Going Old School - an ode to krispy Kreme

Sitting here in our church lobby surrounded by the "great cloud of witnesses" that is 1,908 Krispy Kreme doughnuts for our youth group fundraiser (a very easy and profitable fundraiser, by the way) I was just reminded by a friend on facebook of the poem I wrote in college about these wonderful cake and glaze objects.

Irresistible Grease

- by Ben Howard

I

Krispy Kremes

Drenched in Grease

Clogging my arteries as I feast

II

My mouth is watering

My heart is beating

Krispy Kremes come for my eating

III

Thinking of you,

You wonderful cake

I dream of you until I wake

IV

Manna from Heaven

Sweet cake and glaze

I wish to devour you until the world becomes a haze

V

Oh Krispy Kremes

My greasy joy

I'm so glad that you're not made of soy

VI

Calvinists are wrong

Arminians are right

Krispy Kremes come to me in the night!

In case your wondering this was written as a joke after consecutive all-nighters in which my friends and I survived on Krispy Kremes, chicken wings, and caffeine. Also, if you can believe it, this was actually published in our college's poetry publication. I still can't believe this fact...they must have really been hurting for some submissions that year.

Big hat tip to Gustav and Moeller for the all-nighters and their help on this.

Morality and Sports Part II: The Part where Morality is Thrown Out of the Window

First off I want to thank many of your for your kind words and your condolences. Yesterday was indeed a dark, dark day in my life as Brett Favre signed a contract with the Minnesota Vikings. Honestly even typing those words makes my heart sink a little.

Since this has happened I've gone through a couple stages of grief (denial and anger) but I think I might stop there. It is at this point that all of my moral reasoning within sports flies out the window. Even though I know in my heart this is reality, I still want nothing more for him than to have his arms fall off and be eaten by wolves. I want his partially torn rotator cuff to finish itself off with his first pass and his "enjoying the game so much smile" to be ground into the dirt by a fat defensive lineman. I hope when he plays GB that they destroy him and leave him crumpled up beneath a pile of behemoth defensive lineman. This list could continue, I'm sure with a bit of time this wound will heal, but Brett Favre has now destroyed part of my early adulthood like Jeffrey Maier destroyed parts of my childhood.

Now obviously as a Christian I don't really desire these things for Favre. We are, after all, called to love our enemies. But my sports angst knows no limits in a situation like this. I have grown up having great sports disdain for Favre and his overrated quarterback play. I've argued for years that he's not as good as everyone thinks and that he really is a detriment to a team. I've rejoiced in his failure on the field (and regrettably sometimes off the field) and now I'm told that I, as a die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan since the beginning of my life, am supposed throw all of that aside and support the man 100%. There is no way in the world this is happening.

I'm not sure what my course of action will be. I've mulled over just ignoring the fact that the Vikings are even playing this season (like my friend Fous did last year when Favre was traded to the Jets). I've thought about just watching the games and hoping he keeps building upon his all-time interception record (the one bright spot in his continued play) but I'm not certain what I'll do. All I know is that the football season just became a whole lot less enjoyable. I probably won't watch as many games and my desire to go see the Vikings when they come to Charlotte to play the Panthers just went from "I need to find the money" to "meh, maybe if someone gave me a ticket and paid for my gas I'd go."

So there you have it. I feel a little bit better having ranted about this but I still feel that sick vomit inducing reaction every single time I think about Favre donning a purple helmet and jersey. If you want some real logical commentary on this scenario then you need to go elsewhere because you won't find it here. I am biased and I will never cease to be a Favre hater when it comes to football.

If you're interested in more of this check out what Joe Fischer has to say about the logic of signing Favre over at Pacifist Viking. Some of his particularly good insights are:

Against Favre

Favre Does not Push the Vikings Over the Edge

The Risk of Favre

On Cheering for Favre

Brett Favre: Pros

My Stages of Grief

Morality and Sports

One of my favorite blogs on the net is a blog called Pacifist Viking. Not only is this blog incredibly well written (the author is a college English prof) and full of solid logic, but it also combines a love for the football (especially the Minnesota Vikings - a love I share) with interesting philosophical discussions. The reason I bring this up is that I just finished reading an interesting article in which Joe Fischer (the author) discusses the relationship between morality and sport especially in light of the recent signing of Michael Vick.

You can find the article here

One reason I find this article particularly interesting is that the topic of morality and sports was one of the many reoccurring topics of discussion in our house during seminary. While our seminary discussions were mainly concerning moral actions on the playing field (i.e. is sliding hard into the second baseman to prevent him from turning a double play a morally acceptable action?) and not discussion the morality of sports personalities like this article I still think almost all intersections between sport and morality are interesting.

Youth Ministry 101

Some things they just don't teach you in seminary and, I suppose, to be fair most of those things you just have to learn on your own. Last week I encountered one of those moments.

Our youth group had planned a trip to the local water park a few weeks ago and before we went I was thinking through a list of things to bring while walking around Wal-Mart when I came to sunscreen. As I thought about it I realized that it was very obvious that I couldn't ask a student to apply sunscreen to my back and it would be very awkward to ask one of the adult counselors to do it as well. (I suppose this is part of the curse of being single in youth ministry - you don't have anyone to apply sunscreen to your back during the summer).

As I thought about the issue and walked by the sunscreen aisle I realized that they now has sunscreen that sprayed on from an aerosol can. I grabbed a a can of and walked away reveling in the fact that I had the foresight to see this as a problem and was able to find a solution.

Our trip to the water park came and went and I escaped the sizzling North Carolina sun unscathed. A few weeks later I was getting ready to embark on a beach retreat with a few seniors who will be going off to college in the fall. As I set my bag down on the sand during our first full morning at the beach I asked one of my seniors to spray my back down with aerosol sunscreen. She obliged and gave my back a good spray and then I took the can and sprayed my chest and arms. After a full day at the beach in the blazing sun I got back to the beach house, and wast getting ready to hop in the shower when I looked in the mirror.

What they don't teach you in seminary is that aerosol sunscreen doesn't really mix with a strong ocean breeze and it's also hard to see in the bright sun. Basically it looks like Zoro attacked my back with a can of red spray paint and my chest and arms are spotted red from where the wind blew the sunscreen away from my body. Seminary Fail!

In case you're interested my friend Luke and I have started another blog where we will post random experiences like this that "they don't teach you in seminary." I'm not sure if it'll take off or not, since I hope for our sake we don't have too many more of these experiences (even though I'm sure we will). You can find the site here.