The Return of the "What-a-burger" Blog

If you are reading this off my actual blog at theelderstatesman.blogspot.com then you have noticed that I'm posting this a little late. If you are reading this on facebook then you will notice nothing. The truth is that I been traveling for the past twenty-four hours and didn't have time to create a new post for today. Hence, I am bringing back one of my old favorites. Considering I have traveled someplace where there is no Whataburger, this seems appropriate.

"I have just indulged in one of my weaknesses. It is perhaps the greatest feeling in the world. Possible, it could be a cure for depression, boredom, and most importantly…hunger. It is one of the few places that still offers to serve it “just like you like it” without taking an eternity to make it. It is a Mecca for late night drinkers and all hours workers. It transcends cultural and economic boundaries. The only fast food place I go to on a regular basis where the buns taste fresh and delicious. It is where they push the taste envelope with sandwiches that include peppercorn ranch dressing or, dare I say it, A-1 Thick and Hearty sauce. The only place that I will wait for the 11:00PM breakfast switch over, just to go. Literally a piece of heaven on earth, this is the place where I would go if I could choose the place I would go to when I die. I’m talking about Whataburger. Some, who are in to the brevity thing, refer to it as W-burger. But, if you truly revere the atmosphere, the food, and the history, then you have to say the whole name.

Whataburger was established almost 60 years ago, yet it is still relevant today. Whataburger is a Texas tradition, and if you believe it, a landmark in some small Texas towns. It’s a tradition, need I say more. The first Whataburger was founded in 1950 by Harmon Dobson on Ayers Street in Corpus Christi, Texas. He had a simple goal, to serve a burger so big that it took two hands to hold and so good that with one bite customers would say, “What a burger!” He succeeded on both accounts and turned that one little burger stand into a legend known throughout Texas and the South (taken directly from the Whataburger website). More than half a century later, with Harmon’s son, Tom, at the company helm, Whataburger still remains family-owned and operated. Employees at Whataburger are even referred to as Family Members and it is the privilege and promise of each and every one to uphold the tradition that Harmon began. So now with more than 700 Whataburger restaurants across ten states, road-trippers and hometown folks alike continue gathering under the big orange and white roofs for the fresh made to order burgers and friendly service. You need only ask yourself one question, “Do I love Whataburger enough to sport some Whataburger gear?” if you do, then you can go to the Whatastore on the website and order shirts, hats, mugs, and computer/home accessories. I am trying to decide which shirt to buy.

How pronounced is the love for Whataburger? Ask my friend Fernando, who came into town last weekend from Atlanta. There are no Whataburgers in Atlanta. So what is one of the things he said he had to do while he was here? Go to Whataburger, of course. I went with him one time, but I didn’t ask how many other times he went while here. If I had to guess, I’d venture to say three. He was only here three days. Or how about this example…there are no Whataburgers near my house. I have to travel at least fifteen minutes in one of three directions to get to one. I do it…at least once a week. And let’s not forget my other Whataburger loving friend Jon. There is one right by his apartment. There is also a Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, Sonic, and Wendy’s within the same distance. But, when we’ve had a few adult beverages and want to satisfy our hunger, there is only one place we go. You guessed it, Whataburger.

This is not to say that I don’t go to other fast food joints when I’m out and about and need to get some grub. When I’m at work, I get my lunch nearly every day from Subway. I like the value menu at Wendy’s because you can get a lot of food for not a lot of money. I, like former wrestling superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin, have been known to stop at Sonic and get a SuperSonic Jalapeno Cheese Burger. And, of course, I’m a slave to McDonald’s McChicken. But, if I want to really, and mean really, enjoy my fast food meal, then I have to find myself a Whataburger. Let us not be confused here. I am referring to places that I often drive through, so Dairy Queen, which I go in and sit down at usually, is not included in this discussion. Everyone knows DQ is the Texas stop sign, and I treat it with the dignity it deserves, by going in and having a seat to enjoy my steak finger basket. Or I order it inside and go and eat it on the tailgate of my truck, if the weather is nice enough. That is neither here nor there though. The true happiness of my fast food dealings lives and dies with Whataburger. Enough said."

