grace&peace

A Natural Selection for Hall
As Steroids Taint Baseball, Ripken's Legacy Remains Pure
By Dave Sheinin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 9, 2007; Page E01

It would not have seemed possible, as Cal Ripken's baseball career ground to a halt in the summer and fall of 2001, that his legacy could have been any greater. Across the country, fans packed stadiums to say goodbye when Ripken's Baltimore Orioles came to town one last time. The many retrospectives of Ripken's career reminded everyone how The Streak helped save baseball after the players' strike of 1994-95. Ripken was a symbol of all that was good about that game, and in 2001 it seemed to be all good.

That year, baseball was at the pinnacle of its unprecedented home run binge. Only three years earlier, in the same year Ripken's record streak of 2,632 consecutive games played ended, Mark McGwire had shattered Roger Maris's single-season home run record by slugging 70. In 2001, Barry Bonds was on his way to a mind-boggling 73. But there was still room to appreciate the blue-collar career of Ripken, whose 431 homers and 3,184 hits were more a testament to hard work, durability and longevity than to sheer talent or jaw-dropping power.

However, in the five and a half years since Ripken's retirement -- as well as that of McGwire, who also walked away following the 2001 season -- much has been learned about the steroid use that, it is now widely believed, fueled the great home run surge of 1998-2001, and the great home run seasons of McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Bonds.

The effect of that knowledge has been to enhance Ripken's playing legacy, even when such an enhancement seemed impossible or unnecessary, while greatly diminishing that of McGwire -- the former presumably as clean as they come, the latter presumably not. It is an effect that is expected to come into clearer focus this afternoon when the results of voting for this year's class of the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced.

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Ripken: Iron Man to Get a Bronze Plaque
By DAVID GINSBURG
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 9, 2007; 2:21 PM

BALTIMORE -- As a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cal Ripken Jr. will be recognized with a plaque that bears a sculpture of his face and details of his spectacular career.

The plaque will be made of bronze. It might have been more appropriate if it were molded from iron.

What better way to honor an outstanding player who earned the nickname Iron Man? Even if Ripken didn't play in a major-league record 2,632 consecutive games, he still would have been named Tuesday to the Hall of Fame.

But The Streak, which shattered the mark of 2,130 held by Lou Gehrig, was by far Ripken's most notable accomplishment and the reason he captured 98.5 percent of the vote.

"To be remembered at all is a very special thing. Having said that, I guess I'll be remembered for the streak," Ripken said last week in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm very proud of what the streak represents. Not that you were able to play in all those games, but that you showed up to play every single day."

Ripken showed up every day and played well enough that his manager decided the Baltimore Orioles would be best served with him in the lineup. Ripken's lifetime batting average of .276 does not rank highly among those enshrined in Cooperstown, but he retired in 2002 as one of seven players in major league history with more than 400 home runs and 3,000 hits.

He won two MVP awards, was the 1982 rookie of the year and was named to the All-Star team an AL-record 19 times. The 6-foot-4 Ripken also redefined the shortstop position, proving a tall, free swinger could play the middle of the infield just as well _ or better _ as a diminutive slap-hitter.

"I love the fact that I'm thought of as having success at shortstop as a bigger person, that maybe I opened up the (door) for the other shortstops," he said. "I didn't change the game, per se, but my success at the position might have changed the mind-set ever so slightly."

Former Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer, also in the Hall of Fame, said, "If you didn't have Cal Ripken, you wouldn't have Alex Rodriguez. Cal paved the way for the rest of the taller, stronger shortstops to play the position."

Ripken also helped mend baseball's image in the wake of a damaging work stoppage that canceled the 1994 World Series. In 1995, as he charged toward Gehrig's record, Ripken signed thousands of autographs, at home and on the road.

When he broke Gehrig's record on Sept. 6, 1995, Ripken's impromptu lap around the stadium at Camden Yards provided a feel-good moment for even the most bitter fan.

"The streak brought back a connection between the fans and the game itself," Ripken said. "I always thought of myself as sort of a social introvert, and I always used the autograph to bring that down. I had all this energy, I felt my responsibility to the media and everything else was taking away that relationship with the fans."

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i never got cal's autograph when he was a player, although i came very close one afternoon before a game. my most memorable story about cal is actually not mine, it is my mom's. after a game at memorial stadium in 1984, she and my cousin dieter waited for autographs. cal pulled up in his car, turned off the engine and proceeded to sign autographs while wearing his '83 championship ring. my mom asked to see the ring, and what did cal do but take it off his finger and hand it to her. the word i've heard most often to describe cal is classy, and that little choice to go beyond a simple request just seems to sum up why to me. i truly respect him.

i've appreciated todd phillips' sermons for a long while now, especially since i began hearing them regularly this past year. todd's the teaching pastor at frontline - a ministry at mclean Bible church (a megachurch in wealthy northern virginia). frontline is geared towards people in their early 20s to mid-30s... mainly young professionals.

he's been doing a series about colossians on and off the past six months - he progressed through chapter one in three parts in july, and then through chapter two in five parts in november. this leads us to part nine he just gave on sunday december 31. in this one, he returns to chapter two, and focuses on its final verses: colossians 2:20-23.

