After a week away, I'm (sort of) back!

Monday last, on the 24th, I had severe abdominal pains, sharp pains very different than the ones my Myopathy normally provide. Thought I had cooked some bad chicken. After writhing in pain for about ten hours (mostly in the 9-9.5 pain scale range, not very coherent), the ER ran a catscan on me and saw two large gallstones plus a massive infection (one that only looked worse once they poked me open) that kept me hospitalized until late Friday. I've been very slowly recovering over the weekend, and while I have a ton to talk about with respect to not just my health but the Lord's part in rescuing me, I'm not up to lengthy writing stints yet.

So, for now, this is all I'm up to. More tomorrow, I pray. Be well, my friends.

Why footy?

    I love footy.

    Why?

    I love watching athletic genius. Watching Gary Ablett Jr. sell the candy and deke three opponents out of their shorts to score a goal from thirty meters out on the run. Watching Paddy Dangerfield weave through a field of players to hit Tom Hawkins unnoticed in the goal square because the defense was focused on Paddy. Watching Lance Franklin roll to his left and launch a seventy-meter boomer through the goal posts halfway up. Watching Jeremy Howe grab a mark three meters up in the air, and then watching Joe Daniher take one even higher the next week. Watching the leaping ability of a Nic Natainui or the strength of a Majak Daw or the speed of a Gary Rohan. I love watching great goal-kickers: watching Josh Kennedy in the second quarter Sunday put on a clinic for West Coast, or Ben Brown bag a bundle when the Kangaroos seemingly have nothing to play for. And as much as I love team genius like the Richmond run ending in Caddy’s goal in the third Sunday, I also love the individual persistence of a Callen Ward, fighting on full strength when the rest of his Giants team was mailing it in by the fourth quarter.

    I love watching the drama off the field. Watching coaches in the press box emote, free of the constrictions of decorum on the sidelines where their players could see their frustrations - exhorting, exulting, even expletiving at times. Watching the agony of an injured Lin Jong on the sidelines realizing he might miss the Bulldogs’ ride to the top.  Watching the quiet dignity of Bob Murphy fade away as his precious team completed the impossible dream, and then watching Luke Beveridge make grown man cry by presenting Murph his medal. Watching coaches post-game be completely honest (98% of the time) with their evaluations and frustrations and excitement.

     I love watching the physical adjustment players have to make into a four-goal wind. I love watching the umpire deal with the vagaries of the center bounce, and I love watching the players deal with the vagaries of the wild, over the head hurling of the ball in from the sidelines. I love seeing the AFL take the game to Cairns and Tassie and Darwin and Ballarat and all over the country, to share the game we love. I love watching the seagulls land on the grass at the MCG while a Grand Final is taking place, reminding us how unimportant playing our little games really is.

    I love watching the human storylines unfold. I love watching the resurrection of a talented player who finds his lost confidence before our eyes. I love watching seventeen veterans race to congratulate a debutante who joins the first-kick, first-goal club. I love the behind the scenes videos of the club presenting a rookie with his first guernsey, or the coach telling the kid he’s going to get his first AFL game this week. I love watching a Dangerfield return to Adelaide, to the chorus of boos that mean ‘We hate that you left’, and the signs of friendship from the players he left behind. I love that having “feeder” leagues like the WAFL and the VFL allows struggling athletes to play their way back into form, or injured athletes to play their way back into shape.

     I love the variability of the AFL. I love that the competition is so close that we saw whoever the seventeenth-placed team happened to be, win every single game they played from round seven through fourteen. I love that we can have a round like R7 this year where all nine games were won by the team that was lower on the ladder. I love that while the finals are set up so that the season is meaningful and the best team in the season usually wins the cup (or at least one of the two or three best), every once in awhile you can have a team like the 2016 Bulldogs pull off a stunning run to a title. I love that Richmond can go from an afterthought last year into one of the major contenders this season. Or that Fremantle could go “from the penthouse to the outhouse” in one year, as they did from ‘15 to ‘16 to everyone’s surprise. Or that Sydney could do both in one year.

    I love that you can’t take a single game for granted in the AFL. In a fixture of 198 games, you’d think there would be some that you could completely ignore, knowing the outcome in advance. Unfortunately for them, the teams themselves sometimes think they “know the outcome in advance”, and that’s when all hell breaks loose and the upsets start flying.

