The players on the 2004 Red Sox team called themselves “The Idiots,” a satirical comment on their formal schooling (only two had gone beyond high school). What “The Idiots” did is a go figure story, ask any Yankee fan.
I grew up in New England so I was born into Red Sox nation long before that name became a successful marketing strategy. Every spring was filled with excitement that this would be the year.
The Bosox would contend for awhile, sometimes quite a while but in the end it would be the "Red Flops" and the big let down. Oh sure they made it into some World Series but they managed to lose them all. The most egregious flop being against
to the Mets when the Sox came within one strike of winning it all before losing again.
I knew all about “The Curse of the Bambino” referring to the Sox sale of a guy named Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918, the last year Boston won a World Series.
The 2004 “ Idiots” had their ups and downs but they made the playoffs. A sign in the locker room read 11 more wins. A few eyebrows lifted when the Sox swept the A’s in three. But now it was those dreaded Yankees for the American League title.
The Yankees won the first three games-a kiss of death. No major league team has ever come back to win a seven game series after losing the first three. In game four the Yankees were leading when the best closer in baseball, Mario Rivera came on to finish it off. A bloop single, a pinch runner and a solid hit and the game was tied. The Idiots would not lose again-taking an unprecedented four straight
from the Yankees
to get into the World Series and then tokk four straight from the St. Louis Cardinals which that year had the best record in the majors.
Why 2004? Why “The Idiots?”
Did God finally have mercy on the long suffering Sox fans? Was it the new owners and manager who categorically dismissed the Curse but quickly labeled the Yankees “The Evil Empire?”
Maybe it was David Ortiz who always pointed skyward with both arms as he crossed home plate after each homerun. Or was it pitcher Curt Schilling’s cross on a chain, which he kissed and tucked under his shirt each time he started a game.
Perhaps it was the faithful holding signs and chanting in the stands, ”We Believe, We Believe.”
Whatever. If we don’t believe we are the idiots.
John Obrien
Portland, Maine
Incredible true stories that touch the heart and tug at the soul. Are they chance or destiny, coincidence or fate? Do you have your own Go Figure story? Want to share it? E-mail us at gofigureamerica@yahoo.com
Friday, June 27, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Reflections of Grace
June 8,2008
One Woman’s Journey From Complacency to Conviction
“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2
I have been a believer in Jesus since I was a little child. Now, as a maturing Christian, I have chosen to be in living relationship with Him. I have found there is a big difference between the two.
I would like to testify to a short but very intense awakening. These events and the reactions they aroused in me are real. They brought me to my knees in tears of repentance. My soul fought battles between submission to the Light and my own dark desire to be the director of my life. Through it all I have learned a little more about God’s love for His wayward children.
Let me begin...
In late April, 1999, I took a one-week business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was attending a company-sponsored technical fair in which I would demonstrate our team’s newest Internet initiative. The fair was a huge success. We generated a lot of interest and our product was favorably received. After the fair, the vice president on our team offered to take us all out for a dinner. While some of the folks left to drop their PCs in their rooms the rest of us waited outside.
The weather that evening was perfect. The sun had set about an hour earlier, This is the picture I would like you to see through my words. Envision a group of white, upper-middle-class men and women standing on a Minneapolis sidewalk laughing and talking. Suddenly a stranger walks into their midst. He is a poor man—a poor, disabled black man—and he is drunk. Not mean or sloppily drunk, but happily so.
Immediately the mood of our group changes, but the man does not seem to notice. He comments on the beauty of the night and begins a plea for money to take his children to a movie. Someone in the group rejected his request while the rest of us shifted uneasily. Throughout this I was feeling very uncomfortable because I knew I should have been standing separate from my peers by respecting this person’s humanity. I knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t do it because I was afraid that my “friends” would reject me too—that they would think me odd.
