"you've got a big mouth... now I'm gonna show you an even bigger one."
(calling all braves fans)


i hate, hate, hate the rut that i've fallen into the last few weeks. one post a week? come...on!!! it's pitiful. pathetic. lazy. unwarranted. there's too much going on not to comment on it all. and i apologize for it. truly. i do. i will make every effort to be better. for you.

yeah. um, we don't really care.

no? cool, then. we'll just get right back after it.

nineteen games into the long, regular season. if you were to ask me to describe in one word life as a braves fan six series and one game into the season and refuse me the non-word "sucktastic", i would probably hand you "frustrating". "inconsistent" best describes it, but that's a commentator's word, not a fan's word. as a fan, i couldn't give a shit about the factors that lead one team or another to be "inconsistent". when you start listing the reasons, they just come across as excuses. so what if brian mccann can't see the ball and hasn't had a good game since opening night. so what if tom glavine can't pitch. so what if kenshin kawakami has been a complete disappointment thus far. so what if we are batting a light-hitting first basemen in the clean-up spot. so what if our leadoff man goes 1-5 every night. so what if chipper has a bruised thumb. so what if our starter tonight hasn't won a decision in his last 13 major league starts and has an era over seven during that period (sure, let him pitch again. what could go wrong?). so what if the sheen has started to fade on my rookie of the year car that is jordan schafer. can i digress for a second? seriously, i have never felt so attached to a braves player since dale murphy now that i've attached my wagon to schafer. every at bat of his that i watch, it feels like the heavens are in the balance. every time he misplays a ball off the wall in the outfield, it's like i am misplaying it with him. if i can't watch the day game due to being at work, his is the first name i look for in the box score to see how he fared. on some days i've found that i don't even care about the result of the game as much as i do that he's had a decent day at the plate or in the field. it's really quite disturbing. end digression. so what if tommy hanson still hasn't been called up. as a fan, none of it matters. on any given night, no matter who's in and who's out of the line-up, you expect your team to win. and the braves are not winning enough. period. now that the marlins have remembered that they are the marlins, the division is back up for grabs. a healthy mccann's not walking through that door anytime soon. so, how about someone other than chipper or the light-hitting first baseman getting a hit every once in a while and score some freaking runs. great stat before the game last night. only one of the braves 9 wins have come when scoring fewer than 4 runs. admittedly, most teams will have losing records when scoring fewer than 4 runs, but play 1 out of 9 over the course of the season and it's telling. the braves starters, while solid, are not the kind of staff that will shut other teams out. everyone would be happy if lowe, vazquez and jurrjens kept era's around 3.50 for the season. well, by definition then, even in games pitched by your high end guys, the team is going to have to score runs. probably more than four to give themselves a chance. so, how does this change the current machinations of the team? they have to turn themselves into a run manufacturing team, not an american league "wait on the home run" team. schafer's gotta start leading off soon. move kelly down to two. move escobar into the five hole. kotchman never batting any higher than seventh. you've got your two guys with speed at the top. only one has to get on for chipper to hit a double and score a run. bat francouer clean-up. he's going to swing for the fence anyway. might as well swing at it with a man on base. these changes are never going to happen. because bobby cox is a horrible manager. but i wish they would. soon. i do not like what i am smelling right now. the braves feel very .500-ish. mediocre. like if things don't change somehow, this is as good as it's going to get in 2009. and i hate that. i think they could legitimately be better with a little tweaking and with a little tommy hanson.

on to the point of the post. i am looking for a braves support group. the length of time that the group meets will be determined by how long the braves stay in the race for the division and/or the wildcard. each morning that i (or any of us) can, i would love to start an e-mail thread for any and all of us that care for the team in a way that eats away at our soul. we can go back and forth for as long as it takes to get it out of our system and ready ourselves for the next game. if we win, great! we can celebrate together. if we lose? well, misery does love company, right? i need people to talk braves baseball with! desperately.

if you read this and are interested in joining the "humc for a better braves" support group, shoot me a note at kevmu330@hotmail.com. tell your friends. we can start self-helping as soon as tomorrow morning after jo-jo gives up the inevitable two home run game to pujols tonight.

hope to hear from you soon!

the end of the world
(part four)
(("dear coach's corner"))


"...i wouldn't bother with these questions if i didn't sense some spiritual connection. we may not be the same, but it's not like we're from different planets."

and so, we continue along manipulating different variations on a theme.

that's the funny part of it all, right? the part that we all know is true. it's not like we're from different planets. humanity is complex, sure. we all have our differing experiences of nurture even if we believe we are, fundamentally, sprung from the same nature. differing levels of education. differing opinions. differing interests. differing investment in the war between good and evil. differing motivations. differing favorite flavors of limeade. but, it's not not like we're from different planets.

"we both love this game we can hardly fucking stand it."

replace "game" with church or god or heavenly orb and therein lies our common denominator. our jumping off point. in a local church environment, this is where every meeting should begin. every worship service. every relationship.

"listen, dude. i think the eagles (the band) suck."

"i think you wear that shirt way too often."

"i think your kid is out of control."

"at least i wear a shirt."

"what does that even mean?"

"i think you are here too much. don't you have a life?"

"i think you aren't here enough. don't you care about this place?"

"you good?"

"yeah. you got it out of your system?"

"yeah. you still love god?"

"yep. you?"

"yep. let's move on."

"ready...break."

and then you just get down to it. you center yourself around the common denominator and you work from there. too often we are or have been getting caught up in the details. back when blog-gate broke out nice and proper, some one made a big deal about me putting quotation marks around the devil when i was talking about details. all the quotes referred to were the thousands of little things that our church and "the church" had allowed to shift our focus away from our common denominator. that some one took it personally and made it about them just proved the point.

if we aren't looking for a solution, it's pretty freaking easy not to find one.

and listen, i get it. it's way easier to not look for a solution than to actively work towards one. you can yell, scream and blog all day about wanting something better, but it's a moot point if you aren't willing to put legs to the ideas.

"it takes a village to raise a child. a flag to raze the children."

indeed. twins will be baptised in our church this coming sunday. and the present congregation will vow to help "raise" them right alongside their parents. in the coming weeks, a new director of children's ministries will likely be hired. this person will board a ship whose flag still does not have a defining symbol waving for all to see. there is opportunity there.

both occasions, along with the baptism of several weeks ago have the opportunity to be seen, somewhere down the road, as symbolic. symbolic of what will need to be determined. and soon. but if it is, boy, is there potential there.

potential to do good things. potential to inspire. potential to rally around the common denominator and excite instead of letting the details bog us down.

hey. how did the disciples council meeting go sunday afternoon?

exactly.

hannah and me and death
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part twenty-six))


so, the other day (must have been friday, because hannah kept asking me why i felt it necessary to look out the window every time i wasn't doing something. i wasn't really sure how to answer. i didn't really know. it probably seemed quite obsessive to the curious five year-old.), i was finishing up a workout. i remember i still had my ipod on. i had been listening to a mix of old zebrahead and even older rufio. zebrahead was rap-rocking in my ear at the time. i was still breathing hard. my body felt swollen from the exertion of the previous hour's work. i was about to listen to "night letters" and imagine my most recent "enemy" knocking on the door. and then it happened. i think i have described them here in several different ways. most often i refer to them as my deathdreams. i wish i could describe it in more detail, but they usually don't arrive with much detail to explain. it's like a flash. for no apparent reason, my mortality catches up with me. it hits me that some day that i hope happens to be many, many years from now i will die. and now, my already heavy breathing changes it's shape. it's not heavy for the next few seconds as much as it is fast. fast with panic. i try and think of other things. the song in my ears. the braves. my girls. anything. but for probably five seconds or so, i can't get a grip. but then i do. get a grip, that is. i am able to divert my attention to something else. i check my pulse as i so often do to make sure there is one. i find "night letters". and i finish up the workout. the workout that the only redeeming quality is the music. the workout that i often dread. the workout that i don't want to do but do anyway, because i don't want to be fat. i am retarded. i digress.

hannah's been thinking a lot about heaven lately. asking a lot of questions. god, i hope that she is just thinking about heaven and not really death. thinking about heaven because she hears a lot about it at school and at church. in both environments (same place, really), it is thought of, as well it should be, as awesome enough to get her own imagination rocking away. we've heard things like...