    In Round Five, the Western Bulldogs were 3-1 and still in championship form, and came up against the youth-laden 1-3 Brisbane Lions at Etihad, the Doggies’ home stadium. They were almost 50-point favorites. Every prediction I ran across had them winning. It’s the only time all season I’ve seen a fan vote literally predict 100% to zero in one team’s favor. On top of all of that, it was Bob Murphy’s 300th game in the league. So, obviously, Brisbane came out making shot after shot, going 9.0 bef0re finally missing a shot in the second quarter, by which time they were 38 point leaders over a Western team that ended the first period shooting an abysmal 15 percent kicking efficiency, and ended the half 5.13. It took until the fourth quarter for the Bulldogs to get their sea legs to the point where they could finally pass the Lions, and when they did they ran past them and won by 32, but that was the most ironic singing of a team song I’ve ever heard!

    In a league of “just” eighteen teams (as an American, I’m used to 30-32 in each of our major pro sports leagues), there’s a shortage of “hangers-on”, a dearth of players who really don’t deserve to be playing in the league. As of round 18, about 640 young men have stepped on the pitch for an AFL team this season, and when you look at some of the players who haven’t gotten that opportunity yet this year, you realize the talent levels that have to be above them to crowd them out. Watching Brett Eddy rip up the NAB pre-season games for Port and still not be able to hold a place in the best 22 for the Power tells you how good their roster is - and you can find similar stories in every franchise, Brisbane to Fremantle. In fact, as much as Freo has struggled, it took until R16 for them to unleash a 21-year-old Ryan Nyhuis, who only spent his first AFL game playing the unfamiliar position of forward and kicking four goals to lead the Dockers to a win over North.

    I love the sport in general. It’s a sport where the individual battles within the war can be just as absorbing as the war itself. It’s the joy of watching Bernie Vince of the Demons tagging Rory Sloane of the Crows. It’s watching Alex Rance holding the fort against Lance Franklin inside 50. It’s watching Paddy Ryder and Max Gawn battle in the ruck.  It’s watching the soldiers battle with strength and speed without armor, the best athletes in Australian sport (says the Roar’s crack team of writers).

    But it’s more than that: It’s watching the concern the moment there’s an injury on either side of the pitch, uniform color be damned. It’s watching the AFL incorporate the women not just into a league of their own but in the announcing booth and in the administration as if it’s nothing to bat an eye at. It’s watching the reaction of the footy community when Adam Goodes or Eddie Betts were being harassed by the lowlifes we have to allow into the stadiums until they reveal themselves, coming to their universal support when they were needed. It’s experiencing the outpouring of love for the players and family of Phil Walsh when he was needlessly killed mid-season two years back; watching Alastair Clarkson and Nathan Buckley organize the midfield circle after the Hawthorn/Collingwood game without anyone’s foreknowledge was one of the most profound experiences of my life, even sitting at home alone here in the US, ten thousand miles away.

    Why do I love footy?

    It’s an extended family. And by extension as a fan, it’s my extended family.

[Originally published in The Roar, July 24, 2017.]

Don't Believe In God Yet? You Probably Believe in SOME-thing...

     We are fundamentally drawn to understanding that there IS something greater than us "out there". The Holy Spirit will make Himself known to everyone at some point - just because you choose to reject Him, to reject Christ and God the Father, won't quench that feeling that there IS a greater Truth. You'll put another name on it - aliens, Mother Nature, the majesty of science, the Illuminati - but we are driven to that knowledge for a reason.

     This article came from the New York Times - the link goes to the entire article, but I want to share parts of it here. This is written by a NYT author named Clay Routledge:

     Are Americans becoming less religious? It depends on what you mean by “religious.”

     Polls certainly indicate a decline in religious affiliation, practice and belief. Just a couple of decades ago, about 95 percent of Americans reported belonging to a religious group. This number is now around 75 percent. And far fewer are actively religious: The percentage of regular churchgoers may be as low as 15 to 20 percent. As for religious belief, the Pew Research Center found that from 2007 to 2014 the percentage of Americans who reported being absolutely confident God exists dropped from 71 percent to 63 percent.

     Nonetheless, there is reason to doubt the death of religion, or at least the death of what you might call the “religious mind” — our concern with existential questions and our search for meaning. A growing body of research suggests that the evidence for a decline in traditional religious belief, identity and practice does not reflect a decline in this underlying spiritual inclination.

