elmer gantry goes to uganda

"When Ghanaian pastor Obiri Konjo Yeboah (or Kojo Nana Obiri-Yeboah or Yeboah Nana Kojo, depending on the news source) entered Uganda, officials at the airport seized his luggage. Inside was a machine that they believed was a piece of bomb-making equipment.

It turns out that it was the Yigal Mesika Electric Touch, a gadget sold in magic stores that sends a 12-volt charge into anyone touching the person who's wearing it. The company says it will 'create excitement, mystery, curiosity, and supernatural powers all in one forgettable experience.'

Ugandan officials are worried about that "supernatural powers" part, and the pastor is now being investigated for fraud."

(ht: CT Weblog)

three good reasons to work nights

nobody knew his secret ambition

i have never been able to understand the role that personal ambition plays in the christian life. i realize that Jesus' secret ambition was to give his life away, generations of my evangelical forbears sought to accomplish the great commission through individual conversions and in more recent times mainstream protestants and their emergent stepchildren redirected the church's focus to proclaiming and incarnating the Kingdom of God. but, up until this point in my life, i haven't learned how to develop a sense of personal ambition that benefits rather than detracts from the larger ecclesial, local and international communities of which i am a part.

on account of my confusion i have pretty much ignored stephen covey's immortal advice to "begin with the end in mind" and have simply tried to respond to vocational and occupational opportunities as they arise. fortunately, my ambivalence towards personal ambition has yet to wreck much havoc in my life. in fact, i suspect that the aforementioned approach has saved me from a number of significant personal mistakes, such as stepping into professional christian positions before i was mature* enough to handle the responsibility and yielding to mr. dewitt's wishes by succeeding walt jocketty before the 2004 season.

but, as i break into my thirties, i realize that if i do not take a more active interest in shaping my personal vocational and occupational worlds others will be only too happy to fashion these worlds for me. thus, in lieu of submitting myself to the service of the other's** ambitions i am going to take the risk of setting my course, fixing my sights and venturing forth.

i only hope that if my ambition doesn't exactly align with God's, it's not totally at odds. moreover, in the midst of this process i hope that the value i place on living for others is not eclipsed by my rather lamentable tendency towards radical individualism.

* read: slick, pragmatic and political.
** some of whom i love and respect.

an all-star running diary


i'm utterly exhausted, sans sleeping baby and attendant wife and for some unknown reason interested in watching the all-star game. so i thought i would keep a running diary tonight since i have nothing better to do and i'm a self-absorbed arrogant prick.

pregame

would it be possible to have a major baseball ceremony without MLB having to shove patriotism down our throats? i'd be a baseball fan whether i was american or armenian. in fact, i plan on remaining a fan after i defect to canada. so stop f*cking shoving god bless america down my throat before every major baseball event.

ooh, willie mays is introduced against a backdrop of the catch. now that's something i can be patriotic about. what a playa.

did you know that mays doubled off a runner after making the catch that is captured so elegantly above?

did you know that i was just confronted with a rachel ray "quilicious" advert when i jaunted over to baseball-reference.com? could have lived without that?

i'm debating whether i should spend the evening bitching about mccarver and buck? any opinions?

eric byrnes is from san francisco? somehow that just makes sense.

today i was really, really suffering from the mid-summer malaise. as a result i found it difficult to get work done, was a bit too snippy with one of my clients and would have watched a mid-night movie with paul reubens if it meant i could have fifteen freaking minutes to read my paper in relative piece and quiet. when you find yourself in a similar state at work what do you do for relief? do tell...

cal ripken junior: not an announcer.

ozzie smith: capable announcer, hall of famer, all-around bodhisattva.

T1

peavy's overthrowing. look for an early run from the AL.

damn tough inside pitch to jeter. maybe i'm wrong headed there.

6-4-3 nice.

joe, you're wondering why ortiz's power is down? you wonder why pujols is also down? you ever heard the phrase cycling down?

peavy just got hosed. big papi should have been punched out.

wright just saved fielder's ass.

wow MJ and cuba gooding are working for haines. kevin bacon must have been busy.

B1

damn reyes can fly. now, if bonds can just rope one to the wall and then tear his ACL rounding first base...

haren grooved one and bonds popped it up. way to honor your godfather's legacy cheater.

--- rachel ray and dunkin donuts themed comment removed due to gentry's poor taste ---

speaking of dunkin donuts, the boston phoenix (of all rags) recently published a fun little article that explores the new england's devotion to the dunks and differentiates dunkie junkies from bucks bitches. for the record: count me in the latter camp. i'm afraid that if i fell in love with dunks, i'd have to start reading the herald and discovering a developing new interest in nascar. no thanks.

way to go griff. secure that home field advantage for us. THIS ONE COUNTS!

T2

man, i know that reyes, rolen and the golden gloves in the NL are incredibly talented. but man they display some bad fundamentals in the field. i just saw rolen pull a roger dorn "ole!" on a ball late last week. i know you guys are infield gods, but square up to the ball.

B2

for the past three minutes, i've sat here wondering whether "bad fundamentals" would be an adequate excuse for terminating rolens interminable contract. maybe i'll shoot jock an email.

tough break there for r. martin. the NL needs to tack some runs on the board. i know that this is going to surprise the baseball fans among you, but the AL has a much deeper roster.

don't tell anyone, but when i get exhausted, i sometimes get a bit sentimental. and when i get sentimental, i love to head over to lost tulsa.com. at that site, i can read brief updates about the gradual demolition of my childhood and laugh at the future land architecturethat graces oral roberts university's campus. are there any sites that you find yourself drifting towards when you're sentimental? do tell.

T3

ok, i'm still reading about my lost childhood and starting to forget about you.

T4

who doesn't love the wolf? man that's a great commercial.

barry bonds and a-rod. the closest of friends. shocker. on that note, griff just totally smoked a-rod at home. nice.

T5

who am i kidding? i'm totally swimming in sentimentality and ignoring the game and the post. catch you later.

musing...

"your system is perfectly designed to produce the results that you are now receiving."

someone somewhere planted that saying in my mind years ago and i have yet to forget it. sometime in late may, after completing five months of incredibly hard job development work that yielded precious little fruit, i did two things. first, i prayer for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. second, i set out to break down my current job development system.

the first step took, well, prayer and the second step meant eschewing the internet and pre-fabricated job leads in order to start cold-calling and engaging in aggressive interpersonal marketing. both steps took a great deal of faith and the second required this failure-phobic pastor to set aside not a small amount of fear. however, now that i sit six weeks on the other side of that conversion and half a dozen of my clients are now working, i am beginning to realize the value of the steps that i took.

i am not posting this to boast of what God has done through my small efforts or to portray myself as an innovator of faith. rather, i am curious to hear your answer to the following questions:

are there systems in your life, your community and our world do you need to break?

if you were to break the aforementioned system, what results would you seek?

do you need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to break the system and assist you with the process of reinvention? what do you think His accompaniment would look like in your life?

maybe nobody is interested in answering these questions right now except for me. whether you are interested in the conversation or not, thanks for listening.