So, what are you Arkansans doing today? Let me guess, waiting in exhaustively long lines at the grocery store check-out?
I see the weatherman is calling for 2-4 inches of snow to blanket the Hot Springs area today and tonight, which should make tomorrow night's semifinal between Don Phillips's #2 Jessieville Lions and the 3rd ranked Bearden Bears a classic.
Last week, I picked Jessieville to win by seven and sure enough, they pulled out a last-minute, 28-21 win. The last time Jessieville made it to the semifinals (two years ago), they were knocked off by Charleston, 10-0.
Check back tomorrow for my pick. I've gotta wait and see if the weatherman's forecast is accurate as I think the weather and field conditions will play a factor.
----------------
There is a really good article that appeared in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle unpacking the multicultural mosaic of California. 30% of all non-English speaking residents in the United States reside in California. The article highlights the demands placed on the educational system of California to teach English, but I think the ramifications identified in the article have major implications for those of us seeking to minister effectively in such a diverse culture.
I am grateful that at Woodward Park, we offer assemblies for the Cambodian, Hmong and Lao in their native tongue, in addition to our English assemblies.
-----------------
I love this quote in Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat illustrating the high-demand for connectivity during the infancy boom of the Internet.
"You had to go out and get a PC and a dial-up modem. The skeptics all said, 'It takes people a long time to change their habits and learn a new technology.' (But) people did it very quickly, and ten years later there were eight hundred million people on the Internet. The reason? 'People will change their habits quickly when they have a strong reason to do so, and people have an innate urge to connect with other people, and when you give people a new way to connect with other people, they will punch through any technical barrier, they will learn new languages -- people are wired to want to connect with other people and they find it objectionable not to be able to" (68).
Forgive my presumption, but isn't the church especially created by God to provide the very connectivity that the Internet offers? If, as Friedman suggests, humans have an "innate urge to connect with other people," then we in the church are ideally suited to provide a connection point with God and with other people.
