At the End of the Shot Clock

It is a blessing for me anytime I can compare basketball philosophy, particularly defensive grit, with New Testament writing.

On Sunday morning before church I was checking up on my beloved Panthers and the upcoming basketball season. I came across an article about the progress made early in the season, particularly among all the new faces in the program this year. In it I found this quote from head coach Ben Jacobson: "I've liked everything up to the point where we get a little bit tired," he explained. We've got some work to do at that point. Once we get tired, we aren't competing at the level that's going to be necessary for us to do well." This, he said is what it would take to "make plays when it matters most, and that is at the end of the shot clock or . . . late in a game."

That quote came to mind as I sat in the pew during our church service and listened to the sermon on 2 Peter. In his letter Peter writes that the proper response to grace is effort. While effort does not save, it is an appropriate form of gratitude for salvation. The effort Peter encourages his readers to exert is in supplementing faith with various qualities, such as virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. It is the quality of being steadfast that stands out to me. My eyes always stop on that word when I come across it. That term has played a role in other of my blog posts. It is a word that I respect and revere and find central to my teaching and coaching. And it is at the heart of some of my greatest struggles.

Physically, I've taken pride in my ability to press on when tired, particularly in my younger, more athletic, less, well, humbling years. Now, however, I find it very difficult to make disciplined, wise mental choices in fatigue. Rather than remaining steadfast to the causes I've prioritized, I allow fatigue to win far too often. In writing, for instance. Or reading. I wanted to quit this post after five minutes of starting it. I rubbed my eyes and thought about shutting my laptop and "taking a break" that I know would have lasted far longer than 24 hours. And it was just a little fatigue. But the temptation to quit was there.

Would me quitting on this post tonight have been a big deal, in the scheme of things? Probably not. But it is practice. It's an opportunity to say yes to what I want to do and no to what I feel like doing. I need practice at not giving in to fatigue. When the shot clock is running down, when I've battled hard all day and don't have much left in the tank, can I string together a few defensive possessions, a few tiny decisions like getting words down on a post or writing a letter or studying some basketball or calling a friend? Will I be practiced at not giving in to fatigue? Or would I just prefer to hope I don't give in and fail in my steadfastness when the fatigue is big and the stakes are bigger? And am I able to see that many tiny decisions define a lifetime?

Also, failing in the small stuff affects far more than me. It convenient to think that I'm the only one I let down when I am not steadfast. But Peter goes on to say that qualities like this "keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful." In other words, without them I have little to offer to a world I'm quite certain I've been called by grace to serve. "For whoever lacks these qualities," writes Peter, "is so nearsighted that he is blind." Falling to fatigue shows I am too present-minded to see anything.

I was fortunate to have a friend of mine stop me after church and out of nowhere mention that he appreciates reading my blog when I get a chance to write. I've known this person for probably a decade, and I've never known he's read this. His words were an encouragement to me. They were also a challenge. I don't delude myself into thinking that the weight of the free world hinges on anything I think or write, or that the world is even that much different based on what I post here. But it is an opportunity for me to offer something to others, to encourage, to prod, to challenge, or even to just say, "you're not alone in this." When I succumb to fatigue, I lose that opportunity. I am unfruitful and so near-sighted that I can only see the discomfort in the here and now.

A few defensive possessions at the end of the shot clock or late in games can define a whole season. It can define a whole life too. And what the New Testament and defensive philosophy teach me is that the consequences matter to far more than just me.

Count tonight as one possession won.

Vote Like Thoreau

The slow, day-by-day inebriated stumble through the election season has been a maddening comedy of errors. It is ridiculous. It is depressing. It is undeniably real. And the hand-wringing from all corners of the country and the "what can I do" barrage of self and societal questioning has dominated all water cooler conversations in my water cooler-less life.

Of particular interest to me has been the muddled response from Christians, primarily those who feel the need to speak to and for the "Evangelical voting block" that is often (though less so now) coveted by major party candidates. It is both damning and comical to watch the "yeah, but . . ." doctrine of morality that makes a mockery of good and evil by trading it in for an argument of degrees of harm one candidate will do versus the other. No matter how ugly, how hateful, how denigrating the message, some in the Christian community cling to the battle-cry of "but at least it's not as bad as what a former president who is not now running for president did two decades ago." They sing the praises of the hog confinement they sleep in as they hold their nose in their daily hike past their neighbor's manure pile.

So what is one to do? Based on the conversations I am a part of and around in this never-ending political nightmare, the question seems to be one of how to vote. We talk, and we talk, and we talk, and soon there must be a mark on a sheet of paper that we can put our name next to. We complain, loudly. We laugh, and we watch Saturday Night Live sketches, and we watch debates wondering just what will happen next. We express disdain and hopelessness. We slowly approach election day. What should we do?

I found an answer of sorts while teaching Thoreau's essay "Resistance to Civil Government" in my American Lit course this week. In it Thoreau challenges his readers to stand up for the morals they believe in, as he has by not paying taxes in protest of the Mexican War and the slave trade. The essay is famous for its direct connections to the Civil Rights Movement and Ghandi's nonviolent civil disobedience. It is extreme in spots, but I suppose all foundational pieces of literature are.

But I found a few relevant gems as I read it this time around in the untenable situation so many of us find ourselves in. In one passage, Thoreau writes, "Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it." He adds later, "Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely."

