Fans of Jesus and College Football

  My vacation went well.  Painting the house turned out to be a bigger task than I ever imagined.  I am not sure how much of the trouble was normal and how much was “the human element,” so we’ll avoid addressing that until the task is complete.

  Since the last post a lot of good things have happened.  Of course, ranking high on the list: college football has returned!  My Sooners are one win into a fresh season.  I didn’t get to watch the opening game.  For some reason local stations do not understand the intensity of the OU fan base in the Mississippi delta region.  My wife was patient, however, as we watched ESPN.  I didn’t have much interest in the game they were showing… I was watching the score updates scroll at the bottom of the screen.

  My love for the Sooners came early.  In Oklahoma you can say “Mom” or “Dad” before you learn to say “Boomer Sooner”… but you don’t let anyone know about it.  Contrary to rumors, graduating from High School doesn’t require identifying  three Sooners quarterbacks, Greg Pruitt, Joe Washington, Billy Sims, and the Selmon brothers… just don’t expect to be valedictorian.  Congressmen don’t have to be ex Sooners… but it helps.   You can even grow up in Oklahoma without even once wondering where in the world other fans get the idea they have a shot in the upcoming Red River Shootout… but we will look at you funny.  We wonder…. [Take Note: You do not get to ask whether we (ie. the Sooners) have a shot at this year's national title.  Even asking the question reveals such ignorance as to warrant immediate eviction.]

  Of course I grew up in a golden era of Oklahoma football… the 70′s.  Oklahoma was the king of the hill.  They ran the “Wishbone T” right into the college record books:  472 rushing yards per game… Greg Pruitt’s averaged 9 yards per carry.  The Sooner magic so filled the air, some of us were fans of the NFL’s ”Detroit Lions.”   “No” I am not exxagerating, and, “No” they weren’t any good back then.  In fact they were generally as hapless then as they are now.  Then and  Lions’ victories are to be savored… a long time… both of them.  But, back then, they had Steve Owens: Oklahoma’s ’69 Hesiman Trophy winner.  What more could you want? That was all the glory any team needed. 

During those seasons the Sooners averaged 30-40 wins every season!  Five or six in Norman, four or five on the road… the rest in my front yard.  Yes the Sooners played in my front yard.  All the boys in my family would gather and run the triple-option against whoever the unfortunate opponent was that week.  (On a “bye” week we’d blow out Texas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma State once or twice just for good measure.) 

 OK…OK… the truth will set me free… I have no brothers, and my sisters didn’t play football.  No problem.  It took four Sooners to run the Wishbone triple option, but I could do it all by myself.

   I, the quarterback, would walk up behind me, the center, and make my first read.  Was the imaginary defensive guy right on the center or in the gap, and where was the imaginary middle linebacker?  If they were out of position I would hike the ball to me, and hand it off to me the fullback right up the middle.  I’d have five or six yards before the imaginary safety ever touched me.  But, that imaginary safety better not get too careless; I might fake it to me… then slide down the line.  Once again I might hand it off… or I might pull the ball back out in another fake.  Imaginary defenses would be left standing in their shoes… completely lost.  Now it was just   me and the defensive end out on the edge where the big plays happen… would he go for me the quarterback or cheat out to keep me from pitching it to the trailing halfback… me?  Either way he goes, he’s toast… poor imaginary sap.  He won’t want to watch this on game film next week.  I am either going to cut up inside of him for big yards, or, if he tries to tackle me, pitch it to me around the end for a huge gain… probably a touchdown.  I even added another wrinkle… a fifth option… I would stop on a dime, drop back, and rifle a pass to myself downfield… wide open.  I could just walk into the end zone!   Oh yeah…I could not be stopped!!!

  Yes, I really was that good at one on none football.  It seldom took me more than three or four plays to score.  [I kicked field goals too... and did the punting, although every punt was one of Joe Wylie's famous fakes.] 

With all my success in the front yard, however, this will probably amaze you:  Barry Switzer never called.  No matter how tight the game… no phone call.  I know he didn’t have a cell phone, but there was that heavy cable with a rotary dial phone booth on the end.  I was never paged for my insights into the upcoming game.  The truth is, in forty-plus years of being a Sooner I have never even been on the field at Gaylord Memorial Stadium;  never put on the crimson helmet or a team jersey.  I have never sweated through two a days, ate at the team table, or boarded the bus for a road game.  My letterman’s hat is a gift from a former player.  In fact, as dominant as I was in my yard, and as adamant as I have been in support, my impact on Saturdays for the Sooners has been pretty negligible.  Well, its been exactly negligible… “0″.  Bob Stoops doesn’t have my number, Barry Switzer doesn’t know my name… I have never made any difference in even one Oklahoma Sooner football game.  I know, I know it amazes you, and it is rather painful to say it, but it is true.

  Understand, even though I may talk about how “we are looking good, coming off that win,” my “role” in the “we” is ”fan.”  Nothing more.  I am sure I humor God with the prayers that go up when we are behind, but my role on the team for the past 40 years has been “nada.”  I am just a fan living vicariously off the hard work and hectic schedules of the team. 

      Now fans are not bad.  When things go well they cheer, high-five, the whole bit, but they are not “disciples.”  When the great things happen “fans” laud, cheer, glorify, and praise.  Disciples praise… then go out to do likewise.  They go out to be in the world the glory they have witnessed.

  Jesus has lots of fans.  Facebook is running over with His “fan pages” (including, “Yes I love Jesus but I am not forwarding this to 12 friends”).  Jesus has lots of fans, but few disciples.  A lot of folks want to cheer Jesus… very few want to follow Him into the world.

