Remembering Dr. Matt

For those of you who don't know, the Flint-area lost one of its best and brightest on Monday when Dr. Matthew Hilton-Watson collapsed and died in French Hall on the campus of the University of Michigan in Flint.

Dr. Matt was truly a one-of-a-kind.

I've taken college courses at four different institutions in my life and I can probably remember well no more than a small handful of professors. To truly remember someone, to me, is not simply recalling something they said or how they looked. It's much more than that. To remember, is to have had some knowledge of who they were on a personal level.

Dr. Matt was briliant and didn't know it. He was a cosmopolitan guy who loved nothing more than to talk about his favorite place in the world: Kentucky.

I've never seen a professor who loved being in the classroom more. And it wasn't that he enjoyed the attention, either. He thrived on the comaraderie -- the relationships he built with students.

Dr. Matt taught me a thing or two about French, but a lot more about life. He proved to me that elitism doesn't have to proceed from brilliance.

His love of the classroom was only bested by his love for his family, and never passed on an opportunity to talk about his kids.

Dr. Matt is still teaching, too. To read about what he meant to students, faculty and friends, check out this special page at UM-Flint's website.

The family of Professor Matthew Hilton-Watson has requested that the memorial service be held at the University of Michigan-Flint. The memorial service will take place on Friday, March 27 at 3:00 p.m. in the University Theatre. The entire campus community is invited to the celebration of Dr. Matt’s life and work.

Merry Christmas from the Field family of one

Here's the thing: I've never sent a Christmas card in my life, but I've received a few. I know that many families send these cute little picture cards featuring each member, alongside the family pets, flanked by stockings in front of the fireplace. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the pictures; that being said, what I enjoy most is the letter that often accompanies the picture. You know, the one that gives you the rundown of everything everyone is doing with their life. With that in mind, I figured that I would write one of my own. After all, it has been a long time since I've written anything in this blog.

Here goes...

* I have been dating a beautiful 25-year-old CCU nurse named Jessi since round about November. I'd be more specific about the actual date, but it's hard to say when the relationship went from friendship to more than that. I liked her from the start; she liked me from about the 3/4 pole--forgive the horse racing reference. Neither of us is all too interested in moving fast, though you wouldn't know it by the way I fawn over her. In any event, I don't know where the relationship will take us, but I've sure been blessed to have her in my life for the past few months. We're actually a lot different, but I think that's what makes it exciting. I've learned a lot about myself since being with her; namely, I don't know what I'm doing in a relationship.

* I'm continuing in my position as a reporter/columnist/writer/blogger/photographer at the Flint Journal. I enjoy the work, but I also know that the prospect of staying there very much longer is pretty bleak. Newspapers are like the auto industry sans the federal bridge loans. I just don't have much confidence in the future of the Journal and morale is at an all-time low in that building. Even so, I've always been treated fairly by the Journal (heck, they've kept me around for like seven years) and I don't regret the time I've put in there.

* I've been writing a lot about politics in the past few months. It's becoming painfully obvious to me that my first love, at least with respect to hobbies, is politics. I always thought it was sports first and politics second, but I was wrong.

* I recently ordered testing materials for the LSAT. For those of you who don't know, it's the test you have to take to be accepted to any law school worth its salt in this country. I've mulled over the decision for quite some time, and I'm convinced that it's worth looking into. All my life people have told me that I should go into politics. One of my good friends, Mike Jones (a doctor in Pittsburgh), is convinced that I could go a long way in the arena, claming that I have "no skeletons in the closet." I guess the score will make the decision for me. If it's high enough, I will be eligible for all kinds of grants and scholarships. If not, I'll vacuum the turf at Toronto's Skydome or something.

* I'm still attending First Presbyterian Church in downtown Flint and I love it. I continue to be involved in the PIPE ministry and I also teach Sunday School to high schoolers every week. I cannot imagine a more relevant and involved church anywhere.

* I'm currently reading a book about Jesus to coincide with my Sunday School curriculum. I recently listened to an audiobook by Pat Buchanan and I am in the middle of another by Chris Matthews. That's knowledge moving right to left, friends. I also just watched one of the greatest films ever made: Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1939). If you haven't seen it, go grab a copy.

