What's 5-11, 212 lbs, fast, but oh so slow?

Clinton Portis

Cute, eh? Clinton Portis, Michael Vick, and pretty much everyone on TV is a bad role model. Let me give you a little back story on myself and where this is coming from.

I would like to think that when people consider my decision making process they can call it at least Biblically sound. I'm sure that people will call my decision making process lots of things, but biblically sound is really what I'm shooting for. Take for instance the fact that I work in a society that really loves hunting. For them hunting is equal parts sport and networking.

As most of you know, I am not a hunter. I like to think that I've become quite good at gathering. You know; gathering ground beef, gathering Hamburger Helper, gathering a 2 liter of Coconut soda. I am a gatherer. As is the case I have had to come to an opinion of hunting as I regularly faced it. It was either going to be Biblical or not.

Well, friends, I came to my opinion and I made my peace with hunting. You won't catch me blowing a hole in Bambi's gut, but I see the value for those around me. I reconciled it with the beginning of Genesis where we are told to rule over animals, I believe a level of responsibility came with that ruler ship as denoted by naming. Then meshing that with the later account of God saying we can eat just about anything and everything. . .till Leviticus. (Read Gen. chapters 1-9)

So I figure the point of hunting is to keep reign over animals. In so doing a necessary culling activity and protecting animals from over population. I know some of you are ready to flip out because it's our fault that they don't have homes. That's another fish for later frying. So hunting serves purposes and if done for it's biblical purposes is not sinful. Of course it can become a sinful activity if it becomes an idol or becomes an improper reign over God's creation.

So, you can see I wrestle with stuff. I check it and try to get it right. Which is why the most recent verbal diarrhea from Clinton Portis struck me so hard. He defended Dog Fighting. Dog fighting, to me, seems to fall in that area of poor treatment of God's creation. Is the meat being eaten? Is this really honoring to God? Do the full grown men watching hungry dogs snap at each other realize they are devaluing God's creation. I'm sure it's not hunting, and I'm sure it's not ok.

All of that to say this. Clinton Portis is a bad role model. Clinton Portis thinks my Atlanta Falcon's quarterback, Michael Vick is a good role model. That means Michael is a bad role model. And, it's time we stop letting TV time define role model worthiness. Full submission to Jesus Christ should be the merit of worth for all Christians. We fall so short when we place any level of worth on a person for any other reason.

So, in hindsight, Clinton said some really dumb stuff. That's to be expected from fallen man. His buddy backed up his dumb stuff. Which is to be expected from fallen man. Michael Vick is going to have a bad season, which is inevitably expected. Don't put your faith in a man, no matter what the hype, because he'll do something or say something dumb. Like saying, on national television, that there is nothing wrong with a little dog fighting.

Yeesh! This stuff never happens with the professional Boggle players.

Life without Falwell

I've had a day to sit on this Jerry Falwell dying thing. I'm calling it that because for so long he wasn't human to me, he was just that guy I poked fun at. I think most of us can say the same thing. He was a political bulls-eye or a sound bite, but he was never human. I think Rev. Falwell did his part to seem less than human by playing the games with modern media. He became a cause, the face of the moral majority, certainly not a human though.

I have to admit, I got caught up in the absurdity. I sent my pot shots at Rev. Falwell without really considering if he'd been misquoted or if his intentions were good. So, I've put on my rose colored glasses and I'm looking back at his life. I have been listening to the interviews on NPR and reading the blogs. Now I've got a little more sympathetic opinion of the late Reverend. I really think he had a deep passion for knowing Christ and making Him known. It's apparent that he felt a burden to help educate people in just about every walk of life. For all of his short comings, presupposed or not, I'm sad to see him go.

With all of my new found respect for Rev. Falwell and his adventures I still have some problems with a few of his theological stances. The soft filter that death allows us to view a life through can't change something that has an eternal weight. While his philanthropic and moral crusading will be viewed differently, I don't see how we can stop crying out against misuses of scripture and wrong teaching.

This is still the same person who loosely threw around the H word when he said, "We are not into particular love or limited atonement. As a matter of fact we consider it heresy." There by calling everyone who does believe in limited atonement a heretic(1 Tim 4:1-2), even if he didn't know he was doing it. He's also the man who stood behind Ergun Caner, President of Liberty University, when he said "Calvinists are worse than Muslims." I think we can all appreciate the implications of that statement, and I'm pretty sure that he knew what he was saying. I also think that they did a lot of dividing where dividing wasn't necessary.

Let's just call a duck a duck. The man did some good and we should applaud his life for that good. That doesn't mean we forget the bad. We don't learn anything if that happens. Let's study and discuss his theology, he does in fact have a University full of minds soaking it in. If it is wrong, let's humbly correct and reprove the offenders making sure to keep Matthew 22: 37-40 at the forefront of our reasons for doing so.

Jerry Falwell was a man. Plain and simple. He was a man on a big stage. He did some good and he made some mistakes. I hope to see him in heaven. I also hope we "reason together" about the many bold/brash statements that Rev. Falwell made, so that the body of Christ might be unified.

Please feel free to comment if you have a particular Rev. Falwell quote that infuriated you or enlightened you. Hopefully we can reason together and come to a better understanding of scripture through it.

When 2 + 2 = Chronic Gas.

