The spirit - make that Spirit - of change

You don't know how often I find myself laughing at the tone of my own politically-infused blogs.
When I was young, I was practically a socialist: a long-haired, anti-establishment, and intellectually arrogant (embarrassingly so because I wasn't that smart).
I believed in things like the Zero Growth movement, which said we should stop the creation of new things until we make full use of the stuff we already have. My prime example was railroad tracks: I knew how many miles of tracks there were in this country that were rusting, and would argue against building bigger and faster highways and expanding airports when we could modernize existing railroads and introduce high-speed rails.
I believed in ideas that compensation for top executives should be tied to a scale based on the lowest-paid employee. That scale, I remember distinctly, was that the top executive should not be allowed to make more than 20 times that of the lowest paid employee, believing that a rise at the top should also elevate those at the bottom.
I was something of a libertarian, too. I believed our freedom meant I shouldn't have to stand for the Star Spangled Banner or the Pledge of Allegiance, that refusing to show that respect honored the Independence our country was founded on and lived up to the idea that "all men are created equal."
I was a Jimmy Carter fan long after even most Jimmy Carter fans had fled. I was a Southern Democrat, a "Dixiecrat'' or "Yellow-Dog Democrat" or whatever you wanted to call it.
So even now, to admit I've been voting Republican is kind of like, as a journalist, having to admit I've become a public relations flak. I'm still a little self-conscious about it, particularly around some of my oldest friends.
At the same time, I'm self-conscious and a little embarrassed at some of the things I used to believe.
Here's the thing, though: even though I've changed, there are still traces of the old me present in the new me. I still believe that the things I buy should be used up before I discard them, which is why I drive used cars until they practically fall apart, and I walk at night with an old 'disc-man' rather than an iPod (or whatever is the thing now) .... and of course, some people would say it's just an excuse for being cheap, but I'd like to think part of it is my old "Zero Growth'' ideas that are still with me.
Yet I have changed. We all do. Because we're all different, we all change in different directions and in different ways at different times.
I thought of this as I read the Apostle Paul, who lived in a time of great change.
Paul, as you can tell if you've read his letters, lived in a fledgling, emerging Christian culture where people worshipped God in different ways. Some worshipped on Sunday because that was the day of resurrection; some people still worshipped on Saturday because of Old Testament tradition of "remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy."
And some "rested" on the seventh day, as God did, and worshiped on Sunday, the day of resurrection - for which I'm thankful, because it led to the compromise that gave us the idea of the weekend to bridge one week to another. (although there is very little 'resting' on Saturday and not nearly as much 'worshipping' on Sunday as there used to be).
Some Christians in those days were basically vegetarians, because the only meat they could get were left over after being sacrificed to idols and then sold (because, well, those 'gods' didn't consume them) and they didn't think it right to eat meat offered to gods. Some Christians didn't give a rip about false gods, they just wanted to eat meat and believed offering meat to gods was like offering meat to a tree or a stone - it wasn't going to be consumed, so why shouldn't they consume it? (Plus, it was cheap).
These kind of differences are throughout Paul's letters, and you can't help but get the feeling Paul rolls his eyes at so many of them, saying "Stuff like this - do it however you feel best, I don't care. Just do it for the Lord."
And he said, "Quit arguing over who is doing it the right way. Do whatever you do to honor God, not to look like you're 'holier' than the next guy and that you have some special insight into how God wants to be worshipped."
Just as Jesus is able to save people different from me, Jesus is able - over time - to change me into a different person. I know, because He has, and I'm sure (I pray) He's not finished.
But this isn't just about changing. Paul taught us that the power of the Gospel is in that while it changes us, it also causes us to care about people who are different than ourselves.  It happens at different times and in different measures for different people, but I know it happens.
And we have to allow people to change - even if we may not like or agree with how they've changed.
My wife and my daughter are very aware of other people, very sensitive to them and their insecurities, their embarrassments, their feelings. I have had to learn that, and it hasn't been easy. As people who knew me in my youth probably remember, I could be cruel - funny, but in retrospect, cruel. And I regret that.
But I'm changing.
Thank God.
Not me.

Obama and Lincoln: if one president is going to quote another, at least get it right

Context.

We all know how important context is when trying to understand history. Or The Bible. Or the Constitution. Or NCAA rules. Or the instructions your father gave you of what he expected you to do in exchange for certain privileges.

We all know of cases where people pull a verse of the Bible out because it sounds like it supports their particular point of view, but when you read the chapter or book the verse was pulled from, you realize it didn't mean what they said it means after all.

