NEWSLETTER

2006 BOYS AND GIRLS STATE TRACK MEET
State Track is around the corner. There is not many events that are as fun and exciting to watch as the Nebraska State Track meet. It is rated as one of the top high school meets in the United States.
The following is the current leaders for the Boys by event as of May 2:
Boys Track Leaders
The Boys B-C-D Leaders as of May 2 are:
B-C-D Leaders
Local teams Axtell and Loomis will be the Class D favorites along with Pawnee City. Loomis should win another title in 2006. Look over the times and decide for yourself. Lance Thorell should score a few points himself but he won't be alone as they do have quite a bit of depth.

GRETNA GOLF
The following is a story from the Gretna Newspaper. Looks like Gretna will challenge for the Class B title this year. They are coached by Scott Boehler. See the following story and then follow them the next couple of weeks and see how they do. By the way, the Holdrege Golf Team is pretty good too.
Gretna golf

MOVIES
The top movie last week was "RV" starring Cheryl Hines and Robin Williams. This movie is a broad family comedy that finds Robin Williams loading his family into an RV for a vacation that is really a work trip, knocking off the "National Lampoon Vacation" movies and "Lost in America" PG See it.

"United 93" was #2 last week. This movie is supposed to be very good if you can handle it. #3 was "Stick It". Missy Peregrym plays a rebellious former gymnast court ordered back to the gym run by Jeff Bridges in this teen competition drama from the writer of "Bring It On".

The top new movie this week is Mission Impossible III. Beings Tom Cruise is the star, I won't watch or write about it.

The top 10 rentals are as follows:
1. "Hostel"
2. "Fun With Dick and Jane"
3. "The Chronicles of Narnia"
4."King Kong"
5."Wolf Creek"
6."An Unfinished Life"
7."Brokeback Mountain"
8."Derailed"
9."Memoirs of a Geisha"
10."Walk The Line"

In music, the #1 album is "IV" by Godsmack followed by "Louder Now" by Taking Back Sunday. Whatever happened to people like Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin.

HERGERT TRIAL
Regent Hergert's trial starts next week. You can watch it Monday morning on NET2 or go to their webcast. Click on the following website to get the information to watch everything right on TV or your computer.
Hergert Trial

MARG HELGENBERGER
Marg Helgenberger, one of the stars of "CSI:Crime Scene Investigation," is comingto visit her hometown of North Bend on May 21.

A group of North Bend residents has organized a way for the community to honor her and the recognition she has brought North Bend through her success on TV and in films.

She is a 1977 graduate of North Bend. CSI is in its 6th season on CBS. She was also on "China Beach". She is presently working on a film called "Mr. Brooks" with Kevin Costner, William Hurt, and Demi Moore.

The program starts at 4 and is open to the public. The public may include this writer as he is a CSI fan and a Marg Helgenberger fan. Tickets are $15 and you can get them by sending a check to Helgenberger Event, General Delivery, North Bend, NE 68649.

SPELLING BEE
The National Spelling Bee is going to be on prime time TV next month. This year it will be on ABC on June 1st from 7 to 9. The winning words have been:
2001 succedaneum
2002 prospicience
2003 pococurante
2004 autochthonous
2005 appoggiatura

WHERE'S GEORGE?
Have you heard of the site where you can register the serial numbers of your paper money and then track where those bills have traveled? Bills are stamped "Where's George?" along with the instructions to go to www.wheresgeorge.com. The site was launched on Dec 23,1998. According to those keeping count at the Web site, they have tracked nearly 82 million bills. The service is free and fun.

MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day, originally known as Decoraion Day, used to be celebrated on May 30. In 1968,to create a three-day weekend, Congress changed the date of Memorial Day to the last Monday in May.

DA VINCI CODE

As this writer previously discussed, "The Da Vinci Code" is a fictional movie as was the book. Tom Hanks will star inthe movie and Ron Howard will direct. This movie will be huge in attendence and it is imperative that viewers remember that it is not tied to the Bible's teachings.

The following excerpts are from "Southern Nebraska Register" which is a publication of the Catholic Church.

"WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

The Da Vinci Code at the Plot's center refers to crytic messages that the artist supposedly incorporated into his work. Leonardo, as the story goes, was a member of an ancient secret society call the "Priory of Sion."

This group was dedicated to preserving the "truth" that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had designated her as the leader of his movement, which is about her appreciation of the "sacred feminine" in life. The "code" claims that the legendary "Holy Grail" is really Mary.

Magdalene, the bloodline of descendants she and Jesus produced and the "sacred feminine" that she represents.

"The Da Vinci Code" film dramatizes these claims in flashback form,gives them life and will probably prompt even more people to ask: Could the traditional Christian understanding of Jesus be false.

WAS JESUS TRULY DIVINE?

Both "The Da Vinci Code" novel and film assert that early Christians viewed Jesus as merely a "mortal teacher" and that it was only at the Council of Nicaea in 325, under pressure from the Emperor Constantine, that belief in Jesus' divinity became official Christian teaching.

This is simply not true. The Gospels and the letters of Paul, as well as writings and liturgies from the centuries preceding Nicaea, give ample evidence that Christian faith was based on belief that Jesus was the Son of God. They worshipped Jesus as Lord.

What Nicaea did was to correct the heresy of Arianism: the belief that Jesus was a highly exalted creature--but a creature nonetheless--who did not share in god's nature. We repeat the council's affirmation of Jesus' human and divine natures when we say the Nicene Creed:"God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God." This was not an innovation. It was simply a more precise articulation of the truth about Jesus we encounter in the Gospels.

IS THE BIBLE RELIABLE?

In "The Da Vinci Code", the scholar Leigh Teabing declares that at the time of Nicaea, there were "thousands" of texts documenting a very human life of Jesus. He says that there were 80 gospels in circulation. 80 gospels that give the story of the "original Christ" that COnstantine repressed and---if the story is to be beieved---personally had burned! The implication is that during the first three centuries of CHristanity, there were many accounts of Jesus' life, all equally reliable and that the selection of the canon----the books of the New Testament determined to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and to be used by the entire Church---was based on nothing but a desire for power.

This is not true. First, there were not thousands of such texts. There were certainly more than we contained in the Bible, but relatively few with any confirmed link to apostolic times.

Further, by the middle of the second century, Christian writers regularly cited the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as Paul's letters, as the most reliable sources of information about Jesus' life and the faith of the apostles. And, contrary to Brown's story, it wasn't under Constantine that the canon of Scripture was formally accepted. That happened at Church councils decades later, after a great deal of prayer and debate.

For his part, Brown launches his fictional account from texts that were produced by heretical groups in the late second through the fifth centuries as more reliable sources for this "original Christ."

But most scholars agree these texts have no value in understanding Jesus or apostolic Chritianity.

WAS JESUS MARRIED?

The story of "The Da Vinci Code" asserts that Jesus must have been married because that was the norm for Jewish men at the time, and he wouldn't have been taken seriously as a religous teacher if he had not been married.

The Gospels do not describe Jesus as being married. They describe and name his parents, other family members and even women Luke says accompanied him and the apostles:

"Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom the seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna and many others, who provided for them out of their means"(Lk 8:2-3)

The Gospels describe Jesus' interaction with the people of his hometown. If Jesus had been married, given the frequency with which other relations are mentioned, the marriage would have been mentioned as well. There would be no reason not to.

Secondly, being unmarried would have diminished Jesus' authority as a Jewish teacher. Certain Jewish prophets, Jeremiah among them, were unmarried. John the Baptist was unmarried, as was Paul: and, during the first century, an entire community of Jewish celibates, called Essenes, lived near the Dead Sea.

In other words, while being unmarried would have been unusual for a Jewish man, it would not be unheard of, especially for a man totally consumed by dedication to God."

More next week on the "Opus Dei" which was not founded until 1928 and Mary Magdalene.