UNAPPRECIATED SATIRE

I have been thinking about the 29 dimensions of compatibility that eharmony.com uses to match up people into couples. If the NAA is not included, a potential couple does not stand a chance of making is. Anyone who is really familiar with personality testing knows that if the NAA is not factored in, the validity of the testing is open to serious question because, as the late, great Steve McQueen said, "Racing is life." According to Iowa State University psychological testing, the NASCAR ATTITUDES ASSESSMENT is not religious, nor in any way "spiritual" and therefore can be used as a personality inventory for the football program. All new recruits will be evaluated on the basis of their NAA score. That is how important and valid the NAA is in determining compatibility.

All NAA questions have four possible answers. Circle the one that best fits your feeling: 1. Strongly agree; 2. Agree; 3. Somewhat agree; 4. Will leave and go home to mother.

Sample questions:

1. I would love to spend my honeymoon at Bristol, Tennessee for a NASCAR race.

2. I wear a Matt Kenseth Dewalt-powertools jacket and tie for formal wear.

3. I think of down-field blocking as just another form of bump-drafting.

4. I think of marriage as a 500 mile race.

The NAA is to be administered by professionals only! Conclusions drawn by anyone else could cause a couple to crash and burn. Anyone in need of premarital counseling needs to take the NAA.

One's mind can wander while mowing the yard, especially when it is a large yard like the one at My Father's House. After listening to many radio ads for Eharmony.com about the 29 dimensions of compatibility I thought, "I wonder if they left one out--the NAA" It is true that relationships work better if there is personality compatibility, but 29 dimensions of compatibility does not a soul-mate make. This is sacred ground that cannot be fully understood by social science, but only by the Spirit. I wonder what the divorce rate is for the matches of Eharmony.com?

Then there is Iowa State University. The football coach there wants to have a chaplain for the football team. The University has been anti Christian lately, denying tenure to professor Gonzales, a highly respected professor in physics and astronomy because he wrote a book, The Privileged Plant. That book is a testimony to his belief in intelligent design. The same gang of professors out to deny tenure to professor Gonzales want to deny chaplaincy for the football program on the grounds of separation of church and state. The thing is, chaplaincy is a respected institution in our country from the very beginning. If the framers of the constitution believed that separation of church and state denied a chaplaincy, there would have been no chaplains from the very beginning--so was the reasoning of Justice Warren Burger in affirming the validity of chaplaincy.

Iowa State will never have a generally successful athletic program as long as a gang of professors circulating petitions is allowed to make decisions for the administration.

These were some of the thoughts that were behind that bit of mild satire--though I doubt that anyone was really interested.

Grace&Peace,
Tom