Monday in President Obama's State of the Union, he quoted President Lincoln as a way to throw a bone to the Republican Party (which, oddly enough, has done more for minorities - see Emancipation Proclamation and Civil Rights) and yet continue to make his point for big brother-style government.

Obama quoted Lincoln this way: "I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

Except the closest I can find (and other historians who have researched the quote seem to agree) is a quote from Lincoln that actually says: "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities."

That, to me, is just different enough from the point President Obama was trying to make so as to change the context of the quote. Given what the government, over time, has convinced the American public are "entitlements," Obama seems to argue that Lincoln agreed Government should only do for citizens what they cannot do better by themselves.
I read Lincoln's actual quote as saying Government should do what people need to have done but "cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves ..." "
Now, maybe I'm just being picky, but I see a difference there.
Particularly when you go on to read the rest of Lincoln's speech, entitled "The Nature and Object of Government, with Special Reference to Slavery.”

And in it, Lincoln also said:
"Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort. We know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers among us. How little they know whereof they speak!

There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement—improvement in condition—is the order of things in a society of equals. As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race."

Unfortunately, government - and this began way before President Obama - has created a class that has to decide whether it's better to 'labor' or just continue to live off the rest of us.
One of the things we hear regarding illegal immigrants is that "those people" do the jobs Americans refuse to do, and without them who would do those hardest or dirtiest or lowest paying of jobs?
That's ridiculous.
The free market dictates that if those jobs need to be done, employers will pay whatever it takes to hire people to do them. So by not having illegals to bully into working for next to nothing, it might actually help the economy by raising wages!
That is, unless what is offered in wage is still less than what the government pays people not to work, to forget that "labor is the common burden of our race" but that some continue to try to "shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others."

President Obama is hardly the first president or politician or congressman or preacher or teacher or parent or neighbor to take something out of context in hopes of making a point.

Certainly he won't be the last.
That's why it's important for you and me and the rest of us to educate ourselves, to make our own decisions, to debate in the public square as to the way we believe is best for all of us to live together in peace.

And remember that a little context can make a big difference.

Instant reaction on the Eye of the Newt

It is no mystery as to why Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary.
For all of his flaws (and there are many), there are two traits Americans have historically loved: underdogs and fighters.
There is no question Gingrich is a fighter. He is unapologetically grandiose, a man of incredible confidence and of grand ideas. I've read most of his books, and loved them all for their passion, their sense of history, and their sense of righteousness.
In his debates and speeches he has gained a following by taking it to the media, to the Democratic party, to the President of the United States, to anyone who challenges him. He is brilliant in his ability to think on his feet, his grasp of issues, and even when faced with a hostile audience (the black church in South Carolina), Gringrich stands behind what he believes and doesn't back down.
Amazingly, Gingrich has become the underdog in this political season. The more people dig up the many (and at times egregious) errors of his past and try to throw them in his face, the more support he gets from the American public who, down deep, loves to see public figures fall but also believe enough is enough, and grow angry when they think a man is getting kicked repeatedly for past mistakes.
The irony, for the Democrats at least, is that they are the ones who in the 1990s preached that President Clinton's sexual immorality was not relevant. And of course even some of our most beloved presidents from both parties are now known to have not been able to keep their marriage vows.
Funny that it matters now - and good that it does. The Republican party has prided itself as taking up the mantel of 'family values' and holding themselves to traditional standards while the Democrats have prided themselves on embracing non-traditional values. It is important that those values are kept in front of us as the standard we aspire to.
Rick Santorum, to me, is more faithful to those traditional conservative values than Gingrich and more consistent. As I told my son in a recent discussion, Gingrich portrays all the right values, Santorum lives them.
And Santorum has been a fighter, too. In the early debates, in particular, I was frustrated that he was always on the edge of the stage (a sign that he wasn't being taken seriously) and got so little air time. Santorum expressed that frustration frequently, too.
The problem is that when Santorum fights back, he sounds like he's whining. He can't help it. It's his facial expression, his tone of voice.
When Gingrich fights back, he sounds like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or a John Wayne-character who is willing to walk out on the street alone to stand up to the bad guys. And he resonates. And so I am grudgingly willing to accept Gingrich's personal infidelity, because I am calloused when it comes to the personal lives of people in power and repeatedly fall for the power of his vision.
My concern over Gingrich comes down too two issues.
One may sound strange, but I'm afraid he might be so good in a debate against President Obama that he actually turns the President into a sympathetic character. He can come across as an intellectual bully, and believe it or not I fear that could work against him.
The other is that those two characteristics that make Gingrich so admirable are also what I fear in him as a president. His record as Speaker - while he accomplished so much that is admirable and lead to some of the great gains of the Clinton presidency - is that he didn't play well with others. He is so confident in his own intellect that those around him have, in the past, complained that he won't listen to his advisers.
The fighter that I admire in Gingrich is not so admirable when he's fighting with his own advisers and staff. It's destructive. A President needs to have people around him who have different ideas, and the President needs to be able to listen, to consider, and sometimes even be willing to concede.
Which is why I continue to support Santorum.
But, to quote a certain bright young man who spoke to the Washington Post here, "That’s amazing we (Santorum) pulled (Iowa) out,’’ said Roecker Melick, 19, of Birmingham, Ala. If his first choice doesn’t prevail, though, Melick said, his Plan B is Gingrich. “He has a questionable personal life,’’ he allowed, in answer to a friend who was arguing that that was disqualifying. “But who knows more about Washington?”
Indeed, given the alternatives, I'll take my chances on an independent fighter who has ideas as grand as the country he loves ...
Almost as much as he loves himself.

