Some Reflections on Football...

I am a football fan. I have been most of my life. I remember first playing "Young America" football in my hometown during the fall of 4th grade. Our team was the Sharks. It was tackle football, full pads. I would ride to practice on my banana seat, high handle bars bicycle in full regalia. The seventies were a special time. Those were the years of the Steel Curtain, Tom Landry in a suit and hat and Woody Hayes punching opposing players.

My teams are the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Denver Broncos. I married into Hawkeye Nation. I've been to more Iowa football games over the last 25 years than I can count. There is nothing like gameday in Iowa City. And, nothing like being with 70,000 fans at historic Kinnick stadium. My love of the Broncos started in 1977 with the Orange Crush's first Super Bowl season. I have fond memories of riding my bike to Bronco training camp at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I sat through 4 Super Bowl loses. Then on January 25th, 1998, my 33rd birthday, I watched Super Bowl XXXII in the basement of my home with my parents. When Denver finally won, we cried tears of joy, or relief. I'm not sure which.

My first year of high school I went out for football after a hiatus since 4th grade. My first love was baseball. I have no idea why I went out for the team. I was adamant about it though. I quickly learned this was a different culture. You had to be tough. Tough to survive two-a-days. Tough to make it from one water break to another. Tough to live through hazing the seniors did to the rookies. We had a training camp drill called "The Pit." Players were pitted against each other to see which was strongest and most technically sound at hitting his opponent. My name was barked out, along with the starting, senior tight-end. The whistle kept blowing and I kept beating him. I have a body made for this; broad shoulders, strong thick legs and back. For the rest of the year I was punched, tripped, urinated upon; on the field, in the hallway, in the shower. The entire senior class of football players took part in this. I had broken an unspoken rule. I had shamed him. To regain respect, he recruited his comrades (and his younger brother I might add) to beat me into submission. I survived, and told no one. I didn't tell this story for years. In fact, I think I was 35 before I put the training camp drill together with the bullying.

I became a good enough high school football player to get a scholarship to play in college. I played for 2 years before I quit to get serious about my studies. The football culture was very similar in college. I remember the seniors putting Ben Gay in my jock strap. Pranks, or bullying like this seemed to always involve genitals, urine or excrement. Violence was also part of the culture. My coaches in high school gave awards to the players who had the hardest hits! I still have a t-shirt I earned as a senior with the words "slobber knocker" on it. In both high school and college we received skull and crossbones stickers for violence dished out. We put these on our helmets. I was not surprised to hear NFL coaches were paying their players to hurt their opponents.

These last 2-3 years I have had a growing discontent about football. It doesn't hold my attention like it used to. When I do watch it I sense something about it is wrong. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but whatever it is, it is growing. Maybe it is the money being spent. Money spent for tickets, team gear, stadiums, or player contracts. It seems grotesquely out of proportion; to what, I can't say. Maybe it is the health concerns going unaddressed and the early deaths and suicides of athletes. There is overwhelming evidence of concussion damage. There seems to be an obsession with players getting stronger, bigger, and faster, and starting strength and conditioning programs at earlier and earlier ages.

It could be the intense nationalism and militarism exhibited more in football since 9/11. We have always honored our country in sports, but since 2001 that escalation in this experience is unmistakable. I was at the Super Bowl in New Orleans after that fateful September. They changed the entire motif from Marti Gras to a patriotic theme. Getting into the super dome was crazy. I still have a bobble head figurine with the Marti Gras theme that was left over and sold cheap. Just recently, Northwestern University upped the anti for Veteran's Day and wore special commemorative uniforms. You can see the blood spattered in the design. The designers defended the design as honoring our veterans for giving their blood. I thought it was over the top. Walter Brueggemann, a Old Testament Scholar says, "Football is the liturgy of Empire." That has stuck with me. It keeps nagging at me from the back of my mind. Catching Fire, the second of the Hunger Games films is out. I plan to see it. It's remarkable how much in common the Hunger Games, Ancient Rome's Gladiators, and America's game have in common. Notably, "bread and circuses."

So, as you can see there are a lot of ethical issues here that I've been thinking about. And, I haven't decided what I'm going to do. I really do like watching football, but I can't get around the idea that I'm participating in a system that has some major problems. The thing that gnaws at me the most is this thought that football fanaticism is a type of religion in America. From this perspective, football stadiums are the most attended places of worship on Sundays in the nation. If that's the case, then I've got an allegiance problem. Because I've decided to follow Jesus. And like an 80 some year old friend of mine said recently after listening to our group's discussion about this topic, "It does't sound much like Jesus, does it?"

Getting Schooled in Useful Technology

This past week my attention was drawn to how decisions are made to bring technology into the learning environment; namely our schools. The state of Maine decided to end their 11 year contract with Apple and award the bid to Hewlett Packard. For $13 less per student, every Maine child in the public school system will have an HP laptop running Windows 8 instead of an Apple MacBook Air. Part of Apple's bid was a 4 year support program called AppleCare. Always the most highly rated such program in personal computers and 1 year longer than the normal retail program. I won't go into all the reasons Maine made a bad decision. That has already been covered. If you read about it, be sure to pay attention to the comments. They are the best part.

