My Lenten Commitment 2007

For the fourth consecutive year, I am transcending my low church roots and adopting the long-standing Christian tradition of giving some thing(s) up for Lent. Over the first three years, the scope of my self-denial progressively expanded from reasonable sacrifice to borderline asceticism. Whereas 2004 saw me eschew chocolate and beer, 2006 was the year I crossed the street whenever I saw any desserts, liquor, or fast food.

This time around I'm tapering the self-denial back a couple notches. First off, instead of giving up "all deserts" I'm simply giving up the ones I love the very most:

chocolate
ice cream
cookies

Second, I plan to fully embrace alcoholic beverages this Lenten season. I came to this decision when I realized that today is Ash Wednesday (i.e. the first day of the Church's long, sullen march toward Easter) and tomorrow is the day I make my first trip to Atlanta in nearly 8 months. The chances of me reuniting with Candler friends like Jay, John, Beth, and Dana and not drinking are about as slim as the chances of me being recruited by a lingerie football team to be their tackling dummy. Thus I've decided not to make Jesus cry by adopting a commitment I'm certain to break.

Third, last year I resolved to deny myself fast food during Lent. Unfortunately, I did not define "fast food" prior to Ash Wednesday so I spent nearly all of that holy season debating with myself and others about what restaurants I could patronize with a clear conscience. This year I'm eliminating hermeneutical conundrums by simply naming specific restaurant chains I will not eat at until Jesus once again rises from his tomb. Those establishments are:

McDonald's
Wendy's
Arby's
Burger King
Hardee's
Rally's
Taco Bell
Pizza Hut
Domino's
Noble Roman's
Donato's
Pizza King
Steak 'n' Shake
White Castle
King Gyros
Denny's
KFC

This list represents places in Central Indiana or Atlanta that I am likely to buy from if given the option. These places serve cheap, often-less-than-nutritious food that I am prone to eat too often and in excessive quantity. Those who are eager to keep me accountable for this resolution should therefore chastise me only if they discover I've patronized one of the above restaurants. So if you see me eating a Chipotle burrito or Mellow Mushroom pizza, don't criticize me because you'll lack the proper grounds.

Here's to a successful season of Lenten commitment. It won't be easy, but it'll be a heckuva lot easier than being betrayed by your friends and suffering an agonizing execution.

The Sisyphean Assignment of Shoveling Incessant Snow

"Know your role and shut your mouth." This is the lesson that the figure of Sisyphus personifies within Greek mythology. The proud king/founder of Corinth, Sisyphus achieved his high earthly status through his great skills of craftiness and trickery. So great was his hubris that this mortal monarch began to think of himself as possessing stature and nobility which approached divinity. Behaving as though he were a peer to the gods, Sisyphus overstepped his bounds as a human being when he (among other things) volunteered information on Zeus' sexual escapades to another deity.

His punishment? Zeus condemned Sisyphus to spend eternity in the Underworld performing a most ungratifying sort of labor. Sisyphus had to roll a massive rock to the top of a steep hill. But every time he would near the apex, the rock would escape his grasp and return to the base. Thus Sisyphus would forever be humbled by this difficult and fruitless task.

I've recently received a tiny taste of the Sisyphean experience. As many of you already know, Indiana has been receiving a large amount of winter precipitation during the last 24 hours. Now the total accumulation of snow and sleet is nowhere near what folks in Denver and Buffalo have been dealing with recently, but it has been enough to close down the schools and leave me more or less trapped in my house.

Now when weather like this sets in around the homestead, the task usually falls to Dave Scott to shovel all this accumulated precipitation off of the driveway. I don't mind the chore really. After all, I am the strongest, able-bodied person in our immediate family. And, at the present time, performing this service is a good way for me to demonstrate my gratitude to my aunt and uncle for letting me live here rent free for the past 8 months. It's also the closest thing to cardiovascular exercise my big ass is willing to engage in these days.

Of course, weather forecasts are always changing and reports vary from one meteorologist to another. But the consensus as I understand it is that Indianapolis will have received 11 or more inches of materials from the sky by the time this winter storm has finished bombarding our collective ass. The kicker is that the precipitation is accumulating relatively slowly over a 36-48 hour period.

The first major wave of snow hit last night while most folks were asleep. Not at all keen on the idea of shoveling snow that's sleet-encrusted and piled a foot high, I decided to head outside at 9am and clear away the 4"-5" that was already there this morning. I'm proud to say that I was able to shovel the entire driveway (as well as the sidewalk that leads to our front door) in a little over an hour. That pride was quickly squashed. By 4pm, nearly all the space I cleared out was filled back in with sleet and snow. Tomorrow morning I will have to head out again and relocate even more material than I tossed around the first time.

During several brief moments of self-pity, I amused myself with the thought that the God of Abraham was playing the role of Zeus to my Sisyphus. Instead of rolling a bolder to a hilltop, my incompletable task is to clear off a drive way that will be continuously rained, snowed, and sleeted upon. In my book, either punishment is far better than the one given to Prometheus for sharing fire with humanity: being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten out by birds every day.

I had a foretaste of this experience last week when 4" of powdery snow greeted me at 3pm when I returned home from work. After I cleared off the last corner of the driveway, I turned around to see that another inch-and-a-half had built up where I had just shoveled less than 60 minutes earlier. Therefore, I had to shovel my entire drive way two consecutive times before I could consider my task completed.

Here's hoping tomorrow's stage of my ongoing shoveling duties isn't too exhausting. In the final analysis, I'm not complaining about my Sisyphean challenge. Just reporting the details.

The Cold and the Son: Two Brief Conversations

Today I subbed at Westlake Elementary. The woman I filled in for is essentially in charge of getting students off the buses in the morning and getting them on the buses in the afternoon. That means I was technically in charge of this ominous task. (I say "technically" because the assistant principal was present both times, and he was clearly the one actually in charge.)

If any of my fellow Hoosiers were outside this morning, then you boys and girls know it was ridiculously cold. It was the kind of weather my venerable grandfather Richard Scott would describe as "colder than a witch's tittie." Now I personally have never felt a witch's breast, but if it is even half as face-numbingly cold as the climate I experienced at 7:45am, then I shant be touching such a breast any time soon.

Even still, in spite of both the bitter morning chill and all common sense, there were several students getting off the buses with no hat on, with their coat wide open, or even with their coat stored uselessly under their arm. Mostly in vain, I petitioned several students to rectify their situations and thereby spare themselves some unnecessary discomfort.

I recognized one of the students with an open coat and without a hat as a kindergartener named Brian. Now I'm not inclinded to say a kidneygardner lacks common sense (seeing as this age group is still jumping through the requisite hoops of enculturation), but I will say that this one seems to lack the survival instinct that God gave goats. Brian is an especially friendly Hispanic lad who clocks in at the tender age of six. But, for all his positive qualities, Brian's powers of concentration are sorely lacking.


Mr. Scott: Good morning, Brian. It's freezing cold out here, friend. Why don't you put your hat on?

Brian: Hellllloooooo!
Mr. Scott: Hi, Brian. Put your hat on, okay?

Brian: Hey! [short pause] I have a dog. Heeeeee's big and he runs fast!
Mr. Scott: No kidding? Where's your hat, buddy? [At this point, Mr. Scott notices that Brian isn't wearing a coat but a lined jacket on top of a hooded fleece.]

Brian: My dog has big eyes. [Mr. Scott puts Brian's hood on for him as the boy continues to speak.] And he's furry. And he has hard teeth. [Brian uses his index fingers to mimic his dog's upper canines.] And he runs fast!

Mr. Scott: He runs fast, huh?
Brian: Yah.
Mr. Scott: Cool. Now go to your class Brian.

Brian enters the school building through the east entrance, thrilled that an adult has acknowledged his existence.



