic rejection letter, but it was worse. He had to abandon who he was and accept who Jesus was.

He didn’t need tweaking, a little editing, better understanding of how to follow this or that rule. He didn’t even need a rewrite. He needed to sell all rights to the Good Teacher — to God who looked at him with such compassion — and to let this Good God do with his life what He would.

That, Mr. Got-It-Together just couldn’t bring himself to do.

- – - – -

To read the story yourself, see Mark 10:17-22

My Turn To Tell

As promised, here are my picks from yesterday’s post, “You Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine,” marked in boldface font and followed by brief commentary.

a Mac or PC — no contest. Whenever I have to use a PC, I realize anew how much I like Macs.

Narnia or Lord of the Rings — but that’s no slight on Narnia because I love it too.

science fiction or fantasy — and that one’s not even close.

classical or country — same here!

books or ereaders — but I’m just getting started with my very first ereader, so this could change in the near future.

Facebook or Twitter — I’m getting more comfortable with Twitter, but I don’t see it moving ahead of Facebook.

LinkedIn or Pinterest — Pin-what? Seriously, I haven’t been to the site yet, but from what I’ve heard … it’s not for me.

YA books or adult — nothing against YA. I read it with some frequency, but I gravitate toward the adult stuff.

mystery or suspense — I love figuring stuff out and hate being scared!

Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance — Stars are soooooo overrated!

The Voice or American Idol — neither, really, but the few times I watched some of The Voice, I thought it looked like a better show.

Survivor or Amazing Race — I’m a die-hard fan!

Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum — I like the fact that the only bad thing the media says about him is that he’s spending too much time on “social issues.”

Old Testament or New Testament — this is where I start cheating: both, absolutely.

Apostle Paul or Apostle Peter — ditto

Elijah or Daniel — tough call. I actually like Elisha more than Elijah, but I may have learned the most from Elijah because of a wonderful series of sermons Pastor Swindoll did years ago.

Tom Sawyer or Lord of the Flies — when I wrote this, I intended to say Lord of the Flies. I think it’s a great study in human nature. But it’s also pretty depressing. So I’ll go with humor, adventure, suspense, and a little peak at human nature on the side.

Denver Broncos or Oakland Raiders — need I say more?

Tim Tebow or Jeremy Linn — I’ve heard Tim speak about Jesus. So far I’ve only heard others say Jeremy Linn has faith like Tim Tebow. Besides, Tim plays for the right team, and Jeremy doesn’t.

Corrie ten Boom or Elizabeth Elliot — Elizabeth Elliot is a remarkable woman. I actually had the privilege of hearing both of them speak, though, and Corrie exuded the love of Christ. Her life has had a big impact on me.

iPad or Kindle Fire — I own neither so don’t know what the advantages of each are, but because I favor Apple products, I’d be inclined to go with the iPad if it were possible.

grace or mercy — yeah, no way to choose on this one. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who, according to His great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3), but “By grace you have been saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).

Christian fiction or general market fiction — I’ve been reading more Christian fiction of late, but I like the general market fiction that’s been recommended to me.

New York Times or Wall Street Journal — I don’t read either regularly, but when I find links to articles, I usually find the treatment in the WSJ to be thorough and less “media party line.”

hymns or choruses — Both have their place. Paul said in Colossians, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16). Was he just being redundant, or was he making a point that different kinds of musical renditions have their place? I favor the latter view.

Well, there you have it. Again, special thanks to those who took the time to give their picks. This was fun.

You Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine

This is a crazy, spur-of-the-moment list, just for fun. Tell me your picks — as many as you like, and I’ll post all mine … some time … somewhere. How’s that for specific?

Ready? Which is your preference?

a Mac or PC

Narnia or Lord of the Rings

science fiction or fantasy

classical or country

books or ereaders

Facebook or Twitter

LinkedIn or Pinterest

YA books or adult

mystery or suspense

Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance

The Voice or American Idol

Survivor or Amazing Race

Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum

Old Testament or New Testament

Apostle Paul or Apostle Peter

Elijah or Daniel

Tom Sawyer or Lord of the Flies

Denver Broncos or Oakland Raiders

Tim Tebow or Jeremy Linn

Corrie ten Boom or Elizabeth Elliot

iPad or Kindle Fire

grace or mercy

Christian fiction or general market fiction

New York Times or Wall Street Journal

hymns or choruses

I’ll stop at 25. Pick any you’d like to answer and if you want to elaborate and explain your pick, I’d love to hear that, too.

I might put mine in a comment or maybe I’ll answer in another post. Some of these I wish I could turn into a poll because I’d be curious to see what the consensus is. But as it stands, this is just for fun. No insidious ulterior motive on my part. Looking forward to seeing what you think.

CSFF Tour Wrap – The Realms Thereunder by Ross Lawhead

Another great CSFF tour wrapped up, this one for Ross Lawhead’s debut novel, The Realms Thereunder. In all thirty-nine bloggers participated, with two more due to post in the near future. In total the participants wrote sixty-six articles and countless comments. Now that, my friends, is buzz.

Not that we all agreed, mind you. This book in particular had split reviews, but I guess that just leaves it up to the reader to get a copy and decide for himself/herself!

Gold star for committed participation has to go to Steve Trower who is a science fiction guy and who received the book the same day his wife gave birth. Still, he managed to post three times during the tour, including his now famous Tuesday Tunes.

All this brings us to the final tour event — the vote for this month’s top tour blogger. Those who posted at least three times during the tour are eligible. And the nominees, with the links to their posts, are

√ √ √ Thomas Clayton Booher
√ √ √ Beckie Burnham
√ √ √ Timothy Hicks
√ √ √ Janeen Ippolito
√ √ √ Jason Joyner
√ √ √ Rebekah Loper
√ √ √ Steve Trower
√ √ √ Shane Werlinger

And now, there is nothing left but for you to vote. Poll will remain open through Thursday, March 8, giving you ample time to check out the articles before you make your selection.

What God Thinks About The State Of The US Government

No, God didn’t speak to me audibly and tell me who He wants to win the Republican nomination for Presidency. Nor did He pass along His opinion of the job President Obama is doing. He did, however, give some pointed words in Scripture.

But first, let me lay out the situation. Last night I heard on the news (and today read articles from MSNBC and ProPublica which apparently broke the story) that the federally owned lending institution Freddie Mac is still involved in gambling investing gambling in the housing market.

It seems they have invested in “financial instruments that profit when homeowners are stuck in high-interest mortgages.” This is the company that is supposedly working to refinance so many of those troubled mortgages — reportedly 11 million of them were still in trouble as late as the end of last year. To put that number in perspective, a Freddie Mac rep says they have refinanced 4.3 million during the past three years. That’s roughly 1.1 million a year — not even a tenth of those that needed help in 2011.

It’s hard to believe that Freddie Mac is doing the best they can when they actually profit each time there’s a foreclosure connected with one of their “financial instruments.”

Just as troubling is the hand-wringing that the Federal Reserve is doing, saying that what Freddie Mac is doing is “difficult to justify.” Hmmmm. I thought government was supposed to give oversight to government owned organizations. But as part of the bailout, Freddie Mac was apparently ordered to get out of the risky investment business and they responded by “[doubling] down on securities that pay off when homeowners lose.”

As it turns out the regulatory agency that is … well, to regulate these mortgage institutions, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, now “plays the role of [Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's] board of directors and shareholders, responsible for the companies’ major decisions.”

What mystifies me is this: our society holds our athletes — those coddled iconic figures we keep in the green — to a higher standard than we do those in government and in finance.

College athletes — those in the top division of the NCAA — get nothing from anyone. No car (ask Reggie Bush about that), free lunches, watches, shirts, plane tickets home, extra tickets to games. Nothing. And if they break the rules, the powers that be come down with two feet squarely on the head of the entire program, not just the athlete. (Some people think it’s only one foot if you’re Ohio State and two feet if you’re USC, but the point is, there are dire consequences to pay.)

Pro athletes face restrictions, too. Theirs has to do with gambling. For this one, ask Pete Rose. Not only was he kicked out of baseball, he’s excluded from the Hall of Fame because of his indiscretion. Michael Vick went to prison for his part in a gambling scheme involving dog fights. Dogs, not people.

But our banks? They can gamble that Joe the factory worker and Juan the gardener are going to lose their houses.

Meanwhile, our Congressmen, unlike our college athletes, can accept all the lunches and plane trips and game tickets and campaign contributions they want from the very people who have a bill that they’ll be voting on in the next month or so.

What’s the disconnect here? Teach our kids to play it clean, make our athletes keep it fair, but our leaders — they get a different set of rules.

Which brings me back to what God thinks of this sort of shenanigan going on in our government. Take a look at Psalm 36 and notice the difference between the ungodly and God Himself (emphases in these verses are mine).

Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart;
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
2 For it flatters him in his own eyes
Concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.
3 The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit;
He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
4 He plans wickedness upon his bed;
He sets himself on a path that is not good;
He does not despise evil.

5 Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
Your judgments are like a great deep.
O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
7 How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
8 They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
9 For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light.

10 O continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You,
And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
11 Let not the foot of pride come upon me,
And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away.
12 There the doers of iniquity have fallen;
They have been thrust down and cannot rise.

Perspective. Hearing what God says puts everything in perspective.

Happy New Year

I’m taking today off but wanted to wish you all a wonderful start to the new year. May God grace you with His good gifts.

Oddly, in view of the nature of this post, this one is noteworthy — number 1500 here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction. I’m looking forward to the next 1500.