Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“You shall have no other gods before me.

• Deuteronomy 5:7

When I served in the military in Europe, a cable channel devoted to sports was put on the air.  When I returned from Germany, we did some traveling to see relatives, many of whom I had not seen in three years.  We stayed in hotels and motels.  I got to see sporting events each day of the week.  I thought I was in heaven.

Be careful how you use that last sentence.  If that food you eat or channel that you watch or whatever earthly thing that it is makes you think you are in heaven, then you probably have a god on your hands.

Funny thing was that I was stationed in Watertown, MA for eight months where there was no cable in our apartment building.  Then when we bought a house, it was a few years before there was enough stability in the neighborhood to get the cable company to bring cable to the neighborhood.

But once I was able to get cable, I watched a lot of sports.

Then, I got to the point where I had other things that were more important in my viewing, especially cartoons for the boys to watch.  Now, most cartoons are garbage or they sell a worldview that I disagree with.

And sports broadcasting has changed.  I loved listening to Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese comment on the Saturday baseball game when I was a kid, but they were fired.  Saying things like “the runner slud into second base” was stupid.  Note: It should be “slid.”  They had to go, but the announcers today, if you can understand what they say, you don’t want to hear it.

The far left agenda has even infiltrated sports broadcasting.  Don’t give me social commentary.  Report balls and strikes.

For a time, I had the television on a sports program to provide background noise.  My wife’s hearing was failing, and she refused to get hearing aids, until mere months before she passed away.  So, through solid walls, I had problems reading due to the loud television volume.

After she was gone, I only turned on the ball game on the weekends to have something boring on television.  I often took a nap.

I hesitate saying that in that a lot of people go to church and take a nap during the sermon.  Me taking a nap during a ballgame is far from worship.  I’m bored.

And now, the music channels dominate the time that the television is on.  Some music inspires me.  Some music calms me down.  And some music can put me to sleep. Whatever I need at the moment.

And I do not even need that. I have had fasts where I resolved to not have the television on all day, or two-days in a row.

So, I am mildly interested in championship games of some sports.  I track the scores and the ladder of Australian Rules Football.  If cricket was on a channel that I get, I might use that to lull me to sleep.  But it is much different in wanting to watch sports everyday to being disgusted that sports are on everyday – yet, I might check scores and the standings once a week.  Why?  Old habits?  It makes no difference who wins in the end.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.