The Babaganoush Sports Beat

What a game Monday night. And I say that in something less than a good way...a win is a win, but the first 12 or so innings of that game were maddening, frustrating, irritating, and just quite ridiculous. And yet, after all that, the Rangers won, the team is now 5 games up on the Angels, and Texas has clinched a winning road trip. I can’t count how many people I talked to via facebook and text that were screaming at their TVs for the game to be resolved in the Rangers favor. More than five hours after the first pitch, second baseman Ian Kinsler had the appropriate analogy for the Rangers' marathon win on Monday night. "This game was like the movie '300,'" Kinsler said, referring to a film about the ancient Spartans. "Take no prisoners. Give them nothing. Take everything." (one of the reasons why he’s The Franchise in my eyes). The Rangers were able to do just that in the top of the 14th inning when Nelson Cruz hit a 1-2 slider off reliever Enrique Gonzalez just down the right-field line and over the wall for a two-run home run that gave the Rangers an 8-6 victory over the Tigers at Comerica Park. The home run allowed the Rangers to win their fourth in five games since the All-Star break, snap an 11-game losing streak at Comerica Park and up their lead to five games over the Angels in the American League West.

The game had its roller coaster moments between the first pitch and that miraculous homerun. For instance, Manager Ron Washington was kicked out of the game in the fifth inning for arguing balls and strikes, reliever Dustin Nippert had to leave the game in the sixth inning when he took a frightening line drive off the side of his head, and the Tigers lost third baseman Brandon Inge for 4-6 weeks after suffering a broken left hand when hit by a pitch from Scott Feldman in the third inning. It was quite a tussle, but the hero of the night for the Rangers was reliever Matt Harrison, who pitched four scoreless innings and 80 pitches in relief to get the victory. With one reliever at the hospital and three others already used up, Matt Harrison was going to keep pitching until the game was decided. The left-hander entered a tied game in the 10th inning and kept it that way over four frames. Along the way, he got out of a bases-loaded jam and somehow kept the toughest part of Detroit’s lineup from beating him. He also gave the toughest part of the Texas Rangers’ lineup continuous chances to win a game, which Cruz succeeded at.

The game came to a sudden halt in the sixth inning after Nippert was struck on the right side of his head on a liner by Tigers rookie and Denton native Austin Jackson. The ball caromed into left field for a double. As Jackson was heading toward second base, catcher Matt Treanor sprinted to the mound to aide Nippert, and assistant trainer Kevin Harmon also ran onto the field. Nippert was eventually helped to his feet, and he was steadied by Harmon as he walked off the field. Darren O'Day replaced Nippert and stranded Jackson at second base. Nippert was taken to Henry Ford Hospital for a precautionary exam. The results of the CT scan came back negative, and Nippert, who came back to the ballpark, was listed day-to-day. However, Tuesday morning he was placed on the disabled list and Doug Mathis was called up to take his spot in the bullpen.

Tanner Scheppers to bullpen at Triple A Oklahoma City
Right-hander Tanner Scheppers has been moved back into a relief role at Triple A as the Rangers attempt to create more depth in the bullpen later this season. Assistant general manager Thad Levine said that the Rangers view Scheppers in the same light as they did Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland last season. While the Rangers believe Scheppers will be a starter, his first exposure to the big leagues will likely be out of the bullpen. He struck out 19 and didn't walk a batter while posting a 0.82 ERA over 11 innings with Double A Frisco to start the season. His relief numbers at Triple A weren't as dominant, but he still had a 1.89 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 19 innings. Manager Ron Washington said he would be surprised to see Scheppers with the Rangers before the roster expands in September.

Molina honored
Life is pretty sweet for Bengie Molina. He hit his first homer with the Rangers on Thursday, hit for the cycle Friday, figured out an equipment issue Saturday, and his tight right quadriceps muscle felt much better Sunday. On Monday, he was selected the American League player of the week. The veteran catcher went 5 for 12 with two homers and six RBIs in three games after the All-Star break. Molina should be back in the starting lineup tonight. He said his leg feels much better after two games off, and the Rangers have fashioned a pair of shin guards that eases the level of pressure on the sore area.

Cruz control
Nelson Cruz can admit that he was a tired right fielder before the All-Star break. He had pieced together a modest three-game hitting streak, but his body was drained and his swing was out of whack. But that streak was extended by four games, all multi-hit efforts, against Boston after Cruz took advantage of the break. He fished at an Arlington lake. He sat around his house. He soaked up some air conditioning. When the season resumed, he worked to make his swing shorter and quicker. Cruz had a busy four days in Boston, especially Saturday and Sunday. He was the Rangers' defensive star Saturday behind Cliff Lee, and he used his legs to create a run in the finale. After creating the go ahead runs for Monday night’s game and acting out a fake that kept Detroit’s Johnny Damon from scoring their winning run, it seems like Cruz is back into his groove.

