Mexico reminds me of east Tennessee.
I know it sounds odd, but it really did feel oddly familiar to ride in the taxi through Mexico City. To look out over all of the buildings built onto the sides of hills and mountains and seemingly piled on top of each other.
Everything about it felt like I had been there before. Or maybe it just felt like it was where I needed to be. Continue reading “That Old Familiar Feeling”
So that sports podcast that my friend Chandler and I started? Well right below these words is episode two, where … Continue reading The Heat Are Champs, The Spurs Are Ugly
One of a kind. That’s how he is described. There will never be another player like him.
He is bigger, faster, more athletic. Sure, his scoring and rebounding is amazing, but have you seen his passing? It’s probably his best characteristic. Just astounding court vision, really. He can do it all. And not to mention he averaged a triple double for an entire season! Truly, there will never be another Oscar Robertson.
Oh, sorry. Did you think I was talking about somebody else? Continue reading “There Will Be Another”
I woke up Monday morning with two interesting tweets staring at me.
First of all, let’s just ignore the fact that one of the first things I do after waking up is checking Twitter. I know I’m pathetic, I don’t need to discuss it here.
The first interesting tweet was somebody quoting Malcolm X. He said, “You can’t hate the roots of a tree, and not hate the tree.” In many regards, this is so very true. In so many other regards, it’s not at all. In saying something like that, Malcolm X spoke a great truth about identity, but a great lie about the nature of grace.
Everything about grace involves hating the roots and loving the tree. It involves hating the sinful, greedy nature of a person but still loving that person regardless. If we were even close to being honest with ourselves, we would have to note that we, as Christians, should hate our own roots more than we hate the roots of those we see around us. Then there can be as much tree loving as there needs to be.
Grace changes everything. It changes the way we view ourselves and others. Continue reading “Hating My Roots: A Post About Identity”
So in case you’ve missed it, and I’m sure you have because I did basically nothing to promote it), I … Continue reading Running Out The Clock
It’s my blog’s second birthday, and at the end of this post there is something for you to download and read. But first, I have about 700 words to say:
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my very short and highly ineffective life, it’s that the lives we lead, or I guess really the world that we live in, is SO stupid. It’s absurd.
Think about it. Our primary method of communication are 140-character messages typed on out on tiny personal computers that we pay $50 a month just to use. This is normal, everyday life for us, and we LOVE it.
For the past two years of writing, I’ve always tried to embrace the absurdity of life on this blog. Sometimes it is the absurdity of building huge ships without even considering that it could sink. Other times it’s the absurdity of how every Saturday in the Fall, thousands of people put so much emotion and hope into the performance of 20-year-olds in a football game. Wherever you look, absurdity is around us.
This is normal for us these days. Things shouldn’t really surprise us anymore, because this is what we’ve become. Continue reading “A Boring Second Birthday”
Your Friend Joseph Craven Welcomes You To The GBOAT 