"will i be old when i get to heaven?"

"will we have a house in heaven?"

"will we live together (with mommy and daddy and caroline) in heaven?"

"will i get to see jesus in heaven?"

"what's heaven like?"

"will maine be in heaven?"

"what will my body be like in heaven?"

"will KAMmie and punkin be in heaven?"

uh-oh.

she is thinking about death. at least, what little experience she has with it. we've lost two of our pets in the last couple of years. we tried to mask the real reason that they both had to "go to the doctor", but she's a smart little girl. for weeks after we took punkin to the vet never for her to return, hannah would ask about the cat. where did she go? where is she now? that sort of thing. her reaction to KAMmie's tragic passing was more subtle. i think hannah enjoyed the idea of having a puppy more than the execution. she was probably a little too young to fully get into a dog that was bigger than her, but she did like talking about her. much to my surprise and on some days chagrin, she still does. on the days that she asks about her old pets, it's quite fascinating to watch her young mind process the information. she will get lost in a stare or haze in which it is quite obvious that she is trying to make sense of something in this world that will probably never make sense.

and as her father, this makes me very, very sad.

it's a scary thing to me for her that i am her "daddy". that it is me (and her mom and others to come i am certain) that god would have her pose these questions to. i could not be any more (can any of us?) unsure of the true truth to her questions about death and heaven. there are many days (i'll take a stab and say those are the days most probably marked with deathdreams) that my mind makes me painfully aware that i am skeptical such a thing as heaven even exists. a prize at the end of this tunnel that is life. a goal that i can obtain by grasping tightly to my christian upbringing in the hopes that i don't and haven't spent however many years following some foolish delusion. a goal, that if there is such a thing, i would wish to share with every person or thing that has made my life a better place but may not subscribe to the same belief system as i do. a goal that i have a hard time reconciling the idea of my god not allowing to some good person whose life journey did not lead to a committed and convicted life where they saw jesus as their savior. a goal that sounds too good to be true.

yeah, but george michael said you just "gotta have faith-a, faith-a, faith-ah!"

i know. and i get that. and on most days, that is good enough to get me through it all. i read more bible. pray a little more. find a content (and sometimes lonely) place.

what i don't get is how odd it feels when i answer these big questions coming from my oldest daughter. i've never delivered any answer with such confidence and ease as i do when i am making sure she is soothed by my responses in a way that i hope she can refocus on hannah montana and un-focus on whether i'll be with her for eternity. and it's not that i am telling her what i think she wants to hear or what i think she needs to hear. most of my responses come from a very ingrained and involuntary place, but i don't know that i feel like i have been training or conditioning.

then again, maybe i have. and maybe it's for moments like these. when my too young and too little girl begins to ponder the mysteries of the universe. and so i respond. with as much truth as my experience leads me to believe that i have. and in those moments, she seems to feel better. and i feel better because she feels better. it's only after she is satisfied that i will walk away and begin to fight off another panic attack. and begin to wish that i had that someone that i trusted that could comfort me in the same way i hope i comforted her.

in a ridiculous kind of way, i am thankful for my deathdreams. they are a nice reminder that i have some spiritual work yet to accomplish.

if i have somehow honestly passed my anxiety on to my girls, though, i am hateful towards the means that provided that cruel end.

this is only the beginning. i know. she and caroline will only get older and smarter and ask bigger and more pointed questions that i'll need to be prepared for with honest and intelligent answers. i'll have to know when it's right to tell them "i don't know". and i'll have to do it without freaking out, myself, in front of them and running off to some corner to suck my thumb.

because, for today, it's only about heaven and death.

can you imagine the shit they are in for when they ask me what's wrong with our church?

ha-ha-ha. you think you're so clever, don't you? you're stupid.

i doubt this is the last time we'll talk about this.