Today I was at an open house for the private high school my children attend. I listened to the business teacher present the plans for upgrading the technology. Last year the school (and really the community that supports it) won $50,000.00 from US Cellular in a contest. They plan to use the money to upgrade their technology. Now mind you, $50,000.00 will not go far, but as I listened to the presentation today I was impressed with their wise decisions. First, and I believe most important, they will be installing a school wide wireless network that is state of the art with the best security. Everything will be wireless. So, step one is visionary... The future is wireless. Second, they are buying several iPads and plan to use the wireless network and the iPad mirroring functionality along with digital projectors to interact in class on a screen. Not only the teacher and her or his iPad, but the students may bring their iOS devices to class and join in on the prophetic imagination. They chose to do this instead of Smart Boards, because Smart Boards cost $2500.00. iPads will cost $400.00 (not to mention there are hundreds of thousands of apps in the iOS app store for the iPad, iPhone and iPod). Do you see the difference between David and Goliath yet?

Iowa Mennonite School (IMS) also plans to buy a few laptops. Several of them will be the Samsung ChromeBooks. The link has a quick review I did at Best Buy near the end of this video. I'm not impressed with these, because of the limiting nature of Google's Chrome operating system (OS), but I think this is not a bad decision since these laptops are only $250.00, and IMS plans to have all students use the Google Drive ecosystem of storage and collaboration of documents and web apps. Most of this is free and works great together. Again, they are leveraging free and being visionary about wireless and cloud technology. Any piece of hardware you buy will be obsolete as soon as you walk out of the store.

IMS also plans to get a few Asus and HP laptops for the computer lab and teachers. These are cheaper than Apple laptops in the short run, but as you remember from reading the article about Maine, research shows in the long run, Apple pays for itself with less problems and superior support. Not to mention losing out on GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes. The creativity of the iLife suite that comes on every Apple computer is hard to beat. These fit so well with iPads too. The art, music and drama departments are some of the bigger losers here.

I am not as worried about this last item. Students will still be able to use Apple devices of their own, and these play well with Google too. The important decisions are wireless and cloud. And I say well done IMS!

An Open Letter to the University of Iowa regarding their sports app

Dear University of Iowa,

I will not be renewing my subscription to the Iowa Hawkeyes iOS app in April. There are several reasons for this:

1. Poor customer service. Patronizing replies to valid questions. No attempts to satisfy customers. Poor communication. No accessibility.

2. Poor service delivery. Some game audio starts late or doesn't happen. No pre-game audio or adequate post-game audio. Radio audio always happens.

3. Poor app design. Using customers as beta testers.

4. Too expensive. Charging fans and not building good will with fan base for services that the market shows should be a one time charge or free.

As a replacement to the convenience of using my smart phone I will listen to games on the AM radio in my car, house and portable transistor radio. I will also take every opportunity I have to tell other fans about my negative experience with this app; in person and through social media.

Lon Marshall

Iowa City, IA

Peacemaking in Marriage and Family Therapy

"Go to the people. Live with them, learn from them, love them. Start with what they know, build with what they have. But of the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves." -a Chinese Proverb, written by Lao-Tzu around 700 B.C

I am always looking for new metaphors to help me describe what I do. And sometimes very old can be new as in this quote from 2,800 years ago. As a Marriage and Family Therapist I am always looking more at what is happening between people than what I could believe is behind them or broken. I am concerned with language, interactions, rituals and traditions. I am a sociologist of sorts, but on a micro level.

There has been a revolution of mind and perception happening to me over the last few years; a spiritual journey of sorts. I have come to the Mennonites from outside. I believe I was led to this place; or wooed may be a better term. Peacemaking has captured my imagination. Mennonites do this as good or better than any other group. Google it and you will see what I mean.

It dawned on me recently this is what I do. No, I'm not holding peace talks between nations, or organizing non-violent resistance strategies. But, I am negotiating relationships, encouraging forgiveness and kindness between those who have hurt each other. I am helping people make peace with one another, themselves, and God.

Most couples that go to marriage counseling assume I want to hear about their problems. One couple began telling me about their arguments. As I often do, I asked about how their fights end. This surprised them a bit, but they were willing to indulge my curiosity. He said she gets a certain tone in her voice. I asked him to describe it, but he could not. He knew it when he heard it. She said he gets a certain look in his eye. She also could not describe this, but she knew it when she saw it. I asked them to watch for these fight ending, or making-up cues; and, if possible, to intentionally start them sooner in their arguments. Over the next few meetings their disagreements became shorter, fewer, and less intense. They, of course, kept doing more of the making up behaviors. However, we talked about what they were doing instead of arguing like, cooperating, talking, spending time together, sharing common interests, being more intimate, and becoming better friends.

When Jason Boone, the coordinating minister for the Peace and Justice Support Network spoke at our church recently he said something interesting. "With violence there is only one way. With love your options are limitless." I hear these amazing, creative stories of how peacemakers have negotiated peace in the most tenuous of situations. Some of them make you laugh. Consider Leymah Gbowee, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. She and the women of Liberia ended a civil war and brought a warlord like Charles Taylor to justice with prayer vigils and a sex strike. Leymah threatened to take off all her clothes at the eventual peace talks when an impasse had been reached, unless they would continue to talk. Reminds me of some of Jesus' suggestions in the Sermon on the Mount.

Sometimes people are so stuck in negative patterns that creativity is needed to help them find freedom from oppressive systems. Milton Erickson once said, "symptoms often outlive their causes and the people afflicted by them are looking for a graceful exit." Whether it is helping a couple escape an escalating vicious cycle of accuse and defend by prescribing intentional fighting unbeknownst to the other, or deconstructing the nefarious, political effects of anorexia or bullying to reveal competent young people, or seeking restorative justice by extending invitations of responsibility to men who have abused; defying the common held dehumanizing beliefs, and instead believing that perpetrator as well as victim can know the full healing of God's Kingdom. These are all examples of proactively, resisting injustice. This is peacemaking; peacemaking in marriage and family therapy.