March Madness

In 1985, the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament had the very unlikely Final Four match up of three teams from the same conference – the Big East’s Villanova, Georgetown and St John’s. Eighth seed Villanova won out and to this day remain the lowest seed to ever win the tournament. However, lurking in the shadows of 1985’s big dance was the root of another NCAA tournament record that twenty-five years ago passed without very much thought or analysis by anyone.

Arizona Wildcat fans know where I am going with this. Indeed the then 10th seeded Wildcats first-round loss to Alabama began the longest string of tournament appearances in NCAA history which I am sad to say officially ended with their painful, predicted and deserved omission from today’s Selection Sunday announcement. The Wildcats are not the only traditional powerhouses not invited to the 2010 tourney; North Carolina (last year’s champ, right?), UCLA, Indiana and Connecticut will all be staying home this year.

In their quarter century of tournament play, the Wildcats have much to be proud of including four Final Four appearances (1988, 1994, 1997 & 2001) and one National Championship (1997) where they remain the only team in the history of the NCAA tournament to defeat three number one seeds in the same tournament (Kansas, North Carolina & Kentucky). And of course, they have the reputation for first round upset losses – Santa Clara and East Tennessee State immediately come to mind.
Yes, it just doesn’t seem like March Madness without the Arizona Wildcats and I dare say there is an entire generation whose lifespan has never known a NCAA bracket without my beloved Wildcats. I am officially in mourning.

Running to Stand Still

I have been neglecting my blog for quite some time. I know, we have all been there and indeed I am putting that shameful take me back post I’ve done so many times in the past. Here is the laundry list of pathetic reasons to explain my absence.
Pathetic reason #1: Blogging has somehow begun to feel painfully narcissistic. I know, that is par for the course, but for about the past month or so, every post I begin to even think about feels whiny, self-indulgent, entirely void of substance and primarily designed to endear myself to all three of my readers. And perhaps that is the heart pathetic reason #1; I have been really discouraged by the lack of feedback and growth (popularity) of my blog. I know it is terrible to equate my self-worth with the amount of comments I receive on a given post, but it is what it is.

Pathetic reason #2: Computer trouble. Here and there my PC has been acting ambivalent most especially as it relates to my internet access. I know what you are thinking, I should have got a MAC, and you may well be right. Apples are on the horizon.

Pathetic reason #3: Lack of material. This is really a combo of pathetic reason #1 and the yet to be mentioned #4, but the truth is I haven’t felt like there is any material bubbling up from my soul these days. In fact, the only thing that seems to be bubbling up from my soul is, well, file that under TMI. I have a few crappy, unfinished posts I may or may not try to revive.

Pathetic reason #4: I have been unbearably busy. I hate being busy and I feel the shame/scorn of my friends out there who are able to mediate all of the forces that I am unable to do live a serene, free and examined life. I used to be able to do that, but 2010 has been plagued by personal, professional, family, social and all sorts of other crazy commitments that have seemed to suck the life out of me. This is not a pace that lends itself to blogging. This is a pace that lends itself to wrinkles, difficulty sleeping, letting people down, messy desks and messy houses, unreturned phone calls, loss of ground on the weight loss campaign and feeling like the worst version of myself. I long to be sequestered and/or quarantined until then, I run to stand still. I need to heed the wisdom of Alice and Wonderland, “don’t just do something, stand there.”

Pastors wives

Recently I was at work, well, glamorous as it might sound, making copies, when one of my co-workers asked another co-worker and I about the definition of a religious term. Remember, for the purposes of this story, we all work for a church and we are all women. I gave my definition while the other co-worker gave an answer that varied greatly from mine. None of the three of us was anywhere near a computer so “googling it” was not an option. My co-worker found herself stuck – whose definition was she going to endorse?

She decided to go with the other woman’s answer because, and this is the part that almost breaks my heart, she is a pastor’s wife. And as a disclaimer, I don’t mean to poke fun at the pastor’s wife in this story because I am really quite fond of her, but really? Is this 2010 or 1950? I suppose in certain circles sleeping with a pastor really makes one more qualified to speak on religious terms than a graduate degree in theology.

My Life in France by Julia Child

Taking a little break from my true love of fiction, I recently finished My Life in France by Juila Child. Like everyone else, I rediscovered Julia Child with the recent release of the movie “Julie & Julia.” I loved the movie very much as it combined many of my favorite things – cooking, blogging and misguided souls discovering their purpose in life later than most. I only wish I would have thought of the idea to cook through Child’s masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it. Who knows, it could have been Jen & Julia.