The unintended legacy of great wealth

One of the luxuries of living the way I do right now is that I get to read a lot. At any given time, I'm reading several different books: currently by my bed, there is a Daniel Silva novel, a collection of Fred Craddock sermons in book form, David Mamet's "The Secret Knowledge,'' and I'm reading through the book of Jeremiah.
I think the reason I tend to read multiple books at the same time is to make each of them last longer. I love starting a new book; love being drawn into a good book; and begin to dread it when I cross that mid-point where I am closer to the end of the book than the beginning.
What is really cool, though, is when things I'm reading seem to tie together.
I had one of those experiences the other day.
I was reading in Jeremiah, where the prophet is railing against the sins of his countrymen (which is pretty much all of Jeremiah's writings, come to think of it). But this one verse struck me: Jeremiah 5:27-28 says, "... they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor. ..."
What struck me was that line, "they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it." It would appear that the rich and powerful mentioned did indeed go about pleading the case of the fatherless, which would be a good thing. But they apparently did not do so to "win" their case.
So why did they do it? Why make a great show of standing up for someone when you're really not intent upon "winning?"
That's when I came across a quote by a writer with whom I am not familiar, Eric Hoffer, who wrote: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."
There are a lot of ways to go with that, but reading the two passages in the same day created a connection for me.
Maybe this is a stretch (but it is my blog), but I started wondering who those people are whose own business might be so meaningless that they start trying to mind the affairs of others.
Who in our world often seems to want to tell the rest of us how to live? How about the so-called "elite" - the children and grandchildren of the ultra wealthy (the Kennedys come to mind; the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts as in the form of CNN's Anderson Cooper).
It's almost as if, since their future security had already been established by the hard work of their fathers or grandfathers or great-grandfathers, what was there for them to do but look around them and decide they know how the rest of us ought to live?
There is nothing these people can do that lives up to match the enormous accomplishments of their heritage, yet they have unlimited opportunities. And as Hoffer also wrote, "Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a lack of opportunities,'' and very often those people born to great privilege decide they make their mark by "helping mankind," - a good idea, except that they seem to always end upworking against the very beliefs or traits that drove their ancestors to levels of success that allowed their progeny the opportunity to be bored.
So you get the descendants of great capitalists attacking capitalism; you get children of great wealth-makers attacking people who are trying to create their own great wealth.
The history of revolutions is not of poor people rising up to throw off their supposed shackles; poor people are too busy trying to make something of their lives to start a revolution. No, it is almost always the ideas of the children of privilege who decide it is their calling to stir up the masses to revolution.
Karl Marx was born to a wealthy family (his mother's side of the family eventually founded Phillips Electronics), and lived basically as a leech off of Engels. Mao's father started out as a poor peasant who worked his way up to becoming a prosperous farmer. Castro was the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, and while there was stigma attached to that, Castro's father did pull strings to get young Fidel a quality education.
Anyway, I'm not writing a book on this. Those are just off the top of my head. I'm kind of just thinking out loud.
After the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania, the Andrew Carnegie crowd decided it was the responsibility of the wealthy to look after the less-fortunate (perhaps penance for their role - real or imagined - in the cause of that disastrous flood). But of course, "looking after'' too often meant "looking down on," even if they'd never admit it.
So the question becomes, do these people really take up their causes to win, or just to satisfy their own need to feel they matter?
Now, the problem with all this is that all of us are called to get involved - feeding the hungry, providing shelter to the homeless, visiting prisoners, treating the aliens among us with respect.
So where's does the line get crossed between caring and, as Jeremiah accuses the wealthy, "not pleading the case of the fatherless to win it?"
Maybe when we're actively engaged in creating our own lives while working to help those around us in their lives along the way. That should, theoretically, keep us from feeling superior; after all, we recognize we're all in need together, and in approving the condition of the 'fatherless,' we make our own lives better as well.

