What - The Philadelphia Phanatic a Threat?

I have seen many sport's mascots across the years. The Pittsburgh Pirates' Parrot, the Penn State Nittany Lion's Lion, and the Lancaster Barnstormers' Cylo - just to name a few. But I must confess that my all time fav is the Phillies' Phanatic. He is just so adorable and so entertaining!

Last week, when authorities found some suspicious looking packages outside of Citizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia, the evidence trail led right to this furry green fan favorite. Here's what happened.

Several hours before the Phillies were scheduled to play the Atlanta Braves last Wednesday, the Phanatic was involved in the shooting of a commercial. The ad showed him launching some heavily wrapped hot dogs from a hand held launcher. When the shooting was all done, someone mistakenly left three of the duct-taped hot dogs laying just outside the ball park. When they were discovered, the bomb squad was called in and the hot dogs blown up. Only after doing so did authorities discover that their bomb threat was three measly doggies. Frankly put, the Phillies' execs who made the call might have been somewhat embarrassed, but they defended their actions (to call in the bomb squad and evacuate the workers who had already arrived at the ball park) as the right thing to do. In their words, "It turned out to be nothing. We could have gone over and picked it up and thrown it in the trash and been done with it. But if we had been wrong, somebody might have lost an arm."

The moral of this story is that not everything is as it appears to be. What authorities saw as a possible bomb was in reality routine ballpark fare - nothing more. Sometimes as we look at life and life being lived all around us - we can be tempted to think "This is it! This is reality!" This "what-you-see-is-what-there-is" approach to reality has a label. It is called "naturalism." Many people in our world today have bought into this view of our world. However, not everything is as it appears to be. And although it may appear that this world as we experience it is all there is to reality - we know from the Bible that there is another realm .... another dimension that exists that we cannot experience with our normal physical senses. But that does not make it any less real! The supernatural realm is just as real as this natural world in which we live and move and have our being! For an interesting read about this, take a moment and read the following passage: 2 Kings 6:8-17.

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj