You’ve gone through a lot with breast cancer and having a spotlight on your family. What are the appropriate emotional responses to suffering? For instance, can one be angry?

I dealt with that when I lost my brother in October 2004, and four days after I buried my brother, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was furious. I had a lot of fear and disappointment, and coming from a strong faith background, I couldn’t believe these things could happen to me, to my family. That’s what the “chronic life” is. You start to turn inward, and these patterns, despair, and depression cause us to turn inward and focus on ourselves. The message in the book and what we’re hoping is to help people turn outward. The focus then is on others.

You wrote about how one of your friends told you, “Sure you have cancer inside your body, but you also have Christ.” You wrote, “I will never forget those words. They were simple, to the point and incredibly true.” How did your faith shape your response to breast cancer?

I think at that moment I realized, this isn’t about me. God obviously didn’t give me cancer, but he certainly prepared me for it. I knew there was a bigger plan.

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The Texas Rangers reached the World Series for the first time in their 50 years as a franchise by beating the New York Yankees 6-1 on Friday to win the American League Championship Series.

The win gave them a 4-2 triumph in the best-of-seven series and put them into the Fall Classic against the winner of the National League Championship Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants, who lead it 3-2.

Rookie closer Neftali Feliz struck out former Ranger Alex Rodriguez for the final out, igniting wild celebrations on the diamond and among the crowd of more than 51,000 at Rangers Ballpark.

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Moments after her son finished practicing with his fifth-grade tackle football team, Beth Sparks examined his scuffed and battered helmet for what she admitted was the first time. She looked at the polycarbonate shell and felt the foam inside before noticing a small emblem on the back that read, “MEETS NOCSAE STANDARD.”

“I would think that means it meets the national guidelines ”” you know, for head injuries, concussions, that sort of thing,” she said. “That’s what it would mean to me.”

That assumption, made by countless parents, coaches, administrators and even doctors involved with the 4.4 million children who play tackle football, is just one of many false beliefs in the largely unmonitored world of football helmets.

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Two clergymen have gone where few politicians have dared to tread: placing a friendly wager on the outcome of baseball’s American League Championship Series.

The Texas Rangers are battling the New York Yankees in the best-of-seven series, which now returns to Arlington after the Yankees won 7-2 Wednesday in New York. Texas, however, holds a 3-2 edge, with the winner advancing to the World Series.

Rector Jim Burns of Church of Heavenly Rest in New York City and Rector Luke Back of Church of Heavenly Rest deep in the heart of Texas have a bet on the outcome. The wager was food, of course.

Back offered tenderloins from Perini Ranch Steak House if the Yankees win. Burns came up with an equally unique New York offering.

“If Texas wins, I will be sending Luke a NY Nosh basket,” said Burns. “That is what we call the treats of bagels, lox and other Yankee munchies.”

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South Carolina buried 108 years of snake-bitten history and the nation’s No. 1 team Saturday.

The No. 19 Gamecocks built an 18-point lead and then alternated between giving Alabama chances to come back and taking those chances away before topping the Crimson Tide 35-21 in front of 82,993 fans in Williams-Brice Stadium and a national TV audience on CBS.

The victory capped an improbable trifecta that saw the Gamecocks beat the nation’s No. 1 team in football, men’s basketball and baseball in 2010.

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Simply an astounding performance. 104 pitches, 79 strikes. Wow.

Football matchups between private schools can create mismatches based on a variety of factors, but it’s rare that a school uses fear of injury to cancel a game.

That’s exactly what happened Monday, when St. George’s (R.I.) School canceled a game on Friday against fellow Independent School League member Lawrence Academy (Mass.), citing a concern over the disparity in the size of the two schools’ players. St. George’s is the first team to officially pull out of a game against Lawrence Academy (Mass.), one of two programs that has been completely dominant against ISL foes in recent years.

“This is strictly a safety issue,” St. George’s headmaster Eric Peterson told the Boston Globe. “We are trying to keep our kids reasonably safe in a game that can be terribly exciting but has risks.”

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It had been sometime since I had visited a parking lot before a National Football League game. In my previous career, and even during seminary, I followed television camera crews into special parking lots and flashed press passes at the media gates. So I guess you could say I had never “tailgated” at a Charger game in my hometown of San Diego or, for that matter, anywhere else.

I saw something called a Ravenswalk at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium, filled with bands, merchants, contests, games, food and fans. Lots of fans. It was the Baltimore Ravens’ home opener and we at the Diocese of Maryland thought we should offer Holy Eucharist in the parking lot for Episcopalians who have to choose between church or football on the handful of Sundays the Ravens are in town.

One of our parishes had done this three seasons ago. The rector then, the Rev. Scott Slater, is now the canon to the ordinary. He encouraged us as we had plans in the works when he joined the staff this summer….

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A curious phenomenon has emerged at the intersection of fashion, sports and crime: dozens of men and women who have robbed, beaten, stabbed and shot at their fellow New Yorkers have done so while wearing Yankees caps or clothing.

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The University of South Carolina’s national champion baseball team is spending the afternoon on private tours of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate chambers. Later today, the team will head to the White House where they will meet President Obama as part of a celebration of collegiate champions.