The clan of the elevator

One of the hazards of being me is that sometimes even the most ordinary and mundane activities strike me as significant - although I am rarely able to communicate exactly what that significance is.
Take, for example, riding elevators.
Not long ago I go on an elevator in a rather fancy hotel with another guy who, like me, was going to his room. I punched the button for my floor, and then he inserted his room key into the special slot that gave him access to one of the top floors, "secure" floors that implied some kind of status for being able to stay there.
In fact, I said as much.
"Wow, big timer, huh?" I said, trying to sound pleasant and funny; after all, this guy actually looked like he could have been someone important and I didn't want to blow the chance at what could be a meaningful conversation, the way I did when I found myself riding an elevator with Jesse Jackson in 1989.
He laughed, and said, "All it means is that I have stayed in this hotel too many times and they reward me with some kind of upgrade."
Nice guy.
But it got me thinking about the mini-universe of elevators. Or if not "universe,'' then mini-culture.
By that I mean I have started watching the way people interact - or don't interact - when on an elevator. It's interesting, because rarely are so many human beings confined in such a small space for a singular purpose (either going up or going down).
There is a certain immediate sizing up of people on an elevator, just as I did. We look for signs - the room key that allows access to a floor denied the rest of us, for example. But maybe it's the way people are dressed, the way they carry themselves. There are people who immediately move to the back but stay in the middle, as opposed to the people who move to the back and one of the corners or the people who move to the side but stay near the front or the people who stay near the front, blocking others from either getting on or off the elevator without somehow getting around this person.
There are the people who stand still and keep their eyes above the elevator door. These are the people who focus on the changing floor numbers. It can't be because they're afraid of missing their floor; the elevator will stop if they've pushed the proper button. But it's a way of having something to do, of finding something to stay occupied.
Then there are the people who look at the floor, or check their phones, or nervously glance around at every one else on the elevator before settling on "their" spot.
There are people who close their eyes. I have no idea why.
Sometimes people get on an elevator and feel the need to establish themselves immediately. They move away from the other people if they can. They check their watch to indicate they are on a schedule. They grimace, as if thinking something really important.
Then there might be that overly friendly person who decides to talk - not to anyone specifically, but to everyone in general.
And who hasn't gotten on an elevator and found themselves in a group where everyone knew each other, but not you? I was on an elevator in New Orleans and everyone that got on was laughing and talking about meeting in some room and ordering food or bringing drinks. It sounded fun, and I'd like to have been included, but of course I wasn't. I was an outsider - the proverbial 'alone in a crowded room.'
I remember a story that has been told about many people who fit the description, but I first heard it about Wilt Chamberlain, one of the most dominant athletes of all-time. He was over 7-foot tall, massive, a world class basketball player who also was a collegiate track athlete and later a world-class beach volleyballer; he remains the only man in professional basketball history to score 100 points in a game.
The story goes that two well-to-do women in New York City, in their furs and diamonds, stepped on an elevator with Wilt, who was holding his rather large dog on a leash. They didn't know who he was, and so they stepped aside and away from him. After the elevator door closed and they started moving, Wilt barked out "Sit!" and the women immediately sat on the floor of the elevator.
They heard Wilt start chuckling in that deep, bass laugh he had. "Ladies,'' he said, "I was talking to my dog."
The more I watch, the more I realize how people get on elevators and arrange themselves not only on conscious but also unconscious patterns of deference. There are unconscious arrangements based on gender, size, age, apparent status based on dress or attitude, desirability, sometimes even race or perceived threat.
And with every new person that gets on the elevator, who joins into the mix, the previously established order of the elevator changes. As people get on and off, it changes the atmosphere, the order, the balance of the elevator.
This is how we are as human beings in our larger cultural interaction, isn't it? We make snap judgments on how best to get along for however long we're together.
Most of us live off these judgments. We express our preferences instantly, without first engaging in discussion or research or any of the accepted means. It's just done.
Culture evolves that way. The predictability of culture comes only after we've already established the unconscious order, and that order is then - unless changed by discourse or research - passed on until it becomes an accepted part of the cultural order.
We can say we're all the same and believe we're all the same, but the truth is, we're all aware - sometimes painfully so - of inherent differences between us. And no amount of re-education or philosophy or religious belief ever changes that, no matter how much we insist otherwise.
They key is learning how to adapt as we ride along, to fit together in a cohesive community that learns how best to get along.