the end of the world
(part three)
(("tertium non datur"))
(((hannah and caroline and me the sun)))
((((part one))))
(((((because, naturally, i had it wrong all along)))))


"we all seek meaning in our lives. but when every shadow of doubt is denied, the sanctification of hatred thrives."

so, let me get this straight. the take home message you would like us to consider is this. varying opinions on matters of faith and religious tendencies and/or practices (since it is these and not personal views on alabama football, daughters, punk music and ak-47's that seem to have caused the most commotion), specifically those practices in one huffman united methodist church (and hopewell baptist), are good. encouraged even. the qualifier, though, is that those opinions may not turn a subjective eye to the person or thing in question if one or more persons privy to the "negative" opinion deem it unjust in it's delivery, forum or fundamental idea. does that cover it?

cool. that seems rational.

and grown up.

perhaps this is why most churches are shrinking. perhaps not.

it's a fascinating discussion/argument/discussion to have, is it not? why is the "church" failing? why aren't "young people" interested in "church" anymore? what are "we" doing wrong? why can't we attract new visitors? what is it about "us" that has changed? why don't things feel the same anymore? why, again, can't we play loud music in this big, empty gym? what doesn't feed you now that used to feed you when you had that warm and fuzzy feeling about church back in the day? the answers to all of these and, of course, thousands more rhetorical questions make up the fantastical elements that would get to the bottom of, once and for all, the question on every person's mind that is currently invested in a congregation that is not nearly as big as "we used to be".

and, why again, is the question so fascinating? easy, silly. because we can all participate in it. we all have the shared experience and time served in this place or another that what we think should matter to the greater whole. not all of us know what the crap is going on with the economy. we don't really pay attention to politics on the whole.

what's wrong with the environment? my yard looks great.

i swear to christ, if he says one more thing about freaking julio jones, i am never going to read his idiotic blog again...

...unless something happens at the church and i think i am going to disagree with him.

it's not sports or larry langford or "when am i going to see some extra cash on my check?" that is the tie that binds us together in a church. i would argue that the tie isn't even jesus. jesus is the tie that binds christians together with other "church" members, but on a local level, in one, single congregation, i would argue it's what that church means to us. and "why" it means that to us. and "how" we show our appreciation to it's benefit to our lives and why we don't want it to fade into a memory.

i've always felt kind of sorry for folks and family and friends that move around a lot and haven't had a chance to plug into a church for years on top of years and experience the ebbs and the flows. i feel like something is lost if you can't grasp the full-blown context of what it took for that church or for that pastor to make it to that service. of course, there is just as much to be gained from hopping around every few years or more, often due to a move or just a personal choice. "the grass is greener..." cliche will never fit more perfectly than when directed at a church. if you don't allow yourself to get deep enough into the forest, one can fool themselves into this place or that place not falling victim to the same high school drama that inevitably prevails at each and every house of worship.

and unfortunately, just like high school, churches are more likely to be drawn towards a prevailing sense of order than just about any other organization i've been a part of. businesses are defined from the top down. if you have a problem, there is a chain of command to follow. you may not like the chain and may feel like "the man" is working against you, but with most occupations, common sense should tell you that you are entering an environment where there is a boss, and there is a 99.9 percent chance that you are not it.

churches, in theory, are designed to be different. there is no boss, per se, but a group of members, an amalgamation of however many different persons and personalities, each of which understands there is a role to be played in the greater "body". each also understands that the role, by definition, is up for discussion. you get to have a say.

you mean, just because i am a loan officer, i can sing in the choir and work with the youth???

abso-freaking-lutely. every person will inherit or define a role. even the senior pastor, again in theory, is playing his or her own role. they are to be the spiritual guide or director of the church. not the ceo. this shouldn't be as hard a concept to grasp as we make it. or then again, maybe it should.

all churches are made up of people that live their lives in some sort of business model. there is a boss. there are the workers. there is either productivity or consequences for the lack thereof. happening into a church should be freeing, but more often that freedom turns into anxiety if not full-blown fear. people have grown comfortable with the limitations of their every day life. they have fallen enough in like with the idea of someone telling them what to do that it doesn't make enough logical sense to allow them to tangibly let the construct that we normally inhabit go, if only for an hour or two a week.