todd is gifted in admonishing youthful followers in love. he's real, he asks the questions he knows i'm thinking and he centers it all in truth. he's not afraid to call out problems within the church, but in the next breath, point to the church (as the body of Christ) as the way to change them.

i don't want to start summarizing his most recent sermon, so i'll just say this: listen to the sermon for free off http://www.frontline.to ... and if you're intrigued, listen to the whole series - this is part 9, and the other 8 parts are good as well. you can even subscribe to the free weekly podcast that they have. all of the sermons on the website are free (going back a few years!) and available as mp3s. it's really a great resource. for a while this fall, i went out walking around my neighborhood listening to a sermon each night. God will show you opportunities like these to sanctify time you already have - whether it be driving, waiting somewhere, etc. just ask Him, and He'll show you.

if you want to, let me know what you think here or in conversation sometime. i don't agree with everything that mclean Bible teaches, but i find todd's sermons particularly wise, applicable and thought-provoking. center part 9 is an interesting take on resolutions without being boring or cliche.

http://www.frontline.to

THE CASE FOR FLIP-FLOPPING
When Resolve Turns Reckless
By John F. Kerry
Sunday, December 24, 2006; Page B01

There's something much worse than being accused of "flip-flopping": refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop.

I say this to President Bush as someone who learned the hard way how embracing the world's complexity can be twisted into a crude political shorthand. Barbed words can make for great politics. But with U.S. troops in Iraq in the middle of an escalating civil war, this is no time for politics. Refusing to change course for fear of the political fallout is not only dangerous -- it is immoral.

I'd rather explain a change of position any day than look a parent in the eye and tell them that their son or daughter had to die so that a broken policy could live.

No one should be looking for vindication in what is happening in Iraq today. The lesson here is not that some of us were right about Iraq or that some of us were wrong. The lesson is simply that we need to change course rapidly rather than perversely use mistakes already made and lives already given as an excuse to make more mistakes and lose even more lives.

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Why Doesn't White Adopt Black?
By David Nicholson
Sunday, December 24, 2006; Page B07

Whenever I see a white couple with an Asian or Hispanic child, I can't help wondering whether adoption -- like the personal ads -- is one of the last areas of American life where naked expressions of racial preference are acceptable.

I know that sentiment seems ungenerous. Most of the children I see would have grown up in dire circumstances if they hadn't been adopted, and many will find me mean-spirited for gainsaying any child a chance at a happy and successful life.

All the same, I can't understand why so many white American couples go overseas to adopt, ignoring the plight of black children in the United States, such as the hundreds in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia awaiting adoption.

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Worship God not technology, Pope says on Christmas
By Philip Pullella Mon Dec 25, 8:43 AM ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Mankind, which has reached other planets and decoded the genetic instructions for life, should not presume it can live without God, Pope Benedict said in his Christmas message on Monday.

In an age of unbridled consumerism it was shameful many remained deaf to the "heart-rending cry" of those dying of hunger, thirst, disease, poverty, war and terrorism, he said.

"Does a 'Saviour' still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium?" he asked in his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message to the faithful in St Peter's Square, broadcast live to millions in 40 countries.

"Is a 'Saviour' still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature's secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvelous codes of the human genome?"

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Season's Greetings From the War
By Jon Meacham
Sunday, December 24, 2006; Page B01

Franklin D. Roosevelt loved Christmas. There were cocktails and stockings, and on Christmas Eve the president would read aloud from Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" -- the ham in him relished voicing the different characters in the old tale before family and friends. But after World War II broke out with Hitler's invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Roosevelt's holidays took on a darker tone, and his wartime Christmas words to the nation reflected the tension in his mind and heart.

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Longing to Join in Christmas
By Nitya Venkataraman
Monday, December 25, 2006; Page A29

Christmas is the season when you are most likely to find yourself on a street of beautiful homes with twinkling lights, warm fireplaces and happy families outfitted in festive holiday sweaters, only to be filled with a yearning to possess not just the house but the lifestyle inside.

For my whole Indian American childhood in the early 1980s, I wanted a Christmas tree that way. And it wasn't for the presents. It was for the lifestyle.

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Christmas for Every Child
Md. Man Tries to Give Kids Merrier Holidays Than He Had

By Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 25, 2006; Page A01

It was a few minutes after the big Christmas party started last night at Stonefish Grill in Largo. Owner Donnell Long had invited 100 disadvantaged and foster children and their families for a grand holiday celebration.

There were plates laden with turkey, baked ham, green beans, candied yams, mashed potatoes, baked apples and cranberry sauce. Hundreds of toys were lined up, ready to be presented to the youngest of the dinner party guests -- 100 children who are either homeless or won't be sharing this holiday with their biological families.

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The Single Hardest Day Of the Year
Inmates Mark the Yuletide With Reflection and Regret

By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 26, 2006; Page B01

It's easy to forget Christmas when you're locked up, Earl Walker said. But that wasn't exactly true.