Or maybe it's just riding on an elevator and thinking too much.
Oh - and here's one more for you. When the elevator doors close, and I'm all alone (or almost alone), I've been known to do what my family calls "the elevator dance." You'll never see it; but if you're in a certain elevator in St. Louis, ask my buddy Grant McGowan. He's done it a time or two, too.

Maybe we could learn a few lessons from Great Britain after all

I remember as a child having this idea that Americans didn't bow to anyone. We believe in the equality of all men ("We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal ..."), which means no respecter of class: king or pauper all stand on even ground in America.
As a child, I remember thinking if I ever met a Queen or King, I would not bow. Americans don't do that.
Even now, working for a company that is very British, I haven't been able to help myself. There have been a couple of conversations with British counterparts where I couldn't help but mention 1776 (good naturedly, I hope; and I hope it was taken that way - although in one case I don't think the lady I was talking to realized the significance of 1776. I guess if I was British, it wouldn't mean anything to me, either).

That being said, three very interesting stories out of Great Britain recently:

1) Approaching the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, Education Secretary Michael Gove of England wants to give a King James Bible to every student in England, saying "It's a thing of beauty, and it's also an incredibly important historical artifact. It has helped shape and define the English language and is one of the keystones of our shared culture. And it is a work that has had international significance." Opponents want to give out copies of Darwin's Origin of Species instead. Interesting that both are books of faith, although the evolutionists try to claim Darwin is science.
Can you imagine the Secretary of Education in the United States deciding to send copies of the Bible to all public school children?

2) The government of Scotland seems determined to keeping marriage defined as between a man and woman on the basis that thousands of years of history have proven its healthiest for society. See one version of the story here.

3) The Queen of England in her Christmas address to the nation said, "Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: 'Fear not', they urged, 'we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
'For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.' ... God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.
Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love."
(Source: an atheist site that protested the Queen's message)

Even with all the bad we hear and read, there is always a remnant and cause for hope.