what?

no order?

we need order!

what do you mean "god" is our order?

i can't freaking see god!

i need a boss. who's the boss?

hey. who's that in the corner preparing for his sermon?

yeah, him. the pastor guy.

let's do what he says. he carries his bible with him all the time. he can be the boss. we'll follow him. he can be perfect. what he says will go. and if someone says otherwise? whyioughtta...i'll give them a piece of my mind.

or something like that happens. you get the idea. but we fall victim to the necessary sense of prevailing order. we end up choosing sides because there can only be one king or queen of the watercooler and we pick apart at each other until the opposition decides that the grass "has got!!!" to be greener on the other side. because this place sucks.

no wonder people on the outside make fun of us. no wonder propagandhi wouldn't be caught dead in a church. the same dread and monotony that we live every day of our lives, we can't let go. we can't get past ourselves long enough to work for a common good except on special occasions. the unhealthy structure of our routine is brought into our church family. only, we aren't allowed to talk about it. in the methodist church, we place everything we have into the hands of a complete stranger every so many years and if they let us down, it can cause us to lose faith in the entire system. that's pretty heavy. that's a lot of pressure. that's worth being paid for.

see. i told you. he gets paid to be here. he's the boss.

and so it begins. the back and forth. the tit and the tat. the stifling or poo-pooing of some opinion that for some reason you disagree with. the utter disregard that the person across the table from you that you are shooting spitballs in the direction of is just searching for a role in the greater "body". and yet, you would begrudge them that. because we don't agree with them. let them go somewhere else because we are tired of dealing with their shit. we can't involve them in our conversation because it's too much work to exclude them.

what works for me may not work for you. what seems and feels right to me may not feel right to you.

that's the beauty of this thing that we are doing, right? we all have our perfect worship service in our head. in mine, personnel decisions do not play a role. so, sue me.

this is me calling a spade a spade, seeing flaws in what i perceive to be a broken machine. this is me having every intention and want to be a part of the solution. but be warned, friends.

that solution that we all want and pine for is about as far from black and white as one could possibly imagine. if i thought looking in the mirror and calling out my flaws...

hey. looking in the mirror and calling out your flaws. is that kind of like posting something on your own blog and then reading it over and over again? nah. it's probably not the same. talking to yourself in the mirror makes way more sense.

...would solve huffman's ills, you better believe i'd look past my crooked teeth to do it.

so far, it's not working. so, i guess i'll keep listening to other options.

this song pisses me off so. and i love it. it pisses me off because the message is spot on. and i couldn't agree more.

and i want my church to be better than that.

nobody knows anything
(except for joseph)


just a quick update now that the college basketball season has officially given way to jordan schafer hitting home runs in his first major league at-bat.

i haven't said anything about brackets since my personal peak was at the end of day one (geez.). if i can't take home a bracket title, though, it's nice to keep it all in the family.

joseph p. florence rocked an incredibly conservative bracket with just enough correct picks in the early rounds, put his endgame chips on the overrated (according to someone i know...cough) tar heels and beat us all. good for you, bro-in-law. enjoy the glory! sorry there was no money involved.

as for me, well, i limped in at 19th place. out of 27. yikes. maybe next year i'll try and watch more basketball.

either that, or i'll just cheat off joseph's bracket.

welcome, rubberneckers
(establishing the west)


considering all the noise i've made here over the last several years, i guess this little blog effort would ring a pinch insincere if i didn't, at the very least, comment on the events of this morning.

for those non-huffman members (or those not in attendance today) patronizing the joint, the short version is this. the official announcement was made from the pulpit during worship that humc would be receiving a new appointment come june.

yeah, so?

yeah. that's fair. the story of a new appointment in the itinerant system that is the united methodist church isn't the story. far from it. the story, of course, is how we reached this day. those of you that have been around a while are aware of some of the peripheral mess that happened back in the fall of 2008. if you aren't from around here, you can find what i am talking about if you'd like. if you'd rather not waste your time, can't says i blame you. that's old news now.

