7 Days of Manly Superbowl Stuff – Day 4 (Kurt Warner Day)
Although I’m a HUGE Steelers fan, I’m going to be “ecumenical” today and give up a big shout out to Kurt Warner, the QB for the Arizona Cardinals. This guy’s got one amazing story. We might be familiar with the part of the story that includes his going from the grocery store stockboy to Superbowl MVP, but most of us aren’t familiar with the side of the story that goes like this…
Kurt grew up in an abusive home. He worked hard throughout his youth to overcome those odds and eventually made it to training camp with the Green Bay Packers, but was later released from the team. While working as a stock boy at the local Hy-Vee grocery store, he noticed Brenda, the checkout girl. He stayed after his shift one day and offered her a ride home; as he dropped her off, he asked if he could see her again, outside of work. She said it wasn’t possible. See, Brenda was a divorcee with two kids from an abusive previous marriage. Most men run to the hills at the sound of a story like that. Kurt was different, he wanted to take the kids with them on their date. She said it wasn’t possible. See, Brenda’s son was born a paraplegic and was in a wheelchair. No man would possibly want that situation to enter his seemingly normal life. Kurt was different, he wanted to help Brenda and her kids. Within a year of their first date, Kurt and Brenda were married. Kurt adopted Brenda’s son and daughter and together they have two additional children. Kurt went on to be signed as a free agent with the St. Louis Rams and was named 1999 League MVP as well as MVP of Superbowl XXXIV. (Only Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Emmitt Smith and Steve Young achieved that honor before him. They are all Hall of Famers!) Kurt attributes his success in the NFL and in life to his personal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
See, Kurt manned up. He took struggle, hardships and seeming defeat and worked harder than they could. He continued to be faithful to Jesus and never let anything get in the way of his dreams. He found a woman that he loved and did whatever he could to win her heart. (He pursued her without end.) He treats her as his queen and loves every child, even a paraplegic. (Our society would suggest that a paraplegic is sub-human and should be aborted in the womb.) Kurt sets a great example for us about being a husband, father and dreamer. Thanks Kurt!
Man up!
7 Days of Manly Superbowl Stuff – Day 3
T-Minus 5 days and counting until Superbowl 43…
Today, I’m thinking about the players in the NFL, and the typical picture that is painted for us of a player on the side lines. Typically, we see the star players getting a water-boy to squirt water in their mouth for them, someone who takes their helmet off and places it on their own personal “helmet heater” and yet another person who comes behind them and places a warm cape over their shoulders during cold games. Is this reality? Do you have an assistant that comes behind you and “takes care of you”? Most of us want to say no, but if you think about it, you might have to change your answer to yes.
Think about it this way… if you’re a married man, do you make your wife take care of everything around the house? (The cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping and the bills?) Does your wife do everything for the children? (Feed, change, dress, educate and play with them?) If this is making you think, I’m glad. My hope is that each of us realizes that, much like the players on the field, a marriage is a team. In football terms, how well would a team do if the offense also played defense AND special teams? They received no rest, no substitutes and no relief. They’d get run down and worn out. Are you doing this to your spouse? A True Man knows that cooking is a huge help (on a grill is preferred!), that cleaning any part of the house is a major relief and that a break from the kids is a god-send. A True Man also knows that this DOES NOT take away from his manhood, but enhances it. Be a teammate.
Man up!
7 Days of Manly Superbowl Stuff – Day 2 (Troy Polamalu Day)
T-Minus 6 Days and counting until Superbowl 43…
Many of you are familiar with the star of the top-ranked Steeler defense, #43 Troy Polamalu (pronounced: poh lah mah loo). You’re probably familiar with him because of his tenacity, aggressiveness, number of sacks and interceptions, and especially because of his long, curly, black, Polynesian hair. (Not familiar with Troy? Click HERE.) You might not be familiar with him because of another reason… his Catholic faith. Polamalu is a devote Catholic, a genuine family man and a humble servant – off the field. This picture of him seemingly contrasts his playing style – on the field. Troy disagrees. He believes that his passion (for football) on the field is directly related to his passion (for Christ) off the field. He was quoted in the Pittsburgh Catholic saying “Football gives me confirmation of how I can carry out my faith. It’s my way to glorify God.” He also recently started a philanthropic foundation that benefits our service men and women!
His teammates have some things to say about him, too. “Knowing Troy and how he carries himself, he brings light to the team,” said offensive lineman Alan Faneca. “Everybody respects that.” “He’s definitely one of those guys who lead by example,” said quarterback Charlie Batch. “He’s not a talker when he gets out there, but you see the work he does on the field and produces every Sunday. When you put that combination together, yeah, he’s one of those guys that you’re going to follow … and he doesn’t take for granted that he’s blessed with incredible speed and instinct.”
