Well it’s official…

Texas is not in the Big 12 Title game. Instead, two teams that they beat are playing for their own conference championship. I believe the Big 12 will revisit the rules after this season. If they had the SEC rulebook, Texas would have been playing in the Title game. Either way though, it wouldn’t be fair to some team. I think this year makes it clear we are in need of a playoff. Even a four or 8 team playoff. You can keep the five BCS bowls, have two of them be playoff games, and the winners of those two play in a +1 game for the championship. Now barring a Missouri upset of Oklahoma in Kansas City, Texas’ National Championship hopes are over. Instead they will likely be playing Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. That’s an okay matchup, better than Boise State, although Boise State is more deserving of the spot. And In the Sugar Bowl we will most likely see a Utah vs. either Florida or Alabama. Here’s what I say: Forget the stupid traditions and conference affiliations. Send Texas to the Sugar Bowl to play Florida or Alabama and let the Fiesta Bowl host a Utah vs. Ohio (or better yet Boise) State. The Big 12 only has affiliations with the Fiesta Bowl since the BCS was invented and they left out the Cotton Bowl.

College Football, I want to leave you some advice about Tradition. “Just because you’ve always done it that way, doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly stupid.”

I’d rather have nothing than a whole lot of something I don’t need.

I’d rather have nothing than a whole lot of something I don’t need.

What a good Garth Brooks song. It’s such a witness to poverty. Let’s think about this statement for a minute. What do we actually need? I mean really need. Well… we need water and food or we’ll starve. We need some sort of shelter or we’ll be exposed to the elements and possibly die from the heat or cold or other hazards.

That’s it… at least physically. We don’t need a mansion. We don’t need a car. (okay realistically in today’s world you need a car if you don’t live inside a major city or work within a reasonable distance). But you don’t need a fancy car! We don’t need the latest fashion line. We don’t need the latest cell phone. We don’t really need a cell phone at all!!! (That’s revolutionary I know)!!

What else do we need and not need? Do we need emotional support? Some people would say yes, some no. We need parents or someone to raise us. Do we need to be married? Or do we need sex? Well… no to both. Have you ever gone 1 day without being married or having sex? Now how about bumping that up to 2 days? Well you made it that far right? You think you could go maybe another? Then just take things day by day. Yea, sex is not a necessity; it’s nice but not a necessity. What about prayer now? Or God? Well, technically speaking, yes we need to rely on God’s power to stay alive. But He allows us to continue on being even if we neglect or deny Him.

So we’ve emptied our lives out a lot… Now that’s a pretty boring life. So what’s next then? It’s only after we have emptied ourselves of everything that we can really decide what to fill our lives back up with. So you’ve got your whole life to fill. What is the most important thing for you? Fill your life with what will be your true happiness and don’t let anything else get in your life that might distract you from that.

Disappointment…what we’re really looking for

I’m more and more convinced that everyone in this world is not looking for happiness. They’re not looking for perfection or peace, or a cure to it all. What people really crave is disappointment. This brings drama. They want a temporary relief to a problem, because this ensures preoccupation for the time being and allows for that relief to be there in the future.

In other words, fixing a problem would end the story. There would be nothing left to tell because there would be peace and happiness. There is a reason wars and bad stuff is the main topic of the news. It’s because that interests people the most. This is why movies are so popular. They all have problems that we can focus on and then watch the solution. Once one movie is over, they can go on to the next movie because there is a new problem and solution to entertain them.

You can tell a lot about a person by their interest in movies. Some will watch any movies no matter how bad just because there is a plot; others will get tired of the bad plots and refuse. This can reflect an attitude of maturity. It can tell you what they’re looking for in life: real happiness or just a quick fix.

To highlight this whole problem, I’ll bring the BCS and college football into the picture. It is pretty obvious to most people that college football needs a playoff. Alabama or Florida (whichever wins the SEC Title game) or possibly both have a legitimate claim to play for the National Championship (NC); Texas, OU, and Texas Tech all have a claim (though not so much Tech anymore); USC and Penn State both have only one loss like four of these other five yet are not even mentioned in the race because the human perception is that they wouldn’t be as good as one of these teams who they don’t even play or share common opponents with. And then there are Utah, Boise State, and Ball State who are all undefeated but in non-major conferences but still can claim they deserve a chance.

Well there are a few people that don’t think a playoff is an obvious necessity. These are the moneymakers; the ones who profit off of this madness. And you know what, it makes perfect sense for them to insist on keeping the BCS. They claim that the Bowl games are a fun part of the season and tradition and it makes the regular season matter more and fans are more interested. Well that is true. Fans love controversey. As much as they want their team to win, they become more interested as soon as their is a controversial tie that will be broken leaving one team on the unfair side. This all means more attention being paid to college football and ultimately more money.

Until people care more about truth of the matter than the story that plays out, people will always set themselves up for disappointment. Wake up and realize that it is better to have a cure than relief!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving. I have so many things to be thankful for. I should really start thinking about all these things more often.

