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Since 1989 or so, I too (along with the Blues Brothers) have been “on a mission from God.”

That is, back around 1989 I started trying to “help” my favorite team win.  The particular team was Florida State University football, and I started by trying to help them win a national championship.  I began with a weekly “ritual sacrifice” of exercise, especially pushing myself to earn more and more aerobic points.  (Mostly through running, or more like jog-walking.)

That didn’t work, so in 1992 I added the discipline of daily Bible reading.  (See What’s a DOR, which includes the image at right.)  Then in 1993, the Seminole football team won its first national title.  You make the connection.

Then too, for 14 straight years the Florida State football team went from success to success – with my “help.”  For 14 straight years they finished in the Top 4,* then won another national title in 1999.  (That was – in the words of one writer – “something no other team has come remotely close to accomplishing” and thus was “the greatest run in college football history.”)

Unfortunately, after that things started going downhill.

FSU football went into a bit of a slide, but then again so did I.  Then in 2013 they won another national championship, and along the way I also got my life back in order.

But once again things started going downhill for the Nole football team.  That is, since 2013 there have been, at best, “mixed results.”  And this past football season was especially painful.  In 2018, FSU went 5-and-7, and broke a streak of consecutive post-season bowl appearances.  That “anti-climax” marked their first losing season since 1976 (41 years), and that included the first time they didn’t make it to a bowl game in 36 years.

But the strange thing is, on a personal level I’ve done a lot better.  As a matter of fact, my life is going far better than I could have expected, at any time in the past.  For example, as recently as 2017 I thought I’d spend my last days here on earth still living in a dinky, rented one-bedroom apartment.  But against all odds I managed to get a mortgage – and now have a 4-bedroom home on an acre of woodland.  And in terms of exercise too I’ve done very well indeed.

Going back to the beginning, my mission from God – my “mystic quest*” – started back in Florida, in 1989.  Three times a week I ran outdoors, for an hour or more.  That often meant dodging the daily summer-afternoon thunderstorms, or waiting until 6:00 p.m. or so, for the heat index to get down below 100.

Then I moved from Florida to Georgia, and starting in 2013 added two hours kayaking a week.  And incidentally that year – 2013 – FSU won its third national championship.  I’ve also moved from outdoor running to indoor stair-stepping.  (An hour at a time two or three times a week.)  And near the end of this last (2018) season, I “graduated” to wearing a 25-pound weight vest, along with ten pounds of ankle weights, while doing my hour of stair-stepping.

Then – somewhere along the line – it struck me that at age 67, that was pretty dang impressive.  (Standing by itself, as a “signal accomplishment.”)  But “on-the-field results” for 2018 were exactly the opposite of what I’d hoped for, and come to expect.  Which came to remind me what Lawrence LeShan said of the ideal Zen archer or karate student:  “The real goal is to help you grow and develop as a total human being, not to become a better archer or karate expert.”

So I came to realize that maybe I shouldn’t get too upset because FSU had such lousy football season in 2018.  After all, the real goal in my “mission from God” was to grow and develop as a total human being, not necessarily to have FSU win all the time.

There’s also the fact that the original Children of Israel – whose own quest I tried to mimic – had some pretty lousy seasons too.  They did have the Exodus, along with King David and Solomon, but also years of slavery, exile, and foreign oppression, followed by the Great Diaspora.

On the other hand, there have been plenty of good and fruitful collateral consequences, and not just for me.  Many of my other favorite teams – other than FSU football – have done quite well.  Most recently, my adopted Atlanta United soccer team won the MLS Cup in its second season.  The FSU Women’s soccer won the 2018 National Championship last December, and the Women’s softball team won its first National Championship last June.  Aside from that, my Tampa Bay Bucs won Super Bowl XXXVII, to top off the 2002 season, and my Tampa Bay Lightning won the 2004 Stanley Cup.  So maybe I shouldn’t complain too much…

Which brings up this whole matter of sport-superstitions, and “what kind of a moron would really think what he does matters to the outcome of a particular game?”  See for example, “Super”stitions: Fans engage in odd rituals.  But the truth of the matter is that such ‘”weird rituals” go back to the time of Moses, and the Battle of Rephidim.