Additional notes
- With increasing concern over First Baseman Chris Davis’ ability to produce offense, a source said that Florida third baseman Jorge Cantu could fill the Rangers' need for a right-handed-hitting corner infielder, but he is not a primary target. The Miami Herald reported that the Rangers have interest in Cantu, the Marlins' starter at third base.
- Infielder Andres Blanco rejoined the team in Detroit after spending the weekend with his wife and their son, who was born Saturday.
- Elvis Andrus had a three-hit game on Sunday to snap an 0-for-26 slump. The only other player in the past four years to snap an 0-for-25 or worse slump with a three-hit game was Tigers catcher Gerald Laird. He did so on May 16, 2009.
- Of the top 25 American League pitchers in ERA, the Rangers have faced 17 of them this season and have at least one victory against 13 of them.

*Dallas Cowboys report to training camp on Saturday, July 24. It's football time in Texas again!

Using (and abusing) the Bible through interpretation

For centuries the Bible has been used in many different circumstances to promote one idea or another, to justify one action or another. It provides a convenient text for such purposes. It is, after all, God’s Word. A higher authority is hard to find. Especially in hard times such as these, we see an increasing tendency to invoke the Bible for all kinds of issues. Sadly, in many instances the Bible is not being used properly. In fact, it is being abused. Today we will explore how Christians can properly use the Bible and how, all too often, they misuse it.

The Bible Speaks, Everyone Listens?
At the heart of many examples of the use and abuse of the Bible is the question, “What authority does the Bible have?” All Christians accept that the Bible is God’s inspired Word. That invests it with a reverence accorded to no other literature. The Bible is a sacred canon (from the Greek, kanon, "measuring stick"), a means of determining how we measure up to God’s standards. But Christians are split on just what this perspective means. Biblical fundamentalists interpret it to mean the Bible is inerrant, containing no errors whatsoever, whether scientific, historical or spiritual. Catholics and many Protestants, however, acknowledge that the Bible might contain errors in historical or scientific data, but not in matters of faith or spiritual teaching.

The former position promotes a literal interpretation of biblical passages. The latter recognizes that the literal sense does not always apply in every age in some one-to-one correspondence. For example, during the 1970s, some suggested that the Watergate affair during the Nixon presidency was predicted in the Bible on the basis of the mention of the "water gate" (see Nehemiah 3:26; 8:1). Such a reading is not only inaccurate, it trivializes the Bible into some sort of ouija board or crystal ball. The Bible’s authority stems from the Church’s belief that while we do not know how biblical inspiration works, the Bible, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, can guide our lives in areas of faith and morals.

Context, Context, Context
The real estate maxim is, "Location, location, location." Where your property is situated is its most valuable asset. In biblical interpretation, the biggest danger is ignoring the context of a passage.
Context means three different things. I will use an example from the tradition of St. Paul. Some Christians interpret a passage on marriage in Ephesians (5:21-24) as a divine universal model to justify why men are superior to women in a marriage relationship. It might even be used to justify abuse of women in marriages. How can context put the passage in perspective?

First, most narrowly, context means what goes immediately before and after a passage. Paul writes that "Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:22). This may seem like a universal principle. But he says in the verse immediately preceding, "Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ" (5:21). The same verb is used. One cannot validly make verse 22 into a universal principle without searching out how it relates to the entire passage. How does the same verb apply in both circumstances?

A second level of context is the larger context of the individual book of the Bible. The passage is part of a larger presentation. The entire chapter five of Ephesians is directed by a principle that goes from more general to more specific notions. The general principle is found in the first verse: "Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us..." (5:1). The most important challenge for all, women and men alike, is to imitate God in the way we live and love. As the chapter proceeds, what is meant by this narrows to more specific examples. It leads to Paul’s use of marriage as an important image of how Christ loves the Church. Not only is this the chapter’s context, but the entire Letter to the Ephesians is largely about how Christ relates to the Church. This larger context, then, helps direct our understanding of the more specific issue, how marriage reflects this relationship.