Jesus didn’t pump his hands at the crowd for everyone to stand and cheer.  He said, “Come follow Me.”

The Perils of Poultry… Faith in Feathers

   Spring is coming.  I noticed today some buds appearing on the tree in our front yard.   The other sure signs of Spring will soon be here… daffodils, returning birds, longer days, etc….  It’s hard to get endearing emotions towards Spring, however, when you grew up in Oklahoma.  Oh sure, it was great to see those Artic winds losing their winter blast; their edges dulling a little, but Spring also meant those winds would start hooking in tight circles.  Soon they’d be ripping across the country side in tornados and folks will begin talking about the Fujita scale like it’s a newspaper box score from yesterday’s  ball game.

  Of all the studies I have ever heard about tornados, I heard about a new one this week, and, I have to admit, I would like to at least witness this one time.  It is a well documented occurrence, verified several times over the last few hundred years.  One fellow, Elias Loomis, even thought it was the secret to  gauging the strength of tornados. (One can only imagine what the “Fujita Scale” would have been called had he succeeded.)   The Atomic Energy Commission even looked into this phenomena for a while… though I am not sure why.  What I refer to is the “Poultry Effect.” 

   We have all heard stories of houses blown away while the goldfish bowl is untouched, bathrooms obliterated and the floor removed from beneath the bathtub where the people had gone for shelter.  You may have even heard how a tornado can drive a piece of straw into a fence post.  The “Poultry Effect” is another of those unsolved mysteries.  It seems that a common finding after a tornado are huge flocks of chickens running around… naked.  That’s right, somehow tornados can pick them up, clean them of every feather, then set them back on the ground…unharmed.  (That is until they have to explain the whole thing to their “feathered friends”  at the next social gathering… have you ever heard a chicken laugh?)

    Lots of theories have been promoted as to how this happens… but no one knows.   It would be interersting, maybe humorous, seeing a large flock of seventy-five, a hundred chickens, milling around, plucking grain off the ground>  “Nothing unusual here,” they cluck, “pay no mind to the fact our coop has been wisked away like Dorothy’s house (it’s now a neighbors tree ornament)… oh, and the fact we are wondering around without a stitch of  feathers.”  Or do they notice?  It’s not like they look in the mirror.  Do they care?  I don’t know what a worried chicken looks like.  How do they explain their condition to any new chickens who come around?  Is it a badge of honor, or do they hide?  Do they try to make them feel strange, out of touch in their old “feathered” appearance?  Just how does a chicken’s brain process the whole tornado plucking incident?  If you know a “chicken psychic” ask them for me.

   In honor of a chicken trials, let me share with you one more.  Gregory Warner is a reporter in Afghanistan.  He was sent for a report on Pakistainis who smuggle back and forth across the border.  Through contacts he found a former smuggler named Ali who promised to tell him all he knew, but he had to do the interview while they ran an urgent errand.  It seems Ali had an old friend, thrown in prison, whom they were going to “bust out.”  The whole plan was set, but Ali was concerned about one hazard common to breaking out of a Pakistani prison… being shot.

  That’s why he bought the talisman.  That’s right, to safeguard his friend’s life he purchased a talisman to ward off the bullets.  So, when Gregory Warner finds Ali, one of Ali’s men is carrying a “Pampers” box out of a local market shop.  They carry it out into a hostile mountain region, open the box, and out runs a chicken.  On the chicken is a talisman, indued with special powers to make the wearer bullet proof, (step aside Superman, Trigger, and the A-team… here’s Super-Chicken.)   Now that he is “Super -chicken” the bird is not too ruffled, so he runs off  just a little ways… while Ali’s men are loading. 

    Then an amazing thing happens: 8 shots are fired from less than 30 yards… and the chicken has not lost even a puff of down.  The shells are in the dirt and all around, but they haven’t even scared the chicken.  No one can believe it, even though the talisman was bought just for this reason!  They are all dropped jaw, and ready to pick up the bird, when, on a whim, Warner asks to take a shot.  Though he is reporter, not marksman, the illusion is “blown away” by one 45 calibre round… not to mention the chicken.  They all laugh and say something about American bullets.  Ali laughs, jokes, and seems unconcerned that they cannot even find the “bullet shield” talisman;  one for which he paid $1500.

   Of course,  no one would let on about their disappointment, or the scam artist shaman who sold them the amulet.  They laughed, carried on; razzed Ali a little.  As Warner reflected, he wondered how much of the whole talisman thing was serious.  How much of it was just an expensive game?  How much of it was just shooting a chicken?  On the other hand, may it have been all very serious?  Was there really faith in the talisman… just not enough on which to step out without a test run?

   Walking by faith and not by sight is hard for the superstitious.  You need something or someone you can rely on; something proved worthy.  I think we, like Ali,  have trouble with “faith.  Stepping out beyond our understanding makes for good sermons, good discussion, and a good scene in an Indiana Jones movie, but when it comes to me leaving the safe surroundings of “cause and effect” and actually stepping out where I do not know what’s going to happen… that’s tougher.  The fear of some nonbelievers is that faith in Christianity is a game of pretending faith in a very expensive talisman.  We’d really like to test it first.   We’d rather walk by sight, go where we know, and do what we understand. 

     Maybe this is one of the reasons God sent His son into the world… was to show us His faithfulness.  His life gives us the assurance we need, the confidence to step out in a faith that goes beyond sight.  We don’t know everything…but we know Him, therefore, we can overcome the world.  Jesus says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled… believe in Me!” (John 14:1).

[Warner's story is courtesy of "American Life" on National Public Radio.]