The second conversation I would like to document took place during lunch. The conversants were Mrs. Patterson, a white woman in her late 40's, and Ms. Glenn, a black woman in her mid 30's.

Mrs. Patterson: Ms. Glenn, could you help me with this can? I can't seem to get this lid off. [Ms. Glenn immediately pops the lid off on her first attempt.] How did you do that so fast?

Ms. Glenn: I just pulled where it said, "Pull Back Here."
Mrs. Patterson: Really? Jesus Christ! I mean, "Cheese and Rice." That's what I said, "Cheese and rice."

Ms. Glenn: That's not what you said. You called on the Lord's Name. I heard ya.




I throughly enjoyed witnessing that exchange.

"You called on the Lord's Name." That was classic black woman.

Booyah!

The Indianapolis Colts are World Champions!!!

Peyton Manning can't win the Big One. A Tony Dungy team will never make it to the Super Bowl. The Colts are a finesse team...a soft team...a dome team that can't handle the elements. This is the kind of media-hype bull crap that Colts fans have been listening to for years now.

[Earmuffs, children.]

Fuck all that shit! The Colts just defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 on the NFL's grandest stage, and Peyton Manning is your Super Bowl XLI Most Valuable Player.

I have to admit it. When the Colts defense gave up 375 yards rushing to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 14 of the regular season, I nearly lost all hope that the Colts could win an NFL championship. When a loss to the Houston Texans in Week 16 cost us a first round bye, my foremost wish became that we would simply not embarrass ourselves in the playoffs...that we would do something respectable like making it to at least the divisional round before LaDanian Tomlinson or Corey Dillon gouged us to death on a national stage.

But after the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore, I started to believe again. I was optimistic, even though still gut-wrenchingly nervous, going into the AFC title game against the New England Patriots. When the Colts came back from 18 points down to Brady & Co. to secure their bid for the Big One, I began to feel something like confidence in the fact that Indianapolis was about to win a world championship.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't as elated by yesterday's Super Bowl victory as I was with the triumph over the Pats. Vanquishing our bitter rival in the most dramatic of fashions when it mattered most gave me the highest high I've ever experienced as a sports fan. To borrow a few words from my friend and fellow Colts enthusiast Aaron Homoya: After we won the AFC Conference Championship, I pretty much felt we were entitled to a Super Bowl championship as well.

Watching the Colts win the Super Bowl was a dynamic and ultimately enjoyable experience. I yelled, sighed, complained, screamed, cheered, and even threatend to shove sharp sticks into a sensitive area of Bears players' bodies. But, at the end of the game, I didn't feel nearly as ecstatic as I did after the AFC title game.

What I felt most was an overwhelming sense of relief. The pressure that all those aforementioned naysayings create weighs heavily on the fans as well as the players. The mighty pessimist I am could not shake the fear that the Colts might exorcise all their demons this postseason save the most important one: winning a league championship. Devon Hestor's opening kickoff return did nothing to alleviate that fear. Neither did Muhsin Muhammad's touchdown reception in the 1st quarter. But when my home town boys turned things around and outscored Da Bears 23-3 the rest of the way, they cast out that final demon with extreme prejudice.

As the final second ticked off the game clock, I yelled in adulation. Then I immediately collapsed back into my seat and let the sweet, sweet feeling of total, unadulterated relief wash over me. "Even if we go 4-12 every season from here on out, they can't take this one away from us," I proclaimed to those around me. I would now add that even if Peyton Manning never reaches another Super Bowl, no sane or credible human being can deny that he won this Super Bowl. He has now undeniably surpassed greats such as Dan Marino and Jim Kelly. He is now at least as stellar a quarterback as Steve Young or Brett Favre. All of you in the media who have been riding Peyton so very hard these past 9-13 years may now begin apologizing profusely.

In closing, I would like to make sure that I am being crystal clear on something: It is my quarterback, my coach, and my team who are the 2006 Champions of the National Football League. And just who does that team happen to be?


The Colts, bitches. The Colts.