Pan-Am Open game

I didn't have a lot of exciting games in the Open, but my last round game was a very well-played match with myself as black and Sam Schnakel (an Illinois expert) as white. In spite of having only the increment for about the last 10-12 moves I created sufficient problems to pull out the win. It was a little hairy and the computer pointed out a couple of nuances we both missed, but it was also exciting and generally a quality game. Here it is for your enjoyment.

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My Christmas Giving Philosophy

I love to give.  I don't so much love to give for Christmas.  I think it has something to do with being a natural contrarian.  I like to keep the majority in check.  So, each year comes this annual festival of giving and it's the time of year when I feel least like presenting somebody close with something of worth.  Part of the appeal of a gift is in its surprise.  I love surprising people.

After some consideration I came up with the following procedure for Christmas giving:  Don't give much, but mean what you give.  That's part one.  I don't go out and buy expensive stuff at Christmas.  A) I don't have money (but that's somewhat a lie... I have make-believe loan money that will actually pay for things), but more importantly B) I don't feel it's warranted.  My natural counter-cultural-ness says that I should be giving a real gift this season--not just something expected by people close to me.  What I should really be giving is myself.


This involves a very simple philosophy for me:  Total the money I give in buying presents and give half of that amount away completely to organizations and people I do not know.  The funny thing is that I feel better about that gift than I do about the gifts I give to friends/family every time.  Never fails.

I don't give much.  I'm not ashamed about that.  Giving is a sea-change in how we live, not a once-a-year happening.  So, if you don't get me anything don't worry; I'd rather you give it away anyway.

Why I love Lucy

No, this isn't about an old television show.  I just saw Dawn Treader for the second time (not because it was that good... it was good... but mostly to get away from homework and hang with some other friends).  There are several reasons to love this movie.  For one, it is the best book of the series.  I'm sorry to the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe fanatics.  Yes, Lewis opened up Narnia in that book, but here he gives it form and function that is rivaled only in The Horse and His Boy.  The setting, the magic, the idea of Aslan's country and the scene on the precipice of it are just splendid.

But none of that is why I adored this movie.  In fact, I found this most attractive for something that the producers changed from the original stories.  I know the Lewis die-hards will hate this, but one of the reasons the Narnia series has never reached the level of appreciation in my life that Harry Potter and even the Chronicles of Prydain have is because the characters in Narnia are so one-dimensional.  I don't understand this from Lewis because he writes in On Stories and elsewhere that the imagination of children should not be limited by adult misconceptions, and here he is crafting the main character (outside of Aslan) in his series as a one-dimensional child.

I'm talking about Lucy Pevensie.  In the books I can sum her up with a sentence.  She is a pure child whose only challenge is fighting off the temptation to seek earthly beauty and grown-up-ness at the cost of a child-like attitude and faith.  It's a great example, but hardly one I can relate to.  And I think it is one hard to relate to for kids today who are actually at the point of social pressure (which is happening earlier and earlier).

But I said I liked what the movies did.

And I do!  It started small in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by giving her a dagger.  It didn't matter much to the plot, but it was a sign of things to come.  We didn't see much in Prince Caspian, so I have to admit I feared she would sink into oblivion.  And then came the Dawn Treader.  Here we have a Lucy with a sword, a Lucy with an attitude, a Lucy still tempted but growing, learning, becoming more than a childish girl.  It's not fair to apply Lewis' standards for girls to a different era, so I'm not going to blame him for his Lucy of literature.  Instead, I want to lift up the Lucy of this film.  She was brilliant.  Cute.  But a whole lot more than that.  As much as Eustace Scrubb was the character that will be remembered, Lucy is the character that gives meaning to the story that brings us oh so close to the boundaries of Aslan's country.

The BCS: Making the Candidacy Process Look Simple and Logical Since 1998

After this column, the registrar might have to go back and give me a big ‘F’ in Reading the Audiences. I am writing a sports-related column for seminarians who think that a touchdown has something to do with Jesus floating down from heaven and coming to a skidding stop in a Bethlehem manger. So, like any good pastor I’m going to use analogies that you can understand. The BCS (Bowl Championship Series) is the college football equivalent of the ELCA candidacy process, except your committee members are ESPN commentators, the bishops are computers, and you are a small college that cannot control its own destiny even if you follow all the rules and win all your games.

For those unfamiliar the BCS is the way that the powers that be determine who gets to play for the National Championship. It is two human polls and a compilation of six computer rankings designed by professional math geeks, football wonks, and some people who—not a little surprisingly—don’t know anything about either. In essence, the BCS is a model of human sinfulness. It takes the gospel of football and dilutes it with biased commentary, hour-long ESPN specials dedicated to computer formulas, and more non sequiturs per Craig James opinion piece than should be allowable under FCC regulations. What the BCS is really about is taking away the influence of actual football games and putting it in the hands of talk-show style personalities who debate which teams are deserving of their rankings week in and week out. In what other sport can you win every game in a season and never get to play for a championship? Maybe croquet, I don’t know.

Why then doesn’t college football institute a playoff system to include all the undefeated teams, as well as the best of the one and two-loss teams?

That would make a lot of sense in a gospel-driven football system, but Satan is poking his head out around the corner in the guise of television networks, corporate partners, and Ohio State University presidents. Losing the BCS might lose them money, but that is debatable. The real reason they won’t give up the BCS is because it gives them power. That is the root of human sinfulness—power over the lowly.

Since the beginning of time, sports have offered prime examples of the meek rising above adversity and defeating seemingly superior opponents. Even if you are a seminary nerd you have probably heard of the movie Hoosiers, the Springboks of South Africa winning the Rugby World Cup in the shadow of Apartheid, or the U.S. Miracle on Ice victory over the Soviets (God have mercy on your soul if you aren’t aware of the last). The history of sports is marked by David defeating Goliath. That is, up until the advent of the BCS.

No longer can we enjoy watching a game on a Saturday afternoon without being subjected to substance-less hype about who so-and-so projects to be the best teams in the country. If you turn off the volume you’ll still see the graphics, though admittedly you will not have to listen to commentators pretend to understand what all the math means. I’ve even heard that ESPN is marketing a new braille BCS ticker for the blind to keep up on the latest rankings—I made that part up but don’t put it past them. If there’s a market, count on the BCS to wring every last penny out of it with no respect either for the student or athlete part of student-athlete.

I can think of only two small bits of comfort for those of us unfortunate enough to even remotely care about college football. The first is that it makes the rest of our lives seem somewhat logical and functional. Seriously, next time you start to question the career path that God is leading you on, thank your lucky stars that it has nothing to do with the BCS. In fact, it removes that sin from your conscience completely by taking all your weekends for the rest of your life. That, my friends, is a blessing. And secondly—and most importantly—we here in Minnesota who call ourselves Gopher fans will never need to worry about the letters B-C-S. That’s not a projection—it’s a guarantee.

Things I do not understand...

Three things are too wonderful for me;
four I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a girl. (Proverbs 30:18-19)

Thanks to Dr. Schifferdecker for bringing up that beauty. I have a big Concord article posting tomorrow, but just wanted to share a brief word today since it's been a couple weeks. There it was.