a superior tradition - Georgia Tech or Auburn?

It's my typical practice to simply read football commentary on the internet - mostly newspaper sites, a few blogs from people I know and from people they recommend, stuff like that. Rarely do I write anything. But today, I read something that made me decide to throw my hat into the ring.

It's from one of those "friend of a friend" blogs (Joe Cribbs Car Wash in this instance), and it looked at the potential that Georgia Tech's coach Paul Johnson would accept the coaching position, if offered, at Auburn. A very well written, thoughtful analysis that breaks down reasons that Paul Johnson might and might not bring his flex-bone offense to the Plains, however, it contains one serious flaw that must be addressed.

From the post "

1. Ca$h Rules Everything Around Me, homey, and whatever Tech can pay, Auburn can pay more. Them's the facts, jack, as are Auburn's advantages in fan support, facilities, program tradition, etc. Auburn and Georgia Tech are similar programs in a lot of ways, but Auburn's is a little bit bigger, a little bit better. And we'll pay more. That's the main thing.

That flaw: the claim that Auburn has an advantage in program tradition. I can't argue with the other advantages that Auburn has over Tech and could probably throw a few more onto the list (for instance, it is easier to get into Auburn and every SEC school sans Vandy than it is to get into Tech). But to claim that Auburn has more "program tradition" than Georgia Tech is simply wishful thinking.

A few facts, if you will:

National Championships
Auburn (1) - 1957
Georgia Tech (4) - 1917, 1928, 1952, 1990

Conference Championships
Auburn (10) - 3 SIAA, 1 Southern Conference, 1 SEC pre-1963, 5 SEC post-1978
Georgia Tech (15) - 5 SIAA, 3 Southern Conference, 5 SEC pre-1963, 2 ACC (post-1978)

Bowl Games:
Georgia Tech - 22-14 overall
Auburn - 19-13-2

Stadium
Tech has the oldest Division I-A football stadium. The only Division I stadiums older are Franklin Field of University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Stadium.

Tech has also scored more points in a game than Auburn, but then again, they scored more than anyone else (222-0). Just in case you're wondering, if you're ever going to rig a baseball game against a football-focused school, don't have them scheduled to play you in football the next year. You can even try to disband your football team, but it won't work. You'll still have to play, and you'll still get demolished. Just ask Cumberland College.

I'll give you the fact that the ACC isn't exactly a powerhouse conference, but still, Tech had a 13-5 lead in conference championships while playing in the same conference as Auburn, and Auburn's only made up 3 total conference championships over the subsequent 45 years (15 of which Tech played as an independent, and therefore couldn't win a conference championship).

I'll concede that Auburn does lead the all time head-to-head series, something like 47-41-4. However, a program's successes, if they are to be at all significant, must be measured against their performances playing more than one team.

But overall, I would say that based on total national championships, total conference championships, and bowl records, Tech is superior in the tradition department.

And on a less factually based note, I challenge anyone to argue that Auburn's fight song is better than Tech's. "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" was the first school song played in space. Nixon and Khrushchev sang it together in Moscow in 1958, since it was the only song they both knew. On an ironic note, it was written by a Tech player on his way to play Auburn in 1893.

As an Alabama grad and having a brother, father, and grandfather who all earned degrees from Georgia Tech, I'm definitely more than just a little partial toward Tech, but tradition in my mind is measured in excellence and championships.

new classic children's books

This is freakin' awesome: "When Mama Bear decides it's been too long since they've attended church at the Chapel in the Woods, the Bear family works to get back in the habit. It isn't long before the family remembers what a wonderful place the church is and finds that going to church is something they look forward to every week."

This one is a close second:


Each of these a mere $3.19 from Cokesbury.com. Go, support my pension. You know you want to.

The fact that I'm getting excited about children's books is probably an indication that I've been working on my ordination paperwork too long (and that I felt our little girl kick this evening :) Yipee!)

change in the air

Thought some of you who don't see us often might like to see a picture of pregnant Amanda. As you can see, I'm "showing," as Peter likes to call it whenever I'm whining, "Oh my Gaw, I'm soooooooo biiiiiiiiiiig!" It's strange to me now that strangers are asking me about it - it was so long that noone could really notice, or at least not enough that they thought they could talk to me about it. At least 3 or 4 clerks/cashiers/random strangers have commented recently.

