Dance, Dance Christ Paffgen

What a weekend. It turned out to be quite the time in terms of soccer for me this past weekend, with my middle school teams tournament going on, as well as the rec league team that I play for playing for the division championship for the spring season. We'll start with the middle school teams.

Saturday began bright and early at 7 am for the first B team game. Given that the schedule had put both of our teams playing at the exact same time for all 3 games in the group, we had to split up coaching duties, with two of us at the B team, and one at the A team. We would then rotate through the games in order to have each of us be at at least one of each teams games. Our B team played well, although they ended up losing 3-0 on 2 fluke goals. We also missed at least a half dozen chances to score ourselves. It really could have gone either way. During this game, the A team dismantled their opponent 4-0. Not a bad showing for a team that hadn't scored more than 2 goals in a game all year.

The afternoon game put me at the A team game. We were playing the winner of the morning game, so essentially this game was going to decide who would go to the championship game on Sunday afternoon. We were tied 0-0 after the first half. The other team had had a goal called back for a foul, which led to a quite humorous bit of yelling from the opposing team's coach. Now, anyone that knows soccer knows that when a foul is called by an assistant referee (linesman) , that the center official doesn't always see the call right away. This happened in the build up to the play, they scored, and then the ref saw the linesman with his flag off. He waved the goal off and gave us the free-kick. This led the over-weight "coach" of the other team to march out on to the field and start screaming at the referee that he had to play the advantage since they had scored a goal and that he couldn't go back and take the goal away. If the coach knew anything about soccer, he would know that there are goals called back all the time for offside, and that it is perfectly within the rules of the game to call a play back after the fact when he didn't see the flag right away. At any rate, the coach yelled for about 5 minutes ranting and raving...he just needs to read the rules. In the end, we won the game 2-1 on 2 excellent goals for my team and 1 spectacular shot from their team.

The third game Sunday turned out to be meaningless for both teams. The A team was already going to be in the championship game due to favorable results in the afternoon, while the B team was eliminated based on having lost their second game 3-1. The championship game was played well, and we ended up winning 1-0 on a great goal from one of our star mid-fielders. I have to say that it was quite exciting to be able to coach these kids and win a championship of sorts at the end of the season with them. They even decided to dump water and ice all over us after the game while we were celebrating. All in all, it had been a blast coaching the kids and just having some fun with the game of soccer.

As for my rec league team that I play on, we ended up winning the game 2-1 on a golden goal in overtime, although I wasn't able to play due to a freak neck-problem that kept me from hardly being able to walk most of Sunday. I still don't really know what was up with it, but it was like I had slept on it wrong, but about 20 times worse. I hadn't really ever felt anything like it. But that's how it goes sometimes I guess.

At any rate, I was a part of 2 championship teams this past weekend, which is really quite spectacular. I would have to say, however, that the one for the middle school team was the more satisfying of the two. And not just because I couldn't play in the game for my team, but just because it was great seeing the team work together and see how badly they all wanted to win. The happiness that they all had and just the fact that everyone came together over the weekend to play hard and work hard made it seem like the more special achievement of the two. Maybe this coaching thing wouldn't be so bad after all...

Leave Out All The Rest

Ah, the weekly update. This week has been...busy. Mandi's been at a conference in Frederick, MD all week, so I've had ample time to work on my thesis paper. Which is a good thing. 2 months and counting. I am up to 45 pages now. Strange what a week's worth of work will do for you, huh? I even have references and stuff. It's crazy. Oh, alright, so I don't have anywhere near 45 pages of writing, but those graphs and charts and tables are necessary, and I certainly had to write them, so I'm counting them. And by the way, if anyone else that sees this is going to be writing a long paper that needs references, a table of contents and lists for figures and tables and stuff, try using LaTex. It just makes it all easier. You just label the figure, table, graph, whatever, and it tracks it, numbers it, and updates everything on it for you. Excellent.

This coming weekend is the end-of-year tournament for the middle school teams that I've been helping coach these past few months. We're kind of optimistic about how they'll do since they don't set up brackets specifically by the divisions you played in. Essentially what they did is they took the teams and broke down the records that they had, and placed the teams with similar looking stats in to the same brackets, I guess in a bid to try and even out the playing field. Our A-team has a pretty decent draw from the looks of it. Not so much for our B-team. But, as in any sport, you never really know how things will go until the game is played. Our only major concern is having everyone be on time. Our games on Saturday and Sunday morning are at 8, and since we can't hardly get a team to show up on time to a 6:30 PM game...we're a little worried. Hopefully it won't be an issue.

As I was sitting in church the other day, it was time for communion. So, naturally there is the "Communion Leader" who gets up and talks for a while. Now, I don't have a problem with this, and I generally think it's interesting hearing different men get up and give their perspectives on what they see as being important or what insight or personal experience they might have had in relation to this particular portion of the worship service. There are times, though, when I feel like it's too much about a particular person getting up and giving a 5 minute talk on communion and what they think is important. Almost like, since they're the designated "leader" for the week, that they feel they have to say a lot. I don't know if this stems from most people's generally inability to be comfortable in silence or what, but sometimes, I wish that it would be just a simple statement, and then everyone can have their own time to dwell on their personal relationship with God for a few moments. Communion is a time to remember Christ's death and, more importantly in my opinion, his resurrection. We take it as a remembrance until we can eat and drink with him again, which obviously would be impossible if he were not resurrected. I guess at times, less is more. Just leave out the rest.