The man accepted the rebuff with good grace, and then he did something extraordinary. He asked if he could pray for us. Someone in the group said
they did not want a prayer, but he stood in our circle, bowed his head and prayed anyway. He asked God to watch over us and our families. He called us beautiful, although I felt anything but beautiful by then. He closed his prayer with a joyful amen, which I echoed quietly and then our eyes caught and held for just a moment before he turned and made his way up the hill along the well-lit path. As for me and my group, we turned off the path onto a darkened side street, making our way to the restaurant for a well-earned dinner.
The next morning I woke up feeling ill physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometime during the night, I had been convicted of my own careless disregard for one of God’s beloved children. I spent that morning alone in my room, on my knees before God in tears of repentance. I remember feeling completely alone, so far away from the people who knew me and loved me.
As I sobbed in my misery, I “heard” the gentle voice of the Shepherd. “I am here.” Peace flooded through me, and the sobs became gentle, cleansing tears as I knelt by the bed and allowed myself to finally understand God’s grace.
I had sinned. I am the person who meets God unable to say that I had fed Him when He was hungry and clothed Him when He was naked. Despite this I am loved, forgiven and still oh-so-valuable to the Creator. This is grace.
Two weeks later my husband and I traveled to London for our delayed (by 16 years) honeymoon. Sometime toward the middle of the week, I had an incredible urge for spaghetti and sauce. Finding southern Italian cooking in London is a bit of a challenge, but I had my mind set, so my husband and I began searching for my definition of an Italian restaurant.
We had been searching for over an hour, and it was after eight in the evening as we entered the Underground to catch a train. I was tired, hungry, frustrated and feeling very sorry for myself when I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. Directly across from me a homeless young man was settling in for the night. He was dirty, skinny and sick. He slid his back down against the wall of the station and pulled a filthy, tattered blanket up to his chin. He had a dog, as dirty and underfed as he was, that gently climbed into his lap for the night.
I stood there in silence with the people of London rushing all around me. It seemed I could see Jesus with His arms outstretched in the shadows behind the pair. The story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) came to my mind. I am the rich man. I have never known a moment of real need or total abandonment in my life, I have always been loved, yet I was upset because I couldn’t find a restaurant that served red tomato sauce. Tears came into my eyes and my heart was humbled once again. Grace.
Back in Connecticut three weeks later, I was asked to travel to New York City to do a presentation. I decided to incorporate a walk to the train station into my lunch hour. It was my habit to pray daily at the Church of St. Patrick/ St. Anthony, so I decided to do that at noon, also. As I stepped out of the train station, I could see that there was a poor woman begging on the corner and that I would have to walk past her. I was immediately enveloped in a terrible and stubborn frame of mind and I decided before I even stepped off the train station steps that I was not going to help her. I put my head down and watched my own feet, determined not to see her. She saw me, though, and I heard her call after me, “Please, Miss.” Five times she called and with each cry for help I became more determined not to hear her.
Halfway up the street I stopped. There was a war going on inside my head. “Go back,” whispered Love. “No!” shouted fear. I started walking again. Three quarters of the way and I stopped again. “You know you need to go back and help her.” Love’s voice was soft but impossible to ignore.
I turned and started back toward the woman. “Stop!” shouted fear stridently, “You don’t need to do this. She’ll want something from you. Who knows where it will lead!” Fear gripped me and I turned away once more.
I made my way to the corner and stopped to hear Love’s last plea. “Melina, you know you need to go back. You cannot ignore this. You chose to listen to fear in Minnesota and it made you sick. Will you choose fear over Love again?”
I knew what I had to do—I had known it all along. My fear was really my ego, which never wants to submit to God and His will for me. I turned and walked back down the street. She was still on the corner, but her back was to me and I could have left
unnoticed. Instead I asked, “What is it?”
She turned with a questioning look on her face, “What?” she asked.
“What is it?” I repeated. “You called me and I ignored you, but I came back.
“I’m hungry,” she answered, “and I have no money. Could you give me some money for lunch?” I looked at her closely. She was young, maybe 21 or 22 and her face was scarred by what looked like a knife wound.
I handed her a five-dollar bill as I said, “God bless you.” At those words she looked up at me for the first time. “Will you pray for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I am going to the church to pray now. What’s your name?”
“Denise. My name is Denise. Thank you,” she replied, and we parted ways.
I walked to the church with a million questions running through my head and tears running down my face. I walked into the hushed body of the church and knelt in a pew. I prayed for Denise and then I directed my questions to God, “What is it? What do you want of me?” No answer, just the muted sounds of the street. I knelt in silence for some time and left with no answers, but my heart was quiet.
I did go and get lunch and as I was returning to the Gold Building I was holding a conversation with God in my head.
“Lord, I need a mentor, someone who can tell me what I should do.”
The quiet voice of the Shepherd answered me: “I’ll be your Teacher.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want someone I can look at and touch.”
“Your heart knows Me and I touch you there,” came the gentle response.
“Yes, I know, thank You.” I smiled as I walked, knowing that I had heard the Truth.
Suddenly a young woman holding a child by the hand approached me. She stopped right in front of me, said “God bless you and your family,” handed me a slip of paper and walked away. I looked down at the paper—it was a religious tract. At the top in large bold letters it read, “Jesus loves you!” Grace.
Melina Rudman
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.Reprinted with permission.
One Woman’s Journey From Complacency to Conviction
“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2
I have been a believer in Jesus since I was a little child. Now, as a maturing Christian, I have chosen to be in living relationship with Him. I have found there is a big difference between the two.
I would like to testify to a short but very intense awakening. These events and the reactions they aroused in me are real. They brought me to my knees in tears of repentance. My soul fought battles between submission to the Light and my own dark desire to be the director of my life. Through it all I have learned a little more about God’s love for His wayward children.
Let me begin...
In late April, 1999, I took a one-week business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was attending a company-sponsored technical fair in which I would demonstrate our team’s newest Internet initiative. The fair was a huge success. We generated a lot of interest and our product was favorably received. After the fair, the vice president on our team offered to take us all out for a dinner. While some of the folks left to drop their PCs in their rooms the rest of us waited outside.
The weather that evening was perfect. The sun had set about an hour earlier, This is the picture I would like you to see through my words. Envision a group of white, upper-middle-class men and women standing on a Minneapolis sidewalk laughing and talking. Suddenly a stranger walks into their midst. He is a poor man—a poor, disabled black man—and he is drunk. Not mean or sloppily drunk, but happily so.
Immediately the mood of our group changes, but the man does not seem to notice. He comments on the beauty of the night and begins a plea for money to take his children to a movie. Someone in the group rejected his request while the rest of us shifted uneasily. Throughout this I was feeling very uncomfortable because I knew I should have been standing separate from my peers by respecting this person’s humanity. I knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t do it because I was afraid that my “friends” would reject me too—that they would think me odd.
The man accepted the rebuff with good grace, and then he did something extraordinary. He asked if he could pray for us. Someone in the group said
they did not want a prayer, but he stood in our circle, bowed his head and prayed anyway. He asked God to watch over us and our families. He called us beautiful, although I felt anything but beautiful by then. He closed his prayer with a joyful amen, which I echoed quietly and then our eyes caught and held for just a moment before he turned and made his way up the hill along the well-lit path. As for me and my group, we turned off the path onto a darkened side street, making our way to the restaurant for a well-earned dinner.
The next morning I woke up feeling ill physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometime during the night, I had been convicted of my own careless disregard for one of God’s beloved children. I spent that morning alone in my room, on my knees before God in tears of repentance. I remember feeling completely alone, so far away from the people who knew me and loved me.
As I sobbed in my misery, I “heard” the gentle voice of the Shepherd. “I am here.” Peace flooded through me, and the sobs became gentle, cleansing tears as I knelt by the bed and allowed myself to finally understand God’s grace.
I had sinned. I am the person who meets God unable to say that I had fed Him when He was hungry and clothed Him when He was naked. Despite this I am loved, forgiven and still oh-so-valuable to the Creator. This is grace.
Two weeks later my husband and I traveled to London for our delayed (by 16 years) honeymoon. Sometime toward the middle of the week, I had an incredible urge for spaghetti and sauce. Finding southern Italian cooking in London is a bit of a challenge, but I had my mind set, so my husband and I began searching for my definition of an Italian restaurant.
We had been searching for over an hour, and it was after eight in the evening as we entered the Underground to catch a train. I was tired, hungry, frustrated and feeling very sorry for myself when I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. Directly across from me a homeless young man was settling in for the night. He was dirty, skinny and sick. He slid his back down against the wall of the station and pulled a filthy, tattered blanket up to his chin. He had a dog, as dirty and underfed as he was, that gently climbed into his lap for the night.
I stood there in silence with the people of London rushing all around me. It seemed I could see Jesus with His arms outstretched in the shadows behind the pair. The story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) came to my mind. I am the rich man. I have never known a moment of real need or total abandonment in my life, I have always been loved, yet I was upset because I couldn’t find a restaurant that served red tomato sauce. Tears came into my eyes and my heart was humbled once again. Grace.
Back in Connecticut three weeks later, I was asked to travel to New York City to do a presentation. I decided to incorporate a walk to the train station into my lunch hour. It was my habit to pray daily at the Church of St. Patrick/ St. Anthony, so I decided to do that at noon, also. As I stepped out of the train station, I could see that there was a poor woman begging on the corner and that I would have to walk past her. I was immediately enveloped in a terrible and stubborn frame of mind and I decided before I even stepped off the train station steps that I was not going to help her. I put my head down and watched my own feet, determined not to see her. She saw me, though, and I heard her call after me, “Please, Miss.” Five times she called and with each cry for help I became more determined not to hear her.
Halfway up the street I stopped. There was a war going on inside my head. “Go back,” whispered Love. “No!” shouted fear. I started walking again. Three quarters of the way and I stopped again. “You know you need to go back and help her.” Love’s voice was soft but impossible to ignore.
I turned and started back toward the woman. “Stop!” shouted fear stridently, “You don’t need to do this. She’ll want something from you. Who knows where it will lead!” Fear gripped me and I turned away once more.
I made my way to the corner and stopped to hear Love’s last plea. “Melina, you know you need to go back. You cannot ignore this. You chose to listen to fear in Minnesota and it made you sick. Will you choose fear over Love again?”
I knew what I had to do—I had known it all along. My fear was really my ego, which never wants to submit to God and His will for me. I turned and walked back down the street. She was still on the corner, but her back was to me and I could have left
unnoticed. Instead I asked, “What is it?”
She turned with a questioning look on her face, “What?” she asked.
“What is it?” I repeated. “You called me and I ignored you, but I came back.
“I’m hungry,” she answered, “and I have no money. Could you give me some money for lunch?” I looked at her closely. She was young, maybe 21 or 22 and her face was scarred by what looked like a knife wound.
I handed her a five-dollar bill as I said, “God bless you.” At those words she looked up at me for the first time. “Will you pray for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I am going to the church to pray now. What’s your name?”
“Denise. My name is Denise. Thank you,” she replied, and we parted ways.
I walked to the church with a million questions running through my head and tears running down my face. I walked into the hushed body of the church and knelt in a pew. I prayed for Denise and then I directed my questions to God, “What is it? What do you want of me?” No answer, just the muted sounds of the street. I knelt in silence for some time and left with no answers, but my heart was quiet.
I did go and get lunch and as I was returning to the Gold Building I was holding a conversation with God in my head.
“Lord, I need a mentor, someone who can tell me what I should do.”
The quiet voice of the Shepherd answered me: “I’ll be your Teacher.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want someone I can look at and touch.”
“Your heart knows Me and I touch you there,” came the gentle response.
“Yes, I know, thank You.” I smiled as I walked, knowing that I had heard the Truth.
Suddenly a young woman holding a child by the hand approached me. She stopped right in front of me, said “God bless you and your family,” handed me a slip of paper and walked away. I looked down at the paper—it was a religious tract. At the top in large bold letters it read, “Jesus loves you!” Grace.
Melina Rudman
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.Reprinted with permission.