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Jason Witten: Doing It All the Right Way

May 4, 2018 by tornado Leave a Comment

Rumored as likely for a couple weeks, the story verified yesterday: Jason Witten, Dallas Cowboys tight end, Mr. Dependable, Number 82, retired after a team-record 15 seasons. Observing well-known Blue Star tight ends like Billy Joe DuPree and Doug Cosbie as a kid, and Jay Novacek on the dynastic Super Bowl teams of the 1990s, I didn’t imagine we would see one arrive to outperform them all, by a large margin. I’ve been watching Cowboys games since I was a little kid in the mid-’70s, and can assure you he’s among the top few greatest players among the many greats ever to wear the star.

Rightly, fans, other players and coaches alike stand in starstruck admiration of Witten’s on-field accomplishments, including team records for games played (239), games started (229), receptions (1152), receiving yards (12,488), and a team and NFL record for receptions in a game by a tight end (18, against a team he tormented often, the Giants). He ranks first in NFL history for tight-end receptions in a season (110), second all-time in the NFL in single-game receptions by a tight end (18), and fourth for any position. It seemed like Witten would play forever; the big man in the #82 jersey, trotting on the field every game, was so dependable and easy to take for granted.

While these stats amaze us in and of themselves, they hint at a greater truth: such accomplishments happen only through a combination of avoidance of severe injury, with both great training and good luck involved, and unwavering dedication to the craft. Remembering Witten for his iron-man achievements in a violent sport, I can’t even fathom playing just two weeks after a busted jaw — the intervening game being the only one he ever missed — nor playing the season opener on a still-healing spleen just a few weeks after it got lacerated in a tremendous preseason hit. Of course, there was the hallmark play of his career: where two Eagles players slammed into him at once, bouncing off of Witten in different directions while his helmet flew in another, and he just kept running, for a 53-yard gain. Add in all the selfless, behind-the-scenes blocking prowess that made him the NFL’s most complete tight end, and his longevity rises from remarkable to astounding.

That all this deserved respect and accolades are showered on Witten — a man who is humble and still somewhat uncomfortable in the spotlight despite being one of the best all-time players on tradition-soaked America’s Team — is no coincidence. Witten is a man of strong Christian faith, and the Christian worldview clearly informs and guides his life and his work. In justifying his drive to excel and his unsurpassed work ethic, he cites one of my favorite verses, Colossians 3:23; “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,…”. This is a principle I’ve long strived to apply to severe-storms meteorology, and recognized it early in Witten’s football work, long before knowing he also specifically followed the same verse. As such, and knowing any player who earned the famously cranky Bill Parcells’ respect so early in his career must be doing something right, I became a Witten fan fast.

Many words exist to describe what he brought to the Cowboys and the sport at top performance level, and here are some:

      Intelligence

      Skill

      Toughness

      Integrity

      Trustworthiness

      Professionalism

      Authenticity

      Leadership

      Dependability

      Savvy

      Work ethic

      Excellence

      Giving

      Honor

Yes, honor…he gave it, he received it, and he earned it, on and off the field. No question, he will have a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the next 5-6 years. In 2012, Witten won the NFL’s highest humanitarian award, the Walter Payton Man of the Year, for his combination of playing excellence and community service. His charitable foundations and causes included kids’ fitness and the struggle to stop domestic violence — the latter a poignant point after spending part of his childhood around his wife-beating, alcoholic father. Witten’s charitable involvement isn’t for show — it is authentic, deeply personal and meaningful. He is even more devoted as a father and husband than he was to football.

Witten has earned every last bit of the respect he has gotten and will get. Thinking of his career makes me glad and thankful to be a fan of his and the Cowboys, the only regret being that he couldn’t get a Super Bowl ring to cap it off. For good reason, many coaches on his team have told new players: If you want to succeed, find someone who does it the right way, all the time, and follow his example…and that guy is #82.

Witten never, ever let his fans down, on or off the field. I can’t express how rare and refreshing that is, and how grateful I am to have followed his career with the Cowboys. His retirement press-conference speech showed once more the class and honor we have come to expect, respect and admire from Jason Witten.

Elke and I watched his classy and heartfelt retirement speech while eating lunch at Qdoba yesterday…

As a sportsman and a man outside sports, Jason Witten has been top-caliber, and he will succeed in TV and beyond at whatever he does, because he both played the game and conducts his life the right way. “I relied on grit…the secret is in the dirt. I have to be willing to go out and earn it.” Earn it, he did. Success wasn’t handed to him on a silver spoon. He rose from disadvantage and busted his ass hard to succeed, while also honoring those who helped him along that journey. Here’s a story about Witten’s most effective receiving play and how he made it so, exemplifying his playing style and work ethic.

“I hope I made you proud to be a Dallas Cowboys fan.” You did, Jason, and you do. May God’s blessings keep shining upon you in your TV gig and beyond.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: authenticity, charity, Christian, Christianity, Dallas Cowboys, excellence, faith, football, giving, honor, integrity, intelligence, Jason Witten, lessons, NFL, skill, sports, toughness, work ethic, worldview

Rebirth Within: The Meaning of “Born Again” in a Hostile World

January 5, 2016 by tornado Leave a Comment

When most people think “born again”, I reckon they imagine some fat ladies acting as intrusive small-town busybodies while singing glory hymns to a swaying flock at a Southern tent revival, a hypocrite who claims and feigns piety yet gets caught in some terrible public act of crime or scandal, a pious-acting pseudo-Christian who pretends to have a perfect life and perfect marriage (in denial of his/her own deep swims in pools of adulterous salaciousness), or a TV preacher begging for money to subsidize his mansion, his trophy wife’s diamonds, and a private jet supposedly immune from demons.

All such events and people have existed, no argument–albeit in exceedingly small quantities compared to the total Christian population. Yet when revealed, they disproportionately are publicized by the attack dogs of dogma on the anti-Christian left and portrayed as wholly representative of the churchgoing flocks. “Look at these hypocrites! See, I told you religion is evil and should be eliminated from the world forever.”

Those are mere stereotypes of course, little capsules of culture-concocted hate-poison used against an entire category of people, and manifestations of the cynicism of the human world acting to generalize caricatures into weapons of rejection. The hateful rage, naturally enough, arises from many of the same ones who preach love and tolerance. Read any website or post of anti-Christian vitriol online and you’ll see examples of those same human flaws wielded over and over, in exhausting and unoriginal redundancy, as weapons against the religion. The “Christian” hypocrites (regardless if real or perceived) make convenient fodder for intellectually lazy anti-Christian trolls aiming to discredit the faith itself through selfishly self-satisfying vituperation on the imperfections of real or pretend practitioners.

Who is behaving as such a troll? The resentful and/or envious and/or jealous and/or cynical and/or mean-spirited anti-Christian bigot, of course, who stands willing and ready at the hair-trigger to cite all manifestations of imperfection and hypocrisy, major or minor, old or new, portrayed falsely as products of belief in God. Of course, such actions are precisely the opposite–the direct spawn of sinful thought on the part of non-divine humans (i.e., everyone who isn’t Jesus) who choose their bad behaviors out of free will! Every single sin is an act against God’s will, not an act on his behalf, regardless of how it is portrayed.

Rebirth and authentic, personal belief don’t involve perfection, nor pretending piety, nor even failing to sin again. The latter is not possible. No living human fully achieves Jesus’ direction to “sin no more”. Instead, to use a mathematical analogy, freedom from sin is a goal that we only can hope to approach asymptotically in this life, and only if we put forth conscious effort. I still do things I shouldn’t, and that’s the truth, even if the trend line seems to be headed the right way in fits and spurts. That’s not an excuse to do bad things, just an acknowledgment of hard reality.

Does my imperfection disqualify me as Christian? Absolutely, positively, resolutely not! And neither does it render the faith illegitimate.

If being practiced by imperfect people is reason to discredit a faith, then being practiced by imperfect scientists is reason to discredit science. Being practiced by imperfect physicians is justification to invalidate medicine. Being practiced by imperfect athletes is cause to dismiss athletics. Being practiced by imperfect writers is grounds to besmirch authorship…and so forth. Ridiculous!

This also is reality: Rebirth happens within each single individual, in a very real and meaningful way, and only when we’re fully open to it in a mode of self-denial. By that, I mean turning off and tuning out all distractions, pushing aside all the diversions of life just long enough to experience a moment outside oneself. It’s hard to find, but unmistakable once we do. There’s a mountainous obstacle to that around or over which one must navigate: culture, a.k.a. “the world”.

We live in a world intrinsically infested with materialism, greed and self-glorification. That reaches us via cultural bombardment with incoming messages from celebrities, media, Internet, peers, and even family, promoting the selfish ideals (and idols!) of:

  1. deserving instead of offering,
  2. gaudiness instead of modesty,
  3. appearances instead of authenticity,
  4. evasion instead of directness,
  5. deception instead of honesty,
  6. portraying instead of being, and of course,
  7. taking instead of giving.

The din of all that spiritually numbing noise offers a level of disruption and distraction that takes nearly inhuman levels of willpower to silence, unless we just step away. Yet it happens if we allow, often in a quiet moment of solitude, or in mutual reinforcement with spiritually mature and strong people we can trust.

It happens for me often with my wife Elke, someone who isn’t perfect either, but who is a spiritual giant residing inside her authentically quiet, unassuming persona. It happens in the inflow to a powerhouse tornadic supercell, or beholding one of those Great Plains sunsets that paint a neon sky from horizon to horizon. It deeply happens when I experiencing those things with Elke. Moments of spiritual oneness outside self–these are marvelous antidotes to the toxicity of hostile culture and human failings, and expressions of love from Above that say, “I am bigger than all the hate directed at you, and I will prevail in your life if you choose!” So I accept that I will be hated for my beliefs, even as I choose guerrilla battles to wage against said hate.

Rebirth can be a one-time big event, thousands of little steps or reminders, and everything in between. It can be that “booming voice from the heavens” for some folks, but more often it seems to be epitomized by the following reassurance, found in Paul’s letter to Christ’s followers in Ephesus: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us–his spirit deeply and gently within us.”

That’s the essence of rebirth: we must want it, invite it, open up to it. Maybe it’s gradual (as with me, still a “work in progress”). Maybe it’s sudden. Either way the result is as individual as each of us, customized to and for each of us according to our uniqueness. It can be manifest as simply as fullest appreciation of the smile of a beloved spouse, the dog wagging its tail and looking at you with unadulterated loyalty and affection, or the purr of one’s ecstatic cat in a quiet room. It’s as complex as the sky and everything in it, or as all the facets of love itself.

Such rebirth, especially if experienced with a loved one or good friend, also makes us more accountable, more aware than ever before of our own imperfections and relative smallness, more willing to set ego aside and apologize for mistakes we invariably will make. Accountability is so important to everyone, fulfilling instead of restricting when properly considered, is a vanishing concept in the era of “me, myself and I”.

Rebirth also makes us more attentive to the awesome things happening all around that we missed before, or at least, didn’t appreciate so fully. This ability, which still manifests far too seldom in me compared to the connection with God that I desire, leads one directly away from cultural pollution and toward glory and grace. Documenting such moments in the atmosphere with photography, for me, is a small way to show off the beauty and amazement of Another’s creation more than any skill of my own. [In other words, He makes the picture; I just try my best not to screw it up too much.]

And those who have experienced rebirth still have personalities and quirks and flaws and failings. You bet I belch, fart, hack snot, wear casual clothes everywhere including church, blast forth uncouth words sometimes, and even get pissed off and do crazy shit that I shouldn’t. [Whoa, did a Christian just write that? Damn straight, he did!] Yes, I am also a Christian, fully devoted. It’s who I am. Those are not contradictions.

And yet the rebirth has happened, and is ongoing–a lifelong process. I’d rather take that journey than the other forks branching off life’s highway.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: anti-Christian, bigotry, born again, Christianity, Ephesians, faith, God, hate, hypocrisy, intolerance, leftist hypocrisy, Paul, piety, rebirth, religion

False Equivalencies?

November 22, 2014 by tornado Leave a Comment

A notion handed down from Richard Dawkins to assorted atheistic laypeople goes to the effect of this: the Inquisition and Crusades were mass killings in the name of religion; however Stalin’s (and other atheist dictators’) genocides of millions weren’t done in the name of atheism. Notice the subtle semantic dodge? Because Stalin et al. didn’t specifically state to the world their atheism as the reason for their genocides (most of which were kept secret at the time anyway), it must be a “false equivalency”. My my, how convenient.

Well, if you drill deep enough into any literal comparison, it becomes a “false equivalency”. For example, two slightly different isotopes of sodium are indeed slightly different at that level, and therefore, not truly identical. Nonetheless, they give you the same salty effects in molecular bond with chlorine, offering the same level of taste, electrolytic action and solubility. Of course, even that can be arbitrarily declared a “false equivalency” by someone who doesn’t like the idea. Just because somebody claims it’s a “false equivalency” doesn’t make it so. “False equivalancy” does happen: witness, for example, the ridiculous yet common comparison of homosexuality–a behavior–to skin color, an immutable genetic characteristic and not a behavior. Yet, “false equivalency” more often is a buzz-phrase used as a weapon to stifle discussion.

Self-proclaimed Christians killed many during the Inquisitions and Crusades, true. Self-proclaimed atheists killed many in the Stalin/Pol Pot/Mao regimes. True. Each set of killers was motivated by psychopathically warped version of their personal ideals (whether rooted in faith or lack thereof) which don’t represent the basic tenets of either Christianity or secular humanism/atheism, respectively. Really, those are two sides of the same evil coin. The atheists and Christians I’ve known would not murder millions, given the opportunity–but then again, I don’t make a habit of hanging out with cold-blooded killers.

The oft-repeated regurgitation of Dawkins’ “in the name of” semantic dodge, in the context of Stalin (as if Dawkins is an authority on anything in particular aside from genetic biology…but that’s another story) is popular, is viral, makes a nice catchphrase…and doesn’t stand the salty taste test, nor is it backed up by historical truth. To the contrary, I (no more nor less an authority than Dawkins on religious matters) have decided that the Stalin/Inquisition comparison is is NOT a false equivalency at its fundamental root. Here’s one example why: The League of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists, about which Stalin’s loyal aide Yemelyan Yaroslavky said, “It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept… If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done.”

That statement alone damns the notion that atheism was an irrelevant sideshow of the Stalin regime–not to mention the exemplifying behavior of the regime within which the “League of Militant Atheists” thrived. This group also participated directly in killing and fatal prison/Gulag exile of religious individuals, including clergy, bishops and monks*. Indeed militant state atheism was a central creed of the USSR, and the LMA was disbanded officially only under great pressure from the Allies in World War 2. Other purges of religious figures and believers followed, however–the death toll numbering in the millions as part of one of the largest genocides in history.

“NO evidence”? There goes that idea. The League of Militant Atheists, and the philosophy with which it was associated far beyond any official membership numbers, makes one hell of an “inconvenient truth” for the field of secular apologetics.

Yet the tiresome “false equivalency/in-name-of” tenet of atheistic catechism will persist for a long time, because it does make a tasty piece of gristle for militant atheists–the modern version, not as a capitalized league, and thankfully not genocidal–to latch on with fangs bared.

Personally, I’d like to see the mutual mistrust and animosity cooled off between atheists and the religious; we all have at least some common goals and interests and should be able to get along much better. If I somehow have contributed, through my unwillingness to let what I see as heretic falsehoods propagate, then please forgive me. I am idealistic in standing by my faith and in attacking an idea (not the person), and also wish no harm on atheists. Only God will deliver the ultimate, perpetually binding judgment of us all.

At the core, we all actually see the same fundamental order of creation, whether through science or the pages of Genesis. [Quite obviously, the writers of Genesis had access to some amazing insights not available to science for another couple thousand years!] Being a scientist who also is faithful, I see science as a great, God-given tool to understand His enchanting, marvelous and infinitely complex universe better and better, and see my role in contributing to science as fulfilling a God-given talent and ability. The more I read and work and play and observe in science, the more I see God’s handiwork.

Meanwhile, I say: God bless all atheists; for they, as for me and everyone else, religious or not, whether one chooses to have faith or not, are made in His image and have become imperfect through sin. Denying God won’t make Him disappear. Good thing I live in a place and time where I’ll not be burned at a stake by an Inquisitor or made to disappear by the Soviet League of Militant Atheists for saying that!

    * For more information, I highly recommend this book: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies (History of Soviet and Atheism in Theory and Practice, and the Believer), by Dimitry Pospielovsky. It’s a text, and very expensive, so if you can find the book in a major library (as I did when studying all sorts of material about the USSR during the early ’90s), that’s the best bet.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: atheism, atheists, communism, faith, genocide, Jospeh Stalin, League of Militant Atheists, logic, miltant atheists, reason, religion, science, Soviet genocide, Stalin, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR

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- June 9, 2023, 2:25 pm

That's a "Big ol' BOOM." Need better #lightning protection at such a facility! https://t.co/NXG5yidGu3
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- June 9, 2023, 12:29 pm

Finally, we lacked some large, sweeping convective-wind events (derechoes, or those that fall just short of derecho criteria), which can yield 500 or more preliminary severe-gust and wind-damage reports in a single day, & can boost the numbers for a whole month.
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- June 9, 2023, 12:25 pm

Not to mention Moore and El Reno in 2013 -- the only tornadoes of their magnitude on different May days. Some years (1987, 1988!) are quite quiet in May; this is nothing unprecedented. But it is unusual, and worthy of documentation.
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