* Finally, I have only a little more than three weeks left of basketball season. If Mott Community College wins their regional tournament this weekend, I will be heading back to Danville, Illinois for the national tournament in a couple weeks. It's a unique little town and it would be my third trip in three years on the basketball beat at the Journal.

My weekend with Jessi, Jewel

It's a fact that even Ripley would find hard to believe: I'd never been to a Jewel concert. I can say that in the past tense now, and it feels really good.

Here's the skinny: Last month Jessi (some of you know her as the girl I've been courting with varying degrees of success for months) instructed me to make sure I had January 23rd and 24th off from work. Why? Well, I wasn't totally sure.

All she told me was that she wanted me to attend the wedding of her friend from work on the afternoon of the 24th -- that was the extent of my information on the subject. I knew the who (though I didn't really know her), the what and the why. I didn't know the where, and that was a little odd.

That was the first mystery of many.

I kept asking why I needed free time on Friday, and she wouldn't sing. Finally Friday rolled around and she picked me up around five in the afternoon. That morning she left me a list of things I might need that included a passport or birth certificate.

Ok, who gets married in Canada (to my homosexual friends, my apologies)?

And so, we hopped in Rhonda (that's what we call her two-door Honda Civic) and headed south on I-75. Still listening to the Heroes soundtrack I got her, we arrived at the entrance to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, paid the toll and answered the first of many questions from the border patrol.

The first one was the only one I cared about, though:

"What are your plans for the evening?"

Since Jessi was driving, it saved me the embarrassment (and possible incarceration) of shrugging my shoulders. Jessi told him that we were "going gambling", something I know now she doesn't even do -- unless you count dating chumps like me.

We arrived in Windsor around 7 p.m. and promptly made our way to probably the nicest restaurant I've ever been to. It was called Park Terrace (here's the virtual tour), comeplete with a dining area that overlooks the downtown Detroit Skyline, brighter than normal because of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo.

(Apart from the menu prices, this was my kind of joint. Everything they served was described in French and English. It gave me ample opportunity to show off my far above average French /r/.)

There were only five people in the restaurant at the time, so it was pretty quaint for a Friday night. The food at the Park Terrace was way out of my league, but I managed to eat some of it -- neither of us was as hungry as we should have been.

Somehow we managed to eat dessert (I always have room for cheesecake) and then our waitress, Dana, broke Park Terrace's zero tolerance no pet policy when she let the cat out of the bag.

Neither of us had our cell phones, so Jessi asked Dana for the time. It was later than she thought so she promptly asked how far it was to Caesar's Casino by foot (about four blocks as it turned out).

"You guys going to see Jewel?"

Not my Jewel. Not the Jewel that I've been in love with since I was 17. She wasn't in Windsor that night, was she? I knew she was supposed to be in Mt. Pleasant on Saturday, but I had no idea she was just a frigid quarter-mile swim across the Detroit river on Friday night.

Jessi, who told me earlier in the evening that we had to be at the Casino before 9 p.m. in order to get free five-dollar vouchers (she's an excellent liar), played it cool.

The look on her face was perfect. It was as if she was feigning embarassment that she took me to gamble in Windsor without knowledge of the concert. I took the bait, hook, line and sinker. I was actually trying not to make her feel bad for not knowing about the show, even though there was no knowledge on my side of the table.

After she paid the bill -- Lord only knows how much -- we ran (literally) down Riverside Street to Caesar's. The only problem, of course, was that I wasn't in as big of a hurry as she was. By this time it was past nine, and I just knew they wouldn't give us our five free bucks (and I was sure it was Canadian, any way).

We got to Caesar's and I nearly lost Jessi who, again, was running faster than me. I was, however, fast enough to breeze right by the 19-and-over sign that elicited a "stop young man!" call from a security guard. (Getting stopped for an I.D. check at a 19-and-over joint is a new low for me.)

Jessi made it to the box office, a country mile away from the actual venue, where she had two tickets for Jewel's acoustic set on reserve. She had been planning it for a couple months, and was sick that I would somehow find out. Apparently she had only told two people about it -- her mother and Jim Pope.