Bourbon Street and thoughts on the nature of temptation

I may have been to New Orleans a time or two in my life without ever walking down Bourbon Street, but I can't remember it if I have. Bourbon Street is New Orleans in so many ways, arguably one of the most famous streets in the country, if not the world.
Over the years, Bourbon Street has changed, but in subtle ways. It still holds out the lure (for lack of a better word) of what I guess can be called the dark side of humanity. But as Bourbon Street has grown older, it is not as seedy as it once was, even though it is still pretty seedy. The old-timers can tell you about how it used to be the center for brothels and gambling and so many of those things we used to call 'vices' but now are politely called 'matters of personal choice.'
(Sidebar: I remember when I was very little, I was riding in the car with my family in Pensacola, Fla. There was a building that was notorious for having been the 'red light' building, or a brothel. I didn't know what that meant so of course I asked my mother. She described it as a place where you could find women who you could pay to pretend to be your wife. In my very young mind, I thought that was nice: a place where sailors who were far from home could find women who would cook and clean for them and let them watch TV in their living rooms while the men were far from home.)
Anyway, as I walked down Bourbon the other night, I started thinking about the nature of temptation. That's what Bourbon Street is really all about, of course: temptation. Those of us who have frequented New Orleans - and, therefore, Bourbon Street and the French Quarter - have seen how people seem to get to Bourbon Street and forget who they are. Being there becomes an excuse to be someone they only dream about being when they are at home.
As I walked by bars filled with smoke, I thought about how I've never really been tempted to smoke. Perhaps it was from watching relatives of mine who died from emphysema, but who couldn't give up smoking even while near death. Or perhaps it was just the foul smell of cigarette smoke. Plus, I tried it  once and almost choked to death. It was one of those things that struck me as, "If I have to learn to enjoy it, why not just spend that time doing something I already enjoy?" Amazing how much of my life has been guided by that principle.
I walked by bars filled with people drinking alcohol, and realize I've never really been tempted to drink. Oh, I've tried that, too. But again, I never found an alcoholic drink that I liked the taste of and - well, see the principle above. Plus, I witnessed people doing too many truly stupid things, being truly offensive in their actions as well as their words, after drinking even just a few glasses of alcohol. If alcohol made them be that way, then I wanted no part of it because I have always been afraid of not being in control of myself, of what my  unregulated self might be like if I lost the ability to keep that person within me reined in. It was easy enough when I discovered I had an allergic reaction to alcohol - almost anything with an alcohol base can give me a rash - to simply (and somewhat honestly) say  "I'm allergic." I found over the years that was much easier than trying to explain to people that I never learned to like the taste of alcohol because too many people insist they can find me that 'drink' that I'll like.
I walked by the ladies who stood in the doorways of their particular establishment wearing only their underwear (and not much of that), who beckoned me in to see 'more' (if you know what I mean and I think you do). Now, I can't say that isn't a temptation, but it's not as much of one as it used to be. I have realized it's kind of like going into a restaurant, ordering and paying for a really fine meal, having it placed on the table in front of me, and then just sitting there and studying it for a half hour before getting up and leaving without having done anything with it.
Now, that's not to say I'm superior to those who give in to those temptations. I'm not. And I'm not even saying there is anything necessarily wrong with, at least, drinking alcohol (in moderation). Jesus, as a current country song reminds us, drank wine (so I think He'd be a friend of mine - to finish the lyric).
We all have our temptations, and I have mine.
But what I started thinking about was how we tend to see temptation as the urge to indulge in what most of us consider vices. Forget the ones above: how about getting dessert when I know I shouldn't or that leftover dinner roll as a snack when I'm trying to lose weight; or extending the speed of my car to five, then seven, then maybe 10 miles above the legal limit because, well, everyone knows that's OK; or spending money on truly frivolous and totally unnecessary on myself (rather than paying off a debt or feeding the family or helping someone in need) because I want it and, after all, it's my money that I've earned and don't I 'deserve' something nice for all my hard work?
You get the picture. Those are just some of my temptations; you, I'm sure, can think of your own.
But those are the easy temptations - easy in the sense that we often know what we should do, because we know what we believe to be the difference in right and wrong.
The really difficult temptations are the ones when we're not sure; when it doesn't seem to be quite so clearly a choice.
For example, Adam and Eve (of the Bible and the Garden of Eden) were not tempted with "Wouldn't you like to be like the devil?" or "Don't you want to disobey God?" No, the temptation was offered as, "Wouldn't you like to be like God?" What's wrong with wanting to be like God? Doesn't the Bible itself - the apostle Paul in particular - encourage us to be like God?
The other perhaps most famous temptation occurred with Jesus in the wilderness. A figure approached Jesus, and Jesus couldn't be sure at first glance if it was an angel sent to help him or Satan sent to recruit him. At least, I don't think Jesus (who was, after all, fully man) knew at first who the tempter was. Otherwise, it wasn't much of a temptation, was it? So this person comes along and offers Jesus relief - you're hungry? Turn stones to bread. After all, isn't it safer to test out your miracle-power out here to see how it works before you do it in public? The tempter offers Jesus a chance to have what the Jews believed the Messiah would achieve - commander of the forces of heaven, ruler of the world. If Jesus had not read the Scripture carefully, He might have believed, like the Teachers of the Laws and Rabbinic Scholars of the day, that the Messiah would be an earthly king like David. And here was his chance to have all that!
The toughest temptations are the ones where we can't be sure what is the right thing to do, because the end result seems to be admirable: be like God, bring justice to the world.
The question is not so much, 'What's right or wrong?,' but 'what kind of person am I going to be?'
Adam and Eve, here is a shortcut to being like God; Jesus, here is a shortcut to being Messiah over all the earth.
Of course, Adam and Eve took the shortcut, and all of creation fell.
Jesus did not, and all of creation will be redeemed.
So when faced with choices, you have to ask yourself, "What kind of person have I decided to be?
The great thing is, as long as you're breathing it's not too late. Even if you've messed up every choice up to now, it's not too late.
You say to yourself, this is who I am; therefore, this is what I do.
That's bigger than smoking or drinking, lust or lying.
Who are you? Who do you want to be?

Trolling while bowling ... a few more traveling stories

Outside my hotel window I can see the Superdome, where inside at this very moment Michigan and Virginia Tech are playing in the Sugar Bowl.
I'm back in the newly-reopened and remodeled (the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina) Hyatt Regency, a place where I spent many weeks after Christmas waiting to cover Sugar Bowls and/or National Championship Games.
I'm not inside the game tonight, having turned down a ticket to the game. It is, after all, Michigan and Virginia Tech; it's not like its real football (and if you're from the South you know what I mean by that).
But it does bring back memories.
Particularly the Hyatt. I can't think of the Hyatt without thinking of that trip in 1992. From the moment we arrived, we kept hearing from off to the west of the Superdome (where the Hornet's arena is now) what we thought were fireworks going off, almost non-stop. Since it was approaching New Year's Eve, we didn't think anything of it.
However, later we found out what it was. My good friend and noted sportswriter Tommy Hicks was sitting in his room somewhere around the 16th floor of the Hyatt when he felt something sting his leg. He looked down and saw a bullet. He then looked at the outside wall of his room and saw a small hole. Yes - a bullet had come through the outside wall (not the window, the actual wall) and hit him in the leg.
Fortunately, it didn't hit hard enough to puncture the skin. But he was rattled. It's a long, very funny story - particularly when the hotel management asked Tommy not to tell his story to the media (this was the media hotel and it was full), to which Tommy replied, "You don't understand. I am the media; all my friends are in the media. They already know."
As I've said before, I've spent a lot of my life at bowl games, and there are some crazy stories.
Beatwriters - the guys assigned by their newspapers to the daily coverage of a team - used to arrive in the host city before the team so as to write about the team's arrival. That often meant spending a week in the bowl city location.
I've been to games in New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Shreveport, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, El Paso, Fort Lauderdale - and so on. Most of those I've been to more than once.
The first Music City Bowl in Nashville was between Alabama and Virginia Tech and was played in Vanderbilt University's stadium (this was before the Titans' stadium was finished). It was the coldest I've ever been, so cold the ink in my pen froze, which was OK because it was too cold to write notes anyway. The interview room after the game was way too small, and the temperature change so great that cameramen had the lenses on their cameras fog up so bad they couldn't shoot decent post-game video. Shoot, there were guys' who wore glasses whose glasses fogged up so bad they couldn't see. And you could wipe them all you wanted and it didn't matter; everything just kept fogging up again.
We were in Tampa one year, and the team stayed in a hotel directly across the street from a strip club. Now in those days (and maybe it's still true), the strip clubs in Tampa were 'dry,' meaning they weren't allowed to serve alcohol. While this rule was designed to discourage attendance, I was told it also meant they could allow a younger age group into the club. And while they couldn't sell alcohol, patrons could bring their own alcohol in.
That's only relevant because I was standing in the parking lot of the team hotel with a former assistant coach when a certainly Alabama lineman came walking across the parking lot toward the strip club, carrying two cases of beer on his left shoulder. The coach stepped out from where we were talking to confront the player.
"Where you going?" he asked.
"Uh, out for a walk,'' said the player, who knew he'd been caught but was undoubtedly praying that this coach - who happened to be his position coach - was either stupid or incredibly merciful.
"What are you carrying there?" the coach asked.
"Uh, pizza, Coach,'' said the player. "Two boxes of pizzas."
Unfortunately the coach wasn't that stupid, and the player was sent home the next day.
Perhaps not surprisingly, that very same player was sent home from the next year's bowl game in a completely different city for a similar violation of rules. The guy was a starter, but I don't think he ever played in a bowl game in his career. I guess there was something about being out of town that he just couldn't handle.
Another oddity was talking to players from other conferences, particularly schools from the North. I remember Alabama was playing Michigan in the 1980s and I was doing a story on a Michigan player. He kept referring to the head coach as "Lloyd,"as in Lloyd Carr. I was surprised by this reference, but it turns out all the players referred to the head coach by his first name.
Later I found out it wasn't just Michigan. Notre Dame, Penn State - at almost every northern school I covered, the players referred to their head coach by his first name.
This was - and is - unheard of in the South. You'd never hear an Auburn player refer to Gene Chizik as "Gene'' or an Alabama player refer to Nick Saban as "Nick." I guess it's a cultural thing.
My favorite bowl trips were to El Paso and the Sun Bowl. It was a horrible/terrific trip; the joke was that El Paso wasn't the end of the world, but the end of the world was right across the border. Consider that if you flew from Birmingham to El Paso you usually had to change planes in Dallas, and it was disconcerting to know that when you arrived in Dallas you were still not halfway to El Paso.