we need something fresh. we need something juicy.

well, i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you've come to the wrong place. listen, this much is true. i've made it perfectly clear that i have a serious distaste for the manipulation of the worship service into something that isn't about being there for worship. i get the temptation. the necessary feel for it to begin like a business meeting and then transform magically into worship. sunday morning will be the largest gathering of your membership every week. it makes logical sense that you'd feel like you need to make every possible announcement about the goings-on of the coming week sometime during the service so the most people possible are in the know. there are last minute things that come up. something needs emphasis and we forgot to bold the font in the bulletin. a last minute prayer request needs to be added. the church van needs gas. ok. we get it. i get it. let's move on. oh, and by the way, 95 percent of these announcements are also printed in front of you. a percentage close to that, if not more, you've already had the opportunity to read in the weekly mailout and on the website. pardon us, but we are going to treat you like you are actually listening right now. i digress. i really do understand the announcements portion of the program. it's the way we and every church have rolled forever. we'll all hunker down and "prepare our hearts for worship" while we are digesting 18 pieces of information together.

the show-stealers, though, come when someone is asked to or takes it upon themself to "announce" something after our hearts are prepared. past favorites have included "sing louder" or "it's not you, it's me" and things of that ilk. things that seem to dumb down the proceedings to the point where having "faith like a child" feels like an insult. any announcement concerning a personnel matter also fits in this category.

again, i get it. the tradition and routine of it all makes it feel right. here is information there is a good chance you are aware of already. if you're not? well, surprise!!! try getting your head on straight after that and feeling as though you've worshipped as you're headed to lunch. but the better chance is that you've heard it already from someone even though you're not "supposed" to have and the result feels like a ceremony. ceremonies can go one of two ways. good or bad. think of every wedding you've ever been to. there is no middle ground. you either loved it because it reminded you of yours or the one in your dreams or you hated it because "it felt too baptist" or something like that. i've never driven away from a wedding thinking, "eh. that was fine." weddings are polarizing for all involved. most proper ceremonies are.

so, this morning we had a ceremony. we announced that one pastor would be leaving and another one would be coming.

woohoo!

or boo!

or sob!

or "wait, weren't we about to responsively read a psalm? what the hell just happened?"

we had a cermony and i hated it. big surprise, right? now, read me correctly. i didn't hate the messenger. i didn't hate the pastor. i hated that it came in the middle of a worship service. and i hated that it felt necessary to disclaim that the message today was about god and not about the proxy. faith like a child, right?

the fact of this morning's passing of the torch was that the announcement didn't matter. at least, not in the context of a worship service. if it did, the above disclaimer would have never needed to be made. the "decision" (if you focus on any part of the commentary this morning, please focus on that word) wasn't made this morning. it wasn't last minute. it was premeditated and cathartic for someone i hope and a little bit selfish in my eyes.

selfish? hello, pot! my name is kettle.

exactly. my point exactly.

um, what?

nevermind. it was what it was always going to be. awkward and sad. for everyone.

as the congregation continues traveling towards our new age of enlightenment, this morning will not be the catalyst that history judges as the turning point. maybe this morning, we merely hit the refresh button and some scabs were torn off and some old, hurt feelings were remembered. maybe this morning, we began to understand the scope of the effort that still lies ahead, because the cold, hard facts are these. there are many of our members that left because they didn't like the senior pastor.

hey, that sounds familiar.

there may be more that leave because they did like this senior pastor and blame others for his no longer being a viable option for us.

hey, that does too!

again, none of that matters. here's what matters. we need good and accurate information to base our decisions on. we need more bible study. we need good attitudes. we need good and honest behavior. we need to be able to make eye contact. we need fewer secrets. fewer dramas. fewer people that think they know what's up and more people that will admit that they have no freaking clue but are willing to work on something good together. we need to follow through on our commitments. we need to decide we if are really interested in the church. we need to allow the prodigal daycare back into our arms for real and not just celebrate it when sarah tells you something good happened. we need good effort. we need more practice. we need more opinions. we need to listen. we need to stop acting like babies. we need nevermore to feel like anonymous is the best option. we need to invite somebody to church. we need to come to a softball game. we need to enjoy each other. we need to come on rainy days. we need to start talking less and loving more. we need to be a church. a methodist church. with small groups and everything.