See for another example, Was Moses the first to say “it’s only weird if it doesn’t work?”  You can see the full story at Exodus 17, on the battle that happened some 3,500 years ago.  There, like at Pearl Harbor, the dreaded Amalekites launched a sneak attack on the Children of Israel as they emerged from “the Exodus, at Rephidim near Mount Sinai.”   Verses 8 to 16 – of Exodus 17 – tell of Israel pulling off  an “upset of the season.”  In essence they beat a hated arch-rival, thanks to Moses:

Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.  Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Am′alek prevailed.  But Moses’ hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat upon it, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

As I’ve noted elsewhere:  “That sounds a lot like a modern-day football fan, watching his favorite team on TV.”  Sometimes he moves around the room, sometimes he stands, sometimes he sits.  Other times he’ll mute the sound on the TV, sometimes he’ll tell his wife to leave the room – because she may be jinxing his team – but he’s “always trying to ‘help his team win.’”

Or by offering a weekly “ritual sacrifice” of exercise – with lots of aerobics – along with a good dose of daily Bible reading.  So just in case you think I’m weird for trying to help my team win – by and through such highly profitable intense exercise and Bible reading – I can only say:

“Hey pal, tell that to Moses!”

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Moses at Rephidim:  “If I let my arms down, the other team will win!“

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The original post had an upper image, courtesy of Blues Brothers Mission From God – Image Results. On the topic of my “Metaphor” – trying to help my team(s) win through various kinds of Ritual Sacrifice – see also “Unintended consequences” – and the search for Truth, and Moses at Rephidim: “What if?”  A side note:  The “unintended consequences” post also pointed out that – “with my help,” metaphorically or otherwise – the FSU basketball team got to the Elite 8 in 2018, and FSU’s Mike Martin became the winningest coach in college baseball history.  See FSU Basketball is true Cinderella of 2018 NCAA Tournament, and Mike Martin is the winningest coach in college baseball.

Re:  Aerobic points.  See also Aerobic exercise – Wikipedia.

Re:  “14 straight years.”  See Top College Football Dynasties of the AP Poll Era:  “Florida State’s 14 year streak of top 4 finishes in the AP poll 1987-2000 is … something no other team has come remotely close to accomplishing.  So I’m calling this the greatest run in college football history.”  (They “dropped to #5 in the fixed poll for 1994,” but ranked #4 in the AP poll.) 

Re:  FSU’s bowl streak.  See Florida State’s Incredible 36-Year Bowl Streak, for more positive spin: “It might be lame, but Dr. Seuss once said, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’”

A lot has happened for the Seminoles since 1981, such as three National Championships, 15 conference titles, three Heisman Trophy winners and 35 consensus All-Americans.  Now that the all-time streak has ended, everyone will take shots at FSU, but people should really just appreciate such an impressive feat.  [So] this isn’t the time to be embarrassed as a streak ends.  It is time to celebrate that it happened, and no other program has ever made more consecutive bowl games in FBS football history.  It does suck it was ended by a rival, but the longest bowl streak they [the Florida Gators] ever had was 22 consecutive.

Re:  “Signal accomplishment.”  See How To Answer The Interview Question “What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment, and/or What Are James Monroe’s Accomplishments? | Reference.com:  “Monroe’s signal accomplishment was the formation of the Monroe Doctrine.”

Re:  The definition of mystic quest.  In one “worldly” sense it refers to Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, “a role-playing video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System,” first released in North America in 1992 and marketed as a “simplified role-playing game…  In the game, the player controls a youth named Benjamin in his quest to save the world.” (Wikipedia.)  My mystic quest – or “mission from God” – was not nearly so grand.  It did however pay great dividends in terms of personal health, especially cardio-vascular, and spiritual development.  (For example, it led me to create my two blogs, including this one, “Daily Office Reading Scribe.”)  As to the more spiritual definition of “mystic quest,” see Mystic | Definition of Mystic by Merriam-Webster (used in a sentence, “She had a mystic vision while praying”);  Mysticism – Wikipedia;  Quest | Define Quest at Dictionary.com (“a search or pursuit made in order to find or obtain something” or “an adventurous expedition undertaken by a knight or knights to secure or achieve something”); and also Quest definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary:  “A quest is a long and difficult search for something.”