    I felt around the edges of it for decades before He finally smacked me in the head a few times and I couldn't ignore Him any more despite my best efforts. I was the biggest "there's always a scientific explanation" guy there was - and I still see God using modern science to work His wonders more often than most Christians - but eventually even I had to admit the Truth. If my sweet late wife Melissa were here, she could tell you how hard I fought it. My son Hamilton still fights it just as hard, even when he admits the Truth grudgingly on occasion. I see my near-step-daughters going through the question stage now.

     Dozens of studies show a strong link between religiosity and existential concerns about death and meaning. For example, when research participants are presented with stimuli that bring death to mind or challenge a sense of meaning in life, they exhibit increased religiosity and interest in religious or spiritual ideas. Another body of research shows that religious beliefs provide and protect meaning.

     We search for this meaning because it's instilled in us from before the beginning. It's the old joke about becoming a Christian on your deathbed because that's the only time it matters to you. Quite often, however, it IS the only time we actually ALLOW ourselves to slow down and consider the matter objectively and seriously. We crowd out these critical thoughts with the noise of the world and society and distractions that the fleshly world culture forces on us, that the devil encourages specifically to keep us from listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, telling us that feeling of longing for the Holy Father's comfort the same way we long for our parents as children. 

     Furthermore, evidence suggests that the religious mind persists even when we lose faith in traditional religious beliefs and institutions. Consider that roughly 30 percent of Americans report they have felt in contact with someone who has died. Nearly 20 percent believe they have been in the presence of a ghost. About one-third of Americans believe that ghosts exist and can interact with and harm humans; around two-thirds hold supernatural or paranormal beliefs of some kind, including beliefs in reincarnation, spiritual energy and psychic powers.

     These numbers are much higher than they were in previous decades, when more people reported being highly religious. People who do not frequently attend church are twice as likely to believe in ghosts as those who are regular churchgoers. The less religious people are, the more likely they are to endorse empirically unsupported ideas about U.F.O.s, intelligent aliens monitoring the lives of humans and related conspiracies about a government cover-up of these phenomena.

     We all know there's Something Up There. If we've rejected the Holy Spirit's invitation to come to Christ, then we transfer that knowledge to something else. If we're into that sort of thing, we fill that hole with "aliens/time travelers from the future", or "government conspiracy/Big Brother is watching you", or "the Illuminati/secret society" that's supposedly running the world from secret. (You don't NEED a secret society to bring about the signs of the End Times. Economic efficiency demands integration of business practices, monetary policy, government procedures, and so forth. It's in our very nature to create what the Bible says will be the Devil's playground.)

     When people are searching for meaning, their minds seem to gravitate toward thoughts of things like aliens that do not fall within our current scientific inventory of the world. Why? I suspect part of the answer is that such ideas imply that humans are not alone in the universe, that we might be part of a larger cosmic drama. As with traditional religious beliefs, many of these paranormal beliefs involve powerful beings watching over humans and the hope that they will rescue us from death and extinction.

   

      I plead with you - we are fast approaching that moment when every person will have to choose a side: either you're ON God's side, WITH Jesus...or you're AGAINST Them. If you choose poorly, God can't help you anymore beyond that point.

COLLEGE football is right around the corner!

In my distractions from working for the Lord's best interests, one of my side projects for you and this blog and my other writing gigs is the tracking of American style football - college, pro, and CFL.

The CFL is in mid-stride already, deep into its Week Five schedule with Edmonton sitting atop the nine-team field at 4-0 after beating Hamilton with a last-minute touchdown, 31-28. The Tiger-Cats are now last at 0-4. (Sorry, son. Sorry, Melissa... My eldest son's name is Hamilton, and my late wife's favorite teams are always the "Cats") Behind the Eskimos sits British Columbia (the Lions are 3-1 and host 2-1 Winnipeg tonight) and Calgary (the 2015 champs are 2-1-1 and awaiting 1-2 Saskatchewan tomorrow). Toronto, Montreal, and reigning Grey Cup champs Ottawa are all muddling along in the Eastern conference around or below .500, waiting for lightning to strike.

