Favorite Card Games

It's been a while since I posted a list. We played UNO with the fam tonight, so here's my favorite card games:

1. Pinochle -- A family favorite at every holiday and family gathering. We'll play till our fingers fall off and marriages on the verge of major issue.

2. Spades -- On the way back to Beckley, West Virginia after the national tournament in Oklahoma City, Jason, Brock, John, Rob and I played spades for ten straight hours -- seriously.

3. Poker -- Hold 'Em, Baseball, Blackjack, Draw, El Diablo, whatever -- poker is fun. Anytime I play with Travis though, I get pretty upset cause he always manages to pull the most amazing hands out of nowhere. I think we should have a poker night at Cornerstone.

4. Hearts -- I most enjoy playing with my uncles and grandfather because things get so animated with the queen gets tossed, but online is fun too.

5. Rook -- Haven't played it since college, but it is way fun and thinking of it spurred me to write down "buy Rook deck" in my PDA to do list.

6. Uno -- I'm colorblind, so I have serious difficulty telling the red cards from the green cards, but it's fun to play with my kids.

7. Phase Ten -- There's a good possibility I may be undefeated at this game.

8. Dutch Blitz -- I'm not joking, my wife is a world-class Blitz player. I've never seen her lose except when I beat her once. I had her sign the score card for proof of the outcome and I have it hanging on the white board in my office. If the Amish gambled, I'd take her to barn raisings and hustle for cash.

Father's Day

"The Prodigal Returns" by Rembrandt, one of my favorite artists.

I really liked studying for the sermon I gave this past Sunday about the Prodigal Son. Re-discovering the story with the father being the active agent in the restoration of the boy rather than the boy being the active one really put the story in perspective. It also helped so much for me to understand the disconnect between the two preceding stories of the lost sheep and lost coin. In those two stories, the shepherd and woman are the ones initiating the search and doing the finding and now I see how the father in the Prodigal Son story is the one doing the restoring, not the boy.

One thing I ran out time to say yesterday: the second son often gets the short end of the stick. But he is also in need of rescuing. I see the Prodigal Son as being the person in need of rescue because sin has wrecked him. I see the older son as being the person in need of rescue because he has been wrecked by religion. Whereas the younger son knows he is unacceptable and hatches his own scheme to work his way back in, the older son thinks that his actions necessitate the father's love.

The key to Luke 15 is this (a nod to my Reformed leanings): it is God who seeks and God who saves. He is the shepherd seeking the sheep, he is the woman seeking the coin, he is the father seeking the restoration of his sons in spite of their deep offenses to him.

Seeing God as Father is something that I am just recently stepping into -- somewhere over the course of the last four or five years -- but it is something that is revolutionizing my relationship with Him. It's a cool journey.

World Cup Part 2

I coach my sons' soccer team. It's the Rising Star FC Micro Team, ages 4-6 years. They play with more energy and aggression than the US played with today.

It's not even that we got beat by a really good team -- it's that there was no sense of urgency. No attacking, no speed -- the USA team's greatest strengths never capitalized on. Beasley didn't attack, Donovan wasn't served, Convey's crosses were horrible, Pope didn't mark -- it was rough.

By the way, Rosicky is the man. Those goals were incredible. Nedved ruled the midfield. I think the Czech Republic could beat Brazil if they attack the way they did today.

On to Italy.

World Cup

It's impossible to say how excited I am that the World Cup is here.

The USA is ranked seventh in the world and is playing in the group of death with the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana. First game is in 1 hour 14 minutes versus the Czechs.

I love the World Cup!

My friend Ben is there, in Germany and has tickets to the Italy/USA game. He's so freaking lucky and is getting a beatdown when he gets back, provided the Italians don't beat him down in Germany because he can get pretty loud.

PSU Football

I'm aware that Penn State is not going to have the same year that they had last year, mostly because of line restructures and rebuilding, but I'm still pretty high from last year's awesome year.

I felt for Paul Posluszny when he hurt his knee in the Orange Bowl, but it's going to be great to have him back for his senior year. At Linebacker U, the be called the best that ever came out of Penn State is pretty huge.

The receiving corps, especially Derrick Williams, is really great too. All Morelli should have to do is throw the ball far and long, and the speed should take over.

Unfortunately, being Morelli's first real year, rebuilding both lines and the secondary will probably take its toll. Athlon has Penn State unranked in the top 25 and finishing sixth in the Big Ten. I don't know -- I think they'll go 7-4, which would probably keep them unranked, but get a bowl game.

Look out for the Lions in 2007 though. They will be a real contender for the BCS title.

Joe Pa rules.

Weddings

I'm officiating a wedding ceremony tomorrow. Weird week, this past week was. Two of the staples of pastoral ministry happened/are happening this week. A wedding and a funeral.

Weddings are pretty much the exact opposite of funerals. At funerals, a life has come to an end. At weddings, a life is just beginning as two become one. At funerals, I feel like people hang on my every word because they're dealing with some of the toughest questions of their lives. At weddings, people just want you to get to the vows, even though what I say during the charge at a wedding ceremony is really deep stuff. At funerals, the primary emotion is sadness. At weddings, the primary emotion is joy. Both are emotionally draining.

It would be cool for Jesus to show up like He did at Cana and turn water into wine, or for my friends in recovery or fundamentalism, Coca-Cola. That's never happened to me, and I don't think that miracle had nearly as much to do with the wedding as it did the submissive spirit of the Messiah, but it would be cool. But I think there's an even deeper miracle that happens at a wedding: two becoming one.

It's hard to picture, and as believers, we put God into that equation and suddenly it's a beautiful trinity: husband, wife, Jesus. I think most of the marital difficulties that I counsel couples about has to do with a lack/misunderstanding/misusage/absence of intimacy. Two becoming one is not nearly as much about sex as it is about intimacy. And lack of intimacy in marriage, particularly emotional and spiritual, can reap devastating consequences.

But for those few moments in time, that first few hours when a couple is protected by the presence of their family, friends, pastor, one another and the magic that a wedding day brings, the intimacy is complete -- even before sex comes into the picture. And it's because God has shown up and made two become one.

There's a lot of pictures of the church in the Bible, but my favorite is the church as the Bride of Christ and the intimacy we are able to have with the Lover of our Soul, not because we loved Him, but because He first loved us.

"In this is the love of Christ demonstrated, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."