I love being a Sooner.



Awesome. Just awesome.

(You can spy the new 115 foot wide HD jumbotron from :39-:46.)

Today I ran across an old story back from 2000 on the Sports Illustrated website that had a photo of a little exploit of mine back in the day:

One thing I never thought about until it entered the news cycle today is the fact that Barack Obama, who is intensely connected via web, email, and mobile electronic communication (mainly via his Blackberry) to the world around him, will probably have to give up having email and messaging altogether once he enters the presidency. This means no more Blackberry.

The president essentially forfeits all privacy when it comes to his written communication because of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Evidently George W. Bush sent a final email from his AOL account in January of 2001 and has supposedly not sent personal email since.

The law certainly does not forbid the president from using email. But, unfortunately, it is a political reality that doing so could create tremendous liability from those seeking to damage the president in any way, because that kind of privacy is no longer his right.

Obama has made no secret of his dependence on his Blackberry, and I completely understand. Once you have that kind of connection power, it is hard to stay away from. Handling email becomes a matter of stopping at a red light for 30 seconds. In between plays in the middle of the stadium, you immediately have the running scores of every other football game in the nation. I repeatedly send texts to 45 people at a time announcing social plans that have come up on the spur of the moment. Pulling the phone out of the pocket and clicking the Gmail icon simply becomes a habitual behavior, kind of like holding a cigarette. My first move after opening my eyes in the morning now is reaching over for the Blackberry on the nightstand, which is linked up to my home WiFi. I don't even have to walk over to my laptop. It's a tremendous acheivement in the cultural drive for instant gratification through instant, anywhere information. It's amazing.

So, to have to give up that kind of personal access at any moment and to have to funnel all of my communication through others would be a tough adjustment. You have my respect and sympathy in your upcoming detoxification withdrawals, Mr. Obama. I'll understand if your aids catch you slouched in a corner of the White House, shaking and pale, pounding out hundreds of texts on a black market Blackberry. It's just a part of the recovery process.

Being a campus minister, it probably follows that I should try to be on campus quite a bit. I do this in various ways, one being times that I have labeled for myself "campus experience." I just simply walk around campus and see what happens. Sometimes this means nothing happens. Other times it means I run into people and have conversations. Other times some random things happen.

Today I was over by the union and a couple of guys were out preaching in the courtyard. They're not the really crazy fiery types so pretty much no one stops to listen. This is the second time I've seen them so I got a little bit of food and sat on a bench nearby just to listen. Of the two, one guy is a little bit older and does a typical oration of "you are separated from God by sin so you must repent" and the other younger guy (who I later learned was in high school) would awkwardly read from a King James bible during the breaks. At one point it was obvious to them that I had been the only one paying attention and they stopped to apparently talk it over for a bit. After a couple of minutes the young guy came over, asked my name and sat down to deliver the gospel to me. He had me read aloud out of a workbook from a page labeled "Teachers Guide" which was basically John 3:16 followed by several paragraphs explaining that most people just want to be "saved" by Jesus but not follow him. He then went on to talk for several minutes and I don't remember much of what he said except that he was extremely awkward about the whole thing.

We chit-chatted for a few minutes more about this and that before they decided to leave. As they walked away towards the library, the older guy stuck tracts in the face of all the students walking by them.

So, here are two guys who obviously love the gospel. In all of their preaching, there truly wasn't anything that I thought was overtly wrong or incorrect about anything they said. They seemed to be nice guys. But in the end, I couldn't help but feel that they were unintentionally damaging the message of the gospel - and not necessarily by what they were saying or by what they believed about it - but by how they were trying to deliver it.

I had no desire to get into anything with them, but the whole time I wanted to ask them what they truly knew about these students. One was a home-school high schooler, the other a somewhat older guy with no connection to the university. I wanted to ask them if they had relationships with any of these people. I wondered if they had a concept of how these students think and the kind of lives they are living. I wondered if they understood that they can yell words that they call the "gospel" all day long at people, they can put little tracts into their hands, but it only adds to the piles of information garbage that students immediately sweep out the back door. I wondered if they understood that words have little meaning to these students unless they are backed by relevant relationship that gives them authenticity.

I have no claim on understanding the depths of all this. I am in no way better than these guys. They may love the gospel more than I'll ever know. They obviously have a ferver to serve Christ in bold ways and I salute that. But I also think that loving Christ and the gospel means wanting to communicate it in ways that don't make it look stupid.

For several months now, and especially since yesterday, I have seen an overwhelmingly disappointing amount of intense immaturity regarding the direction of this presidential election. People that I have regarded as intelligent, rational, and even Godly are proving to be otherwise, at least in the moment.

Nothing has been said better than a blog post that appeared this morning from my friend Ruth. The following are her words in their entirety.

You're a Good Man, John McCain

John McCain is a good and gracious man. Not a savior, any more than Obama is a savior; not the antichrist, any more than Obama is the antichrist. He worked hard, campaigned hard, and won the support of many Americans. On a day when it seems the nation is split between hope and despair, and I want to take a moment to highlight some words from his own concessions speech.

"I urge all Americans ... I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited. Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that."

The race is over, and McCain did not win. But he has not called for anger, revenge, despair, or contempt. On the contrary, his words remind us that we are ONE nation. ONE America.

"I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here."

I understand what some of you are feeling. I felt that way four years ago. But I appreciate the sentiments of people on both sides of the political arena: it's not up to one man or one party to save this country. It's up to the people. If people would get as invested in the important issues of the nation and the world as we have been in this election, nothing could stop us.

Do pray. Not because Obama is some plague we have elected into office, but because we are a nation being ripped out of apathy, and in order for change to really occur we are going to need to God's help. And a focus on something we can both believe in.