The NFL started training camps this past week, although in the modern game that doesn't mean a bunch of out-of-shape guys starting to train as much as it does bringing in your year-round fitness-training employees to teach them your team's way of doing things. (Four preseason games are too many. Cut it to three for starters, then eventually two. Just my opinion.)

But today, let's look at the upcoming Division One NCAA season, both "Bowl Subdivision" and "Championship Subdivision" (those are the NCAA terms).  

What I call them is divided a bit further: the FBS has the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac 12 and SEC) who control all the money; and the Group of Five conferences (AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt), who do the best they can without the financial advantages of the other five conferences.

The FCS, too, has the conferences that actually DO compete for a "national" championship at their level (as the D2, D3, and NAIA schools do), and the three who are more "intramural" in their treatment of the game. The latter three include the Ivy League, which is serious about its academics: they don't play ANY games until Sept 16th, and then refuse to participate in any post-season at all. They also include the two conferences of "Historically Black Colleges", the MEAC and the SWAC. These two send their champions to meet each other in the Celebration Bowl to crown the HBC national champion (which seems completely reasonable to me, frankly!). If the MEAC has a second school which qualifies for the FCS bracket, as North Carolina A&T did last year, they'll let them participate.

The other conferences in the FCS really ARE in it for the championship playoffs: the Big Sky, the Big South, the Colonial, the Missouri Valley, the Northeast, the Ohio Valley, the Patriot League, the Pioneer League, the Southern, and the Southland conferences.

As 2017 begins, here are the "handicaps" (we've moved from tiers to handicaps, to match our other ELO-based grading systems) for the 66 Power Five schools, the top five conferences. The lower the number, just like in golf, the better the team is:

1. Alabama (10)  2. Ohio State (13)  3. Florida State (14)  4. Clemson, Oklahoma, and USC (15).
7. Penn State (16)   8. Washington (17)  9. Michigan, Auburn, and LSU (18).
12. Wisconsin and Oklahoma St (19). 14. Louisville and Stanford (20). 16. Florida & Georgia (21).
18. Miami-FL (22)   19. Virginia Tech & Tennessee (23). 21. Kansas State (24). 
22. Northwestern, Texas, West Virginia, Washington St, and Texas A&M (all 25).
27. NC St, Georgia Tech, TCU, Notre Dame, Oregon, Colorado, and Utah (all 26).
34. North Carolina, Pitt, Iowa, UCLA, and Arkansas (all 27).
39. Minnesota, Nebraska, BYU, Ole Miss (28). 43. Kentucky & Mississippi State (29).
45. Baylor and So Carolina (30). 47. Michigan St & Vanderbilt (31).
49. Indiana, Arizona State, and Missouri (32). 52. Wake Forest, Texas Tech, Oregon St, Arizona (33).
56. Boston College, Duke, Cal (34). 59. Syracuse, Maryland, and Iowa State (35).
62. Virginia and Illinois (37). 64. Purdue & Kansas (40). 66. Rutgers (42).

As you probably figured out, the conferences are color coded: Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big Twelve, Pac-12, and Southeastern. The two independents are left black. In theory, you can subtract one handicap from the other and get the point-differential on a neutral field under neutral conditions for a game between any two teams on these lists. But as with every pre-season list when you're dealing with youth in a set-up where there's about a 1/3 turnover every season, your results may vary!

Here are the similar rankings for the 64 schools in the Group of Five conferences: the American, Conference-USA, the Mid-American, the Mountain West, and the Sun Belt. 

1. South Florida (25). 2. Boise State (29). 3. Houston, Memphis, Toledo, & San Diego State (31).
7. Appalachian State (32).  8. UCF, Navy, Tulsa, & Western Kentucky (33).
12. Temple, Western Michigan, Colorado State, Wyoming, & Troy (34). 17. Louisiana Tech (35).
18. Arkansas State (36). 19. SMU, Miami-OH, Air Force, & Army (37).
23. East Carolina, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, Ohio, & New Mexico (38).
28. Cincinnati, Southern Miss, UTSA, Northern Illinois, & Hawai'i (39).
33. Tulane, Marshall, & Central Michigan (40).
36. Eastern Michigan, Nevada, Utah State, Georgia Southern, and Idaho (41).
41. U Conn, Akron, & South Alabama (42). 44. Bowling Green, Ball St, & UL-Lafayette (43).
47. FAU, FIU, Rice, Kent State, and San Jose State (44).
52. North Texas, Fresno State, UNLV, Coastal Carolina, and Georgia State (45).
57. UTEP, Buffalo, New Mexico State, and UL-Monroe (46). 61. Charlotte (47).
62. U Mass (48). 63. Texas State (49). 64. Alabama-Birmingham (50).

