MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS - BEST PITCHER IN BASEBALL?, HATING THE HEAT, CONGRESSIONAL FAILINGS, AND SOME WORDS OF WISDOM FROM WISE CHRISTIANS

Justin Verlander - a strike out machine

I prepared this post several weeks ago and then in the craziness that was my June schedule, forgot to publish it.  This week I am working with a VBS Mission Team on the Navajo Reservation and did not have time to create a Monday Morning Reflections, so here is the yet unpublished one - hopefully better late than never. - Steve

Thursday night the men of ESPN'S Baseball Tonight engaged in a discussion that stirred many a Tiger fan's heart. After he struck out ten Seattle Mariners, the ESPN guys suggested - "This is the league's (American) best pitcher." Justin Verlander "The most 10 strike out seasons in the past three seasons" - tied for third with Cliff Lee. (The others, besides Lee, Lincecum of the Giants and Halladay of the Phils). His success this season (which includes his second career no-hitter and a week later almost a second in a row) has been with one of the slowest starting teams in baseball this season. It may be why Justin may truly be the best pitcher in baseball - and as the Tigers push on towards the top of the AL Central, he may get the offensive backing to have the wins needed to verify that (despite one of the shakier relief corps backing him up).

The Mavs or the Heat?  Odds are high that you were rooting for Dirk Nowistki and the Dallas Mavericks.  The Mavs may have the most obnoxious owner in the NBA (Mark Cuban) but they don't have LeBron James. When LeBron, Duane Wade, and Chris Bosch blatantly maneuvered to come together as the Miami Heat so that they could get a championship, the Heat gained a lot of haters.  I guess you're allowed to be self-serving as long as you don't set up an ESPN special event to announce it.

The big news from Washington this week was the dismal jobs report and Congressman Wiener.  The jobs issue is very complicated, but the latter is not.  The congressman was exposed for "exposing himself" in compromising and borderline-pornographic tweets to ladies around the country.  Even his colleagues who have their own moral failings are suggesting (strongly in your are a Republican and quietly if you are a Dem--Wiener is a Dem) that he resign and end the embarrassment to Congress.  I do not condone Mr. Wiener's actions, but Congress regularly embarrasses itself and weakens the nation through its representing special interests instead of its constituents, a partisan posturing that is far more concerned with being re-elected than governing the nation wisely.

Maybe our Congress and our Nation need to learn from some of these persons:

"We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love." - - Madeleine L'Engle


"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."  - - G.K. Chesterton

"Can man live without God? Of course he can, in a physical sense. Can he live without God in a reasonable way? The answer to that is No!" - —Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God

For more quotations go to QUOTE