 The “only mile” image is courtesy of Running Outdoors The Rain – Image Results.  The text reads, “The only mile regretted is the one that isn’t run.” I might add that while I no longer run in the rain, as I did in Florida, I do end up kayaking in the rain oftener than I’d like…

Re:  My hour-long stair-stepping with a 28-pound weight vest and ten pounds of ankle weights.  According to my calculations, that now – at age 67 – helps me earn 155 aerobic points per week, whereas Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper‘s ”’minimum aerobic fitness’ level is 36 points a week.”  See KEEPING FIT; Just How Far, And How Fast, For Fitness?  See also Dr. Cooper’s 1977 book, The Aerobics Way, 1978 Bantam Books edition, at page 186, on earning additional points for wearing ankle weights and a 35-pound pack.  (Chapter 9, “The Point Charts.”)  Also see page 245 on “stair climbing,” in the Appendix under “The Point System.”  All of which formed the basis of my calculations…

Re:  Lawrence LeShan on the ideal Zen archer, “to help you grow and develop as a total human being.”  See his How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery, Bantam Edition, 1975, at page 38.

Re:  “Collateral consequences.”  Strictly speaking, such consequences are “additional civil state penalties, mandated by statute, that attach to criminal convictions.  They are not part of the direct consequences of criminal conviction, such as prison, fines, or probation.  They are the further civil actions by the state that are triggered as a consequence of the conviction.”  See Wikipedia.  But defined more liberally or spiritually, they can refer to additional – but indirectly intended – consequences of a mystic quest or “mission from God.”  Thus they’re distinct from Unintended consequences: “outcomes that are not the ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action.”  As Wikipedia said, these can come in three forms, including an “unexpected benefit” (also referred to as luck, serendipity or a windfall); an “unexpected drawback”  (unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect); or a “perverse result.”  See also “Unintended consequences” – and the search for Truth, about the FSU women’s softball team winning their national title…

The “only weird” image is courtesy of Bud Light It’s Only Weird – Image Results.

The lower image is courtesy of Rephidim – Wikipedia.  The caption:  “Moses holding up his arms during the Battle of Rephidim, assisted by Hur and Aaron, in John Everett Millais‘ Victory O Lord! (1871).”  As borrowed from a post on my companion blog, Was Moses the first to say “it’s only weird if it doesn’t work?”  (That companion blog is The Georgia Wasp | A blog of life-reviews by an old guy who still gets a kick out of life.  The post includes an extensive analysis of such sport-superstitions:

The thing is, this business of “helping your team win” has been around a long, long time.  (Longer even than “Touchdown Jesus,” seen at left, visible from Notre Dame stadium…)  In fact, it may all have started with Moses, back at the battle of Rephidim, noted above.

See also “Super”stitions: Fans engage in odd rituals, and this “bottom line” from the blog-post: “Athletes know it, fans know it, and even Bud Light knows it.  Superstitions are as big a part of the game as anything.  They were there when your parents and/or grandparents first started watching, and they’ll be here long after we’re gone.”  Unfortunately, that last link is “now defunct.”

“I Want to Be like Mike” – An idea that just may be the key to spreading the Gospel better…

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The other night I watched The Bible’s Buried Secrets.  That was the NOVA program that aired on PBS in 2008, and explored the historicity of the Bible.  In other words, it explored whether the Bible was “factually accurate,” or history as we understand it.  According to Wikipedia:

The producers surveyed the evidence and [took] positions that are mainstream among archaeologists and historians, although they continue to raise objections among both Christians who believe in the bible as either literal or historical truth and minimalists who assert that the Bible has no historical validation.

Which I thought missed the whole point.

That is, among other findings the program said there was “no archaeological evidence to corroborate the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood and Abraham.”  That finding led the conservative American Family Association – promoting “fundamentalist Christian values” – to issue an “online petition urging Congress to cut off federal funding for PBS.”  The petition said that “PBS is knowingly choosing to insult and attack Christianity by airing a program that declares the Bible ‘isn’t true and a bunch of stories that never happened.’”

Which I thought – again – misses the whole point of the Christian faith.

My theory is that you can’t “prove” the Bible-faith by scientific or courtroom evidence.  You prove the validity of that faith by your own experience walking with and/or working with God.  Like the man with the legion (demons), as told in Mark 5 (18-20):

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.   Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you…”   So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.  And all the people were amazed.

In other words, the demon-possessed man could care less if archaeologists found Noah’s Ark in Turkey, or whether there was “archaeological evidence to corroborate the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood and Abraham.”  He cared about what Jesus did for him.  Or as it says in Psalm 66:16:  “Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for me.”