Thing are rolling right along. I've decided this year, this being our third year with Peter serving as a pastor, that October, and to an extent the first part of November, is the busiest and craziest time of year for pastors, at least United Methodist ones. Between finalizing year end budgets and meetings getting ready for charge conference, and planning the stewardship campaign meetings, plus all the regular stuff, there were weeks he had a meeting every night of his work week (Sunday - Thursday). Maybe things are slowing down on that front now that we are approaching the holidays.

Hope everyone has been enjoying the beautiful fall colors - this picture was taken at Mt. Cheaha last weekend.

Yay for the Second Trimester!

Everything is going great today with the baby-to-be. We had the doctors nervous last week when I had some stomach problems, so they did an ultrasound to check everything, and everything is as big as it is supposed to be and in the right place and the "heart tones" are good. Click here for pictures if you'd like to see (I didn't post them herein case any of you think like I did that it was a little weird to look at them - until it was mine I was looking at). It was a neat experience - we saw the baby wiggle and open close its mouth.

And now that we are at 14 weeks, we are in the second trimester, which has so far meant much less nausea and more energy and appetite. Yesterday I out-ate Peter at Cracker Barrel. I think he was impressed. He had three pancakes and eggs and I felt the undeniable urge to slap away his hand when he reached for one of my biscuits, even though I had a roast beef dinner with three vegetables. Hehe I ate at least 80% of my meat and 90% of the carrots, green beans, and hashbrown casserole, and a biscuit. (I took home the one I wouldn't let him have for breakfast or a snack today.) I think it is the most I ever ate under 45 minutes.

Also, I've begun to outgrow some of my clothes. I went shopping for maternity clothes last week and have a stockpile now. Which is good - I need the pants already. They are very comfy. I love them. And I love the fact I found some on sale - I even found three wintery/Christmasy t-shirts on sale at K-mart that were $.60 each - cheaper than a thrift store!

Hope everything is going well with all of our dear friends who read this occasionally. Keep Peter and me in your prayers. They'll be running a few more tests on him and they've scheduled them for next Monday.

nurturing or recruiting young leaders?

The following is a post that will be replicated in a young clergy blog for the North Alabama Conference.

Any effective conversation about young church leaders has to be about more than saving the traditional structure of the church. We might find a few people willing to do CPR on our church, but those few will only be those who are already deeply embedded in the church, and the parts of the church that will be able to survive in that kind of situation will be a far cry from the biblical model of Christian community. Rather than focusing on how the church looks, we need to focus on how the church is and what the church does.

We as a church have always been about the outwardly transformational work of the gospel, thus outreach and mission are a part of who we are. We are also, however, about the inwardly transformational work of Christ, which is something experienced only as we are drawn into Christian community. People will be drawn to outwardly transformational ministry, but they can also be drawn into the church by transparent ministry that is inwardly transformative.

Part of the absence of younger people in the church is an unavoidable demographic shift - people are getting married later, moving more, and having kids later, all of which decrease likelihood of church attendance. There is also financially little incentive for church to invest in young adults - they rarely have money to give, and even if they do they will probably move in a few years anyway. So those churches who do have young people around them would rather focus on other investments with a more predictable return on investment.

When it comes to young Christian leaders, both clergy and lay, our primary failure as a church lies more in nurturing than in recruiting. Talking about recruitment is nice for young clergy and helps us feel a little more comfortable going into ordination interviews. But the fact is that young people who are engaged in the church, particularly young people who are unmarried without children, are hard to come by. Getting more of them is not a matter of having better ads in the classifieds - it is a process of discipleship that cannot happen overnight. Even when someone is called with little previous experience within the church, that person must then rely even more heavily on the church to help them learn those things that they never learned. So in many ways to talk about recruitment is more trying to treat the symptom than solving the problem.

It is curious that we talk so much about young adults, yet fail to focus on where a vast percentage of young adults are. We have an undersupported model for reaching people in this age bracket in campus ministry. What percentage of people under 35 go to college these days? And the reason we don't have a campus ministry at every college is . . . ? It is confounding that we can talk about how important young leaders are and young ministers are and yet not make more efforts to be present when people are deciding their careers. Few individual churches are equipped to engage college students, yet campus ministries are doing so despite meager support from the broader church.