What I think about life…

This world sucks. That’s why we don’t fall off.

Goin’ down to DC

This week the pre-novitiate class will go to Washington D.C. I am looking forward to it quite it bit. We will be helping to conduct sophomore retreats on Tuesday and Thursday for our Don Bosco Cristo Rey School there. We will get to see some of Washington including Nativity Parish there, our Salesian parish. Hopefully I will be able to find some Shiner Bock as well. And always exciting and somewhat a theme of our trips with Fr. Dominic, we will undoubtedly eat more pho and other Vietnamese food. I can’t wait….oh but I still have to pack…

Judge, change, or understand?

We are supposed to change the world as Christians, right? Well then quit trying. The more we try to change something, the less we really understand. Anytime you meet someone with an idea contrary to the Gospel, what is your reaction? The moment you decide what they’re all about, the moment you label them (sinner, communist, liberal, conservative, humanist, etc.), the moment you decide what you want them to believe, is the moment that you lose all hope of being a Christian to them. There is no understanding once your own mind has been made up. Once you’ve judged them, you only have your own thoughts about them and whether you approve or disapprove, this will be a wall to truly understanding that person.

Instead, just listen. Just try to understand. That will do a lot more for a relationship between the two of you. And Jesus was extremely relational. Once you begin to understand people, as well as yourself, you won’t have to work to try to change anything. Things will work out. Understanding is the first step to your own and others’ conversions. This is what it means to have compassion. And that is why Jesus was so successful with sinners and tax collectors.

What if I don’t want to repent?

Jesus came to bring us good news right? The gospel is supposed to be this nice uplifting message isn’t it? Then how come often times it’s not? They talk of the necessary repentance. Bringing up sins and bad stuff and feeling guilty for it is not that great a feeling.

The word repentance has turned 180 degrees since John the Baptist and Jesus used the term.  People were dwelling on their past and beating themselves up over things. Others just never forgot the wrong the had done. Jesus’ revolutionary message was to forget about your sins. Leave them in the past. Be who you are now and no one else. Repent would have been more synonymous with ‘let go’ or ‘forget’ or ‘wake up from’. There is no guilt there; rather its a letting go of guilt. This would be great news for anyone holding on to something bad they’d done. The assurance from God that they can let go of what they had done in the past.

We all should wake up from what we consider ourselves based on what we’ve done in the past. That doesn’t define you. You are not degraded to list of actions both good and bad that you have done. You are simply- YOU. Repent of your sins, let go of your past, forget your faults and live each day knowing that you are yourself and you are free from all anxiety.

The True Freedom of Choice

Choice and life have become two of the weightiest words in the American English language. They almost rank up there with a four-letter ‘f’ word I know as to how many connotations they have. So what would a freedom of choice entail? Well anyone from any other society before ours would definitely not suggest that ‘choice’ would refer to our ability to end a pregnancy. They might however, see freedom of choice to mean that an individual can choose who he or she associates with, which religion they practice, how to spend their money, which color to paint their house, and so on.

The problem with having the freedom to choose for an abortion is that it brings a whole other set of rules. Can I have the freedom to choose which houses I want to go in to and make any person I choose give me a foot massage? Can I have the freedom to choose which red traffic lights I want to stop at and which I don’t? Can I have the freedom to choose whether or not to cut a car’s brakes when the owner brings the car in for an oil change, without penalty of law? Can I have the freedom to choose to kill someone that I really don’t like? Or at least can I throw them off a bridge? Well… no. These things are illegal for a reason.

Now as to abortion: I am going to make an assumption here, that at the moment of conception, this is a living human being- still totally dependent on the mother’s organs- but a living human child nonetheless. I’m not even going to debate whether or not it is, I’ll just leave it at the ‘if it is’ phase. If that assumption were correct, I would think there is no argument then. It should be illegal to kill. That’s it. So then in the same way I can’t kill my uncle because he’s a knucklehead, I can’t even debate killing the unborn child for any reason up to certain death of the mother and child.

The powers that be often debate on issues of mental and physical health or stress being sufficient reasons for abortion. Well, every child born into this world gives mental and physical stress to its mother. So it really isn’t the stress or pain we are concerned about. It’s the desire of the mother- her inconvenience. Today we have this idea that it should be illegal for someone to impose an inconvenience upon us. It’s unjust! Well this happens all the time. It’s inconvenient for me to have to stop at the red light when I’m in a hurry. It’s even an inconvenience when I’m not in a hurry. It’s an inconvenience for me to wait in a long line on Election Day or in the supermarket. It’s an inconvenience for me to have to spend money to get my car fixed when I back up into the mailbox. Yet again, no laws have been enacted. So I close with this: If the fetus in the mother’s womb is in fact a human life, then we have no acceptable choice, only that of life or murder. Which should we choose?

One semester of Spanish love song