It was a Duke Day.
Not only did they annihilate #15 Belmont (71-70) . . . but we found out that Matt, Jenna, and Reese will be moving to North Carolina, where Matt will be doing his residency in internal medicine at Duke.
HERE are a few pics from match day.
Matt last lived there when he was two years old. I was preaching for the Pine Valley Church in Wilmington. We have a great memory of our visit to Duke and to the Cole Mill Road Church in Durham.
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Don’t miss Garrison Keillor’s “A Pagan’s Thoughts at Eastertide.”
Congratulations! My friend Elizabeth just got matched to Wake Forest. It’s really exciting, though I’m sad they’ll be moving so far away. I hardly see them as it is and they’re only 2.5 hours southwest of here! Sounds like Matt and family are embarking on a great adventure.
Hi, Quiara. I don’t know you, but I bet I know the same Elizabeth who today got matched to Wake Forest! I’m happy for them, and for Matt and his family. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
So Matt may get to talk to Bart Ehrman after all.
I wouldn’t say Duke annihilated Belmont… but that might just be my UNC bias, since that’s where I’m in grad school. I also go to the Cole Mill Road church, so I hope your son and his family will visit when they arrive in Durham.
Jessica - Well, that was a bit tongue-in-cheek. How embarrassing for a #2 seed to be behind a #15 seed with 15 seconds left in the game. If Duke had lost, I’d be hiding today since I’ve actually picked them (perhaps against better judgment) to be in the Final Four! Now, I’m ready for today (for Texas’ opening game) — wearing my burnt orange t-shirt.
our boys already have little Duke basketballs, and I sport my tshirts every game day! having never been to the campus, a game (home or away), I am slightly jealous!
we still owe a prank to matt & jenna…so maybe a trip to Duke is in our future. Congrats!
Belmont completes its inbounds play with 8 seconds left and its a different game. Mike, your (egotistical) boys in blue definitely almost got their butts handed to them by a bunch of barely 6 foot tall guys. I don’t think that bodes well for Duke in the tourney.
Husband of a UNC fan, and personal fan of Memphis, and any team in the state of Tennessee. Especially when they are playing Duke.
I will definitely be praying for Matt, Jenna, and Reese! Matt will do wonderfully wherever he is. He is going to be an incredible doctor. Be sure and give them a hug from me!
Enjoy the good days, Mike. You are blessed.
Thanks for the article recommendation. It was a good read.
Waiting for Sunday,
C
for the record, belmont’s average height for it’s starting five was just over 6′4″, with Duke’s just over 6′5″. I guess both teams were “barely 6 feet tall”.
Hey, Mike: it’s Friday. Easter’s almost here.
qb’s jealous, but it has nothing to do with basketball.
Just imagine having the privilege and opportunity to attend chapel at Duke anytime one wants to…perchance getting to hear from Richard Hays or Stanley Hauerwas every now and again, or to entertain a drop-in visit from Walter Brueggemann or Will Willimon.
Now *that* would be something to be thankful for.
qb
ESPN’s profile of the team said height challenged. All I know is that There was a significant height difference between the two teams. The several guys that are 6′2″ look much shorter than those 6′5″ and taller. And I doubt that some fo the Belmont guys listed at six two are quite there. You know they are small. Stop making excuses. They are struggling with the number 7 seed right now.
The only connection I have to Cole Mill Road, not having ever been there, is our missionary to Argentina, Jane Pata, is now sponsored by Cole Mill Road. She speaks highly of them and the leadership there. I would hope that Matt and Jenna would visit and find a home away from home there.
Jane is a dear friend and a wonderful asset to any country where she resides!
North Carolina…Brenda Chrane will definitely be delighted to share N.C.grandchildren stories with you and Diane. It’s obvious you had a great time in Houston–now I know what “match day” is!
Thanks for the link to Garrison Keillor’s article. Good one.
Anticipating tomorrow at Highland: Resurrection Day–He is risen indeed!
Darling pics of a happy day. Thanks for posting them.
Garrison Keillor piece was great. Kinda scary, because that’s how I felt this morning.
Saw Texas & Memphis win today at Alltel in Little Rock. Lots of fun.
A pagan’s thoughts at Eastertide
By Garrison Keillor
Friday, March 21, 2008
There was a small epiphany in church last week when we sang the recessional “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” a German chorale in which we basses must jump around more limberly than we may be used to. A tough part compared to “When the Roll Is Called up Yonder,” and I stood in the rear and struggled with it, and then as the choir recessed down the main aisle and came up and stood in the side aisles, three basses wound up standing near me, like border collies alongside the lost sheep, and I got myself in their draft and we sang our way to the barn. (Moral: get with the group — just make sure it’s the right one.)
I came to church as a pagan this year, though wearing a Christian suit and white shirt, and sat in a rear pew with my sandy-haired gaptoothed daughter whom I would like to see grow up in the love of the Lord, and there I was, a skeptic in the henhouse, thinking weaselish thoughts.
This often happens around Easter. God, in His humorous way, sometimes schedules high holy days for a time when your faith is at low tide, a mud flat strewn with newspapers and children’s beach toys, and while everyone else is all joyful and shiny among the lilies and praising up a storm, there you are, snarfling and grumbling. Which happened to me this year. God knows all about it so I may as well tell you.
Holy Week is a good time to face up to the question: Do we really believe in that story, or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music? There are advantages, after all, to being in the neighborhood of people who love their neighbors. If your car won’t start on a cold morning, you’ve got friends.
A year or so ago, I sat down and read the four Gospels in one fell swoop and somehow the jaggedness of some of it shook my faith, which maybe was based more on visuals — Jesus tending His flock, and little children gathered at His knee, sunbeams bursting through storm clouds, and so forth — and then I read about how the early Church cobbled the Scriptures together, which has to raise doubts in anyone’s mind. The Jews got stone tablets and the Mormons arranged for an angel to bring them their holy text, but ours was hammered out through a long contentious political process, sort of like the tax code, and that’s something you don’t care to know more about.
I don’t doubt God’s existence — there He is — but I doubt His interest in us right now, and I haven’t the faintest idea what He wants from me.
So I sat and felt miserable. And then we had to chant the Psalm, which went, “I am in trouble, my life is wasted with grief and my years with sighing.” Oh boy. David really gets into the blues; he is the Howlin’ Wolf of the Chosen, and when he sings, “I have become a reproach even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance, when they see me in the street, they avoid me,” I know that feeling. The leper. The unbeliever. And that’s how I felt when my fellow basses came up alongside, and we put our backs to it and sang.
There is comfort for the doubter in the Passion story. You are not alone. Jesus’s cry from the cross was a cry of incredulity. The apostle denied even knowing Jesus three times. The guy spent years with Jesus, saw the miracles up close, the raising of Lazarus, the demons cast out, the sick healed, the water-walking trick, all of the special effects, but when the cards were down, he said, “Who? Me? No way.”
He repented. I would too, but not quite yet.
Skepticism is a stimulant, not to be repressed. It is an antidote to smugness and the great glow of satisfaction one gains from being right. You know the self-righteous — I’ve been one myself — the little extra topspin they put on the truth, their ostentatious modesty, the pleasure they take in being beautifully modulated and cool and correct when others are falling apart. Jesus was rougher on those people than He was on the adulterers and prostitutes.
So I will sit in the doubter’s chair for a while and see what is to be learned back there.
Congrats to all! If Matt can block out, Coach K might have a place for him on the roster next year.
Garrison Keillor’s “A Pagan’s Thoughts at Eastertide.”…
I’ve been sitting on the back row of the local Methodist church for years… Not that I’m a Methodist (or a Christian, for that matter); but I find in the Christian church a place where God is worshipped (and I believe in God), where moral lives are encouraged, where life is valued, where community and a sense of family are promoted.
So I take my seat, am honest but polite with my views, try to wade thru all the “Jesus” talk, sing louder in the surprisingly large number of songs that mention God but not Jesus, and find in the church a place where God’s presence is powerful, inviting, healing and reassuring…
Garrison and I may be on the same back row, and just not realize it…
Congratulations to Matt, Jenna and Reese on Matt’s acceptance into the residency program at Duke and for their upcoming move to North Carolina. I know they will be a blessing.
Cole Mill Road church in Durham is my home church…a wonderful place where Tarheels and Dookies (ahem, I mean Blue Devils) can peacefully and lovingly co-exist.
Emily — Don’t crash on us Dukies, though congrats on the Final four — How is Vadeem. Mike, your son will love Duke, which, unlike some Universities relatively close by, has a propensity for turning out well-mannered young people.