Clemson Gets It Right

Bob and Diane Saville are my neighbors at Lake Hartwell.   We see them frequently boating on the lake with their family enjoying water sports.   Their son David is one of the happiest people I know.  He is always the first to wave from the boat, the first one to greet me when I pull up beside them and the first one to tell me about what he is most excited about that day.  David has just graduated from Clemson University and held an important position on the Clemson Tigers football team.  This highlight video is all about David.  It is about 10 minutes long, but if you  have the time,  I will guarantee you this will be the most inspiring 10 minutes of your day.

Abby Normal

Please excuse the vague reference to this classic moment from Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein”.  Igor mistakenly picks out the wrong brain for Dr. Frankenstein’s life-generating experiment.  The brain was labeled ABNormal – pronounced Abby Normal by Igor.    I couldn’t help but remember that movie as I started to read this book from John Ortberg – Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them.   I have just started it, but his premise is that while people may seem normal on the outside, we are all ABNormal when you really get to know us.   We are all broken creatures in need of our Savior.  And our biggest need after knowing our Savior, is knowing each other.   Ortberg spends the first couple of chapters talking about community and how we can find it.  Let me hear from you if you  have read this one or if  you would like to read along with me.

 

The Vine II

I mentioned in an earlier post that my church, The Vine, would be opening a second location in Flowery Branch.  We had our “soft” opening last Sunday.  Our leadership; had hoped for around 50 people at our first service.  270 showed up.  And that was with no promotion outside of our church family.  I was excited to be a part of the first service there and can’t wait to see what God has in store for us.  If you are in the area come see us!

Cecil and Simba

I watched with disgust the story about the rich dentist luring Cecil out of his protected habitat so that he could kill, skin and behead the beloved lion.  I am not a hunter, but it’s not because I have any moral objection to killing animals.   But this one did kind of hit a nerve with me.   Is it because Disney did such an amazing  job of capturing our hearts as the young Simba grew into the proud warrior in The Lion King?  Perhaps.  

I found this post by Caryn Rivadeneira which did a good job exploring why the uproar over Cecil’s death was so loud.  If you don’t have time to read the whole article, I will sum it  up here.   There were two main reactions to the lion’s death in social media: 1) the dentist is a villain and 2) why is everyone so worked up about a lion dying when people are dying senselessly around the world every day?   The uproar is not over a dead lion.    The uproar is over the man that killed the lion and the method he used.  If the dentist had killed Cecil attempting to save the life of a small child, he would be a hero, not a villain, but Cecil would still be dead.  The dentist is a coward, and cowardice is a trait that people universally agree is deplorable.  So why do we choose to talk about a lion’s death instead of people’s death?  Why do we have to choose?   Why not use the momentum created by this story to try to learn more about ourselves and how we should treat others?