chris, i wish you and your family well. sorry things didn't work out. good luck.

harris, you have no idea what you are getting into.

and i mean that in the best way possible.

something smells familiar


it's kind of hard to believe that it's been over eight months since i've given the braves more than a passing thought here on HACAM. over eight months and, wow, a lot has changed.

as i packed "my" braves away for a long fall and even longer winter, i remembered how so much national attention was placed on them in the spring of 2008. jayson stark of espn had anointed them the team to beat. ken rosenthal of fox was in the boat with him. it was becoming borderline trendy to talk about how much you liked the look and feel of last year's group. and it all made sense until they started playing actual games. pitchers' arms started falling off early. the braves "next dale murphy", jeff francoeur, fell into a deep coma and it will take the first month of 2009 to know if he's been awakened from his slumber. chipper, naturally, got hurt some. more pitchers' arms fell off. they traded tex at the deadline and that was it. dead and buried. there were sixty games left last year when i raised the white flag. it was the most painful thing i had experienced in my life as a sports fan since, gosh, probably the 2007 braves season. the braves kill me every year. get it? i hate the braves.

this year, they have gone from being the team to beat to being lucky to being some national airbag's (i am looking at you, orestes destrada) nl sleeper. 60 percent of the rotation is new this april. derek lowe? javy vazquez? kenshin kawakami? really? alright. i guess i'll take middle of your thirties innings-eaters this year over the over-forties that are bound to break down of last year. tex, of course, is now a yankee. i made fun of casey kotchman last year. i am going to try and embrace him now. another ex-laa angel is in left part-time. mcann stopped eating cheeseburgers and looks like a baseball player now instead of a beer-league softball pitcher. chipper sucked it up for the us in the wbc, but he's still chipper. the old adage with him has not changed. if he plays 140-145 games, the braves will win 85 of those games. they come up with 7-10 more after that, they win the wild card. it could happen, right? it could if gonzalez and sori and moylan are all really healthy. and that's a big if. it's a weird feeling, but a familiar one. the underdog suit always fit the braves better. the defending champs are in the division. that bodes well for atlanta.

that and their "new hope" in centerfield. does anyone remember andruw jones as a 19-year old? he and i are about the same age and he came along about the same time i was beginning my new life as an adult fan, not just a kid who wished he could be his favorite player in the backyard. he splashed onto the scene in 1996 and immediately joined chipper as the obvious foundations to the braves future. he could hit. he could throw. he could cover more ground with more grace than any outfielder that i had seen and been able to appreciate. he had a great arm. and sure enough, for ten years, he made braves fans happy that "we" had him and somebody else didn't.

well, i teased him a few posts back, but the braves' permanent replacement to andruw in center made the team and will be starting tomorrow night. jordan schafer, andruw without the krispy kreme gut, got one guy he was competing with traded and sent the other to triple-a. he's the same guy that braves vets, reportedly, hated last spring because he showed up at the park with his chest stuck out, walking with a "player" strut and pretty much acting like he owned the place even though he had accomplished nothing at the highest level. he followed that favorable first impression up by getting suspended for 50 minor league games last season after testing positive for hgh. after missing almost half his year, he came back and finished up his 2008 minor league campaign strong but under the radar. close that chapter. everything i've read about his 2009 spring camp experience has been totally different. he still knows he's good. but he's been humble. he's been productive and, maybe most importantly, he's gotten the vets on his side. up until the last week of the spring, he was batting around .400 and went from a guy that would probably be called up sometime later in the year to the guy in center, beginning day one. incredible.