Which is – to me – the far better way of spreading the Good News of Jesus…

Getting back to the Gerasene demoniac, the man with “legion” told people in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him “and all the people were amazed.”  And – no doubt – many of them tried out this “new faith” for themselves.  Or as applied today – when few of us seem so possessed – we start by reading the Bible and applying it to our lives, then “proceed on:”

[Like the Bible, e]very martial art – judo, kendo, aikido, etc. – has its own forms, actions, procedure.  Beginners must learn the kata and assimilate and use them.  Later, they begin to create out of them, in the way specific to each art.

That’s a thought from my e-book “Jesus Christ, Public Defender.”  Near the end of Chapter 8, I wrote about the early years, when I’d just started daily Bible readings and applying them to my own life.  (And in particular to my own “obsession,” college football.)

“In the process, something seemed to happen that may be like what happens to a student of an eastern martial art.”  I also noted that maybe the Bible student – like a good karate student – first struggles to learn the basics, and then – after he learns the fundamentals – he can start to use them in his daily life:

Finally, after the student has been at it long enough, he can begin to “create” out of those Bible readings, and in the process create something new out of something very old, or as the Bible says, “sing to the Lord a new song.”  As time passes the student can “create” something new, giving a new meaning to the “old” Bible message…

The result could well be a “new song to the Lord,” as illustrated and updated in the student’s own life.  And incidentally, that theme of singing a new song to the Lord – and not just another stale, old “conservative” or literalist rehash – is repeated again and again in the Bible.  Like in Isaiah 42:10, and Psalm 96:1, Psalm 98:1, and Psalm 144:9.

So what’s all this about a “better way to spread the Gospel?”  We can start with one basic assumption and one big question, two points common to all the world’s religions.

The basic assumption is:  “You’ve been given a gift.”  The big question is:  “What are you going to do with it?”  You can say you’ve been given the gift of “salvation through Christ,” which basically means that you’ve gotten the gift of a “new”  bridge to God.  Or for that matter you can say you’ve been “gifted” the road to a more spiritual life, through Islam, Buddhism or one of many other spiritual paths.  (Though I believe all those others will eventually “lead you to Christ…”)

Or you can just say that you’ve been given the gift of life, by whoever or whatever gave that gift to you.  (Possibly even some generic Higher Power.)

But the big question remains:  What are you going to do with that gift?  Or in Christian terms, “How are you going to help spread the Gospel?”  (The Good News or “the message of salvation, justification [illustrated by Luther’s rose, at right], and sanctification.”)  That’s the question raised by the Great Commission, as detailed notably in Matthew 28:16–20:

 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

Of course one method – so favored by conservatives – is to browbeat people, telling them that they’re going to hell if they don’t listen to you.  Or you can become a parrot, spouting out random Bible verses, generally full of hell and damnation, fire and brimstone.

Or you can be “like Mike.”  You can be the kind of person other people want to emulate.  You can lead the kind of life that makes people look at what you’ve accomplished, and say, “That’s what I want!  I want what he’s got!”  Or done, or accomplished.  In other words, you – “like Mike” – could be a walking advertisement for the kind of Bible faith that potential converts want to imitate.  (See 1st Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”)

Like – for example – my being 67 years old and keeping fit by stair-stepping an hour at a time, wearing a 25-pound weight vest and 10 pounds of ankle weights.  Or having a series of “adventures in old age,” like Mike.  Or like successfully hiking the Chilkoot Trail (“meanest 33 miles in history”), or canoeing 440 miles down the Yukon river (in 12 days), or canoeing 12 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, primitive camping for eight days on offshore islands (and an occasional salt marsh), or hiking and biking 450 miles on the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

As detailed in the notes, and which incidentally will be the focus of my next blog post…

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And no, at 67 “I’m not too old to have some adventure in the time I have left…”

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The upper image is courtesy of I Want To Be Like Mike – Image Results.

Re:  “Be like Mike.”  See Be Like Mike – Wikipedia, about the “Gatorade commercial featuring American professional basketball player Michael Jordan that originally aired in 1992.”   See also “I Want to Be like Mike” – Josh.org:  “A MAJOR SPORTS-drink company once ran an ad campaign encouraging people to ‘be like Mike,’ as in NBA basketball legend Michael Jordan. The phrase, ‘I want to be like Mike’ was everywhere.  Kids said it.  Adults sang it.”

The “buried secrets” image is courtesy of Amazon.com: NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets.

Re:  The Bible’s “historicity.”  See Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: Two Volumes in One, which noted, “The Bible is not a history book in modern sense, of course, since its writers lacked the benefit of modern archaeological techniques, did not have our concept of dating and documentation, and had different standards of what was and was not significant in history.”  (Avenel Books edition, 1981, page 7.)  Of course Asimov is “probably going to hell too…”  (Kidding!  See Deuteronomy 19:16-19.)

Re:  “Insult and attack Christianity.”  I’d respond that the PBS Nova program didn’t insult my Christianity.  Or as I’ve said before: “It was never ‘contrary to Scripture’ that the earth revolved around the sun.  It was only contrary to a narrow-minded, pigheaded, too-literal reading of Scripture.”  See “There’s no such thing as a ‘conservative Christian.”

Re: “Proceed on.”  The link is to “We proceeded on” : Lewis & Clark – oi – Oxford Index Home.  It spoke of a concluding chapter in a book about the Lewis and Clark Expedition:  “This concluding chapter presents the perspective of a documentary filmmaker who traveled the entire length of the Lewis and Clark trail.  It looks at the inspiration he derived from the unofficial motto of the expedition—’We proceeded on.’—and observes that the phrase is frequently used in the Journals.” 

Re:  “Come and listen, all you who fear God…”  Note that in the Revised Standard Version of the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer, the verse is 66:14.

Re:  “Jesus Christ, Public Defender.”  Available at Amazon.com: Kindle eBooks.  Just type in the title and look for the 4th Edition, with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch on the cover.

Re:  Sing a new song to the Lord.”  See On singing a NEW song to God.

Also re: the Nova program The Bible’s Buried Secrets.  See Wikipedia, which noted what the Biblical Archaeology Review wrote: “The producers have done a magnificent job summarizing over a century of biblical archaeology and biblical scholarship in two hours.  The film strikes a balance between the old-fashioned biblical archaeology approach, which tried to prove the Bible’s historicity, and the extreme skepticism of some minimalists, for whom the Bible contains little factual history.”  Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz wrote: “Conservative Judaism is fully accepting of the type of scholarship featured in this documentary.”  And Rev. Kenneth Himes, OFM Professor, wrote:   “For some, the ideas presented may seem novel or surprising, but this is material that is being discussed in the theology courses found at many Catholic universities.”  

See also Historicity of the Bible – Wikipedia.  But again, my theory is that to focus on the Bible’s “historicity” is to miss the point of the faith entirely.  The question is:  Having accepted God and/or Christ, what now do you do with your life?  How will you live out the life you’ve been given?  What will you accomplish with that life?  How are you going to make this world a better place?

Re:  “Walking advertisement.”  The cite-link is to Human billboard – Wikipedia.

Re:  Some of my adventures in old age.  See for example – from my companion blog – Remembering the “Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!”  Also, Canoeing 12 miles off the coast of Mississippi.  (From 7/19/17.)  That cited On canoeing 12 miles offshore, from May 2015.  As to the Yukon River trip, see “Naked lady on the Yukon.”  As to hiking in Spain, see “Hola! Buen Camino!” – Revisited, and “Buen Camino!” – The Good Parts.  Another “incidentally:”  Future pilgrimage-trips include two weeks in Israel, and another hike, this time on the “Camino Portugues.”  Also, I’ve written about some overnight adventures into the Okefenokee Swamp in several posts:  Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee” (11/7/15), “Into the Okefenokee” – Part II (11/15/15), “Into the Okefenokee” – Part III (11/24/15), “There he goes again…” (5/30/16), and “There he goes again” – Revisited (5/31/17).

And of course, those “adventures in old age” necessarily include writing this thought-provoking blog.  

The lower image is courtesy of happyotter666.blogspot.com.  See also Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – Wikipedia, which provided the following “cornered” quote, which was in turn part of a blog-comment about the second day of my “adventurous” hike on the Chilkoot Trail:

Okay, it wasn’t quite as bad – crossing that “swinging bridge” the first day on the Chilkoot Trail – as it was for Indiana Jones in the photo above.  (For example, we hadn’t been “cornered by Mola Ram and his henchmen on a rope bridge high above a crocodile-infested river.”)  But that second day on the Trail was pretty &^%$ bad…

See specifically On the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 2.

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For further review you may wish to consult the following, some or most of which I’ve read for “Deep Background:”  What the Gospels Meant, by Garry Wills;  How to Spread the Word of God: 7 Steps (with Pictures;  What is Christian mysticism? – GotQuestions.org;  What is Christian mysticism? – fRimMin;  Mysticism – Wikipedia; and/or Christian mysticism – Wikipedia.