Look Out, Tim's a Professor

Starting in August, I will be teaching Old Testament Lit for Hutch Community College. (See, putting that master's degree to work). So as I think about how to approach this, I have decided that my first question to my class will be "When it comes to the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, are you a literalist or not?" The whole point of this question is to show the class that, while the Bible is the inerrant word of God, sometimes you can't really interpret it literally.

Here's the proof, if you read the two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, you will see that the order in which God created is not the same. In Gen 1 God created humans (male and female) at the same time. In Gen 2, God created the male first, then the animals, then the female. Now if you are a literalist, these two stories contradict and therefore making Genesis non believable.

If you interpret the creation stories in a more general sense you find that the chronology of creation is not as important as the as the fact that God created.

Next question I will ask, which creation story was written first, Gen 1 or 2? Here's the answer, more than likely Gen 2. I would invite you to take a minute and read Gen 2, you can see the beauty and the visualization, almost like a poem. You could interpret this to mean that it was a good period for the nation of Israel and they were in favor with God. Now, look at Gen 1 and more specifically, notice how often the chapter says "it was good" (it meaning the part of creation that took place), and also notice how structured the writing is, more like this story was meant to be memorized. Chances are when Gen 1 was written the nation of Israel was in a period of captivity and the only way to learn was by the recitation of God's word. (In all likely hood, any writings were destroyed by the captors). And like I mentioned before Gen 1 continually mentions that creation was good, this must have been one way of keep morale somewhat lifted during the particular period of captivity.

Interesting isn't it? Just so you all know, for the longest time I was a literalist when it came to the Bible. But once I learned that in some instances being literal is flawed, I had to unlearn a lot of flawed theology and relearn and rebuild my own theology to be more in sync with what I feel is right. Plus, I didn't want to be know as a radical right-winged fundamentalist.

Onward to Monett

Tonight was our last practice before the regional tournament in Monett, MO. We head out at 8:00am and we are hauling our herd plus three more players. I had to borrow the van from work so we could accomodate. Back to practice, we finished a little early and I told the girls that I had some window paint and that they could write their first names and jersey number on the window... but as these kids are, there is more than just their names....

Where the Hell is Monett?

So, my All Star team competed last weekend at the 12&U state fast pitch tournament in Rose Hill and talk about an emotional roller-coaster. We played Rose Hill on Friday night and got beat 23-13 which sucked because now we had to fight through the loser's bracket. Second game was agains Lyons on Saturday at 3:00pm and we pretty much kicked the crap out of them. The score was 25-5 and you know, I really felt sorry for the Lyons team since they had a total of 51 runs scored against them in two games and they were the first team out of the tournament... but I got over that. Our next game was scheduled for 8:00pm against Coffeyville, but as softball tournaments go, they were behind. We got on the field to play at 11:00pm and got done at 1:00am, and this was a really good game. We won 10-6 and none of these runs were gimmee's they were all earned. The bummer was we had to be back to the field by 12:00pm to play a 1:00pm game. Short story, we got beat 13-11 in what was said to be the game of the tournament. This gave us 4th place in the state tournament which isn't too bad but it did knock us out of going to the regional tournament... so I thought.

So yesterday I get a phone call saying that due to a Colorado team dropping out, we now were qualified to play in the regional tournament. So now I frantically trying to get my team ready to go and getting all of the forms filled out, i's dotted and t's crossed. Tonight we have a parent's meeting before practice in which we get to go over 24 pages of information and try to answer all questions. I never realized how much administrative work went into managing a girls' softball team... oh yeah, does anyone out there know where the hell Monett, Missouri is?

My Dumb Ass Self

What is it about me and a baseball/softball diamond?

Nearly 8 years ago, I broke my tibia and tore a ligament in my left knee playing softball. After many weeks of healing and P.T. (not to mention a butt load of money) I recovered and was banned from playing unless I could back off and not play full bore (yea right). So I haven't played since.

If you have read my previous posts, you know I coached my daughter's fast pitch team and now I am coaching the team that will represent Newton in the state tournament this weekend.

Now that the foundation has been laid down, here we go.

Last week at practice, I was hitting grounders to the infielders so they could practice fielding and throwing. No big deal, so after about 240 grounders we stopped that part of practice and went on. When I got up Sunday I noticed that my heel was hurting pretty bad, and I just figured I had over done it and it would work itself out by the end of the day. Well it didn't and in fact it got worse and the day went on. So I iced it and elevated it, took some Advil and went to bed. About 2:00am I was woken up out of a dead sleep by the most God awful pain in my foot. It was so bad that when I tried to get up... I couldn't. So I stayed awake the rest of the night... Fast forward to Monday (yesterday) at 1:30, I go to the Doctor and he says, after the exam, and I quote "I am not going to touch this, you need to see and orthopedic surgeon, I believe you have a partially detached calcaneal tendon"t o which my response was "oh #$@@%, here we go again. What's funny about this whole thing is that I was not playing ball but coaching, but it was on the same field and the previous injury, so maybe that field has it in for me?

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to Thursday when I go to the orthopedic surgeon. Hopefully he will say that the family doc just over reacted and it's just inflamed. But until then I'm back on crutches (glad we kept them from before) , and hobbling around.

Oh yeah, I'm still coaching the team... I've gone too far with this team just to turn it over to another coach. Come hell or high water, I will be in Rose Hill this weekend with my team, and we're still planning on laying waste to any and all the teams that we face. Here a PICTURE of the team