Finally, here are the handicaps in ranking order for ALL of the 124 FCS teams to start 2017:

1. North Dakota State (32).  2. James Madison (34).  
3. South Dakota St, Jacksonville St, & Sam Houston St (all 36).
6. Youngstown St & Wofford (37).
8. Eastern Washington, Charleston Southern, Richmond, & The Citadel (all 38).
12. North Dakota, Weber State, Illinois State, & Chattanooga (39).
16. Cal Poly SLO, Montana, Liberty, Villanova, & Central Arkansas (40).
21. New Hampshire, Northern Iowa, Samford (41). 24. Northern Arizona & McNeese St (42).
26. Kennesaw State & Grambling State (43).
28. Southern Utah, Albany, Western Illinois, Tennessee St, UT-Martin, Lehigh, Mercer, & Nicholls (44).
36. William & Mary, South Dakota, Eastern Illinois, Fordham, SE Louisiana, & Stephen F Austin (45).
42. Montana State, Northern Colorado, Southern Illinois, Tennessee Tech, San Diego, Furman, Penn, Princeton, and No Carolina A&T (46).
51. Delaware, Maine, Stony Brook, Colgate, Incarnate Word, Harvard, No Carolina Central, & Southern (47).
59. Portland State, Gardner-Webb, Indiana State, & Western Carolina (48).
63. Towson, Eastern Kentucky, Murray State, Dayton, Abilene Christian, Houston Baptist, Dartmouth, & Yale (49).
71. Missouri State, Duquesne, Holy Cross, Lamar, So Carolina St, & Prairie View A&M (50).
77. UC Davis, Monmouth, Bucknell, E Tennessee State (51).
81. Rhode Island, SE Missouri State, VMI, Northwestern State, Brown, & Cornell (52).
87. Presbyterian, St. Francis (PA), Lafayette, Drake, Bethune-Cookman, Hampton, & Alcorn St (53).
94. Sacramento St, Elon, Georgetown, Jacksonville, & Columbia (54).
99. Wagner, Marist, Florida A&M, Norfolk State, Alabama A&M, and Texas Southern (55).
105. Idaho State, Alabama State (56).
107. Central Connecticut St, Sacred Heart, Campbell, Morgan State, & Jackson State (57).
112. Morehead State, Howard, & Savannah State (58).
115. Bryant, Robert Morris, Austin Peay, Butler, & Delaware State (59).
120. Stetson, Valparaiso, & Mississippi Valley State (60).
123. Arkansas-Pine Bluff (61).
124. Davidson (62).

If you're looking for the extreme, consider Davidson's football team going to Tuscaloosa and playing Alabama on its home field, for their hypothetical season opener (so there are no other effects going on). The home team is usually assumed a three point advantage, so that means the 52-point spread between their current handicaps would expand to a prediction of a 55-point Crimson Tide victory. Roughly, for every eight points that a prediction is in error, we adjust the handicaps of the two teams by one. So, if Davidson were to hold Alabama to, say, a 47-point win, we would move Davidson's handicap DOWN one, and Alabama's UP one. 

In reality, by the way, especially in blowouts, we take a close look at the game circumstances - did 'Bama take a 49 point lead at halftime and play the towel boys in the second half? Or did Davidson really score a couple of times on even the second string D? Was there a QB injury that skewed the results? Were they teams rested, or is one of them on a short week and the other coming off of a bye? Is it REALLY a neutral site game, or is it one team's "backyard"? Those things matter to the results, and are taken into account. But if you want to play along, that's our general rule in the game of (American or Canadian) football: adjust handicaps by a factor of 1/8 in comparison to the expected outcome (after a 3-point home advantage).

Evangelizing to a Hateful World

Have you ever wondered how we're supposed to combat the "tough nuts" who fight against us when we try to share the Gospel? Those folks who've "tried" Christ and "seen it for the crock of crap it really is"? Richard Ellis has a staggeringly blunt message on this problem - and maybe it'll hit you the way it hit us. Take 25 minutes and listen; you won't be able to pull away. (Hit "It's a Crock", today's message, 7.21.17.)

