I hope you are amazed and shocked at this,  “I watched the Super Bowl.”  I spent a couple days with my daughter Rachel and since she is an avid sports enthusiast I had no choice.   The Colts didn’t win (I didn’t even know there was a professional football team in Indianapolis).  Of course, the advertisements are really the big thing that day and the corporations work very hard at making them effective – one thing which I never did understand.   All of this is leading to something that makes me disgusted.    The beer company who won the grand prize of advertising on Sunday made, as usual, the consumption of alcohol look glamorous and sexy.   As a matter of fact, I am really disgusted how alcohol (and other things too; but I’m just talking about booze right now) is shown as the way to deal with life.   So, if your wife is having an affair with your best friend who is also the color of orange and he kept his job at the same company that let you go and your golf game stinks, then the appropriate way to deal with this is to drink alcohol. 

Rachel and I also watched two movies and both showed the best coping skills as taking a drink, taking a drink, taking a drink.  You may not live in the community I do (or do live here and don’t recognize what I am saying), but this area loves its booze and is not afraid of modeling for and introducing it as a good way to manage life.   I am married to someone who works with people who seem to have a hard time understanding that it isn’t working well for them even after 7 or 8 drunk driving tickets.   I have nothing against alcohol, but I sure am disgusted about how we foster its use as a way to handle life’s ups and downs.  

Yes, Jesus drank wine as was the custom of the day but he sure didn’t promote it as a way to cope with living.  And we see in scripture how far back the misuse of booze has lead to very unhealthy life styles. Have you gotten the sense that I have feelings about this?  Yes, I do.   So, why don’t we learn? 

Till next week…H