Java for the Spirit: Fueled by Faith, Fitness and Coffee Grounds

I have always been drawn to the underdog stories. I just love seeing the underdog get his (or her) day. It's one of the reasons that my favorite movie has always been "Rudy", the story of the 20-something factory worker who chases, and finally catches, his dream of playing football for the vaunted University of Notre Dame football team.   It's also the reason March is perhaps my favorite month of the year as a sports fan.    This is the month of "March Madness" - the NCAA basketball tournament, the tournament well-known for giving the underdogs their day "on the court." The beauty of this is that it's not just the underdog stories that win  during  the  tournament , but the teams that make it in that were not even supposed to be there in the first place.   Every year has it's David versus Goliath story, and far from being different, this year seems to have more of those stories than usual. One of the lowest seeds in the tourna...

A million thoughts are racing through my head right now, very few of them good ones. I have an appointment with a specialist in a couple of hours to get a prostate problem checked out. Though my rational mind says it’s more than likely a small, benign issue, the more worry-prone, less rational side cannot help but imagine the worst possibilities that could come of this. At 37 years old, I feel like I am too young to even be having to entertain these ideas, but the twinges of dread linger in the dark corners of my mind nonetheless. What if it is serious? After a long family history of cancer, the fear lingers that I could be the next to battle it – again, I know not necessarily rational, and maybe a needless concern, but it is amazing what our minds and hearts consider when fear invades. I have a beautiful wife that I want to have many more years with, and a treasured daughter that I want to be there for as a father as she grows. Even the most remote possibility of not being a...