But once in El Paso, the people there went out of their way to make sure you had a good time. No bowl committee came close to taking care of media the way the Sun Bowl people did. They had a hospitality room (food, drink, and sometimes even a live band) that was open 24/7. If you wanted to go somewhere, they had someone not just willing to take you, but insisting on taking you.
It was in El Paso that I bought my first pair of cowboy boots. The bowl took the two participating teams to the Tony Lama factory and the players and coaches all got boots. I was standing in the hospitality room with Donnie Webb, who worked for Anniston then but is now in Syracuse, and casually mentioned I'd like to get some boots. Donnie said he'd go with me if I wanted to go, and suddenly this hostess said, "Come on, I"m driving. We'll go to the Tony Lama factory outlet is, where they sell 'seconds'." And just like that we were gone (and both of us bought a pair of boots; in my case, the first of many).
You could say almost anything - "I'd like to go to a Chinese laundry" - and some member of the hospitality committee was there saying, "I know where one is. Let's go, I've got a car."
The other thing about El Paso is the weather could change faster than any place I've seen. One year, we arrived at the game that morning and it was warm and sunny. I think I had a light jacket. But by halftime, it was snowing - and the field was getting covered. It was the fastest drop in temperature I've ever seen. I remember we all left the press box to go to the souvenir stands and buy Sun Bowl sweat shirts. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
We were in Tampa once for a bowl game when the Alabama basketball team happened to be playing in the Red Lobster Classic up the road in Orlando. So we all trucked up to Orlando for two days and one night in the middle of the week for basketball.
Orlando was also famous for a row of strip clubs with names like "Thee Doll House." This was in the days when the company would give you 'advance money,' meaning all the money you'd need for the week - for hotels, meals, travel, etc. - in cash rather than you charging everything on your own credit card and then having to wait to be reimbursed. Often guys would go on the road with several thousand dollars in their pocket.
So that night, I'm sitting on press row at tip-off of the Alabama game and we're all wondering where this one sportswriter was. He showed up right before the end of the game, looking like he hadn't slept or eaten anything in 24 hours. But he did look like he'd had plenty to drink.
Turns out, he'd spent the night at what we used to call the "redneck ballet,'' where he'd met this one particular "ballerina."
"She was really a nice girl,'' he told us. "She started giving me two dances for the price of one. She was sweet."
She also got all of his money. All of it. His week's worth of advance money.
Fortunately he'd paid his hotel in advance, but he had no money for meals, for gas, for anything extra for the rest of the week.
Of course we pitched in and loaned him money. Even if we never got it back, we got so much mileage out of that story (and many others like it) that it was worth it.
And he wasn't the only sportswriter who had been known to spend all his expense money the first night in a new town.
This has gone on way too long, but two quick stories.
Another guy I know wore cowboy boots, too, and he often drank a bit too much. One night he passed out in the hospitality room, and we filled one of his boots with beer. He woke up, and we told someone had urinated in his boot!
He was disgusted. Even when we told him later we were kidding, that it was 'just' beer, he wouldn't believe it.
It was snowing the next day as he walked out of the hotel in his socks to the nearest shoe store, which happened to be just about a block away. He walked in and delivered one of the greatest opening lines ever: "Sir, you're about to make the easiest sale you've ever made in your life!"
The second story?
Another hungover sportswriter who showed up just as the game he was assigned to cover was ending. He was desperate, and somehow managed to convince a guy from another part of the state to let him copy his story (this was in the days before the internet, so it wasn't likely anyone would see both stories).
As the hangover raged and the sportswriter typed off the other guys' work, he looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, "To think that this late in my career I've been reduced to copying crap like this."

Speaking of good lines - one more story (and any sportswriter has a million of them). We're at a dinner the night before a big game. A buddy of mine was a heavy drinker, to say the least. We'd travel together sometimes, and I remember he'd get in the passenger seat, pull out a bottle of Jack Daniels, unscrew the top, and throw it out the window with the farewell, "We won't be needing this anymore!"
Anyway, we're at this bowl-sponsored dinner the night before the big game. This guy is already drunk when they serve the steak. He decides he can't eat the steak, but doesn't want to give it up, so he slips it into the side pocket of his sport coat.
The next day he's at the stadium, wearing the only sport coat he brought with him. Completely serious, he asks, "What's this big stain around my side pocket?"
We tell him the story - which he doesn't remember - and he looks inside the pocket and, sure enough, there's a steak in there.
His reaction?
"Thank God they weren't serving soup!"

Ah, if only all of us Southern sportswriters could write as well as we could talk.