Well, I promised a check-in for my ones of readers to let you know how my colon cleaning experiment went. A quick refresher on what the plan was. I proposed the drinking of several gallons of a juice known for it's stool loosening qualities. As I find the taste of prune juice quite revolting I opted for what I believe to be my favorite juice, Cranberry. With a quit trip to the store I was ready to embark on a whirlwind of scientific discovery.

Or was I?

I knew that I couldn't stomach a full jug of prune juice, but I remembered that I kind of dug the non-juiced variety. So I bought myself a hardy helping of "Dried Plums" (Figure 1-A). For those of you not, "In the know", Dried Plums are prunes that have some defect that keeps them from being sold under the name Prune. Such as, they taste horrible and secrete an oil that is inescapable no matter how much you brush. I seriously had no idea that they would be slick and sticky. I'll be ordering my next batch of dried plums. . .drier. So, with a cart full of sadism and a song in my heart I headed home.

The next day I decided to give everything a good shaking before I began the cleansing ritual. I proceeded to run two miles followed my chugging about half the Cranberry juice. To my surprise, the bitter sweet juice made an excellent post heart attack cocktail. Once I regained control of my left side I sat down to a cylinder full of Exhibit 1-A. I put away about 10 of the little fellas and washed it down with an ice cold glass of Cranberry juice. The groundwork was laid, now I just had to finish my "Dried" plums and Cranberry juice.

The waiting game began. Could I get the juice and and the prunes down before the initial wave crashed on my bowel's rocky shore? The answer was a, "yes", to the juice. I so enjoyed it I've gone on to purchase other blends of their delicious juices. The "Dried" plums were a different story. I still have about six left to eat. But, I still ate roughly 2 cups of "Dried" plums. Maybe this taints the science, maybe you should stop judging me.

With all that raw plumbing power inside me I expected bad things to happen quick. I waited the rest of the day and never saw a drop. On into the next day and I still hadn't, "given up the goods". Needless to say, I was worried. What if I had clogged up my pipes and all that juice was stuck sloshing around inside me? Though, on the third day, there was a miracle.

I began to plague those around me with the most awful gas. Thankfully, during the day it was quiet and somewhat sparse. But, whoa to me for angering the mighty colon. That night it blasted it's righteous vengeance down on me non-stop for what seemed like an eternity. I couldn't sleep or get comfortable because of the constant gas moving in my gut and out my butt.

I do want to say though, that at this point I got my first specimen and I really feel let down. It was just poo, not the horror that came out of those other people. Either way, I was up all night paying for my crimes. It was like the gas was angry. I kid you not, there were moments that I didn't think it would stop. I was afraid I had broken some valve and would forever be plagued with loud, hot, and awful gas.

All in all, this was a failure. I could have gotten closer to the desired effects with a plate of Hot Wings. Aside from the gas, this was pretty much a bust. Although, don't just take my word for it. Try it for yourself. You'll be out six bucks, but to know the thunder that I knew that night will make it all worth it.

(1-A) (1-B)

P.S. I know I wrote about poo and gas in my first blogs. Don't give up! I promise I have deep thoughts as well. If you like the poo and gas talk, don't worry. I'll assuredly find my way back to it.

Absolute Horror:

Click Me To Start Learning About Colon Health And To Start Wishing You Were Blind! ! !

That is a link to a testimonial page for a colon cleansing product. It was an advertising link in in my Gmail. There are two things that I want to address about this and then I want to talk about something personal. Firstly, the sheer joy in their writing makes me laugh between gagging and wretching.

I never knew that anyone could get that excited about some black death erupting from their unmentionables like a poo flavored Aliens style "Chest Burster". Which brings me to my next point. Why the pictures? Couldn't the proud mommas and papas have just described their fecal fantasies? Do I need to see that?

My answer: a systematic and informed, YES! It's as if someone had been feeding them sewage to start with. I had to see if there were more sites touting Doodoo Kongs out there. There are, and I'm going to make you find them. I shouldn't be the only one who suffers because Google will sell ads to anyone and everyone.

A quick sidenote: Are the ads in Gmail qued by something in my mail? Did Google think that one of my youth ministry emails made me a solid client for a poo-ectomy? Perhaps it was 40 files I mailed myself from my old computer? Perhaps they were clogging up the "colon" of my server and Google was just sending me a freindly notice. Either way, I don't have emails dealing with poo or pooing in my inbox. That's what this part was all about.

Onto my second thought. This got me pondering my own plague filled lower GI. Which, by the way, stands for Governement Issued and Gastro Intestine, which makes sense. Seeing as mine is in a constant state of war. That's just like the Freaking man. Trying to hold my pooper down.

I digress.

My point is, I think I'm going to attempt some sort of non-commital form of a colon cleanse. My first thought was to drink 3 or 4 gallons of cranberry and prune juice. So I'm probably going to start that up this week. Fun fact, they say that this is a solid weight loss plan. Admittedly, the point is to lose solids, but I think that it's a bit ridiculous touting this as a weight loss method. Oh well, one man's exercise is another man's Ebola.

I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that this is for science and not vanity. I'll try to give a heads up on the progress as "Nature's Hate" rips through my sensitive parts. If I don't make it through this, my friends can have all my crap.