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

My intention with this blog was to post one short essay per day. Sometimes I create a longer piece - a short story of fiction, for example - and that might represent a couple of days' work. But on average, I've generally posted over the almost year-lifespan of this version of the Act II Ministries blog at a rate of close to one per day. (Easy to check - Blogger allows you to see how many posts were put up in each month, and the number's almost always in the mid-20s or so.) 

And then I hit a stretch like this week.

There are several unfinished posts sitting on file here, but since Sunday, when I tagged my weekly Australian football piece that I write for The Roar on here (and I always consider that cheating, a little - this blog DOES cover football, sure, but I didn't write those pieces specifically for this audience...), I've only posted ONE column, and that one on Monday.

It's late Thursday night. Nothing.

And I have no good excuse. I'm on summer holiday, my 4-6 week break from any kind of school teaching (summer school ended July 7th; students return August 21st, although I'll be back into the office a couple of weeks before that). I've been (for me!) moderately healthy, with only the normal number of painful episodes to distract. My children are due back tomorrow evening from their holiday with their mother, so the house has been quiet, and I haven't even had any unusual long times spent with my ladyfriend Dana. (By "unusual", I mean we didn't go anywhere since Sunday - we did go to Boise to see my sisters-in-law on Friday and Saturday last week, and that accounts for that break.)

I have no excuses. I simply have shirked my obligation to this ministry, and therefore to the Lord.

When you become a Christian, you don't suddenly become perfect. If you're already a Christian yourself, you already know this. If you're not, though, that's a common misconception of sorts: Christians can often be perceived as holier-than-thou zealots who come across like Stepford Wives trying to drag you into their web, and that's not it at all.

Any real Christian is going through the same guano that you are, sometimes (usually!) more so. And the reason for the more so will not encourage you to become a Christian, I'm afraid.

People whom the devil or his fellow fallen angels like to tempt are the ones who can do him harm. If you're already doing his bidding, then he's not bothering with you - most likely, the problems you're dealing with are of your own making because you're living his kind of life. But if he considers you a threat, he pays specific attention to you, and does what he can to pull you off the front lines.

Sometimes it's major; sometimes, it doesn't have to be. All that's needed for a peon like me is to get me away from my keyboard where I can't spread the Word of the Gospel. Sometimes that's pain, and unfortunately that's a particularly effective method against me (it's one I'm fighting even as I type this). But other times, one of his favorite weapons against a lazy person like me is simple lethargy - no, don't do that now; wait until later...and later...and later...and well, you're too tired to do it now, right? It's been like that for three days now - something else has "needed doing" instead of the most important job I could have: saving other souls from damnation to hell.

My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak. I was lost...and sometimes, I'm still lost, and I have to be found again. But to do that, I have to wave my arms for Christ to come back around and find me after I shoved Him away a bit for a couple of days.

Hopefully, I can stay in His Loving Hand for awhile now. But undoubtedly, I'll fail and fall away a bit again, and probably sooner rather than later, because I'm still all too human. Thank you for being patient with me. I know God is, and I know the Trinity is, because that's Who They Are. We make these mistakes, and it doesn't cost us our salvation - but it does mean we're not doing what we're still on earth to do. The Great Commission. If it wasn't for that, He would have brought each of us Home the moment we Believed a saving Belief.

Keep up the good fight, my friends, and I'll try to do the same. God bless you. -g

Have you had your shots?

Do you know how vaccines work?

Traditionally, you take an inert, dead version of a disease and inject it into a person's body. Then, your body works on the inert version of the disease and "learns" how to fight it, and soon it develops an immunity to the milder version, and then hopefully builds that immunity against the real disease as well. 

Unfortunately, that's what happens to many people when they subject themselves to the Joel Osteens and many of the other televangelists of the world. Too many well-meaning people think they're becoming Christians by dealing with the self-serving preachers whose view of Christianity has very little to do with the cross. Unfortunately, when they find that those demonic, altered versions of the Faith don't work, they've become immunized against the True Faith, the Biblical message of Christ's sacrifice as payment for our sins, sins which cannot be reconciled in any other way with God.

Without that acknowledgment that we are sinners, and that sin is a crime against God that must be accounted for, and finally that we by ourselves CANNOT pay that debt, there is no Christianity - there is no Heaven for us - there is no way to salvation.