The North Alabama Conference last year budgeted $37,000 to support campus ministry programming. You can almost buy every college student in North Alabama a Coke for that. Almost. Yet campus ministry is a situation in which the actual members of the community have extremely limited ability to provide financial resources. Advertising and outreach are even more vital than in the typical community, given a 4 year (or 5, or 6) turnover in the population. We have systemically forced our campus ministers into being primarily fundraisers rather than actually initiating some of the varied programs that can and should exist to reach people on a college campus and nurture young Christian leaders.

Campus ministry is unique because it has the opportunity to allow young people to become leaders, try various ministries, to become in many ways a test lab for future leaders as they investigate their future careers to also investigate their future involvement in the church. That, however, takes resources that the students themselves don't have, and that we currently force our campus ministers to spend most of their time raising. People are nurtured into the faith, nurtured into deeper faith, and many are nurtured into accepting a calling into vocations of ministry. So that is one example, although definitely not the only one, of a type of ministry that is effective with young people but could do much more if given broader support.

There's also the issue of how we attract people to our church. We as a church do attract some people by what we do and our ability to transform the world. But to be willing to be a part themselves, people need to experience Christian community in order to buy into the church. The United Way is working to transform the world as well - what separates the church is that it is also working to transform its members into Christ's likeness through community. As the underlying argument of much of Willimon and Hauerwas's works argue, we as a church simply need to be truly ourselves in order to transform the world. We draw some people in by what we do, but we also draw many in by who we are, with transformation of both ourselves and the world. As people become part of us and we become part of them, God will call nurture Christian leaders. The sooner we as a church are faithful to our calling to engage people, the sooner they will hear that call.

Above all, to recruit young Christian leaders we need to carry out the work of transforming the church and the world. Our conference priorities are currently directed internally at transforming ourselves into a better church, assuming that in doing so we will then be able to transform the world. Perhaps we should look outward to how we should transform the world, assuming that in doing so we will be transformed into the church. Or perhaps we should look toward Christ for our transformation and all work as hard as we can with what God has given us where God has put us. Isn't that why we're in the resurrection business in the first place?

life will never be the same

Big news from the von Herrmann's world. . . We're expecting a baby - March 2, 2009.

We are both very excited - right now I'm just trying to maintain a semblance of sanity amidst feeling like I just might, well, I'll be honest - barf my guts out at any second.

That's why we went to Sam's Club and procured this lovely box of goodies.
I'm not sure why I didn't want to just buy a big box of sleeves of crackers and put them in small baggies myself, but I really wanted the 300 count of the individually wrapped 2packs. I had quickly gone through the stash of packs of crackers I had been saving for awhile from restaurants, and thought these would be a good thing to keep in my purse at all times.

Well, just wanted to share the good news with anyone we had failed to tell as of yet, and blog this bit of my craziness.

the community we were made to be

Ephesians 4:1-6
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy
of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making
every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one
hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

This Sunday, we'll conclude our "Apostle's Creed" sermon series using Ephesians
4:1-6, which talks about unity in the body of Christ. We'll emphasize how the work of the Spirit brings about unity, and about how being filled with the spirit naturally binds us together as the body of Christ.

As we celebrate the 4th of July, possibly gathering with family and friends, and listen to patriotic music, I for one have always felt connected to soldiers, veterans, and everybody who has stood for the "red white and blue" throughout time.
Watching fireworks together as a community, hotdog cookouts, all of
these help make the 4th of July one of those great community holidays.

We as a church have an opportunity and a calling to create a sense of
community that runs even deeper than the one we'll celebrate this
weekend. Our country was founded on humanist ideals that can be
accomplished in their truest sense not through a particular party
being in office, but rather through the church being more fully itself
in the midst of society and transforming it from the bottom up.
Liberty and justice for all? We can show the world what that's really
about, if we'll get down to the business of working together to serve
Christ. We'll experience some degree of unity as we celebrate the 4th
and we'll talk about unity on Sunday. I pray that the Spirit will
help bring us into unity so that we can become the community we were made to be.

weird and wacky

We've had a weird and wacky life it seems for the past six weeks or so.

