Tim Tebow is Annoying

Today I'm going to write about a major irk of mine. I find Tim Tebow overwhelmingly annoying.

You may know that I'm a Christian, so me saying this may be tantamount to me standing up on a chair and  blaspheming during Sunday morning worship. You may think I'm being a contrarian or a "Christian Hipster" by finding the guy to be a mosquito in my ear, but I'm going to yell about him anyway.

The past couple weeks I've been seeing Facebook status after Facebook status from Christian people praising the guy like he's the Messiah come down. Christians can't get enough of him- I see exclamation ridden posts claiming what a great light for the Lord he is and proselytizing that he must truly have the blessings of God. One post I saw stated that their pastor had declared a Sunday "Bronco's Sunday" (For those who care nothing about American Football, that's the team that Tim Tebow plays on) where the congregation was to wear their Broncos jerseys and colors in support of the guy.

I suppose I should give a quick synopsis of Tim Tebow for the rock dwellers. His schtick is that he's an NFL player that is a strong Christian and lets you know it. He regularly points up at the sky or does this strange prayer pose when he scores a touch down thanking God for his achievements. Christians love him and Atheists laugh at him. In one of the more bizarre and seemingly divine occurences of his career, he ran 316 yards a few Sundays ago and adherents of Tebowism claimed that this was proof of God's providence over him, as it matched with John 3:16.

Now I'm sure that Tebow is a genuinely nice guy. He was raised in a Christian home and grew up as a missionary kid in the Phillipines. I know that he regularly gives money to Christian charities and is involved with notable Christian causes. If I met him, I'd probably think he was a delightful young gentleman. Where I take issue with him is his abundant lack of humbleness and sensitivity to suffering.

I feel that some of the most overlooked and ignored aspects of Christianity are the principles of humbleness and humility. When a preacher or missionary boasts at length about all the people they've helped and all the souls they've saved, I'm not impressed. You've immediately shown me that you're a proud, overconfident person that demands to have his achievements validated by flaunting at us about them. I think it's great that you took a ministry, turned it around and got 700 people saved, but don't tell me about it. Let me find out for myself-through a friend that knows you or through a story written by someone else. Don't boast about it yourself.

This is actually a Biblical principle. Matthew 6:2-6 is a beautiful passage that I think Christians as well as non-believers can learn infinite wisdom from. It reads:


2“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3“But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
      5“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

So when you do something that's awesome, SHUT UP ABOUT IT! The people I respect the most are those that do good for people but don't go around telling us. We can see that you do good things- we see you inviting everyone over to share a meal on you every week. We noticed when you bought lunch for that homeless guy outside the restaurant. We gained an even deeper respect when we found out that you volunteer to tutor special needs children on your lunch break. The thing is, you never told us about it, and that makes you an AMAZING person. Less ego stroking, more ego...toking? (because when you toke you slow down and are laid back about everything. Did you see what I did there?)

So where does Tim Tebow fit into this? Well to me, it looks like he's not only blowing trumpets about his accomplishments but bringing the whole London Symphony Orchestra to back him up! The man is viewed by millions of people every week. He demands us to see how great he is by making a spectacle in the end zone of his "legendary" prayer pose. We get it, you're showing us how humble you are by attributing your touchdown to Jesus, but you're doing the opposite by showboating the behavior into the living rooms of the nation.

This brings me to my point about his insensitivity and I'm going to dive into some personal thoughts. Why does he have the audacity to believe that Jesus cares about the outcome of an American football game? I suppose this may be ignorant and immature of me to say- I know that God cares about every need and prayer we make, no matter how small. I just feel empathy towards people that do pray and seem to never hear their prayer answered. When Tim Tebow claims that God answers his stupid touchdown prayers, I think of all the families that have prayed for months and years for a mother or grandfather to be cured of cancer only for the family member to pass away in the end. I think of the Christians in Iran and Pakistan who have been mutilated, burned alive and tortured for their faith as they cried out for God to save them. Why didn't God answer those prayers? I found this image on the atheism boards of Reddit to make this point wonderfully. While I'm not an atheist by any stretch, I feel that it brings some much needed perspective.

