Who is My Neighbor?

 I guess I am confused.

We as followers of Jesus are told to love our neighbor as we love yourself, yet I do not see that in action including my own guilty self.

Who is our neighbor?

In the story of The Good Samaritan....this exchange is made with Jesus.

He knows he must follow the Jewish law – love your neighbor as yourself – and so he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” ... When Jesus asks which of these three – the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan – acted as a neighbor to the robbed man, the lawyer answers “The one who showed him mercy.”

The one who showed him mercy was the Samaritan. Samaritans were often looked down upon by the Jews in Israel so Jesus using a Samaritan as the "good" guy in this story, it hits home hard to those listening

So who is our neighbor?

It's literally your neighbor and it's every single person on the planet.

From women, to men, to LGBTQ people, to foreigners (both legal and illegal), to people of other religions, to the good, to the evil, to those serving in prisons...it's quite literally every single person on this planet. Blacks, whites, Natives, atheists, Communists...I could go on and on describing people, but I would hope that everyone would be sufficient for us to understand.

Yet, we are divided unless something major happens in which we unite (think 9/11 or a tornado ravaging an area, or a hurricane). Why does it take that?

But I am like you, too. 

At what point is too much?

I mean, if we let everyone into this country, eventually it will ruin the lifestyle that we have including those who are coming in.

If we love even those who wish to over throw our country and change it in the likeness of somewhere else, we could very well lose the freedom to love everyone, to help others.

Where does righteous anger and action come into play where we are not violating our faith while still protecting it and our lives?

I don't know the answer to that question.

I do know that my own personal feelings will not change the way I treat people. In fact, I am more inclined to be short, rude, and angry with those closest to me like family and friends than I am to the...well, the Samaritan.

And I am willing to be that how I treat others will not change my country very much before I die...I dunno. 

But I do know it's a battle that wages within my heart and I hope that when I fail or am wrong it's because I am loving too much. 

And that my actions turn the eyes and focus on Jesus and not away from Him.

I'm Climbing

Look, I cannot begin to understand what kind of psychological trauma each person is going through. For some, it's obvious, we can see it, for others they do a great job of burying it so they can hide. But I'd be willing to guess everyone is going through something, something that could be very hard. I guess, I can only guess because I do both. I often make it obvious, too often with my own family, but I also bury it deep down inside to try and put on a good front for "the world".

I know the deep dark secrets of my life and the less than perfectly glamorous family life we lead and then see the pictures of me online with the smile, that my students look to me for help and I am wandering more aimless than they are most times. I see the fraud I am through the eyes of people who look to me for help. Worse yet, I see the fraud I am through their eyes and what my own children see too often.

I've been struggling lately. My mother in law and sister in law have dealt with health issues, my wife is being strong for them and I am hoping I am helping. My son is a 13 year old boy who I can be too rough on and my daughter is dealing with the pressures of life. And because I cannot control everything for them, I get too frustrated, too angry, and to...uh...unhelpful in trying to teach life lessons. I've often said that we will all screw up our children, I just hope I don't screw mine up too much.

Life is hard, life is not perfect...I am not perfect and I fail too often. I am looked up to with the eyes of people who think I have it together and I am too often floundering either not living up to someone I love's expectations or even to my own minimum expectations. I then enter the valley of depression because of it and as I start to work my way out of how I feel that I've let others down, I climb to the top of feeling good about what I'm doing and then I cannot control myself as someone shoves me off the cliff to fall flat into the depths of helplessness.

I wonder what others do who invest their whole lives in themselves. They choose not to believe in anything higher than themselves because when I am at my worst is when I really remember that my hope doesn't come from me, or my behavior, or anything or anyone in this world....it comes from God.

So where am I now? I am climbing trying to be a good husband and father, both I would give failing grades recently to my behavior. My self-awareness in this pains me in how far I can fall and how bad I can be as a dad. It weighs on me heavily and affects most everything about my life including my health. So I write this to get it off my chest

I Love My Maddie Girl

This past Saturday, our volleyball team played the #1 team in the state in the state tournament. Whoever won that game would play the next weekend for the state championship. Indy Brebeuf is a really good volleyball team and would probably beat us 9 out of 10 times if we played that many times.

So the whole week leading up to this and my speech to the girls was that they needed to play together and then they would have to fight...they would have to compete...they would have to not let up no matter what was happening. Make Brebeuf earn their victory if that should happen.

The whole team did this and we lost in 5 sets. Brebeuf was shocked that we were in a fifth set, as we were down 0-2, then won the third and fourth sets.

When the match was over, our girls were upset and that is how it's supposed to be.I told them at the end I wanted to see tears, tears of victory or that they had fought so hard it hurt...a lot.

As Maddie walked out of the locker room, I knew she would be hurting and she was.

She was distraught, crying, and hurting and I hugged her.

One of our friends snapped the above picture and I think it encapsulates what we do as parents.

Let them out on their own to live and learn, and we are to always be here to celebrate or console, whichever it requires.

I love her and I am so proud of the woman she has become.

Cornerstone Hoops Board of Director Kristen Mattox Cox Inducted into Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame

 NEW CASTLE - The 2020 women's induction class of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in New Castle has been announced. This year's honorees include a former Indiana Miss Basketball, a former WNBA Detroit Shock player and a three-year starter and tri-captain at the University of Indianapolis, who fought through both knees being reconstructed and six total surgeries.

The Class of 2020 will be recognized during a ceremony April 25 in Indianapolis.

Inductees include:

• Tina (Reece) Bennett, Austin, Class of 1985
• Amy Brauman, Brownsburg, Class of 1991
• Kristin (Mattox) Cox, Charlestown Class of 1992
• Debbie (Benziger) Dudukovich, Kokomo, Class of 1994
• Tiffany Gooden, Fort Wayne Snider, Class of 1994
• Angela Hamblin-Blakely, Class of Gary Lew Wallace, Class of 1994
• Sandy Herre, Benton Central, Class of 1988
• Danielle McCulley, Gary West, Class of 1993
• Erika (McCoy) Robinson, Seymour, Class of 1986
• Stacie Shepherd, Richmond, Class of 1990
• Amy (Walker) Sundt, Bedford North Lawrence, Class of 1991  

Cornerstone Hoops Board Member Inducted into Hall of Fame

We All Need to Grow Up, I Mean Learn

Man, social media brings us together in ways that humankind would have not thought about just a few short years ago. Not only can you talk to people in the same house as you, but family you don't see often, old classmates, friends from around the world and, well, anyone. There is so much good that can come from this contact and interaction, but there is also bad.

I have personally witness at least two situations where an event occurs and before there is but just the smallest and most slanted amount of information is found, it gets revealed and all that read it assume it as truth. And then everyone with a preconceived thought system dog piles onto that little sliver of information. And before you know it, not only is this one thing bad, but suddenly a litany of "bad" things come up using this one situation as a reason for every ill thought you have ever had for the thing or person involved. Sure, I have seen it nationally with presidents and other national leaders, but they aren't "real" people, but it happens to them also.

It's sickening. Some of these situations turn on an instant that is bad, real bad. But before all information is given that little microcosm is shared and it becomes a much bigger issue than what is the bad issue. So I am calling myself out. Never assume that what you read is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Maybe, just maybe there is more to the story and maybe when that comes out and I have jumped to an extreme conclusion, I should apologize or feel bad.

But we don't.

We throw gas on the fire.

And if I find out the truth isn't what I thought it was, then I just don't post anymore, but what I have done is created a forest fire that leaves scars even after I slightly back away from my mess. 

And it only allows for that scarred situation to return again for the next fire because not all of the truth ever gets spread in a way that mistruth does and that will justify my preconceived wrong opinion, yet again as I point and continue the anger, dislike, and half-truths of life.

Ukraine...2021

I was a little lost, I am not going to lie to you. I love to travel, I love basketball and I love sharing my faith and Covid had taken some of that away, internationally anyway. But in the spring of 2021, I could see that Covid was starting to dwindle and it looked like I could maybe go somewhere during the summer. But I did not know where or how I would do it.

Then God stepped in.

One day, I received an email from Todd James, a basketball coach that had been involved with ministry for many years and was now in the guiding part of his career. Guiding coaches to each other.

I had published this book on Amazon and he had come across it and we emailed back and forth and he had contacts. He put me in touch with The Admirals Academy in Vyshneve, Ukraine and God was glorified.

I was given the email of Eugen Pogorelov and I was typing up an email to send him, he emailed me. I responded immediately, shocking him, and just like that a relationship had started because of Coach James, and plans were put into effect.

After a couple of Google meetings with Coach Eugene and his counterpart Leonid Stefanyshyn, the planning of the trip was on. Because Covid-19 was still a thing, and even though I had been vaccinated with the Pfizer shot, I had to show a negative Covid test three days before flying. We had been a part of this pandemic for over a year and I had not felt bad, had not been tested by anyone, but this test was to be administered by me. It was not fun. But it came back negative and I was ready to fly out. I took off from Louisville, Kentucky, landed in Atlanta, then Amsterdam, and finally in Kiev.

There I met the coaches and we got something to eat and I went to sleep ready to begin  the next day. Over the course of the next six days, we did basketball seven hours a day with groups aging from probably 7 or 8 to 14-15. The kids were great, the coaches were, too and at the end of each day of practice, I would give a values lesson (to younger kids) or teach part of The Gospel to the older kids. The players were very good, the level of play was high, and they were attentive most days.

My travels around Kiev sort of shocked me though. I was surprised by the amount of western style clothing and cars there were. It was explained to me that it was cheaper to buy a wrecked car from the US and have it sent to Kiev and worked on than to buy a car in Ukraine. As for the clothing...Amazon. I was told by a parent that they see something they like and they can have it bought and sent via Amazon. The restaurants were good. Of course, all of the fast food restaurants are in the capital, but even some of the nicer restaurants had food that tasted similar to ours.

After saying my goodbyes to the players which is harder than you would think, we had one day left. I had told Eugene I wanted to visit Chernobyl which was not far away. His response “Really?” He had never been. And off we went. 

I can only explain how surreal it was, but you do not understand unless you were there. I remember when the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl exploded, I was probably 16 at the time in the 1980’s. It was a huge global issue that the former Soviet Union tried to hide, but it was so big they could not. They had to evacuate 160 villages along with the larger towns of Chernobyl and Prypiat. Walking around the larger towns was like walking on a movie set with the abandoned home and buildings. And standing where the explosion occurred so many years before was a weighty experience I will never forget.

The next day, I said my goodbyes and boarded the plane in Kiev for the long trip home. Oh, from Atlanta to Louisville, I sat next to Derek Willis. He’s from the Louisville area, played at The University of Kentucky and is playing professionally in Europe. It was a great hour long flight talking to him about basketball and life.

When I got home and thought about my time in Ukraine, I do not know if it is from my travels, or my not being able to travel over the last year, but this experience was the most “normal” travel I have had. Maybe it’s because of a lot of things, but I think God is moving me, and it didn’t hurt that Leonid and Eugene were so good and helpful.