My Life in France was on the whole a good book; engaging at times and slow at others, I mean really there is only so much you can read about butter. And I do really love butter. But a few things surprised me about Julia Child. For starters she was a wonderful writer. I believe big sections of the book were adaptations of her letters written to various people over the years. Secondly, she was thirty-four when she married which in 2010 isn’t exactly unheard of but in 1946 was almost scandalous no less to a man ten years her senior whom she had met while they both were in the O.S.S. serving in Asia during WWII. The last surprising thing and my biggest “take away” is that Julia Child did not start cooking until she was thirty-seven. Imagine such a delay in finding one’s true calling? There is hope for me yet.

I would be amiss to not mention Julia Child was born and raised in our own faire Pasadena. I need to follow the lead of so many of my fellow bloggers and visit her house. Maybe I could leave a stick of butter on the mail box like Amy Adams’ character did at the Smithsonian.

Next up, just in time for spring training, Vin Scully’s Pull Up a Chair.

“Sitting through” Sermons

Recently, I heard a story about a youth pastor telling a group of students that the last thing they need is to “sit through” another sermon. This immediately struck me as funny, clearly the aim of the story teller. But the more we joked about it, I couldn’t help but find truth in the sentiment that may or may not have been poor judgment in sharing to teenagers under the guise of spiritual formation. Alas, I have “sat through” many, many sermons in my life, some great, some breathtaking, some formative, some challenging, some inspiring and some, well, awful. For the record, at present, I “sit through” many an eloquent, intellectual and finely-polished sermon administered with a fair dose of charisma. What is that adage about not biting the hand that feeds you?

But alas back to the pastor’s seemingly counter-pastoral instruction, indeed I wonder if our contemporary construct of church has put too much emphasis on sermons? Is this some vestige of modernism we can’t seem to shed? I suppose this argument could be made for the whole of our higher education system as there is very little difference between a lecture and a sermon if you really think about. Perhaps pre-literate cultures required oral traditions for the masses to understand the basic tenets of Christianity, but I wonder if we post-moderns might be better inspired by a different means other than the traditional sermon? Or to throw in a dash of Rob Bell, are we simply preaching the wrong kinds of sermons?

And/or how much of the actual goals of discipleship can be learned through a one-sided forum like a sermon? Isn’t applying scripture to our lives best accomplished through didactics with other Christ followers or through acts of obedience and service to others? Add on the layer, was Christianity ever intended to be head knowledge? Instead aren’t we told to live out our beliefs as they form the foundation for our lives (okay that is the Jen Hicks paraphrase of the Sermon on the Mt.)?

Ash Wednesday

Just under the wire, what can I say, I have been super busy with life, work, fighting off a cold, planning a trip to Peru and other misadventures that I simply forgot this morning.

But without further adieu, here is this week’s question:

How will you observe Lent?

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday marking the start of Lent. Some traditions put a significant emphasis on this six week period before Easter while others do very little. I know I am on the far end of the spectrum where we do nothing to anticipate Easter, so perhaps I am curious what others do.

Yertle the Turtle

The other day I read Dr. Seuss’ Yertle the Turtle with an eight-year-old. Yertle the Turtle tells the story of a tyrannical turtle king who humiliates his subjects by having them form a stack of turtles to serve as his throne. The turtles comply, first a stack of ten, then bigger, bigger and in classic Seuss style the stack grows to an alleged multiple hundreds allowing Yertle to be king of ever more things. Finally, however, one meager turtle, Mack, complains. He is at the bottom of the stack – he has been there the whole time, he is hungry, tired and imaginably uncomfortable. Yertle will not budge and instead calls for more turtles so he can be king over even the moon. Finally, Mack at the bottom of the stack, well, burps causing the pile of turtles to topple.

I first heard the story of Yertle the Turtle at a chapel at Fuller. The speaker, whose name escapes me, called Seuss by his given name, Theodore Geisel prefacing him as a great theologian known for tackling injustice, the frailties of human leaders, the lure of power and, well, you get the point. Eventually, he revealed Geisel as Seuss and simply read Yertle the Turtle. Years later, I think the brilliance of this simple lesson on leadership and theology still rings true.

Meanwhile, for a variety of reasons not the least of which is my recent admission to a leadership institute, I have been wrestling with what it means to be a Godly leader. And smack in my face, Yertle the Turtle teaches me more than the volumes of Bill Hybels type literature I’ve been wading through. Indeed, the answer to the question – ‘what is the best book on leadership you’ve read?’ will now and forever be Yertle the Turtle.


And double meanwhile, especially as my turtle kingdom is quite small, I long to find leaders who unlike Yertle care about those they lead not lumping them together like lemmings whose sole value is at most to bring them ever so higher. Remember, the more turtles in the stack, the more power for Yertle. Yertle was unfazed by Mack’s honest complaints – hunger, exhaustion, discomfort as they no doubt interfered with his power grab. Something I know quite well, is bad leaders don’t like the Mack types whom I happen to love!