Nolan Ryan... what a guy

I remember loving baseball, and as i grow older i slowly regain every bit of it back again. i remember playing t-ball, and breaking my arm halfway through the season, wanting so badly to hit the ball with my cast. i remember my light-blue jersey with the mobile gas station logo on the front and the number 5 on the back. I liked that number because alan did, but in time i convinced myself that i did because of it's superior form. i remember coach pitch, and wearing the pathetic helmet to play the pitchers mound. If it was so dangerous why didn't the coaches wear one too?

I remember minor league and starting to actually pitch a baseball. It was then that alan and i began to throw the ball around in the front yard. I would pitch from the mound of the edge of our driveway to alan, who sat 15 paces away on whatever cooler we found in our garage. if we got really ambitious, he would pull out an old face guard and bright orange leg pads, sometimes even turning a life-jacket backwards to serve as a chest protector. it was in that front yard that i was taught to throw the ball fast and straight, and then to put my middle finger on the inside of the seems and snap my wrist as i delivered the ball. I kicked my leg out far and at the last moment i bent my knee up parallel to the ground, and then pushed it forward. I saw Cory Trent do that, and i thought he was really cool. Alan called the pitches and i delivered the cheese, (that's what Mr. Cline always called it).

I remember the majors, playing for Professional firefighters and paramedics, wearing a maroon jersey, still number 5 of course. i wore high black socks and pulled my pant legs up just below the knees. I remember my first base hit as a 9 year old, a fast grounder down the third base line. I rounded first and saw my coach Todd Kenney's clap his hands and say nicely done behind his dark beard, and remember wanting so badly to do that again. more than anything, i liked catching a throw in from the outfield and slapping my glove down for a tag. the next 3 years i pitched more, and remember hitting a left handed batter in the lower back and making him cry. maybe that is why i always had a slight fear of being hit by a pitch, simply because i knew how capable i was of accidentally doing it to someone else.

I moved up to junior league when i was 13 and played my last season of baseball. i always told myself that i didn't enjoy the game anymore, but the truth is that i didn't excel like i used to. i didn't like the fact that it didn't come so easy anymore. i loved the beauty of baseball and the moments that it's beauty brought out life's fullness, even if only for brief moments, but when those moments lacked in my game i lost my appreciation for them altogether. instead of seeing the need for growth, i saw the need to flee from the thing that pointed out my weakness.

i regret how selfish i am, but more than anything i regret how numb i've become toward the grace of christ. derek webb wrote, 'i am thankful that i'm incapable, of doing any good on my own.'

my sin ought to be all the more display of the beauty of christ's redemption, and all the motivation i need to boast in it (grace) above all else.

ben schans talked me and a few guys into hitting some balls after work, and after chasing down a couple fly balls, my old love was rekindled. there's something in running down a hard hit fly ball that will explain all of life's questions in the squeeze of a glove.

5-29-08

The only things keeping me awake are the freshly brewing pot of coffee and the thought that waking up this early might one day make me more like my father. I couldn't sleep last night, as anxiety and fear led me to conjure up irrational fears of dark shadows moving about the house. Ever since i was a kid my imagination has been my worst enemy when it came to falling asleep. I remember mapping out escape routes from my house, for when it was invaded. The men, dressed in masks, always came through windows. I'd usually have enough time to wake Alan. The men would never see us crouched under the bed or perched on the dresser in the corner of our bedroom. My next objective was the wooden Louisville slugger in the closet and a suicide run down the hallway, just waking my parents in time to escape through their bedroom window.

There is something about windows dangit, that provide the hope for escape yet the terror of prodding eyes, still haunting me in an open space in the dark, where my back is not protected. maybe its a fear of being outnumbered or suddenly trounced by a ninja breaking through the sliding glass door, or maybe its the fear of what i can't see, and the thought that it can see me.

Quite possibly the hardest thing to realize is that my childhood fears have never left me and haunt me every time i ponder my future that i don't know the outcome, and that the outcome already knows me. Maybe that should bring hope, but for now i lay awake at night.

*If life is a forest, our hope should be rain
but i think hope is lost in our fear of flames

Haven Gillespie for the soul

That Lucky Old Sun: as covered by Johnny Cash

"Up in the mornin', out on the job
Work like the devil for my pay.
But that lucky old sun has nothin' to do
But roll around heaven all day.

Had a fuss with my woman, an' I toil for my kids,
An' I sweat 'til I'm wrinkled and gray,
While that lucky old sun got nothin' to do
But roll around heaven all day.
Oh, Lord above, don't you hear me cryin'
Tears are rollin' down my eyes.
Send in a cloud with a silver linin',
Take me to paradise.
Show me that river, Take me across,
wash all my troubles away
Like that lucky old sun give me nothing to do
But roll around heaven all day."

The seed that fell upon rocks

Most theologians and commentators over the years, agree that the parable of the sower, told by Jesus, describes the different types of soil indigenous to the area surrounding the city of Jerusalem, however the rocky soil from that parable is actually no-where near Jerusalem, but is in fact in Boynton Beach, Florida, lining the backyard of a house on A1A, near Woolbright. And war is waged against it, as we good men of middle earth attempt to remove trees and shrubs from the soil surrounding the two-story house where enemy rocks have entrenched their legions.

So let this be a call, nay a humble plea, to all landscapers in the universe: that as each plant, tree, whatever it may be, is to be grafted into your natural playground, and the angry horned devils whisper into your ears the temptation to plant them without first removing all rocks from the surrounding earth; fight with every ounce of strength you can muster, or else the 20 year old sons of general contractors, forced to pull out massive Geiger trees, will hate you.

Crazy old Maurice

While driving to work this morning, i experienced the supernatural. As i turned right onto Hypoloxo toward I-95 I noticed an elderly man in a silver Taurus, with a handicapped sign hanging from his mirror quickly approaching in the far right lane. he fiercely merged into the middle lane and then back into the right immediately in front of me. As he sped by, i swear his eyes said, "i own this highway b*%#$."

I've never seen an old man swerve through so much interstate traffic at what must have been breakneck speeds, it was unbelievable. I kept a close distance for a few moments, but the last glimpse i got was of him using the H.O.V lane to pass a Chevy Silverado. I was speechless.