Leading by example… that’s TRUE MANHOOD. Way to go Troy!
Check out the full story from the Pittsburgh Catholic HERE.
7 Days of Manly Superbowl Stuff – DAY 1
The countdown has begun; t-minus 7 days and counting until the big game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals – Superbowl 43 on February 1, 2009 in Tampa, Florida. This game is especially exciting for me this year because I’m a huge Steelers fan.
It’s easy for us to get into the stereotypical (“dumb ox”) mindset when it comes to football… “ugh… me like football. mmm, smash, kill, score, win… arghh”. It’s easy to yell at the television, even though we know they can’t hear us and that the play we’re yelling about is already history. It’s easy to stuff our faces full of greasy food during any given game. It’s easy to become involved, in an unhealthy way, in the fantasy of the game. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing intrinsically evil about football, and in the right context, is perfectly normal and healthy, however, we should guard against a few tendencies.
- We must realize that football is a game and has zero positive bearing on what should be our goal in life – getting to Heaven.
- We shouldn’t try to live (vicariously, or otherwise) through our favorite team or all-star players.
- We should never allow football to take precedence over family time.
- We should never allow football to take precedence over our responsilibities.
- We should “consume” football in reasonable amounts.
LOOKING AHEAD. Monday’s post: How a real life football star stays grounded as a family man and philanthropist.
Bishop Michael Sheridan's Letter about FOCA (Dec 5, 08)
Allow me to explain the purpose of this post. Although this post doesn’t come directly from me, it speaks to an issue that must be dealt with. As men, we must stand up and fight, not sit back and watch. We, as men, are called to service, to arms, to protect, to lead, to fight, to be righteous, to love and to be faithful. The pro-life (anti-abortion) movement is NOT a woman’s movement alone. This post speaks directly to the role that we play in defeating the evils of the culture of death. Man up!
Dec. 5, 2008 FOCA is a very bad law
Dec 4, 2008 4:00 PM
NOTE: The following article is based on data provided by the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and the Office of the General Counsel of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and was published in the Catholic Herald newspaper (of the Diocese of Colorado Springs, CO).
Citizens have a right to expect that their elected officials will keep their campaign
promises. If President-Elect Obama keeps all of his campaign promises, the American people — both born and unborn — are in for big trouble.
On July 17, Obama stood before a gathering of Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the United States, and promised attendees that his first act as president would be to sign into the law the so-called Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). FOCA is the most radical abortion legislation in U.S. history. It is proposed by the pro-abortion lobby as simply the codification of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade. But it is much more than that!
In fact, FOCA goes far beyond Roe vs. Wade. FOCA would propose abortion not just as something legal, but as a fundamental right, just like the right to vote and the right to free speech. FOCA will nullify every statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, policy and practice of any federal, state or local government that seeks to limit or regulate in any way the heinous practice of the murder of unborn children. More specifically:
FOCA will invalidate laws to protect a woman from unsafe abortion clinics and laws to ensure that she is informed about abortion. Because informing women about abortion and alternatives involves some delay and may lead some women to change their decision, laws ensuring informed consent would likely be seen as “interfering” with the abortion right.
FOCA will require taxpayers to pay for abortions. This new legislation would remove any language that ensures that taxpayers will not be forced to pay for abortions. Instead, under FOCA, the government may not “discriminate” against abortion in publicly funded programs.
FOCA will remove any and all bans on the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortions and will require states to allow partial-birth abortions and other late-term abortions. Currently, states are permitted to ban abortions after fetal viability (when a child can survive outside the womb). Because of FOCA’s insistence that abortion is a fundamental right, the murder of a child as (s)he is being born will be permitted.
FOCA will require states to allow abortions by non-physicians. So much for ensuring a medically safe procedure.
FOCA will deny parents an opportunity to be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion decision. So determined are the pro-abortion advocates to make abortion more available that they will see to it that children can undergo this traumatic ordeal without parental permission or counsel. A school nurse may not administer aspirin to minor children without the parents’ permission, but it will be abortion on demand for those same children.
FOCA will bar laws protecting a right of conscientious objection to abortion. The current resolution of the American Medical Association (approved by Roe vs. Wade) that allows hospitals, doctors, medical students and other health-care workers to opt out of participating in abortions will be overturned. Not only will the right to life of the 3,500 babies who are killed each day by abortion (expected to jump to 3,900 per day under FOCA) be taken away, the fundamental right to conscience and the practice of religion (guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution) will also be taken away. The pro-abortion lobby is intent not only on seeing to it that more abortions take place, it is intent on restricting other fundamental human freedoms as well.
In his statement on behalf of the American bishops, Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, said that FOCA would have “a destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal conviction do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children.” FOCA would be a direct threat to the very existence of Catholic hospitals.