if i haven't made my feelings obvious enough, i love jordan schafer. no, i am in love with jordan schafer. for many of the same reasons i fell in love with julio jones. for one, his talent is so immense that i will enjoy watching his every move, every at-bat that i can, every time he glides towards a fly ball and wish that i ever could have been that good. he is just a rookie. and he will struggle. if you watch enough baseball, though, you know when you are watching a guy that has it. and he has it. for two, he represents to the braves what julio represented, not with his signing, but with his arrival on that first day of practice, when he, as a "rookie", was undoubtedly the best player with the most talent on alabama's football team. schafer is like that now. because of chipper's advanced baseball age, schafer is already the most talented guy there. and the braves can stand up and try to raise themselves to that standard like the tide did last fall. or they cannot. if they do, though, and he has anything close to a "rookie of the year" season, the braves will be back in the postseason. mark it down.

what's that? optimism?

yeah, i guess it kind of is. after losing out on peavy during the offseason, i really had been hum-drum about the atlanta braves, version 2009. jordan schafer changed all that for me. now, i can't wait for them to break my heart all over again.

i hate you, braves.

and i mean that in the best way possible.

the end of the world
(part two)
(("supporting caste"))


"...there will be no revisions to the script made on behalf of a supporting cast(e)."

in many of propagandhi's cuts, there is a good bit of predeterminism hurled as insult at those that govern society and are responsible for the big idea of "religion". all of it is justified i suppose if you base it upon their own personal experiences and biases. i know that i don't agree with it all, but it makes me think nonetheless.

there are think-tank bands, bands that are more interested in the message of their music even if it compromises the quality of their songwriting (see: christian radio). and there are genre/pop bands, bands that, no matter their style, are much more interested in "writing a good song". there may still be a message attached, but it's secondary to the structure, the hook and the melody. nothing inherently wrong with either way a band chooses to evolve, but in the fifteen years or so that i've given serious listen and attention to music, the bands that can bridge the gap between the two and not be impossible to enjoy i could probably count on one hand. as you can probably guess, my own opinion marks propagandhi as one of those exceptions. terribly talented musicians. can write viciously hook-y, fast songs, all the while never losing sight of what it is that they are trying to "say". sometimes they are pointed. sometimes political. sometimes sarcastic. all the time awesome. today's entry to this twelve-part series would most likely consider itself a little of all.

if you were a band, what kind would you be? if you were writing a song, would you start with the lyrics? or the hook?

i feel like i probably run into more "lyrics" people than i do "hook" people, and there is nothing wrong with that. getting out the message that is "you" is important. though, the unfortunate part about your message can rear it's head when it's not necessarily "your" message, but something that you've learned, adopted, copied, pasted, molded then photoshopped into some variation on a theme. what's that oscar wilde quote that rebecca has on her blog? "most people are other people. their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." i wonder if he had religion on his mind when that thought came to him.

we are approaching the time of year when i, often, feel most uncomfortable with my faith. easter. moreso than any other part of the year, i feel like we elbow out most honest discourse in favor of a very simple, yet intoxicatingly complex, question. do you choose to believe with "us"? or do you not? he is risen. or he hasn't. "we" are all surrounded by congregations that most likely dwarf those of any other sunday on the calendar. we are reinforced with sheer numbers that the faith by which we subscribe is not a lonely or dwindling effort, but one that "hey! look at all of the new and old" faces believe in too. it's a glorious day. and a haunting one all at the same time. for even with our sanctuaries full, there are those outside of the walls approaching the "special" day just as they would any other day called sunday. there will be those in the pews that will not be celebrating, but be enveloped in doubt and concern that if it's "this way" or the highway, i might as well jump in my car.

i am sad that i will be away from huffman on easter morning. i married into a tradition that travels our family to georgia, to a small church that feels like a "real" church only because i've romanticized it to be that. but i am glad too. personal drama, deception and misinformation will play no role in my worship experience. the baggage that i have made myself such a part of within our congregation will have to wait on me 'til the next week when the crowd isn't so big. when the "message" doesn't feel so black and white. and two hours away from here, i can sit and appreciate all of my doubts and all of my concerns for what they are without the fear of someone noticing.

it seems we find ourselves in a place where our church has no problem getting "our message" (it's DIA, right?) out. but, to me, it feels like we are struggling to be more than just a variation on a theme.

maybe i am wrong.

or maybe we should try writing the song first.