The truth is that I don't have the answers for why God didn't intervene in the examples I listed above and I'll probably never know. I can sure try to do extensive research, theological inquiry and thought provoking discussion on the problem of suffering with Christians and non-Christians alike, though. For Tebow to come along and claim that his achievement of running down a field and making a ball pass over a line to be the divine intervention of the Lord of the Universe is nothing short of appaling to me when so many are sufffering.

Again, maybe I'm being immature. Maybe many people are genuinely touched by what Tim Tebow does. There could be some that aren't Christians who are inspired to explore this faith because of all the hoopla.

Here's how I would ideally like the Tebow saga to play out. I'd love for him to continue to be an amazing football player and wow the nation. Somewhere along the line, I'd like it to come out from an interview that Tebow is an intelligent Christian, but doesn't go around bragging about it. I'd like to find out that Tim Tebow, despite his insane schedule, takes the time to volunteer and help his community every week. I wouldn't want Tim Tebow to tell us that he does all these things- I'd want it to just be a hush hush thing that gets leaked somehow. I would have tremendous and overwhelming respect for the man.

I had a theology teacher at the Christian College I attended that used to say "If people at work don't know you're a Christian, PLEASE DON'T TELL THEM!". His point was that Christians should be demonstrating their humble, beautiful lifestyle by acting it out in front of people. When you go around blabbing to everybody that you're a great Christian and then go and do something stupid like being negative all the time, talking behind coworker's backs, and just being an all around beotch, you only affirm the stereotype that all Christians are hypocrites. Tim Tebow may be this model Christian now, but if he messes up, do you know how bad that is going to be? He'll make us Christians a laughing stock for the millionth time.

So Tebow, my point is this. Shut up, play football and stop with the pious theatrics in the end zone. We'll figure out that you're a Christian on our own.

OH I WOULD JUST LOVE TO HEAR Y'ALLS THOUGHTS ON THIS ONE! COMMENT AWAY!

Fiction's Addiction to Hospitals.

In this episode of my blog, we'll talk about fiction's obsession with the medical profession.

As some of you know, I've been working at a hospital for close to two months now. I find it incredibly rewarding and I love the challenges that each workday brings. It's been one of the best jobs I've ever had.

Over the years, I've rolled my eyes whenever a new movie or television show comes out that focuses on hospitals, doctors, nurses and other medical personnnel. I considered the genre done to death and I was even more annoyed about how everyone laps these shows and movies up. How many variations on E.R., Grey's Anatomy and House do we need? I tired of the cheap melodrama that was found in the old jazz musician dying or the 8 year old cancer patient's last wish. I was sick of watching the perfect 10 M.D.s lustily eye each other in the break room and then watch two seasons worth of the whole cast swapping body fluids-and I don't just mean during surgical procedures! HIYOOOOOOOO!

I'll admit that I'm guilty of casually enjoying a few of these shows. I can't deny that Hugh Laurie as Dr. House is generally brilliant, even though every episode follows the formula of 1.Look at this wacky medical problem. 2. House snarkily explains how to solve said medical problem.3. Everyone else says House is crazy for thinking this. 4.Entire medical team is baffled by the medical problem and 15 things go wrong at once. 5. House comes in at the last second, tells everyone that they are morons and saves the patient with his MacGuyver plan. 6. "You're so great Dr. House"!

I prefer my Hugh Laurie with a side of Fry.

What little I've seen of Scrubs has been genuinely hilarious and endearing. The writing on that show is great and I love all the non sequiturs, fourth wall breaking and absurd enactments of the thoughts of the characters.
All around though, I can't stand most medical shows. That is until the last few weeks.

The people in a hospital, be it the patients or staff, experience a lifetime of emotions on a daily basis. Babies are born, bringing the joy of new life to their parents. A family watches in shock as their father or grandmother succumbs to a terrible illness. A man feels explosive rage at the thugs who beat him in the parking lot and split his forehead open.

The doctors, nurses and other staff are there the entire time, witnessing the real life drama of hundreds of people unfold. They must be the strong ones, the smart ones, the people who provide answers. They are blamed and hated when something goes wrong, yet elevated to savior-hood when a breakthrough happens.

And there's drama within the staff's lives, too. When you are forced to spend double shifts and odd hours with a team of people responsible for saving lives, you get close real quick. You also get irritated with each other. Nevertheless, you begin to invest in the complicated lives of your coworkers. Your team in the ER, ICU or Pediatrics becomes a kind of family.

The coworker family at my hospital isn't this ethnically diverse.

I'm just a lowly social services worker at the hospital, far away from the intense work of the doctors and nurses. Yet when I'm at my job, I'm awed by what these people do, especially the nurses. Almost every nurse I've talked to cares deeply about each patient that comes into the hospital-I've met plenty of nurses that are cynical and bitter when discussing a patient, but when I see them working, they are some of  the most loving, compassionate people you will ever see. It takes a certain  unconditional  personality to do the work that nurses do.

On television, doctors are the ones who are celebrated, but I say they get too much credit. From my observation, nurses are the people that do most of the dirty work and doctors swoop in at the last minute and make a diagnosis. Nurses have to be maids, waiters, and counselors, not to mention the hundreds of other roles they have to assume. I'd like to see more fiction that explores the varied and fascinating situations that nurses find themselves in.

There's plenty of comedy working at the hospital, too. When you're dealing with a high stress environment, you lighten up or go crazy. In the E.R. especially, there are some characters. There's the guy who comes to the ER everynight complaining of chronic pain so he can get a pain pill prescription even though there is no discernible ailment . There's the lady who screams "I HAVE TO PEE!" at the top of her lungs in the middle of a problem summary. There's the guy who insists on examining every piece of documentation he has to sign with a jeweler's eye, thoroughly irritating everyone in a five foot radius.

"I won't leave until you explain every last bullet point"

 I can see why fiction draws from the experiences to be found at hospitals. They're ripe for human emotion, and hundreds of unique stories occur everyday. What I'd really like to see is a medical movie or television show that attempts realism. By realism, I don't mean showing graphic surgery scenes-the shock value of this has become cliche and overdone. I'd like a film about a team of ER techs (techs are the people that do the menial tasks that nurses and doctors are too busy for, like moving equipment around or taking patients to the bathroom) or a sitcom, complete with laugh track, about a high strung male charge nurse in the ER (a charge nurse is the boss of the entire ER. It's an incredibly complicated and stressful job). What I don't want is another "sexy doctor show" or "autopsy in every last detail: the series". I want something that explores the feelings and experiences of "everyday" people.

Don't make the doctor a cocky 32 year old single guy, make him a 45 year old man from India that worked extremely hard to get a job as a doctor in America. Stop making nurses look like idiots, create a character that's an assertive, slightly overweight single mom who works from 8 P.M. to 3:30 in the morning to support her children. Cut the BS with the dying child who has a life message that makes everyone stop and reflect, portray a child as a screaming, terrified foster kid who has no one to see him at the hospital. Don't portray the chaplain as a bald Catholic priest who says "The Lord works in mysterious ways", have the character be an overworked yet boundlessly caring person who will do anything to make sure a family is taken care of. These are the types of people I work with on a daily basis and more people need to see the things that these people experience everyday.

If you're interested, help me create a show with some of these ideas. I'm partial to the sitcom. We don't have enough classic style sitcoms these days with laugh tracks, catch phrases and zany characters. We get these post-modern HD quality laugh-trackless awkward fests (I'm looking at you, The Office). How great would a classic sitcom set in the ER be? Comedy gold if you ask me. Thanks for reading, folks!

P.S. I would insist the sitcom would having an opening theme in the spirit of this: