The Burnsider
Recently, Jordan Green from The Burnside Writers Collective and Burnside Books and probably actual sideburns brought back The Burnsider blog. … Continue reading The Burnsider
Author: The Joseph Craven
I'm tall, but not so tall that people point and stare.
How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson 4
This guest post is brought to you by a new Twitter friend, Ben Zajdel. Ben is a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas, works in a Christian bookstore, watches entirely too much basketball (PERFECTLY okay with me), and has written a few short books you might enjoy. You can keep up with him at his website, or on Twitter, @benzajdel.
Before I start this article on superstition, you need to know a little about me. I have a degree in Historical Studies, which means I learned how to fact check old documents and make sure they’re legitimate. I am also currently pursuing a degree in Environmental Science, so you can probably guess that I don’t like approximations and guesses. I’m also a Christian, so I don’t believe in magic and voodoo and curses. I openly mock those who think magnets can heal you, and I dismiss most natural remedies.
That being said, how to be superstitious is one of the most important things a sports fan can learn. Continue reading “How To Be A Sports Fan: Lesson 4”
Video Breakdown: It’s SHUMPERT
For NBA fans, the heart of the playoffs is exactly where they want to be, with countless great individual and team matchups.
One matchup that would be particularly intriguing if this was 1997 is the current series between the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks. Alas, this is not 1997, and the rivalry isn’t the same as when Reggie Miller was shaking his Cheryls at Spike Lee. However, there between Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler and the reanimated corpses of Jason Kidd/Marcus Camby versus Paul George, Roy Hibbert and a cyborg named Tyler Hansborough who just wants to learn what love is, it’s still a fascinating series.
And then we have wildcards, such as the mysterious Iman Shumpert
Infallible/Inspired
I believe the Bible to be special. I believe it to be infallible and inspired by the Author of All. Maybe you share this view.
It’s a bit of a strange concept to think about. After all, we’re talking about documents that were passed down for many generations before ever being written down, and even after that, they had to be translated into language that we understand. So there’s all kinds of crazy stuff that doesn’t necessarily make sense to us in the age we live in. There are a lot of cultural differences that make things really, really difficult for us to understand.
But that’s where our viewpoint of the Bible itself comes into play. Because if we just think of it as some other book, we can disregard all the things that don’t interest us. However, if we view it as being infallible and being inspired, than we have no choice but to look at the content as being something entirely different.
We have to acknowledge that the content is in there for a reason. Continue reading “Infallible/Inspired”
The Long Fall
“Is it safe?”
I often find myself longing for this two-week period of my life from back in 2009. It was right after graduating from college, and I spent my time driving around throughout the Southeast listening to a lot of CDs cause I didn’t own an iPod.
It was exactly what I needed just out of school: time away from everything. I was coming off a particularly rough 2008 and figured that since my problems at this point in time were dealing with a couple of girls I found attractive and finding a part time job to pay my cheap rent, life was going alright. The future was wide open for me, which was exhilarating but also terrifying.
It is that free feeling that I keep coming back to as the years go by. Not the fear or the wandering or the confusion about cute girls. It is the feeling of freedom.
Yet I can’t help but think that the more I long for that period of time, I do it for the wrong reasons. Continue reading “The Long Fall”
Apologizing For Myself
Last week, a very rare thing happened to me: somebody complimented me.
I won’t bore you with a post about nice things somebody said to me. You deserve better than that. But what you should know is that they basically said I was an okay person. This isn’t notable, I know this. It only stood out to me because I know this person’s history, and I know how often they have written off other people. I knew their history of being hurt by other people, and their response of hating other people.
It made me wonder if they realized that I was no different. No different than them. No different than the people they hated. No different than the people they had been hurt by. Continue reading “Apologizing For Myself”
Your Friend Joseph Craven Welcomes You To The GBOAT 