The team spent time preparing for the White House visit today, signing baseballs they plan to give the president. The team will also give Obama a No. 10 baseball jersey, signifying the 2010 NCAA championship.

Read it all; congratulations to them.

Wow-what a fifth set. Congratulations to Novak Djokovic. Read it all.

With the London Olympics less than two years away, in Southwark Diocese work has begun to engage with the mission opportunities presented by the games.

A Diocesan Olympic coordinating group was formed in 2009, with local clergy from each of the four Olympic sites (Greenwich Peninsula, Greenwich Park, Woolwich and Wimbledon), plus representatives from the Board of Education, Youth & Children’s Group, Mission Department, Southwark Cathedral, Communication and Resources – and two former Olympic athletes, Lorna Boothe from Mitcham and Shaun Lightman from Selsdon.

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They spoke for the last time on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It was a quick phone call between father and daughter, with the 9-year-old lamenting that she didn’t want to get out of bed, didn’t want to go to school.

But United Airlines co-pilot Mike Horrocks had a way of getting his daughter, Christa, going. After a few kind encouragements, she decided school wouldn’t be so bad. Then came the last words they would ever share: “I love you up to the moon and back,” he told her.

Sixty minutes later, terrorists would take over United Airlines Flight 175, diverting it off its course from Boston to Los Angeles and making it the second plane flown into the World Trade Center.

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Something has changed on many college campuses across America. As they seek to raise their profiles, universities are investing in once-obscure sports that do not come close to paying for themselves, even in the face of dire budget cuts. It’s still not clear whether it pays off, but winning in all sports is what matters now, and the message is driven home from the highest levels of the university.

“If we are going to compete in something, we want to win at it ”” whether it is in pediatrics or women’s gymnastics,” said J. Bernard Machen, the University of Florida president. “It is important to our supporters, both financial and among our community. It is part of our culture. We want people to know that Florida is a place for winners.”

Some university officials and even athletic directors worry about whether the emphasis on athletics is worth the significant sums that universities invest in them.

“We talk about football coaches’ salaries, we talk about basketball coaches’ salaries,” Gene Smith, Ohio State’s athletic director, told his colleagues last year at a conference on spending in college athletics. “The salaries in many of our Olympic sports have tripled since 1994.”

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Seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday for allegedly lying to Congress about using steroids and growth hormone. The criminal case writes a new chapter in one of Major League Baseball’s worst scandals, the rampant use of the banned substances.

A six-count indictment alleges that Clemens obstructed a congressional inquiry with 15 different statements that he made under oath in 2008, including denials that he had ever used steroids or human growth hormone. The indictment says that he lied and committed perjury regarding the same matters.

The former pitcher and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, testified under oath at a 2008 hearing before a House committee and contradicted each other about whether Clemens had used performance-enhancing drugs.

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I watched Tottenham Hotspur play Manchester City to a 0-0 draw this morning–KSH.

At one level the World Cup has been a short-term boon. Tourists emptied out of the tour buses, made purchases from street merchants and visited the Hector Pieterson Museum situated across the street from Holy Cross. They got back on the buses to return to their hotels in suburbs with high walls, confident that they saw the real Soweto.

“I live on the other side of Soweto and I haven’t seen a tour bus yet,” [Anglican priest Stepehn] Morero said.

But now that the monthlong circus has left town, the hard questions that were raised by community activists before the World Cup are back: Who won? Who lost?

The event has generally been hailed as a great success, with talk now turning to a South African Olympics as a possibility. New stadiums were constructed along with new roads leading to the stadiums, construction that helped create thousands of jobs. But is South Africa ”” and a majority of South Africans ”” better off than before the World Cup came to town?

“How much of the profit FIFA makes will be left to develop the poor communities?” Morero said. “I do not think it is going to move the ball forward. There has been a concern from the community over who profits from the World Cup.”

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Congratulations to them.

I enjoyed watching it.

It was a fine game to watch.

The first goal in particular was quite a strike–read it all.

The goalkeepers had stopped penalty kicks a minute apart, the referee had nullified an apparent penalty kick goal and Pedro’s seemingly sure effort had tagged the left post. Perhaps nothing was going to enter the net Saturday at Ellis Park.

But on another evening of spellbinding theater at the World Cup, Spain’s David Villa scored the breakthrough goal on an 83rd-minute shot that struck the right post, dribbled along the goal line and kissed the base of the left upright before crossing the barrier.

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Superb play by the Germans.

My goodness, what a terrible way for Ghana to have lost–KSH.

Wow.

Congratulations to both of them.

England’s and Mexico’s misfortunes prompted a previously recalcitrant Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, to apologize on Tuesday for refereeing errors and to announce that he would reopen the discussion about the use of goal-line technology in soccer.

“I deplore when you see the evident referees’ mistakes,” Blatter told reporters. “It has not been a five-star game for referees. I’m distressed by the evident referees’ mistakes.”

The teams from England and Mexico paid the price for FIFA’s resistance to upgrade its officiating at this World Cup when they were eliminated in the Round of 16 after obvious mistakes by the referees.

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The Netherlands reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup when standouts Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder scored in each half of a 2-1 victory over Slovakia on Monday.

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