My Life With a Self-Diagnosed Jinx

Mr. L. is an easy going, easy-to-live-with kind of guy eleven months of the year. He can, however, make watching NCAA March Madness an experience in frustration.  You see, he is convinced he is a jinx.  Personally, I think this over-inflated view of his powers to control the outcome of a basketball game from his den, is quite befuddling.  He is not amused by my teasing and, actually, I believe, is quite terrified by his powers for evil.  

This is not a new phenomenon in his life.  When we married, I became a University of Kentucky fan because, well, the Bible tells me to submit to my husband and my loyalty to any other team would not have been a good display of my wifely submission.  So, a UK fan I became.  The problem is, I really don't get to watch UK play ball because Mr. L. is a jinx.  Because of his jinxing powers, I only get to watch 30 seconds of a game every 12 minutes.  Short bouts of viewing the game seems to neutralize the jinx power somewhat.  Oh, and he has equally strong powers over the radio waves as well.  Yep, you guessed it, 30 seconds of listening every 12 minutes.

When I first observed this behavior, I was a newlywed questioning the decision I had made marrying this man.  I found his behavior shocking.  The first TV we owned was a 4 inch screen.  No, I am not kidding.  Four inches of screen for your viewing pleasure.  It was a fancy TV for it was also a radio and an alarm clock.  Kids today just don't know what they are missing with their 40 inch screens.  The only way we could watch the TV together was to lie in bed with it balanced on Mr. L's chest.  Please do not assume I exaggerate for the sake of a story.  This is the honest truth.  Of course, this was before these days when we each need three pairs of glasses of different strengths and a scorecard as to what pair to wear when. This TV worked perfectly fine, until March Madness.  On the occasions that UK was playing in the tournament, we went to Charles and Phyllis Trevathan's house, our beloved mentors, and watched the game there.  The truth is, I could have just stayed home and put the TV on my own chest and watched the game by myself because Mr. L. spent major parts of the games hiding in the Trevathan's bathroom only to stick his head out every 12 minutes to check on the score.  Truly, I kid you not. 

A few years later, when we had children, it seems that one particular game (I'm certain he could tell you which game and the final score) Mr. L. laid very still on our living room floor with a lucky half dollar on his chest.  UK won, a game possibly one they were not expected to win, so from that day forward, he laid on the floor with his lucky half dollar, children climbing on him, me stepping over him.  Panic ensued if the half dollar was misplaced.   

On the occasions when I express a desire to just watch the game, please, he leaves the house to drive around or sit at Sonic only to listen long enough to hear the score and then 12 minutes later to check again.  If he is just too tired to leave, he will go to the other end of the house and warn me not to make any sounds that might indicate what is happening in the game until he shouts for an update on the score. I have stuffed a pillow in my mouth on several occasions in order to comply.  Unless Kentucky is ahead by 77 with less than 2 minutes left in the game, the jinx is still in play.  

Going to the actual game is much easier.  Mr. L., except on the rarest of occasions (usually inappropriate hysterical laughter), is able to control his outward behavior when in public.  He is the model of decorum at a game.  Now, of course, he is likely to leave if Kentucky falls behind, well, because, of course it is his fault they are losing.  It could not possibly be because the team cannot hit their free-throws, or get the ball inbounds, or stop fouling.  It's Mr. L's fault! Oh, if he could only harness this power and use it for good.  He still is better off than his poor father who once spent an entire game in the bathroom because of a nervous stomach during a tournament game between Auburn (think Charles Barkley ~ we're getting OLD) and UK .  Here we had another fan who believed that somehow he was responsible for the outcome of a game.  Mr. Switzer also almost got in a fist fight with an Indiana fan who was waving a big flag that periodically came very close to his face.  I was there at that game in Dayton, Ohio, and I was most fearful there was to be a fracas.  

As the years have gone by, I have come to accept Mr. L.'s eccentricities. He is extremely gracious in accepting mine. I will say it seems uncanny that he can jinx the Cubs, the Titans, the Predators and any other team in any other sport in which he states a preference as to who wins.  It is this very reason that Duke is not in the Final 4 this year ~ he refused to watch the game.  He despises Duke. UK fans just cannot get past Christian Laettner's last second winning shot in 1992! The world thinks Kentucky lost because of that shot, but we know, yes we know, Mr. L., the jinx, is the reason. We still haven't gotten over it.  

Perhaps, it is just coincidence, but I will say that I have become a bit of a believer in Mr. L.'s ability to jinx teams.  If I can just get him not to say that he is for Loyola of Chicago in the next four days, the Cinderella team just might have a chance.  I am hoping the Switzer jinx is not as strong as Sister Jean's prayers.  

Water, Water Everywhere...

Tomorrow is World Water Day.  Below are some words I shared at The Living Water Project dinner last August.  I am hoping that in some small way, these words will strike a chord with you, and that you will choose to celebrate World Water Day by helping to save lives.  There are many organizations in the world who minister through supplying clean water to those in need.  I am just partial to this one. 

“Nashville Tennessee is the filthiest city on the North American continent,” Dr.  Berrien Lindsley 1873.

Between 1833 and 1873, Nashville had several outbreaks of a water-borne disease called Cholera.  There are documented cases of stout, grown men getting up, having breakfast, going to work and being dead by sundown.  Children died in far less time.  In the 1833 epidemic, there were 88 prisoners in the state penitentiary, all but 3 were stricken by the disease.  Former President James K. Polk died in the 1849 epidemic after battling cholera for 2 weeks.  The day he was buried in the Nashville City Cemetery, 34 others were buried, all of whom died of cholera.  Hundreds upon hundreds of lives lost for want of clean water.  By 1873, the connection between unclean water and this deadly disease was beginning to be understood. 

Maya Angelou is credited with saying, “do the best you can do until you know better.  When you know better, do better.”  By the late 19c, cholera had been eradicated in the United States.  Still, in the 21c, cholera continues to cause deaths in other parts of the world.  Lives lost for want of clean water.  As a lover of history and a teller of stories, it seems to me that the only proper response to the lessons of the past is to heed them and use them for the common good.  As one of the newest members of the Living Water Project board, I am grateful to be part of a group that goes about showing the love of Jesus by using knowledge gained from lessons of the past to benefit others. 

I am going to be a bit personally honest here.  I am a very geographically-challenged person.  Several years ago, our family went on a trip out West.  As we were planning I excitedly asked what wonderful things we would see in Iowa.  I am not a financially minded person.  If I write a check for $35 I subtract $50 from my check register.  I realize that possibly the most alarming words in that statement are check and check register.  I am not very tech savvy.  At board meetings everyone else opens up their laptops.  I have a notebook of hand-made paper and a purple ink pen.  I don’t know anything about water purification, how well pumps work, or where the best place is to dig. 

But, this I do know.  Proximity has nothing to do with who my neighbor is.  I know that people all over the world just want to be able to care for their families and keep their children healthy.  I know clean water is vital to that pursuit. 

So, I invite you to celebrate with us the almost 400 wells that have been dug and are saving lives.  I invite you to celebrate with us the opportunities that lie ahead.  Some of you are geography people.  You love maps and globes and traveling, so you get excited about all the different places Living Water has wells.  Some of you are financial folks and you might be searching information for how much these opportunities will cost.  Some of you are engineers and tech people and so you find yourselves fascinated by all the different methods used to garner that God-given clean water so desperately needed.  And, some of you are looking for how many people will be affected, how children’s lives will be saved. 

Will you join me in contributing the amount of your last water bill to The Living Water Project to celebrate World Water Day?  Such donations are the reasons that there are fewer children in the world dying of water-borne diseases. 

www.livingwaterwells.org 

Yes...but

Yes, her morals have been compromised.  Yes, she broke her marriage vows.  Yes, she used her position as mayor in unwise ways.  Yes, she appropriated city money for her own benefit.  Yes, her decision-making is highly questionable.  Yes, it is possible, had the whole sordid thing not been discovered, she would not have confessed.  Yes, it is likely, had she not made a deal to stay out of jail, she would not have resigned.  Yes, two families have been publicly humiliated.  Yes, our city has been in the news for less than stellar reasons.  Yes, I believe she needed to resign. Yes, it is all true.

But, I hope focusing on her moral failures does not blind us to our own.  But, I hope those of us who are married understand there are many ways other than sex outside of marriage to break marriage vows.  But, I hope each of us looks into how we might be using our position at work, at church, at school, and in our homes in questionable ways.  But, I hope we ask ourselves how we use money to pamper and benefit ourselves when a wiser choice would be to use it for the common good.  But, I hope we understand that not all our decisions are brilliant.  But, I hope we recognize that which we have done that might need confessing but will remain hidden unless pressure comes to bear.

I did not vote for Mayor Barry.  She has not been a sympathetic protagonist in my mind.  But, my heart aches for her. She has lost a son to drug addiction.  She has lost her marriage.  She has lost her job.  She has lost face.  Finding pleasure in her pain, especially for those of us who claim to follow Jesus, is hypocrisy at its most profound.