On a lighter note and other thoughts

I am glad that the World Baseball Classic is going on. Although I have not watched any of it I think is an excellent idea. The fact that Cuba is participating makes it even better. I of course am loyal to my country of birth Puerto Rico. Although it would not be bad if another Latin American country won. I recently heard a commentator complaining about non-americans taking over baseball. I found his comments bordering on bigotry for I believe that sports can have a powerful uniting effect on the nations of the world. We'll see who wins.

On another note. I have been thinking much about commissioning and ordination. Here I am playing with Lathrops idea of the tension between local and universal. Here is my spin. Maybe in United Methodism we have the perfect example of this tension. Commissioning is connected to the local United Methodist ministry. This means that those of us who are commissioned are on a period of service to the United Methodist Church specifically. In living out our vocation locally the church tests our gifts, graces, and fruit of ministry for the universal ministry (i.e. catholic ministry) of the ordained. Commissioned ministry is not related to ordination in general but it is related to United Methodist ordering of ministry that attempts to balance the missional necessities of the church (local expressions) with the importance of catholicity.

I will expand on this soon. I just got home from work and am ready to crash.