The "prosperity gospel" preachers want you to think that your sin is immaterial. You "deserve" a good life!, they tell you. (We deserve nothing of the sort. We've each committed crimes against the Lord High God every day of our lives, in thought, word, and deed.) All you have to do is believe, and you're saved! (Almost true - through that belief, you must accept Christ as your Lord and Savior. "Lord" means you obey Him, specifically His Biblical instructions. But that's kind of a "downer" for the prosperity gospel folks, so they tend to leave that part out, to our eternal detriment.) And once you're saved, God will give you everything your sick little heart desires: money, romance, success, fame, you name it! (Talk about a misreading of "Ask and you shall receive"!)

When you ask of God, when you ask of Christ, as a follower and servant of the Lord what would you be asking for? That's right - things that bring glory to His Name! If that includes money, fame, etc. for you, that's incidental. Matthew chapter 6 lays this out for us - verse 33 reads very clearly,

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

"All these things" include NOT fame and fortune so much as "your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on". (Matthew 6:25). God promises (upon our prayers!) to "give us (each) day our daily bread", NOT our daily caviar, our daily filet mignon, or our daily cabernet sauvignon. It's very clear that our lives are given to us by God to glorify His Name, not ours!

If the prosperity gospel were true, wouldn't Jesus' disciples have prospered in such a worldly manner? Instead, they were persecuted, poor throughout their lives, and generally killed in nasty, insidious ways!

So, if you've been "immunized" against the TRUTH of the GOSPEL because you heard the FALSE VERSION brought around by the demonic spirits who rule this age, OPEN YOUR HEART to the real thing. 

OPEN YOUR HEART TO CHRIST HIMSELF. Let HIM show you the Way, the Truth, and the Light. 

The Losingest Team in Professional Footy Wasn’t Professional.

In 1908, two teams were invited to join what had become the premier professional football league in Australia the old Victorian Football League, predecessor of the modern AFL. One was the Richmond Tigers, which now has over a century of history in the VFL/AFL, including ten titles.

The other was a group of amateur players from Melbourne University. They were the only amateurs in the league (officially; payment in the good ol’ days was notoriously vague in the leaner years), consisting solely of MU students throughout their seven-year tenure in the VFL. According to some research done by Daniel Cherny from the Age a few years ago in the school history Black and Blue, in one particular game in 1909, “the team that took on Collingwood (had 13 members who) were either medical students or qualified doctors”.

Not your average footy team, then.

The University stopped putting a team on the VFL schedule after the 1914 schedule, not because they were running on a 51-game losing streak at the time, but for a much more important reason: World War One.

University literature says that 251 students and graduates of Melbourne University were killed in the war, at least nineteen of whom had suited up for University on the pitch. When they were unable to field a team for the 1915 season, they “folded” as a professional presence.

While the team remained a viable amateur club both before and after their VFL stint (and both the Uni Blues and the Uni Blacks still compete successfully in the Victorian Amateur Football Association), it’s the seven year period between 1908 and 1914 that we’re interested in, the lifespan of the only team in VFL/AFL history ever to go completely dark (Fitzroy lives on within the Brisbane Lions, even if their team records are no longer “live”).

The University “Students” (not the most dramatic mascot, but perhaps the most accurate in history!) flipped the usual “expansion” scenario on its head when they entered the VFL. In their first three seasons, they finished sixth and seventh in a ten-team league, going 25-27-2 over the course of 1908-10.

And then, the bottom dropped out.

Over the course of their final four seasons, the University VFL team went 2-70. That is not a typo. They won twice in four years, once in R3 of 1911 (53-41 over Richmond), and again in R3 of 1912 over Richmond (63-48 this time), with a full season losing streak (18 games) in between.

What University fans would soon call “a nice warm-up”.

From that second Tiger defeat on, the Students would never win another VFL game. 15 more losses in 1912, and two seasons of 0-18 the next two years would add up to a 51-game losing streak which will probably never be approached, let alone broken. Its only competition came from the birth pangs of the St Kilda footy club in 1897, a team which took almost three (shorter) seasons to win its first game in late 1899 (against Geelong). Although the Saints would run off another pair of double digit streaks in the next couple of seasons (27 losses starting the next fall in 1900 and a 23-gamer following that, beginning in mid-1901), they never again approached the sheer consistency of that losing streak. No other team has come within about a season of University’s streak, North Melbourne of the early 1930s being the next closest contender.

