That's how the cookie crumbles

In the role of local church pastor, I’ve had my fair share to be a guest at meals that…..how to say it….may not have included my favorite or appealing culinary fare.

Prior to starting seminary, I was selected to participate in the annual conference’s summer intern program. It was a wonderful experience and an opportunity to get to know and be in ministry with a wonderful congregation and a very supportive pastor. To provide the members of the congregation an opportunity to meet the “summer intern” (that would be me) the local committee set up a program where each day I had lunch and dinner at a different parishioner’s home.

This was a fantastic plan and, believe me, I ate very well. The delightful woman who arranged my dining schedule made it a point to choose some of the best cooks the congregation had to offer. However…..

There was the time I had dinner at a home where the woman of the house welcomed me in, told me to sit on the stool at the countertop, threw out a can of baked beans, a loaf of white bread, a Tupperware container of sauerkraut, and a can of chicken. I know….YUM! She said, “Help yourself. I have to get ready for a meeting so feel free to stay as long as you want and just close the door behind you when you leave.” I know….with fine cuisine like this, who’d want to leave? I thanked her and stared at the spread provided and thought I hope she leaves quickly so I can get to the local “Dairy Barn” Ice Cream stand. She did. I did.

I share this story in light of the latest Mitt Romney miss-speak. Folks like to call President Obama the “teleprompter president,” yet, let’s be honest, whenever Mitt is off script his press agent reaches for the Xanax.

I write in honor of all the wonderful bakeries that are part of Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. I’ve been to the “Bethel Bakery” and it is a delight! They were the local bakery who began the chocolate-iced chocolate cakes shaped to look (no, Governor, not taste) like hockey pucks.

Now, even in the likelihood that the cookies provided at the event yesterday were from “Al’s Beer and Fireworks Outlet,” Mr. Mitt should know to take a bite of the cookie, express, “Mmmmmm…” and then smile for a fulfilled photo-op.

I don’t know about you, yet, as a child I was taught to say, “Please” and “Thank You” and to “mind my manners” ---- a great phrase as most of good manners comes from using your head.

sj;

Teach your children well

With it being a rainy Saturday, today was a double-feature movie event for yours truly. Both films I saw I would recommend most highly and give both movies 4 Sally Seals!
The two documentaries I viewed and strongly encourage you to get thyself to the theater are: JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI and BULLY.

Though completely different movies, both deal in some ways with education and life-learning and ask us if we are following the musical command of “Crosby, Stills, and Nash” to teach our children well and in so doing build a better society for us all.

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI, focuses on, you guessed it, Jiro, who is a renowned sushi chef still honing his craft in his mid-80’s. What impressed me was the commitment to learn a trade and continue to build one’s skill. In the vein of the “Tiger Mom” debate, it is “food for thought” (pun intended) to ask if our current American system of everyone gets a trophy, do what makes you happy, coddle and swaddle is creating a disciplined, striving, can-do work force. I for one confess that at my age (it’s the “Maam Stage” of life) having had a steelworker father who taught his children respect, responsibility, and to work for what you wanted is more appealing to me than the “what’s in it for me?” and “do you know who I am?”generation.

BULLY simply is a must-see for each one of us who works with children; has children; knows children, likes children. This cinematic learning lab will cause you to cheer, to choke-up, to curse, and to commit to being part of making a positive difference in our shared community. This is a film to take others to and to discuss and to chart a game plan for action. Who’s with me?

I believe we are both teaching and learning our entire lives. Answering the latter is easy. I’m more about asking myself, “What am I teaching another by my words, my actions, and how I live?”

Class is always in session…..

sj;

My first hat of belonging

As we know it so happened that the Pirates home opener occurred in the midst of Holy Week. Showing I have some priorities, I chose to blog on the events of Holy Week and offered not hardly a whisper about baseball. It's killing me.....so, a brief blog on the great joy of baseball.

When I was a kid there were no girls softball leagues. If a girl wanted to play, she played baseball. In the South Buffalo Little League, I broke the gender barrier to play and was part of the league's expansion team, the T-BIRDS. We were the sons and daughter of steelworkers; we were the kids who played in fields with rocks for bases and wore jeans and sweatshirts and used our brothers' gloves. We were the team that had the chubby kid who played the tuba, the pipsqueak kid who was smaller than the wooden bats, and....yes....we had the girl.

One of the highlights for any Little Leaguer is the day you get your team hat. The fighting T-BIRDS wore maroon caps emblazoned with a white capital "T." From the moment we got our hats, we proudly wore them every day to school. We were the T-BIRDS!

Our first game was against the Comets, with their orange hats with a black "C" (you may think it strange that I remember this, yet, ask any former Little Leaguer a similar question). With great hope and the confidence of our weeks of practice, we took the field with vigor!

At the end of four innings we had scored 9 runs......unfortunately, our opposition, those Comets, had scored.....54......it's true.....I was there..... It was so bad that every kid on our team who could at least make the throw to home plate pitched. The game was an eternity of athletic embarrassment and even though some of the parents of the Comets players volunteered to park their trucks around the field and turn on the headlights, wiser heads prevailed and the game was called. Blessed be nature's light cycle.

Shell-shocked we slouched off the field to the echoing chant of sore winners everywhere, "Two, Four, Six, Eight who do we appreciate? T-Birds....T-Birds...." We were embarrassed and hung our heads.

The major question facing each of us was what would we wear on our heads the next day? Even in the world of land-line phones, we knew that word of our thumping would have spread quickly and we had quickly become the league laughing stock. After such a spanking, do we risk more ridicule and wear the T-BIRDS cap to school in front of our peers?

I spent a restless night weighing my options.

The next morning, as I prepared to leave the house, I reached back, grabbed my T-BIRDS cap, placed it on my head and walked up the hill to catch the bus. Boarding the bus, the jeers and jokes began. I did a quick glance around the bus and it was then I saw it --- three of my teammates sporting their maroon caps with the white "T!"

When I got to school, the sarcastic laughter alerted me to the rest of my team....each wearing their T-BIRDS baseball caps and when noticing their teammates also wearing their caps raised their heads up ever so slightly.

That maroon cap with a white "T" was my first hat of belonging. Though we were an expansion team of misfits, we were a team. We belonged. We mattered to each other. We were part of something.

Although we lost every game that season, each and every member of the T-BIRDS continued to wear our ball caps each day and every day, after each loss. We belonged.

sj;