I know that it has been a long time since I have written.  I have been busy trying to keep the online source that I use with my students up to date (Moodle).  I use this now instead of the web-site because it can give quizzes, keep track of grades, and lots of other really helpful educational things.  I don’t know if anyone has noticed but I am a little behind with my posting of the Matthew series.  Part of the problem is that I haven’t preached for the last couple of weeks at CRPC (they have been able to get someone good), and part of it is that there has been some issue getting the CDs to me.  I will get them up pretty soon if anyone is waiting.

I received some great news today.  As many of you know, I have been a Cubs fan since I lived in Chicago.  Boo and Buba (back when they were not embarrassed by those names) and I used to ride the “el” down to Wrigley to watch a game, buy peanuts on the train, and generally have a great time.  As I am sure everyone now knows the Cubs are in the playoffs with one of the two best records in baseball and I am willing to say something that no Cubs fan has said before:  “this may be the year.” The great thing about the Cubs is that instead of just opening the phone lines and letting all of the professional ticket buyers get the tickets, who then sell them for much higher rates and get around the anti-scalping laws by offering a free “commemorative bottle of water” with the tickets, the Cubs allow the fans to sign up for a lottery system in which a certain number of fans names get picked and they get to purchase two tickets to one game.  A much better and fairer system.

I say all of that to say that waiting for me today was an email telling me that out of the hundreds of thousands of names that were submitted, mine was one of the ones that was picked to be able to buy two tickets.  I will get a special password on Tuesday and be able to purchase two tickets to one of the Division Series games.  It was a really, really tough call as to whom I should take, Charity or Josiah.  Alas I had to take Josiah.  Baseball is a father son thing, but if he can’t go, Charity already has dibs on the second ticket.  Now I have to try to get online before the all that is left are the most expensive tickets, find cheap flights to and from Chicago, find a rental car or someone who will lend me a car, find a friend to bum a couch or a floor from, find someone to teach my classes for whatever day or days I will be gone, but other than that it should be easy.  I think that the fact that my name was chosen might mean that I am supposed to go, although I have not had a dream in which I heard a voice that said “If you build it, they will come.” Then again, with plane flight charges being what they are, rental cars being at a high rate with lots of people in the city, I might just be dreaming.  But at least I can dream until Tuesday and that is a good thing.  Nothing wrong with dreaming of a great time in these difficult times in which we live. 

Sometimes dreaming is all we can do, but then God comes along and we realize that his answers were so much better than our dreams that we just sit back and say “This is incredible!” or every once in a century “Cubs Win! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!

At Least Till Tuesday I’ll be

SamHeadedToChicagoLam