In the words of the bishops who serve on the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “A vote for FOCA is a vote against modest, reasonable, widely supported laws that promote and protect women’s health, ensure informed consent, protect minors and ensure parental involvement, safeguard rights of conscience, and respect the desire of most citizens not to pay for abortions with their tax dollars. It is the most radical and extreme abortion legislation ever considered in the United States.”
I ask every Catholic and every man and woman of good will to contact their legislators and protest the passage of FOCA. In January all Catholics will be given the opportunity to participate in a campaign to inform the president-elect and the new Congress that FOCA, like Roe vs. Wade, is a very bad law.
President-Elect Obama has also promised that his administration will seek to reduce abortions in our country. But, as Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, reminds us with basic logic: “We can’t reduce abortions by promoting abortions” (Sept. 19 letter to U.S. Congress).
Great Examples of "What is Real Manliness?"
January 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Scriptural Examples
Here are the answers to the previous post “What is Real Manliness?”
- King David
- Joseph (of the Old Testament)
- St. Joseph, the Earthly Father of Jesus
The story of King David can be a very compelling story for us. It’s likely that each of us can compare at least one aspect of our life to something that David went through in his. We know a great deal about David, but how often do we stop and contemplate his life? His life, from childhood to old age, is a great example of faithfulness, growth, repentence and success. One of the most ravaging evils of our time is pornography (aka: lust, sins of the flesh, impurity, etc.). David is normally associate with a few things: slaying Goliath, writing the Psalms, being a great king and his sins of lust with Bathsheba. When I wrote before that “this man screwed up royally” (although full of puns), he did. The event with Bathsheba shaped his life. He had a choice to make (and thanks to his “wingman” Nathan, he made the right choice). He owned his mistake, made it right and went on to live a pure life from that point forward, leading men and women closer to God for generations after him. I suggest that you read about King David in Scripture. His life can be a great tool in living a life “after God’s own heart”. Check out 1 Samuel 16:19 and on.
Joseph of the OT was a man that could easily have chosen vengeance, anger and retaliation. Instead, he chose faithfulness and reliance on God. Joseph, after living an up-and-down life (from a young boy, to a slave, to a prisoner, to pharoah’s right hand man) is a great example to us of humility, perseverance and honor. He foreshadows our next amazing example of manliness, St. Joseph. Check out Genesis 37 and on.
St. Joseph, the carpenter, the worker, the patron of fathers and the Most Chaste Spouse… our model and our guide. St. Joseph’s task of being the father of Jesus the Christ is as unparalleled a task as any. Can you imagine the immense responsibility that he had with raising God? Not only did he willingly accept this challenge, he accepted the challenge of being a husband to the Virgin Mary. Obviously, I don’t have the time or space to write everything that St. Joseph deserves. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about Joseph, but you can see some of his characteristics in Matthew 1:16 – Matthew 2.
Man Up!
"It's How Guys Do Fancy"
Have you seen this commercial from Carl’s Jr? Every time I see it, it makes me more and more frustrated with society’s expectations for men. Check it out…
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=298875895280712774&ei=cs52SfiWK47Q-AHM9PGnBQ&q=carl%27s+jr+steak&hl=en]
What is this guy telling/showing/portraying to his girlfriend? What sort of respect is he giving her? What amount of priority is he putting on her and their relationship?
What happens in these situations is that society looks at these ads with a sense of humor. Did you laugh the first time you saw this commercial? I did, although I don’t like admitting it. I laughed the second time I saw it, too. As I began to think about it after I saw it again and again, I realized that society is telling men of all ages that it’s okay to skimp, to show your girlfriend/fiancee/wife/daughters that it’s normal and expected to give her less than what she deserves. It’s normal to give her less respect than she deserves. It’s normal to put her on the back burner and prioritize something else higher than her. Society says… “act like this guy, she’ll stay with you and not expect anything better from you because YOU’RE A GUY! That’s what guys do, so you’re par for course.” Instead, society needs to realize that this woman, a beautiful creation of God, deserves to be treated like a queen. She should be the most important thing in this guy’s life, other than his relationship with, and service to, God.
Fellas, if you find yourself in a situation where your girlfriend comes over and is dressed to the nines and is ready for your date –> stand up and greet her. Give her words of praise for looking so beautiful and tell her how wonderful she is. Compliment her on her beauty, her dress, her shoes and her hair. Be ready, before she gets there, dressed well, groomed and ready to take her out (or cook a romantic meal for her at your place). Be her knight in shining armor. Be her man, treat her with dignity and respect. Don’t settle for mediocrity, strive for excellence.
To the Ladies that read this post: if a guy you are dating treats you like this Carl’s Jr guy would, he’s not worthy of your time. Like I told the guys, don’t settle for mediocrity, strive for excellence. You are worth only the best, nothing less.
