Affiliations.

Here's an awesome blog post I read on the God's Politics blog. It's about the striking similarities between gang affiliations and blind patriotism.

This often hits close to home with me. I'm a fan of a few pro sports teams (Flyers, Phillies, a few other NHL teams). The idea's the same. Colors, flags, disdain for others different from you. We have to watch ourselves. I know I've quoted the Fugazi lyric before: "we draw lines and stand behind them, that's why flags are such ugly things."

We always need to remind ourselves that Jesus sees people, not things. We're supposed to treat people the way He did. He saw people regardless of where they were from, what color they were, or what color they wore.

John Buccigross of espn once said in his weekly hockey blogumn "love hockey first and your team second." He said something big. We need to put things in perspective. The big picture (well-being of others) comes before your "denominational" affiliation.

God is good.

THN Ryan Dixon Blog.

This was a great/very funny article on The Hockey News website. The premise is that the writer ventured to the Air Canada Center (Toronto) to see the Raptors instead of the Leafs. He comments on the differences between hockey and basketball. These are the things I often think of when I think "basketball" and why it's difficult for me to watch it.

Hockey post.

I was reading Greatesthockeylegends.com and came across some old NHL commercials. They had several of the old Nike skate ones from when I was like 14. They're pretty funny. Here are some highlights:

"Learn to make a kick save!"



Road trip!



"You're practically 5'6"!"



Here's a picture of one of my favorite people, John Kopp, interviewing my favorite player, Flyers captain Mike Richards (Kopp's on the right holding the FlyersTV mic).




And last, but certainly not least, here's a hilarious Dick's Sporting Goods commercial with Jimmy Rollins.



Peace.

Prayer.

I had written and reflected on a prayer the other night that I emailed my Lindsey. She said I should post it. So, as per her request, here it is:

I was reading through random psalms and found a verse that really struck me. I made it my prayer.

^7:9 O righteous God,
who searches minds and hearts,
bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure.

I was reminded of

Violence is a deep-seeded disease in our culture. It has nearly an endless number of shapes and avenues through which it attacks us. It pits us against each other and highlights differences as bad instead of pointing out similarities to unify. We're taught that it's only something that happens to "poor" and "bad" people and that it's not our place to care about it, and even if we wanted to, it's impossible to change. This is violent in itself. It's passive violence. I remember Shawn (my Mission Year city director) talking about how "non-political churches" are supporters of the status-quo by their inactivity. They are violent. Lord have mercy on us and on them.

We both know what Jesus says in the beatitudes (Matthew 5):
⁷Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.

I want to live those things out. I want to show mercy to others. I want to know what it is to be merciful to the violent. I want to make peace. I want to know how to identify violence and injustice constructively. That's my prayer.

Jesus help me. I want to be a light in this world of violence, hatred, and mess.

We opened the pm last night with a song that says "strangers and pilgrims with no earthly city. we find in you everything we ever could call home."

Jesus, be my home.

Amen.

New York.

A few weeks back (3-7-09) Lindsey and I ventured into New York City. It was pretty excellent. New York makes you forget that anywhere else on earth even exists. It also makes you feel completely insignificant. Like, there are SO MANY people. EVERYWHERE. Of course, it was a Saturday in March where it was like 60 degrees and beautiful out, so that brings even more people into the city.

We left Trenton on a NJ Transit train around 9am, arriving at NY Penn Station at like 10:30. We then went to get our metro cards for the day and went to Queens to the P.S.1 MoMA. We saw this awesome swimming pool. It creates this illusion where there's a pane of glass or plastic about 8 inches (maybe a bit more) into the pool with water over it, leaving the bottom 7 1/2 feet empty. There's a doorway underneath where you can go into the empty part of the pool. It's wild. People are looking at you and you at them (both a bit blurry of course). Lindsey and I each took a turn doing it.

From there we headed back into Manhattan and down to near what I think is East Village to see the Joe Strummer graffiti mural. I had my picture taken in front of it, it was pretty sweet. It took us a long time to find it, so we had to stop before to have some hummus/pita/chips.

We proceeded to Central Park and enjoyed the rest of our lunch. It was even overwhelming being in a park. There are buildings just crowding over top of you the whole time. We wandered through the park a bit and made our way to the NHL Store. I've wanted to go there for a long time and it was wonderful being in a place where hockey's the focal point of the whole store. I did notice however (actually, Lindsey noticed, she's great) that the Flyers logos on the coffee mugs were upside down. All the other teams logos were right-side up. I found this sort of typical, the Flyers organization has been hated by pretty much everyone who isn't from the Philly area for over 30 years. Look it up. I got a sweet Flyers hat and another goodie for my desk at work.

We wandered forever trying to find FAO Schwartz. We went through Times Square, which is so intimidating. Everyone's bumping and rubbing against everybody else because there are so many people (yes, it is as unpleasant as it sounds). Looking back on it, I think Times Square is the kind of place you go to be like "yeah, I've been there." Aside from that, it's not a place I look to spend my time.

Then I realzied that the addresses on 5th and 7th avenues are different from 6th (why? don't know!). This means we walked like over a mile south when we needed to go just a few blocks west to begin with from the NHL store. Dang. We got there just a few minutes before they closed and time there was very limited. We wandered the Apple Store next door and found our way down to 34th st to Penn Station, bought our tickets and headed back to Trenton.

We passed through Morrisville, PA on the way back to Philly and I showed Lindsey the houses where my parents grew up. I hadn't been anywhere near these houses in a long time, it was real nostalgic. I told Lindsey some stories I remember from those houses(particularly one where my dad, brother, and I ambushed my uncle and cousin in a super-soaker fight) and in doing so managed to miss the 95 south exit off US 1 and ended up going the wrong way on Broad Street for a few blocks before righting the ship and finally getting home around 11:30.

It was an awesome day, the kind of awesome day that leaves you completely exhausted. New York reminds you that you're in no way the center of the universe. Anytime you get to wrapped up in yourself, go to NYC for a day. (I realize that this would mean daily pilgrimages to New York, and that that's entirely impossible, but the spirit of the idea stands.)

I think it brings a lot of peace to the mind to know (and be reminded) that you're not the center of things. The irony is that New York is the same place where many (most?) of the "you're the center of everything" and other lousy cultural ideas are produced.

Two sides to everything, yeah?

CNN.

So the pope un-excommunicated (recommunicated?) a Holocaust-denying bishop not too long ago. He now apparently regrets his decision. His response:

Pope: We should have Googled Holocaust bishop.

CNN seems to look more and more like The Onion.