Here are some pictures to document a few of the funnies.

5/23 Southern Indiana on I-65 - first time we've seen gas above $4/gal


5/25 Bloomington, IN Wal-Mart parking lot - Bama fans are everywhere



6/11 Cullman, AL neighborhood - there's a turtle in our front yard. Peter took it about a quarter mile away to a nearby mini-pond/wooded area. We've also recently seen a fox on our street - twice.

I'm sure we'll be having a wacky time coming up, too - Peter's family reunion, and a five-day stint at UAB's epilepsy center's video monitoring unit where Peter will be hooked up and videoed constantly to study his brain. Cross your fingers they have internet access for him. He may have withdrawal symptoms if he can't use the internet...

are you kidding me?

I've gotten used to random things coming out of California. I didn't think it would even be possible for news from that particular state to surprise me, much less leave me speechless. But this story in yesterday's USA Today did the trick - California to Integrate Prison Cells. They're just now integrating? NOW? And there are actually people, in California, who are upset about that? "We'd just like to leave things the way they are" was a quote from the article.

I'm currently on vacation, getting ready for next weekend's "animal conference," as Ken Smith liked to call it. It'll be nice to see some folks I don't get to see often, and we'll see what the sessions have to offer. I'm the "president" of the Candler Club, which means I'm supposed to coordinate the meal for Candler Alumni at Annual Conference. Theoretically this is my last year as president; I just need to find a successor (since the only "election" I've seen was ridiculously rigged). We'll see how that goes.

Peter

I heart my German Shepherd

Seen on a bumper sticker yesterday:



I guess when you're driving to St. Bernard for the Bloomin' festival one should expect some pro-Catholic stickers, but I just wasn't expecting that one.

While we're on the subject of the pope, does he look just a little like Emperor Palpatine to anyone else? I've thought there was a resemblance, but as I've searched for images to prove my point I found that apparently I'm not the only one:



I'm wondering also about distributing mass at Yankee Stadium, particularly how to get it to everyone. I think it's a cool idea for someone as important as the pope, particularly in a church with as much of a sacramental emphasis as the Catholic Church. I suppose since they tend to use wafers that would make it a lot easier to just bless a bunch and have priests go out to distribute the elements.

And on the subject of communion (as I ramble on and on), a few Sundays ago we took our confirmation class to a church in Huntsville that passed out communion in what looked like to-go cups. They were shaped kind of like coffee creamer packets, and had the wafer attached to the top of the lid, looking very similar to this:



Today's the last day of confirmation class, and Tuesday is the last day of CPE. It'll be strange not having either of those; I'll actually be able to do all of the rest of my job.

grrr . . .

As so eloquently described by Will over at DBH Dance Party, last weekend was less than pleasant for me. I tend to not pay much attention to basketball, only noticing so far that Alabama seems to suck this year and that, well, Tech hasn't been much better. I did notice for a while about the whole Kelvin Sampson thing at Indiana, since my Grandpa taught at Entomology at IU for quite a few years and my Grandma still lives up there, but that's been the extent of my basketball interaction this year.

Up until this weekend. I went over to Brian and Ashlyn's on Thursday and noticed that Alabama was actually beating Florida, so I of course texted Lonnie from seminary to talk trash with him. Alabama amazingly held on, so I began paying attention to basketball, albeit momentarily. Then came the tornado. Then came U(sic)GA. Then I look up and see Georgia assistant Pete Herrmann on ESPN. So not only do they come onto my team's home floor, disgrace it by their mere presence, and win a conference championship to get into the NCAA tournament, they get a dude who's stolen all but 4 letters of my first and last names as an assistant coach to help them do it. Thus, Will and I had the text message and phone conversations that led me to ask why he, knowing I work in a church, would try to get me fired.

And as if that weren't enough, I walk into my house last night and find sitting on my couch a certain female congregant with a Georgia t-shirt on. As soon as I saw it, I expressed my dismay and found a Tech hat. Then I got my "I think therefore I am NOT A DAWG" t-shirt and wore that. I imagine that exchange was a first for a UMW meeting at Cullman First UMC.