(By the way, the two most recent expansion franchises each had 21-game losing streaks early in their existence, and are the longest such streaks in the 21^st century. GWS also shares the all-time record for consecutive draws, however, with two; a streak which may never be broken.)

Such was the quality gap between University and the rest of the VFL that the 1914 ladder had some really bizarre idiosyncrasies.

Eight of the ten teams had percentages above 100%. Meanwhile, poor University was 0-18 with an incredible 47.0 percentage, with the Melbourne Demons having a similarly poor season for actual professionals, going 2-16 with only a 61.3 percentage.

Guess which team the Demons managed to beat twice.

If you took away Melbourne’s two victories against the amateurs from MU, their record would have been 0-16 with just a 53.4% percentage, a percentage “beaten” by only a dozen or so teams in 120 years. The other eight teams that year ranged from 8-10 with a 100.6% on up to 14-4; five percentages were above 120%, a figure not difficult to attain with four easy-beats on their 18-game schedule. 

The 1914 University team still holds the claim for the worst single-season record in an 18-plus game season. Seven teams have gone winless at 0-18 (University holding two of those, as mentioned). North Melbourne’s bad stretch in the early thirties produced two 0-18 seasons, in ’31 and ’34, with the former year’s percentage of 50.8% placing them third worst all time. (No team has lost every game in any format longer than 18 games. Yet.)

Only Hawthorn’s 1950 club ever broke the 50% barrier in a perfect 18-loss season, reaching 49.81% by allowing eight more than double the number of points they scored themselves.

By comparison, the 1914 University squad gave up 103 more than double their own points scored (813-1729), for a percentage of 47.02%. (The worst of St. Kilda’s 0-17 seasons came in 1899, where they rang up an abysmal 23.22%, scoring only 40 goals all season while allowing 192. In the inaugural 1897 season of 14 games, the Saints scored just 35 goals and went winless with a percentage of 29%.)

If you’re morbidly curious, there have only been two winless teams since WW2 – that 1950 Hawks team and the 1964 Fitzroy club, also 0-18, which had a relatively robust percentage of almost 60%.

The only four teams since the war to have duplicated University’s sub-50% mark are 1950 Hawthorn (49.8%), the last year of the fabled Fitzroy franchise, 1996 (one win and 21 losses with a percentage of 49.47%, five goals below 50%), the first year for Greater Western Sydney, in 2012 (somehow producing two wins alongside 20 losses and a percentage of 46.17%,), and the lowest post-war percentage ever, the 1-17 St. Kilda Saints of 1955, whose percentage of 45.4% represented an average game score of 105-48. In R11, they somehow defeated North by seven, 68-61. Fortunately for posterity, they then remembered who they were, and lost to Melbourne the next Saturday, 118-21. 

Lastly, before I wander off, I took a quick look at the betting lines for the last six rounds of the season and projected where the 18 teams place if every one of those 54 games goes precisely as expected. Here’s where they currently would land…

1.      Adelaide                (18-4-0)           130%

2.      Geelong                 (16-5-1)           116%

3.      GWS                      (15-5-2)           117%

4.      Port Adelaide         (15-7-0)           129%

5.      Richmond              (14-8-0)           105%

6.      Sydney                   (13-9-0)           115%

7.      Melbourne             (13-9-0)           107%

8.      Essendon               (12-9-1)           112%

9.     West Coast             (12-9-1)           105%

10.  Western BD           (10-10-2)         97%

11.  St Kilda                  (10-11-1)         95%

12.  Hawthorn               (9-12-1)           88%

13.  Fremantle               (8-14-0)           83%

14.  Collingwood          (7-15-0)           96%

15.  Gold Coast             (7-15-0)           84%

16.  Carlton                   (6-16-0)           83%

17.  North Melbourne   (5-17-0)           88%

18.  Brisbane                 (3-19-0)           71%

The biggest things to mention are that Essendon passed the Eagles after flipping the result of this weekend’s game versus the Saints, and Hawthorn picked up another game and a half in the oddsmakers’ eyes after their showing against the Cats Saturday afternoon.

Of course, if every game went precisely as expected the rest of the season, it wouldn’t be 2017, would it? So don’t throw away those betting cards from February just yet…