Trust Me

It's been a good week. I've noticed that it's once again been about a week since I last updated anything on here. There's been a lot going on the past week. Dustin came home last Sunday and so I went on home and stayed at the parents house. Dustin and I spent the days that I didn't go in to the lab lazing around the house, and the evenings doing various other things that mostly consisted of playing Winning Eleven on the computer, falling asleep in the basement and eating chips and dip in extremely large quantities. We also went to a "guys night" that some of the men at our church do among themselves. It's pretty cool stuff. We had a cheap (but not Murphy cheap) hibachi style dinner and then went and saw Spider-Man 3. I thought the movie was pretty good. It could've done without some stuff that wasn't really all that important, but I liked it overall. Of course, I'm no Spider-Man fan-boy, so I couldn't tell you anything about whether it's true to the comics or whatever, but I could personally care less about that kind of stuff. I thought it was a well done movie.

There are some things that I find extremely difficult. One of those is trusting, whether that is people, God, or anything else really. I have a hard time trusting many of the drivers around me since I think that most of them don't have a clue about what they're doing. I have a hard time believing people that I don't know or that have broken my trust in them before. I have a difficult time trusting in things that I can't find proof for myself. This trust factor was the main reason that I had such a hard time making any type of commitment to God and Christ. Sure, there is the Bible and the accounts that it gives. But there isn't any concrete, hands-on proof. It took me 21 years to be able to accept that I didn't have to have something in my hands in order to believe it.

Those of you that were in the Frisbee devo that we did will remember my character choice of Thomas. I feel like I relate to him because of his need for concrete evidence. Now, obviously I am not living in that time period and, unless things change rapidly, I won't be able to personally ask Christ to show me the scars as proof of what happened. I also don't think that Jesus made a mistake in picking Thomas as a disciple. Thomas always gets a bad rap for being the doubter, although I would have to submit that all of them doubted, Thomas was just the one who was vocal about it.

At the moment, my problem is trusting in the plan for my future. I'm looking at the calendar and seeing that I've got less than 2 months to finish writing a paper that I've barely started for my thesis. I've got to find a job somewhere, anywhere. I've got a lot of things to figure out. And it's not even that I don't believe things will happen, because for many of things things I know that they will work out, but I just can't see how they will happen. And for me, not knowing how is what makes things hard.

I was just thinking about this based on some stuff we talked about at church on Wednesday night. They were studying 2 Peter 1:19-21. Now, I didn't really get most of it since I had obviously not been there for the first 18 verses. Verse 20, however, struck me. It says, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Therefore, with an overall trust in God, it should reason to follow that whatever the scripture says should be easy to trust. I guess in the end, I just need to read one verse. John 14:1. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

Waiting To Shine

It's strange, when you look back at some of the great works that have been created, whether it be musical, visual, or written, how often the grand scale of the piece isn't understood until many generations later. I mention this oddity since Mandi and I went to see Georges Bizet's opera Carmen yesterday at the Tennessee Theater (which by the way is an amazing building once you get inside). The opera was debuted in 1875 to which is was roundly criticized and considered an utter failure. Bizet, after attending the debut and seeing the poor showing, became ill shortly after, and died within a few months of the opening. It was unfortunate that he would not see any of the success of this opera as it has now become one of the most popular operas of all time.

The story involves Carmen, a gypsy girl who seduces a corporal of the local army. The corporal deserts for the woman, and eventually is tossed aside for another man. In his jealous rage, he kills Carmen, and then himself. Of course, this all happens while another woman is pledged to be married to him. Basically, it's the essential set-up for most any opera story. At least, any of them that I've seen. The production that Mandi and I saw last night was very impressive and well done. In the liner notes of the program, the director noted that they had gone back to the original version of the opera. What this meant, was that later additions to the score and story by other composers were taken out, resulting in what Bizet had originally composed. Personally, I can't understand why there would have been additions to the opera in the first place that would be accepted as the true work of Bizet...but that's just me. All in all though, it was quite enjoyable. And speaking of operas, I guess I have the memory of the time when I went with Chris Morton and a few of his girl friends, Josh, and his "date" Paul. I think Paul probably wanted to kill himself for the majority of the 3 hours in the theater, and Josh's greatest moment of the night was getting photographed in front of Wang's. He's probably still got that picture laying around somewhere...

There aren't a lot of things that frustrate me more in sports than a team that doesn't show intensity or desire to perform well. That is my problem that I'm having right now with the middle school team, and I don't entirely know how to change their attitude. Both our A and B teams have not shown intensity or desire for the past few games, and it's really grating on my nerves. Essentially what happens is this. They show up late to the warm up for the game (which I know isn't entirely their fault), but then they kinda meander around instead of hustling to get in with the warm-up. They then proceed to do nothing besides talk, tell jokes, shove each other around and basically disrupt any semblance of getting ready for a game. Then the game starts, their heads aren't in the right place, and after about 10 minutes they concede a goal. After that, they just quit playing, and go on to lose 4, 5, 6 to nothing.

Now, in soccer you will get goals scored on you, just like in football you'll have touchdowns scored on you, or you'll get beaten on a lay-out for the frisbee, or you'll have someone out-sprint your throw to first base. OK, maybe that last one won't happen, but I think you've got the idea. You can just guarantee that those things will happen if you play the sport for more than 5 minutes. The big thing in sports is how do you bounce back from that? Do you simply throw in the towel, assume that each and every time that can happen you'll lose, and just walk off the field? Or do you pick your head up, and show them that you've got what it takes to get it back? Guys like Justin Bland and Paul always impressed me on the frisbee field because they gave everything all the time. It didn't matter if we were dominating or getting dominated. You're out there to prove to yourself that you've got what it takes to be the best that you have the potential to be. There's pride and desire to do well with the abilities and talents given to them. When you just give up and throw in the towel, where's the desire to do the best that you can and to show to nobody but yourself that you can do well? What are you waiting for?