gene "chex mix"
(that's beautiful, tanya)


boy. did i pick the wrong week to open every day or what? had i my usual off day on tuesday or wednesday, there is a good chance that you could have seen up to 10 "gene chizik to auburn" posts on that given day. why? because there are at least that many layers of it worth talking about and every one of them is a different degree of fascinating. the "resignation" of tommy tuberville, including a handsome 5.1 million dollar going away present. the myriad of small school, up-and-coming coaching candidates that "we" knew were interviewed. the attempted abduction of houston nutt. the appearance, out of freaking nowhere, of chizik into the picture and almost as quickly the naming of him as coach. there are more. the turner gill angle, the race angle, is the most prevalent (still) and relevant (for good reason), but in my limited time this afternoon, i choose to comment with another take.

i am talking to you, my auburn fans that stick with me even through my obsession with your rival. i think about most of you concerning this most recent turn of events in one of the passions of your life and i am sad. sad for you. and in a way, sad like you. i am not an auburn "fan", but i don't hate them and will occassionally even root for them (no. really! ask my sunday school class.). i don't know every one of your's politics, but for whatever reason i have been thinking about how this coaching search and discovery will be at least the third time in the last five years that you've had to take on a "support the troops" mentality regarding something you love.

for less than transparent reasons, in march of 2003, your country chose to invade the superpower that was iraq. some of you may have been in favor of it at the time. and if so, god bless you. five years ago, it seemed a lot less stupid than it does now. the folks in charge did a wonderful job of painting the "enemy" as a threat. so, this is, in no way, me belittling what may have been your support for that decision. conversations i've had or overheard with some of you have led me to believe that some of my auburn fans were not. needless to say, things have gone downhill in the same way mike tyson's weight has gone uphill in the last five years. at this point, there may be zero of "our" number supportive of the war, but we have been asked to support the troops. without hesitation, we do so.

interestingly enough, in around that same ballpark of time, my auburn friends and i that attend huffman united methodist church were "introduced" to the idea of a hispanic ministry that would be welcomed onto our church campus. for less than transparent reasons, the idea and the execution of this "idea" has evolved into a less than friendly topic of conversation topic for those of us that care about the church. we have no problem with the group of people (or, do we?). never had. we are in the eye of the controversy's hurricane at the moment, and, for that moment, we have been asked to "support the troops" even if "we" have a problem with the execution of "the idea". with some hesitation (i am only speaking for myself with that disclaimer), we do so.

and now, the chizik thing. wow. first, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. three years ago, chizik, himself, was an up-and-comer. he was a well-thought-of defensive mind and coordinator. history now tells us he made a poor choice taking the iowa st. job and made an even poorer head coach. his blind resume does not hold water, matched up with over half of the other candidates interviewed. yes, he was at auburn in a past life. but, he left auburn for the same job somewhere else. and, now, you are asked to believe that not only is your new coach an "auburn man" taking over his dream job, but you are also asked to believe that the athletics director and president of the university did not put far too little diligence into the hiring of your university of choice's most visible employee. for less than transparent reasons, you have a hard time talking yourself back into your "support the troops" mentality. with much hesitation, you do so.

the degrees of triviality with these three examples range wildly and i hope you do not hear me as trying to put them on equal footing. but as someone that shared the idea of being "burned out" in an e-mail conversation with a friend this morning, i can totally understand if you are (sick and) tired of having to "support the troops" and hold the line for ideas you do not totally believe in.

for me, advent is less a season of reflection as it is a season of faith. for, as a follower of and servant to the story of jesus, we are approaching the day that we celebrate the beginning of that story.

after basketball tuesday night, andy and i wondered to each other how often being loyal to our respective churches has asked us to compromise the actual gospel we believe in. the consensus we came to was "a lot". in the same vein, how often do our loyalties to some person, "body", country or school ask us to compromise our feelings in such a way that they are far different than the direction we would have taken with those feelings if the decision in question was ours to make.

i would think...a lot.