Here I see wisdom and a challenge. In these words, Thoreau makes clear that the most monumental decision we have to make is not in how to vote. Instead, it's in how to live. Voting might be a statement of belief, but it pales in comparison to the statement of every day action. Our whole vote - our leisure and our money and our education and our time - those matter far more than the flawed holder of the office of President of the United States.

If one candidate cannot be trusted, and the other causes harm and embarrassment with every "honest" statement he utters, then we must look to ourselves. It is easy to speak about our disappointment in the direction of the discourse and politics of our country. But what do our actions say? How do we spend our time and money and emotion? On reality TV? On being entertained? Do we question the intelligence of our candidates at the same time we choose not to learn and grow and become educated in the values we claim to profess? Do we bemoan lying while telling half-truths to ourselves and others, always pardoning it away with excuses of convenience? Are we disgusted by the power-hungry, say-anything, win-at-all costs approach and yet chase the quickest path to victory, to promotion, to attention? Do we mock a candidate's Twitter idiocy and live on our own Twitter account more than a newspaper?

I know I don't share the same position as everyone. Perhaps not even most. But from this seat it looks like we will all lose in November, no matter what; and our whole votes, not just our paper ones, have put us here. Doug Wilson, in the most intriguing article on the election I've read, writes that "We have met the enemy, and he is us. . . We all pretend to be shocked, shocked, by something that we have allowed to become an acceptable mainstream standard."

The real question is not one of voting. Not paper voting anyway. It is not how bad are these candidates, but rather what in them do I see in me? Perhaps when these are the questions being examined, we will quit excusing the inexcusable, comparison-shopping for morality, and laughing at what is not funny. Instead, we will cast our whole vote.

We Read to Know That. . .

Last year we were facing a decorating existential crisis in our dining room.

It was time for a change, and the opportunity presented itself in the form of re-plastering the cracked walls in our hundred year old home. We decided to change what had not been changed in the near decade we had owned the house. Now, I'm not one who knows much or even cares about what interior decorating is supposed to look like. I couldn't tell you what's on the walls of any of our friends' homes with any sort of clarity.

However, this was something I wanted to take great care with; I knew that what we decided was worthy of hanging on our walls, in the room where we most often host, was going to say something about who we are. We searched randomly, never very seriously, hoping that inspiration or a fortuitous purchasing experience would strike that brought into our dining room an element of class, personality, originality, and a clear indication to guests that they were dining with the coolest people they'd ever met. It was no small task.

After an introduction for me to the world of Etsy.com, we settled on a literary theme. We already had a tribute to the settings of all of Steinbeck's California novels given to me by a friend who had recently visited the land of one of my favorite authors. To that we added some C.S. Lewis-themed art. One of the pieces is a dictionary page used as the background for the featured Lewis quote, "We read to know that we are not alone."

I have felt particularly not alone in the last two weeks, awakening me to the beauty of this quote.

A week or two ago, a good friend of mine texted to ask if I had read or heard of a book he was reading. I had not. He responded by ordering the book from Amazon and having it sent to my house. I've had books recommended to me before, and I appreciate it. Realistically, though, I'm only going to get to about 20% of the books someone else thinks are good. I'm typically four or five books behind in the list I've already selected and often purchased. At least that many brand new books stand waiting on my shelf right now. But this is a recommendation on a whole other level. Here - read this. It's showing up at your doorstep. So I read it.

The book was good. Really good. It's a book I would have never picked up on my own, but the writing was engaging and real. I enjoyed the read. More important, though, was the experience of reading. Because I knew that the pages I was covering each night were the same pages that had moved him, it felt like he was there with me in the room on a nightly basis. I read, and I was not alone. I was not only connecting the book to my experiences, I was connecting it to his and the history of our friendship.

Reading not only connects us to the world around us, it connects us more closely to those who are already the closest to us. My wife Emily and I gave our daughter Elise the first Harry Potter book for her 9th birthday. We had never read it, but we wanted to give her something different. Emily decided to read the book as well, and the two of them have had their own little book club conversations together as they each individually worked their way through the plot.

Elise and I read Calvin and Hobbes together to know that we are not alone. I get to watch her read the same strips I read at her age and see her reaction identifying with Calvin, while I now read it with a tendency to nod my heart knowingly towards the diatribes of Calvin's poor father. When we read together, she is reminded that I was once a kid her age, and I am reminded of the exact same thing.

Two separate former students who are now in college emailed me this past week to say hi and offer their own book suggestions.

Our family has come up with a group Halloween costume idea each year in which we all have a roll to play. This year's idea comes from a book the girls and I read together at the end of the summer.

18 years ago I knew it was true love when I told Emily to read two books that I loved and thought spoke about me, and she did.

Last week I sent a letter to another friend who had agreed to read the New Testament book of Colossians with me. I read it, knowing he also was reading it, and I sent him my personal reactions and thoughts, knowing that he cared. I knew that while I read those passages, piece by piece, I was not alone.

It's my turn, now. Emboldened, I purchased the next book on my shelf and sent it to the doorstep of my friend. One sword fight at a time, we'll be sharing our way through Steinbeck's re-telling of Arthurian Legend. One hundred miles apart from each other, we will not be alone.