Tuesday, April 4, 2017

April 4 – “Baseball in the Twilight Zone”

I got a pretty strong start on Palm Sunday preparations yesterday.  Well, on the sermon prep part, anyway.  I still have to collect some palm branches from the trees around here and turn them into fronds and palm crosses.  I usually make about a hundred of each, so a bit of work remains out there for me. 

On my break from computer study, I joined Chris on the house painting front.  Gotta love it when you find something you can do together, right?  She was hard at work on the white trim and eaves.  I took on the actual bulk of the house, the gray that looks like blue color.  I finished one side of the house and most of the porch.  That still leaves me to finish up the porch, continue on around the windows in front, and do the complete east side of the house.  This morning while I do some more computer work, Chris is going after the eaves on the west side while there is shade over there.  Then she plans to work her way around the front, doing eaves and trim as she goes.  We’ll probably end up needing another gallon of the white paint she is using.  Still not sure about the gray/blue, though.  It has a primer built in, so it covers better than the white does.  We’ll see when I get further into my chore.

Last night we went into Texas to watch Josiah play a baseball game.  Let me say up front, he did a great job.  Got a hit that knocked in a run.  Made a great tag out at second base … while he was the first baseman.  Almost took a throw for a putout at first, too.  Very close play.  There were a lot of issues about the game, though.  The rules for the league (tee ball/coach pitch combined) state that each batter gets three pitches from his coach.  If he doesn’t hit one of those, then he gets two off of the tee.  After that he is out.  The opposing team totally ignored that rule.  Each of their kids batted until they hit something, then were allowed to stay on base even if they had been put out.  And they kept batting until they scored the maximum five runs.  It felt like we had stumbled into a Twilight Zone of YMCA baseball where the rules were ignored but at least nobody’s feelings were to be hurt.  That’s OK, mind you, but not when the express purpose of the league is to teach the kids what it is like to strike out and make successful putouts in the field … in essence, what baseball is actually like.  OK.  That’s the end of my rant for the day.  Way to go, Josiah.  You did great last night.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”


Father, thank you for those youngsters.  Help them to learn the baseball lessons.  In baseball, like life, there are some strike outs and near misses, but they only serve to make the hits you provide that much sweeter.  Amen.  

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