It was midmorning, and Walker sat alone on the fifth floor of the Arlington County Adult Detention Center, reading the newspaper and drinking hot cocoa mixed with decaf coffee. He was nine months into an 11-month sentence, trying to kick a drug problem.

"You're in a building all day, so you forget about the seasons," he explained. "You don't even notice the weather."

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A Tale for Slavery's Children
By E. J. Dionne
Monday, December 25, 2006; Page A29

"African Americans read their own collective experience into the agony and exaltation of Jesus. The story of the Christ child, blessed by God yet born in the shadow of poverty and violence, was their story. Jesus' humble birth in antiquity signified the humble origins of African peoples in modernity. In his impoverished entry into the world, Jesus turned the tables on earthly valuations. Fulfilling the promise of the oracle that celebrates his advent in a stable, the hills of the privileged and the valleys of the humble are inverted, marking the beginning of a new era.''

-- Allen Dwight Callahan, The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible"

Great traditions are subversive. They constantly call the imperfections of the present to account in the name of a more exalted standard.

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Christmas
A story of hope, as needed as ever
Monday, December 25, 2006; Page A28

"AND IT CAME to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." So begins the Christmas story in the Gospel of Luke. There's some historical dispute about whether such a decree was issued around that time, but let that pass, too. It's an important part of the story now, a story not just of divinity, as it's seen by Christians, but of humanity -- and for all of us.

The Augustan Age of ancient Rome is generally regarded as a glorious period, a time when the empire was well-ruled, prosperous and full of creative activity. But, as ever, a lot depended on where you were and what your station was. In the eastern reaches, people could be displaced and driven about by great impersonal forces, made to answer to the whims of distant governors. A vast, efficient, civilizing empire that was also marked by cruelty and cold indifference ruled over a volatile part of the world riven by religious fanaticism and hatreds, tribal contention, and other conflicts.

The universal appeal of the Christmas story lies in its portrayal of a universal experience -- childbirth -- overcoming the most distressful of circumstances and bringing forth new life and new hope. It is a story of warmth, light and love. As he grew, Jesus of Nazareth conveyed a message that was to set a difficult path for those who believed deeply: to give up everything they owned and loved to follow him. But another part of his message has, like the Bethlehem story, inspired and comforted people of many faiths and was not much different from what has been preached there and in many other places: of the transforming power of love, the importance of humility, forgiveness, generosity and tolerance. The message of peace.

Today our own country, while never untroubled, is enjoying itself on an Augustan scale. But there is, of course, no peace. A good many of our noblest -- the Roman allusion is merited here -- are in difficult and dangerous conditions in that same faraway part of the world where the story of this day was set. And today a good number of them, whether religious or not, will take needed comfort in the old tale and in the atmosphere of the day and the greetings from home -- most now carried instantaneously on a glowing screen, which is the new light of Christmas and bearer of good tidings. Keep it shining this day, long and often.

here you go, lindsay! something other than an article, by request! haha

Christmas has been my favorite time of year for as long as i can remember - before it took on a profound spiritual significance.

it is the time i know i get to see my whole extended family... the cousins from up and down the east coast. as i get older and cousins marry and move away to form their own families, this time has become even more meaningful.

tomorrow morning is another blessing fulfilled. i will head to my aunt's house, who will unexpectedly have her entire family home for Christmas. nick, jenny and their three girls flew from their home on a u.s. army base in germany. jon got a break from his pharmacy rounds in north carolina to come up with his wife stephanie, who is pregnant with twins! sarah, jef and their two little girls are driving down from maine. katherine (my age) and todd (senior in high school) are home for Christmas break. all thirteen will be home to celebrate with martha and larry - the parents of the clan.

descending upon the house for just the day will be my four family members, as well as the new york cousins, jesse and justin, and their parents. grammy and pop round out the top of our familial Christmas tree. we will miss our tennessee cousins, but rejoice in the opportunity to celebrate with everyone there tomorrow.

it is the big holiday and summer gatherings i grew up with that make me want to have a family of my own. my grammy has been the most amazing role model of a maternal family figure. every one of her children's spouses (her in-laws) call her the ideal mother-in-law. she is graceful in all her ways, as well as disciplined, honest and loving. she understands, sympathizes, welcomes and invites. i've watched her endear herself to each cousin's spouse and engage them as a family member. she immediately makes plans to visit each of her grandchildren once a great-grandchild is born (but always at a time that suits for them - she does not impose). grammy knows how to show she cares, and goes out of her way to do so for each of her four children, thirteen grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren (not to mention numerous friends and other family members). i'm sure some of her wisdom comes from the patience and compassion learned by serving as a first-grade teacher for so many years, but only she can fully explain its development.

i focus on grammy's example because her efforts are a large part of why i have been so blessed to grow up in a relatively close-knit extended family. and to me, the even more amazing thing is how i have this on both sides. my mom's family has stayed in the DC area for the most part, so i've grown up knowing all three of my living grandparents well. (my mom's father passed away in 1993, when i was 8.)

i have absolutely no idea what God has in store for me regarding a family... but if i am blessed to raise a family of my own, may i remember grammy's many examples, so my grandchildren can feel the same gratitude i have tonight.