It Worked!

"For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues." Mark 3:10

Wow! Never again shall I doubt the power of prayer! I spent all day muttering to myself the Hamstring Healing Prayer, and lo and behold, Hester returned to practice this evening! Of course, it's hard for me not to see such immediate action from God as a veiled threat... Now, I must walk only the true strait and narrow, for fear that any wavering will result in a retaliatory smiting of Devin Hester's leg from Our Mighty Lord!

Also, Go Defense! The article that buried the mention of Hester's return to practice is really about how the defense rose to Bob Babich's challenge to get six turnovers in practice. That's what I like to hear! Bear Down!

A Prayer of Healing for Devin Hester's Hamstring

I have to admit, I'm getting a little bit scared about Devin Hester's hamstring.

In 2004, Urlacher's hamstring first asserted its presence during the first weeks of training camp, and it kept messing with Urlacher throughout the season. Everyone kept insisting it was getting better, but Urlacher just never seemed to be playing at full speed that season. Then his leg blew up in week 11, and he missed the most important game of the season against Inianapolis, leading to a 41-10 loss. Urlacher's hamstring wasn't mentioned, but hamstrings are like the mafia Dons of leg ligaments: nothing goes down without the hamstring's permission.

The reports about Hester's hamstring are not as ominous sounding as those of Urlacher's were, but Hester pretty much sat out of training camp all week. Lovie can say that it's more precaution than anything, but that sounds an awful lot like spin to me. Regardless of how amazing Hester initially looked with the offense, he's new to the position and if he's going to be an effective offensive weapon, he needs as much time as he can working with the offense. Each day Hester just hangs out on the sidelines yukking it up with Moose is a wasted day that could greatly diminish his effectiveness.

Hamstrings are a serious issue, and like many a scared helpless relative before me, I would like to turn my my worry about Hester's Hamstring over to The Lord. One need look no further than The New Jerusalem Church on the Rock to see the gravity of the situation. Here we see that "A big problem that naturally occurs when peoples are hamstrung without freedom to develop and become righteously productive is that the hardships are heavily, overly balanced through lack of the 'goodships', so that persons are not easily reached by proper, righteous, balanced reasoning." During the opening days of training camp, Hester was able to provide all of us Bears fans with plenty of goodships to be thankful for. But the Hamstring has become a tool of the devil, surrounding our hearts and Hester's body with heavy hardships. And so, I'd like to offer this evening a prayer of Healing for Devin Hester's Hamstring:

FATHER,

each and every day I see You
Working Miracles in lives, in hamstrings,
and I know that with You all things are Possible.

Therefore with great confidence, we do ask,
that You will Continue to Guide us,
we that love Your Righteousness and Freedom,
towards the hamstring healing that we need
for our spiritual and worldly Salvation.

As ever, we pray for all who are in harm's way,
and for them with an insufficient hamstrings,
we ask for Your Healing to Prevail among them.

Amen

(adapted from newjerusalemcity.org)

Bizarro John Clayton Hearts Bears?

Apparently, John Clayton has been replaced by his Bizarro-world doppelgänger, because his little article about Bears camp is filled with nothing but praise for the Bears. Plus, there's this:

"The story of camp is Hester. Bears beat writer John Mullin officially named the 2007 camp, "The Devin Hester Experience." Watching him run routes is like listening to old Jimi Hendrix records -- explosive, exciting and unpredictable. Any fan would love to hang from the "Watchtower" to see the show."

There is no effing way John Clayton, the Mr. Mackey of the real world, has ever listened to old Jimi Hendrix records. I imagine that even if he sat there listening to Hendrix by himself, on headphones, he'd look around uncomfortably grinning and hunching his shoulders, waiting for the cool kids to come in and take the record away from him. "Silly Mr. Mackey! Hendrix is for stoners and jocks! Here's your favorite Burl Ives record. Do yourself a favor and stop pretending to be what your not!" Then, of course, they'd punch him on the shoulder and laugh-grunt their way out of the room.

And why the hell would you want to "hang" from the watchtower? Why not just stand on top of it, where it'd be easier to watch and you wouldn't have to worry about losing your grip and falling to your death?

It is kind of exciting to hear all this stuff about the Bears offense suddenly being so fast. Even though it makes me a little worried that the defense apparently isn't creaming them. Offense is all well and good, but the Bears just aren't as fun to watch when the other team's offense isn't clobbered into submission by midway through the third quarter...