The third level of context is the context of the Bible itself. Ephesians is not the only place in the Bible to use the image of marriage. How its particular use of the image connects with other biblical texts is important. Overall, we learn that marriage in the Bible is structured largely according to cultural norms that existed in different time periods. For example, in Genesis, the patriarchs had multiple wives and sometimes strange customs associated with marriage (e.g., Gen 12:10-12; 16:3; 25:1). The Song of Songs provides a very different Old Testament picture. It exalts the love of man and woman as modeling God’s love of Israel. This is similar to Paul’s use of marriage as a model of Christ’s love of the Church. In this case, two different images from two different time periods seem compatible. Only holding in tension the larger context of the entire Bible, or the entire canon of sacred Scripture, helps us see this truth. The Church ultimately makes decisions about the relative relationship of one passage to another, but paying attention to this larger context helps us avoid misreading the Bible.

The most damaging way to interpret a biblical passage is to rip it from its context. Taking a passage literally and cutting it out of its natural "home" almost always leads to abusing the Scriptures. The late Father Raymond E. Brown, S.S., one of the greatest Catholic biblical scholars of the 20th century, used to say, "A biblical passage is only biblical when it is in the Bible." You can’t go wrong looking carefully at the context.

Interpreting the Bible Faithfully
How then can you read the Bible for your own personal enrichment? You can read the Bible faithfully and be nourished by its teaching, but I also caution that interpreting the Bible is not a mere one-to-one correspondence between the sacred text and our day. Modern interpretation still requires that we honor the nature of the text we seek to understand. Let me give a few general principles.

1) The Bible is God’s word in human words. Calling the Bible God’s inspired text does not alter the human dimension of that word. Remember that culture, historical setting and means of expression all influenced how the Bible came to be and needs to be read.

2) Not every passage is equally applicable in every age. The Bible contains apparent contradictions (compare, for example, Isaiah 2:4 and Joel 3:10 which give opposite advice). God’s word in a given circumstance may not apply in exactly the same way at another time in history.

3) The literal meaning is not the only meaning. The meaning of any given biblical passage is multilayered. The literal meaning cannot legitimately be ignored or contradicted, but to get to the deeper spiritual meaning of some passages requires a more thorough understanding of the historical and cultural background.

4) There is no one foolproof method of biblical interpretation. Each passage must be handled on its own in its various contexts.

5) Your personal interpretation is not the interpretation. This is why Bible study is so important and why it is necessary to consult respected commentaries for guidance.

6) The Bible does not contain every detail for living an ethical life. Strict fundamentalists would disagree with this statement. But from a Catholic perspective, the Bible alone does not give us every detail of God’s revelation. Many modern ethical dilemmas (nuclear arms, genetic engineering, cloning, etc.) are not specifically addressed in the Bible, even if it contains basic principles from which we can deduce proper ethical directions. The Church, through its magisterial teaching, provides an authentic guide to discerning God’s will through the Bible.

7) The Bible concerns as much what happens in this life as what takes place in the next. Despite the popular urge to speculate about heaven and hell, angels and devils, end-of-the-world timetables and catastrophic events, these issues are treated in only a small percentage of the Bible.

8) Some biblical passages reflect an earlier moral perspective no longer acceptable. The acceptance of slavery or the total annihilation of an enemy, essentially genocide, is not part of our moral fabric today even if the Bible assumes or condones such practices in some passages. As the faith has grown, so has our moral perspective.

9) Nothing in the Bible justifies hatred of others. Even passages that speak of God’s destruction of Israel’s enemies (Joshua 8:24-29) or of condemnation for sinners (Jude 7) do not permit humans to act violently against one another. Nor can the Bible be used to justify the superiority of one race over another, such as some hate groups have asserted. Controversial passages, such as those on homosexuality (like Romans 1:27), also do not justify intolerance and persecution. Jesus’ command to judge not, lest we be judged (Matthew 7:1; cf. Romans 2:1-2), takes precedence over any such warped interpretation. In instances of true sinfulness, we are still called to hate the sin but love the sinner (Matthew 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32).

10) Some parts of the Bible remain a mystery. Even for scholars, the wording of some passages is so ambiguous, or the background so obscure, that no one can be said to have the final word on interpretation. If a passage does not make sense to you, move on to an easier passage. We need to apply the sacred text faithfully to our own lives, but we must do so with careful attention to context, history and literary form. To use the Bible is admirable, to abuse it is to wield a weapon to achieve our own warped ends. There is a fine line between these two poles. With the Holy Spirit’s guidance and a willingness to expand our knowledge, we need not worry about which pole will be our guide.