A Nauseating Chase

"So what was your anxiety level going up there?"

It was an important question, but it was one I felt immediately confident in answering precisely. The answered wasn't rehearsed, but it was thrashing below the surface all along, through the last couple of months, through all the longings I've had, through the angst, through the processing that is required during transition.

Barely pausing, I responded. "I felt like I was going to throw up. But sometimes it feels good to feel like you might throw up."

It was during an impromptu catch-up conversation with a friend of mine who had gone through the biblical exposition course with me last year. He had recently been out of the country teaching through his organization, and he had missed my inaugural run at delivering the sermon in our church. We talked about his experiences, challenges, stresses, and successes on his trip; soon the conversation turned to my sermon on Jonah. He has delivered sermons at our church before, and he wanted to know how I felt about my experience.

That's when I expressed gratitude for the opportunity to feel like my breakfast was on the verge of projectile motion.

"Frankly," I continued. "I miss feeling like that. Like something's at risk. Feeling like throwing up generally means something important is going on, something that matters, something that you've worked really hard on and you hope goes well. I felt like doing the sermon was work worth doing, work that mattered whether I succeeded or not. And when you're in that position, you get nervous. In the absence of what I used to have, this was my game day."

And there it is. Game day. I don't have twice weekly "game day" any more, during this, the winter of transition. I'm out of coaching.

And how has it gone? I wish I could say better, but I'd be lying. It's fine. It really is. But because I'm writing, and when you're writing you don't have to put a good face on a situation for others to see, I'm willing to admit that I'm lost in a lot of ways. And I'm learning to attempt to deal with being lost, with not knowing exactly where I'm going or what this looks like, with not doing what I've always done in the winter. That is to say that I don't have any choice, so I'm reluctantly reaching out in the dark, sometimes grasping forward, sometimes lunging backward, always reaching, always blindfolded.

There are things I don't miss. I don't miss the bus rides on Tuesday nights that return at 1 AM to sub-zero temperatures. I don't miss the mornings after bad losses when I'd hang out with my kids or head to church, present but not present. But I definitely miss the nausea - those two minutes before tip-off where it was clear exactly what was at stake: hours of work, the trust of players, the belief of the community, the pride of my family, winning.

You cannot wake up one day and become not competitive. You cannot shut that off. You can bury it, and you can tell yourself that "winning" is simply another form of pride and selfishness and desire to make a god out of the self. But winning can also be the validation that the work you did, that the time you sacrificed, that the emotion you forfeited and the scars you opened were worthwhile in regards to the little corner of the world you're allowed to influence.

And so what I really want right now are opportunities to win. Or at least to want to throw up. I want work that costs something, work that matters, opportunities to face mountains and to shake my fist at them and declare my impending arrival. I want risk. And I want to be counted on to do the difficult. The sermon was that for me.

This journey to find vomit-worthy endeavors, I'm coming to understand, is more spiritual than it is anything else. It exposes faith and doubt. It reveals that which I've made sure I was too busy to see about myself. It is internal and eternal. Everyone wants to congratulate me on losing a great stressor from life. What they don't realize is just how stressful it is to not have that stress.

So many people want to tell you not to be afraid of failure. I don't buy it for one second. I was scared to death of failing when I delivered that sermon. I'm afraid every day of messing up my kids, or my marriage, or the precious few seconds I'm allowed on this earth and the treasure with which I've been entrusted. I walked around with an ulcerous pit of fear for nine months waiting for the arrival of my first born after dealing with two miscarriages. I'm an admitted, card-carrying scaredy-cat. No, fear is not the problem. It's when you have nothing to fear that's the problem. Real courage is having something worthy of fear in your life.

I realize now that I have probably three or four essays inside of one here in this blog post. I thought I was going one way, suspected another direction might beckon, and a third has required a detour. But I let it stand. Wandering around in the dark can be like that.

The connecting thread here is the vomit. It's something we can all relate to. And I want to encourage you, as I also encourage myself, to find what makes you scared and nauseous, and go do that. Exactly that. Maybe not all the time. But risk. Fear. Seek. And in the seeking you will find what is worthy of the stress in your life.