It was probably the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.

For as much money as she spent on the evening (I shudder to think of it), it crossed my mind that she must have paid off a roadie to have a seizure backstage or something. We were 25 minutes late and didn't miss a minute of the 90-minute set. And while she was paying him, she must have paid Jewel to sing my favorite song first (after a warm-up).

Throughout the show, I took stock of the males in the 5,000-seat auditorium at Caesar's and, much to my surprise, none of them looked like they wanted to be there. I wish I could have seen the faces of the people behind me, when Jessi told them that she surprised me with tickets to the concert. Their faces probably looked like the border patrol agent's on our return to Michigan. He asked where we'd been, and Jessi told him.

"Are you a fan?" he inquired. "No," she said. "But he is."

He tilted his head down to see me in the passenger seat and looked somewhat mortified. I was just sure he would tell us to pull over so some Homeland Security agent in his regimentals could check my manhood.

If you care, here was her set list for the evening:

1. Somewhere Over the Rainbow
2. Near You Always
3. Carnivore
4. Everything Breaks Sometime
5. Last Dance Rodeo
6. Life Uncommon
7. Hands
8. Boy Needs a Bike
9. Race Car Driver
10. Standing Sill
11. Perfectly Clear
12. The Shape of You
13. Intuition
14. Foolish Games
15. Little Sister
16. You Were Meant For Me
17. Who Will Save Your Soul
Encore
18. Angel Standing By
19. Chime Bells/Yodeling

Wisdom from my friend, Glitz

I haven't written much lately (well, at least not here), so I thought I would steal something someone else has written for this post. (By the way, will have a post soon regarding my weekend with Jessi and Jewel.)

This comes by way of my friend Josh Glitz, who likes to opine from time to time about his favorite subject: Christianity.

I agree with most of what he's trying to say.

Here goes:

The modern American church has lost the sight of one of what I view to be a key component of the vision that Christ had for the Church. Rather than focusing on The Church, capital T capital C, we have become focused upon our church. Rather than being a unified body of believers working for the good of the kingdom, we have become a series of disjointed, unconnected groups that pursue our own agendas and goals. We all have a common goal, and ultimately all serve the same purpose. However, in our pursuit to achieve that goal we tear each other asunder. Churches compete in an unspoken competition amongst each other and specialize until we have a proliferation that is not always leading to a proliferation of the number of believers.

While the poor outside our doors suffer the church begins the process of gilding over the cracks and imperfections that exist within its walls. We are a self centered country that wants to be entertained at all costs. Crowds flood to see the brightest and most visually appealing presentation of a beautifully simple message. Lights, sounds, and movies are needed to persuade enough people to join in order to justify the exorbitant cost of purchasing the technology in the first place. We will gladly spend thousands, at times millions, of dollars on buildings and technology to attract people in. We have begun to rely upon the power of megawatts of light rather than the power of the gospel to bring people in the doors. Get them to come see a magnificent display and slip the gospel in there.

Don’t trust me? Let’s take a look around us. Do we really need Easter pageants that rely upon pneumatic machines to raise Christ from the grave? Or a seamless piece of fabric to project a realistic night sky upon? Do we really need to purchase thousands of dollars worth of cameras and lights for a single night of worship? Don’t get me wrong, I believe whole heartedly that all that money is worth spending if it brings even a single person to Christ. My question is when we began to be so prideful that we think it is our actions that bring people to Christ. I am sorry; I refuse to believe that a light display brings someone to salvation. The Bible explicitly tells us that it is Christ that does all the saving work. Has our culture really became so self centered that we demand to be entertained in order to entertain the notion of Christ. We will pool our money together in order to purchase new lighting equipment, but struggle to raise support to raise money for the poor and needy within our own city. Is it just me, or is there something desperately wrong with this picture. The moment that anything else besides Christ becomes the main attraction is the moment we need to begin to evaluate our actions.

We need to begin to embrace our brokenness, as it encourages us to fully value the grace that is afforded to us. Walk into the typical American church on a Sunday morning and you will find a bunch of people masking their fears, hurts, and insecurities. We value our wholesome image. We flaunt our happiness when our insides are groaning out. We refuse to let our real emotions show in order to save our public perception. The church, which is supposed to be a place of unity and comfort, is the place we most have to put on our false images. A place of honesty and acceptance becomes one of the most demeaning places of pubic opinion. Our church becomes a place of disunity with The Church.

By gilding over our faults and insecurities to both the outside and to ourselves, the church falls short of being The Church. This is not the only way we do this however. We also fall in love with dividing ourselves up. I believe in church planting, I would love to take part in a church planting mission one day. However we do not need any more niche churches in America. The Church is a body with many parts. This demands a variety of not only skills, talents, and gifts but also of age and worldview. There should be a distinction between church’s and ministries. Ministries can serve an individual age group, however a church should never focus on one age group. Ministries can serve certain types of people, churches should never focus on one type of person. A church is supposed to a body of believers, not just an arm. If/when a doctrinal issue arises we can begin to discuss the possibility of dividing a church. However starting a church simply to serve a specific demographic of people is not a wise decision under my estimation.

We need to begin to embrace the notion of The Church rather than staying fixated upon our own churches.

New Year's wishes for friends, family

My New Year's wishes for 2009 are as follows:

For Gavin to get the Texas girl and an OU national championship.

For Jessi to put 2008 behind her and find exactly what she's searching for.

For my grandparents to continue to enjoy central Florida, as far from the ocean (and the gulf) as possible.

For my baby niece to pick-up her first basketball.

For Swartzie to be a good husband.

For a tobacco-free golf season for Dick.

For a real estate bubble for Kathie.

For Mom to keep spoiling her only granddaughter.

For Jim to get the girl, and you know who I'm talking about.

For Coach Schmidt to get his D-1 gig.

For Janelle and Jeff to find work.

For Glitz to introduce me to his Texas girl.

For Angie to continue to make a difference.

For a full-time gig for Jennings.

For a job for Dan and a vacation for Michelle.

For Kristi to finally beat me in Jeopardy.

For Carl to allow me to sing another duet with him.

For Dylan to love music as much as he loves golf, or vice versa.

For Gerry to move to Flint and run for mayor.

For my Sunday School class to not find anything better to do on Sunday mornings.

For continued recovery for Dad.

For the Speedster to stay with you know who.

For Kennedy to not have to go back to Olivet.

For my Lakers to get the college scholarships they've worked so hard for.

For Pardeep and Patrick to take over the Journal's sports department.

For Jordan Grambush to sing a solo.

For the Skaffs to adopt me for a week.

For Megin to keep coming to Sunday School.

For Zaffy to be the next Peggy Noonan.

For Caldwell to marry the next Peggy Noonan.

For Erick to get to states.

For the Pipe to continue to grow.

For Jake to start, and shoot...and shoot.

For AO to lead the Buckeyes to the NCAA tournament.

For some game for Joey.

For Courtney to start playing the keys, too.

For someone to stay off the Chema.

For Jaicy to have a great new life.

For Cheana to enjoy something new, and different.

For Amber to fly high in the Hair Force.

For Hilary to finally convince me to visit South Bend again.

For Kaleb to get a scholly to GVSU.

For Eric to start coming to PIPE.

For Jeff's jerseys to keep getting smaller (or is he getting bigger?)

For Megan to find a new job.

For Nicole to be an All-American in New Orleans.

For Josh Hoover to run into Jewel, and drop my name.

For Madeline to move back to Michigan.

For the James girls in what's next.

For Chris to keep tickling the ivories.

For Chelsea on the Gold Coast.

For an end to Talk of the Town for Fish.

For Trent to beat Hamady and Buctown.

For Matheson to beat GCS.

For another orange smoothy with Jill.

For Meechie to win the city scoring title.

For more hugs from the Moores.

For Marcellus to be named "best dressed" in Flint.

For Matt Popovits to show Rob Bell who's boss.

For more ebonics with B-Kizzle.

For that basketball game I promised to Amanda.

For Dave to be a music pastor again.

For new friends for Allison.

For Katie to be chosen as the Journal's new editor.

For Dr. Mike to find a new football team to root for.

For OV to find her man.

For 20 pounds for D-Weave.

For Taylor to still say "VG's" even after the Spartan takeover.

For the Welch Twins to meet Obama.

For what's left of that poor couch we tragically lost on U.S. 23.

For me to get that expensive Jewel Live double-DVD.

Is selfishness prevailing?

From the Daily Mail in London:

The Pope has addressed the economic gloom in his Christmas message.

Benedict XVI warned that the world was headed toward ruin if selfishness prevails over solidarity during tough times for both rich and poor nations.

'If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart.'

This got me to thinking, is selfishness prevailing in this world?

The easy, however unsettling, answer is yes. Selfishness appears to be a cross-cultural phenomenon that binds us together as human beings with something to horde. Selfishness is a luxury, one that we all partake in.

When I think of communities, at least those in the strict sense, I am reminded of how many people in this world live in squalor without the ability to even think in self-maximizing terms. What would this world look like if we thought more like them? What if we didn't perceive our relationships as simply transactions between unequals? Would selfishness still prevail?

Some harsh realities

Eight out of every 10 people in this world live on less than 10 bucks per day. I recently spent 30 bucks on some DVDs. Is selfishness prevailing?

It is only by necessity that human beings are being forced to depend on one another more, and we know what happens in times of plenty. It was just three years ago that the World Bank released this disturbing news: 80 percent of people on this planet live in countries with widening income disparities. Is selfishness prevailing?

An estimated 800,000 children, just children, die every year as a result of malaria alone. There is a long list of preventable diseases that further cut short the lives of children in underdeveloped nations. What if 800,000 children died in one year as a result of diarrhoea in North America? What if hundreds of thousands of children were dying because they lacked access to immnunzation? How would we react? Is selfishness prevailing?

In the United States we use, on average, 600 liters of water per day. 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within one kilometer consume around 20 liters per day. 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water. Could we survive on less? Do we even think in those terms? Is selfishness prevailing?

The World Bank recently released its 2005 numbers regarding private consumption. Did you know that the richest 20 percent of the world account for 77 percent of private consumption? Is there something inherently wrong with that? Is selfishness prevailing?

Did you know that every time your power goes out you become a kindred spirit to roughly 1.6 billion people who do not have electricity now or ever? Is selfish prevailing?

The next time you feel yourself being flippant about opportunities, consider that one percent of the adults on this planet have had the opportunity to go to a four-year college. Do I really ponder not having enough education? Is selfishness prevailing?

These are the best-laid plans?

At the turn of the 21st century, leaders from nearly 200 countries (the United States chief among them) came together to discuss ways to end to extreme poverty (among other global crises), and even staked themselves to timetables. The sad reality, of course, some eight years later, is that many of the aforementioned countries are failing to meet the UN's development goals. Why? Because extreme poverty in underdeveloped countries is not a priority to the richest countries in the world.

Take China out of the equation, and our world's recent record of reducing poverty isn't much to look at. The west has something to be gained from a Chinese middle class, of course. Progress, in this way, is still marred by selfishness.

Grandiose national and global priorities are merely reflections of the personal. If selfishness truly does prevail, it will do so because we've allowed ourselves--at the most basic level--to believe the lies about a hierarchy of humanity. We will have allowed selfishness to prevail.

All that to say this: 'If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart.'

And to my Christian friends out there, this: What you have is not your own.

Obama's bad day may turn into bad month

Just a quick prediction about Barack Obama's next month: it's not going to be a lot of fun.

Ever since Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a fellow Democrat, was charged with trying to sell Obama's now-vacant Senate seat, the microscope of scrutiny has been peering into the relationship between Obama and the busted governor.

It's only going to get worse for President-Elect Obama after his chief advisor, David Axelrod, "misspoke" (that's a laugh) when he claimed that Obama had actually met with Blagojevich to discuss the vacancy.

Whoopsy.

The office of the Presidential-Elect quickly sent out a memo claiming the error for Axelrod which, of course, seems dubious at best.

I'm not saying Barack Obama is guilty of anything, but this is going to get worse for him before it gets better.

This, of course, is what we deserve for electing a politician from the single deepest political cess pool in the western world: a scandal before Inauguration Day.