I received little of my dad’s DNA. He was an engineer and every time he tried to explain to me what he did for a living, my eyes glazed over. The same thing can happen when we talk about “connecting Sunday to Monday.” Too often it’s a fog of abstractions. But that’s not the case with David Greusel, a principal with HOK Sport Venue Event. He’s an architect who sees his work as a calling…
A Very Good Year
by Mike Metzger
June 23, 2008
Benefiting humanity.
When Henry Kissinger reportedly asked former Chinese leader Chou En Lai whether the French Revolution of 1789 had benefited humanity, Chou replied: “It’s too early to tell.” It’s too early to tell which events in 2008 will change the world. But next year – 2009 – marks the 250-year anniversary when several threads began to be stitched together in a network that would benefit humanity. 1759? Yes, it was a very good year.
Verbs and nouns
“You don’t really have to eat, do you?” Mack asked. “We don’t have to eat anything,” Papa replied. “Then why do you eat?” Mack inquired. “To be with you, honey. You need to eat, so what better excuse to be together.”1 In this story, “Papa” is God – who is a big, black woman. If you find the picture of God as a female to be distasteful, you might not have acquired a taste for heaven. That’s because God might be a verb rather than a noun.
Quitting in droves
My mother quit smoking long ago. Yet she didn’t quit her bowling league where teammates smoked like chimneys. And she didn’t break up the monthly bridge club that left our home reeking of stale cigarette butts the morning after. Mom’s never been entirely clear why she quit but two researchers think they know. Their findings – when placed next to your Sunday bulletin – reveal an obstacle and opportunity for anybody trying to connect Sunday to Monday.
In a blink.
Welcome to wedding season, where one-third of today’s smiling couples will be crying in a few years. That’s one-third of all marriages, since the divorce rate of Christians and mainstream culture is statistically identical: 32% versus 33%, respectively.1 Why is it that believers who spend weeks and months in pre-marital counseling fare no better than those who don’t prepare at all? The answer is because we give couples the whole loaf while John Gottman only needs a thin slice to predict with 95 percent accuracy whether a couple will make it. In a blink, he sees what Jesus warned about 2,000 years ago.
Oops…
The game was scoreless in the second quarter of the 1929 Rose Bowl when Georgia Tech’s John Thomason fumbled. California’s Roy Riegels recovered the ball and took off for the Tech goal line. But suddenly Riegels did something that forever earned him a place in football folklore. What happened next is the reason why the California Supreme Court ought to reverse its recent decision in giving homosexuals the right to marry.
Zeroing in.
When you shoot free throws in basketball, where do you aim? At the basket, of course. Nope. That’s too broad a target. The best shooters aim at the front of the rim. With proper ball rotation, even a short shot is more likely to go in. If you’re a parent, businessperson, artist, or really anyone – and happen to be a Christian – where do you aim? I think our targets – the human heart, culture, or character – are too broad. Why not aim at what David, the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther, the Puritans, and William Wilberforce did?
It ain’t what you know…
For the last 100 years there’s been a divisive debate over whether God created the world in six 24-hour days, six long ages, simply supervised evolution, or had nothing to do with it. This contest would benefit from Mark Twain’s caution: it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. One person with a seat at creation was even tougher: we deserve a kick in the seat of the pants.
Tripping gracefully
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) supposedly started a riot when he discovered that, contrary to what the church taught and everyone believed, the earth revolves around the sun. The Copernican Revolution helped “science suddenly burst forth when a weakened Christianity could no longer prevent it.”1 This makes for a great story except for one niggling detail. It didn’t happen that way. Huh? Don’t worry. Stumbling over truth can be fun, Horace Walpole said—but only if you know what to do after losing your footing.
Misguided objection
The Chinese political leader Mao Zedong was born in Shaoshan, China. I prefer veggie pizza. What’s the connection? The next time someone tells you they dislike Christianity because it says other faiths are wrong, ask them whether we’re talking about birthplace or pizza taste. It’ll reframe the conversation to help you overcome a misguided objection.