And, speaking of my place of employment, our contemporary services are now being recorded in their entirety.

Cheaha State Park

And now for what we do best - post pictures. The only problem is that we forgot our digital camera on our last trip, and are stuck with only throw-away camera pictures. Some didn't even turn out at all.

We really enjoyed a recent trip to Cheaha State Park, near Anniston, Alabama.

We met some cool people in the country store, and we enjoyed eating in the restaurant at the park. It has a gorgeous view. Cheaha State Park is in the middle of the Talladega National Forest, and Cheaha is the highest point in Alabama, so you are looking out over trees and trees and trees. The restaurant has a view as great as the five-star resort Blackberry Farm where we went on our honeymoon - but the food is a lot like camp food. We enjoyed it anyway.

We stayed in a bluff-side cabin built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was made of rock and really cool - the cabins there have been renovated pretty recently and they are very nice. Ours had a big fireplace, queen-sized bed, full kitchen area, and overlooked the Talladega National Forest. The cabins were well-maintained, much better than the bed-and-breakfast/hotel we stayed at in Anniston for the end of our trip, but that would be a whole other story to tell you about that rather strange experience, so let's stick to happy things. . . The bluff-side cabins face west and are great for watching sunsets over the national forest. There is a big firepit area and patio furniture behind each cabin.

We took short hikes that were really just walks over hilly, rocky terrain on a few of the trails they have at the park.

Here is a tree that was used to mark a trail a long time ago. The trailblazers bent it over and it deformed like this. Peter says this is a way to tell that a trail is really old. This is on the Pulpit Rock trail which is part of the Pinhoti trail we think.


And finally, if you are too fragile to walk on a real trail, or you want to take along a toddler or a kid in a stroller, or someone in a wheelchair, etc., here is something really cool - a boardwalk trail. It is pretty long, maybe around a mile, and has some signs with information on the history of the park and the wildlife of the area. It has a great view at the end.

showing some love: super tuesday style

One of the more amusing things to watch on the internet is the way that different political campaigns go about advertising themselves and trying to rally their supporters. What Amanda and I have done the last few days is find the different novelty items that various candidates provide for purchase. Below you'll find links to just a few. We've tried to keep the sources varied, and feel free to post some of your own links to amusing or ridiculous campaign items if you find them:

Let's start with Hillary Clinton: The Gold Crystal Hillary Lapel pin, the blue or pink plastic piggy bank with "Hillary Cares" emblazoned on the side, and, one of my personal favorites, the Hillary Clinton ice scraper. We also have Hillary posing as a school teacher and as Steve Spurrier.

Huckabee, whose evolution seems to be in doubt on Comedy Central (oh wait, I suppose it's his creation that's in doubt), has a couple of gems as well: Chuck for Huck BBQ Apron, Huckabee for president analog wall clock, I Heart Huckabee Teddy Bear, an I Heart Huckabee throw pillow, and a stunning wall calendar.

Barack had a few ringers as well: Christmas ornaments? Seriously, dude? I did like how they had a t-shirt for almost every state, including our great state. Barack's also one of the only ones we could find who had ringtones you can download, some of which are hilarious. "Answer the call."

You also can't get through a survey of campaign memorabilia without mentioning Mitt's mitts. Equally impressive, though, are his cufflinks.

One that could have flown under the radar, but luckily didn't, is Ron Paul. For one thing, the fact that he has "limited edition" big and small, buttons is fantastic. There is one thing that's kind of disturbing that we picked up looking at the t-shirts. Does his picture remind you of a certain German dictator from the early part of the 20th century? Maybe it's just the angle or something, but anyway, kind of weirded me out. That, plus the fact that every single product had a comment about not putting the item on someone else's property without their permission. Apparently, Ron Paul's campaign doesn't have much confidence in their followers, given that they show the bumper sticker ON THE CAR and the lapel stickers ON THE LAPEL.

Hope everyone had fun voting today, since the election was over two weeks ago. Or was that last week. Or two days ago. Or this evening. Or tomorrow. Or in a week. Or . . . nevermind.

this is why I don't like to make dinner

Who knew that Fiber One Cereal looks like Turtle Food?

I thought I'd get creative and healthy with our salads for dinner tonight, so I threw a little Fiber One cereal on top of the lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and craisins.



As we sat down, Peter immediately asked "um, what are these things on the salad?" I told him, and he began laughing. I asked "why, what did you think they were?" and he said he wouldn't tell me until after we finished eating. I thought that was crazy, because I've eaten this cereal for so long and he's seen me eating this cereal before, so what in the world was he talking about? I made him tell me.

It turns out that Fiber One cereal looks exactly like Reptile Food. Peter spent most of high school feeding Max, the family pet turtle, even doing a study on what exactly he would eat for Reptile Study Merit Badge. Wanting pictorial evidence, I turned to Google. Well, here it is:










Which is for Max and which is for me? I'm almost tempted to try some turtle food now, like that guy from American Hero in the 80s who ate dog food (Peter has no idea what I'm talking about, not even that this is a reference to a TV show). Man, I love that theme song.

go down moses

Possibly one of the funniest clips I have seen on television ever. It happened over a week ago, but hey, it takes me a while sometimes.

Before I get to the funniest clip, I need to show you the clip that preceded it, where Stephen Colbert interviewing Andrew Young, obviously a childhood hero of his. Colbert's father worked with Young to end a strike as Young was just beginning to rise to prominence, and it was rather amusing watching Colbert being joked on almost more than him joking on someone else.



Adding to my enjoyment of his interview were the stories my mom told about when she was teaching high school algebra in Atlanta during the early 70s, when Andrew Young was mayor and she, the young Miss Betty Young, would tell her primarily African-American students that Andrew Young was her cousin. "Naw, Miss Young, you crazy."

Having that as my primary association with Andrew Young, and seeing the preceding interview, when Young ragged on Colbert, saying "I am your destiny," "it's your destiny to end the writer's strike," and "I've heard you practice, you really need your writers back," I spent most of the episode laughing.

But then came this grand finale, which had me rolling. I had just finished Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, and in the epilogue he talks about how he had grown his hair out and part of the inspiration for the book was how he had started getting pulled over by cops who apparently thought he was some kind of a thug based on his hair, only to find a nerdy white boy when they came up to the car. So taking that, with Andrew Young singing, and Colbert giving 110% to the singing, it was one of the funnier things I've seen in a long time. I might just throw the earphones on and watch it again (it keeps getting stuck in Amanda's head, so there's a moratorium on viewings at the moment).

a few snow pics

We got some snow late last week, which led to Amanda running around our yard like a 4 year old, making a snowman and a snow angel. I had fun too, but mainly in teasing her and throwing a few snowballs at her. Seeing how all the wooded areas in the neighborhood looked in the snow was kind of cool, and reminded us both of the Chronicles of Narnia.

The only downside to the snow was how cold it was the next few days. Walking outside 40 minutes before I'm supposed to preach and it's 19 degrees just isn't natural.

Here are a few pictures:

three wise . . . whats?

Well, apparently Amanda was listening this morning when I talked about how we don't appreciate the three wise men enough and should pay attention to them and to their journey following the star.

This, however, wasn't exactly what I was thinking of when I talked about remembering them:

Oh well. Not the first time someone's done something after a sermon and I've been left scratching my head.

Amanda vs. the fly (and the parsonage)

So we've had this fly in our house for a few days, which occasionally buzzes around and drives Amanda crazy. Before today we'd made several attempts to swat it, but to no avail. The whole fly thing kind of reminded me of the episode in Sportsnight where Casey keeps hearing a fly and no one else did (except that I did hear the fly about half of the times that Amanda did).

In any case, the battle went to a whole new level today. While I was outside cleaning out the shopvac after its war with Christmas tree needles, I returned to Amanda saying "I did a very bad thing."



Apparently, the fly tried to do a WCW-style tag team move, tagging the decorative woodworking above the sink. Unfortunately, the fly never released the tag (or expected more movement out of the woodworking). In any case, there was one death and a serious injury.

So here is a recreation of the crime scene based on eyewitness testimony:



There have been no arrests, but a person of interest in the case was heard saying "I think I need a Ferrero Rocher after that."