This is one in a series of posts reflecting on the most recent basketball season. My goal in each of the next several posts is to look at a separate aspect of what made this year such a memorable experience for me personally.
I never imagined that dealing with 3 concussion diagnoses within a 2 week time period would be a positive thing. And it's not, of course. If I could go back and undo those and play the season out at full strength, I would. But the fact remains that the concussions did happen, as did a season-ending broken nose, a relentless flu bug, and a case or two of bronchitis. That was how we ended the season - short-handed and scrambling, not knowing from day to day who could play or how long they could play and even if they could play the positions we were going to have to ask them to play.
That was rewarding. And I don't think we could have appreciated what was going on without the adversity.
Going into what turned out to be one of the biggest wins in several years for the program, we were without three major contributors to the team due to injury, all of them post players. We were left with one post player who had played the position at the varsity level, and we were accustomed to having two on the court at all times. Also, we were facing a first team all conference post player. No matter. We won anyway. We won because we asked kids to do more than they were capable of doing, and they didn't flinch. They just said okay and went out and won the game.
At the end of that game we lost another player to a concussion. We were facing about 6 games in 9 days, three of them back-to-back-to-back. It was an easy time to say, "Well at least we had this win. It was a good run." Instead they just kept fighting.
In one of the games, we found ourselves with the score close in the 4th quarter of a game we really had no business being in. We had been down big. Then all of a sudden we weren't. It was a battle. Two or three of our kids were playing heavy minutes while sick. One of them was wrapped in a blanket and lying on the bleachers before the game. Up 2 with just a few seconds to go, the game was ours. It was ours until a player of theirs air-balled a shot, which was rebounded just as awkwardly and thrown in to tie the game and send it into overtime. Our players looked shocked and exhausted heading into overtime. They had climbed the mountain, overcome the deficit, on nothing but guts, and now they had to go play some more. And they did. Victoriously.
I'll never forget the locker room after that game. Walking in, there was a general silence. Typically after a game like that you can expect a raucous congratulatory chorus. Instead, mixed in a sea of coughing and hacking, was a look of relief. They got to be done for a bit. They had used it all - everything they had left. There was no energy left to celebrate a come-from-behind overtime victory. Just a silent satisfaction to reward their exhaustion. And the knowledge that we had to play again in 18 hours.
Our point guard scored 32 with the flu. She was on the couch for the next 3 days. On her first night back, she managed another 20.
Our concussionees were told by doctors they probably wouldn't get cleared before the end of the season. They kept working anyway. They came back. We were desperate to have them, and they looked desperate to come back. They didn't choose to get an early start on Spring Break.
Going into the first round of districts, we weren't even able to go 5-on-5 for most of the practices due to all the illnesses attacking the team. We won that one by 20, against a team we had squeaked by in a 2-point win earlier in the week.
It's easy to be disappointed in high school kids. Really easy. They are not consistent. Toughness is a rare commodity. They seem self-centered and easily discouraged. Self-demeaning jokes trump perseverance and effort on most days. Daring to even try at that which is not guaranteed success is a foreign concept, particularly when their educational lives have been dominated primarily by concerns for self-esteem and personal exploration. To put all this bluntly, it was just really nice to not be disappointed in them, our players. To have somebody to believe in, and have those somebodies be 16 and 17 and 18 year olds who risked failure by caring and striving instead of accepting the free pass of excuses that was offered at their feet, one medical report at a time.
The losses were just as sweet. It's easy to talk about grit and hard work when you win. That same approach was there when they didn't. That fact was not lost on me. As a coaching staff we worked damn hard to find ways to win games in that stretch. Typically, the reflection after a loss is about who didn't play well, or what went wrong, or what we need to work on the next day. In the last month of the season, after a loss, the only real thought that came to my mind was, We just can't ask for anything more out of them. Even the losses revealed their character.
It's a hard thing to describe, but it just got to the point where we honestly didn't know exactly what we would see each night going into a game. We knew they would show up, they wouldn't disappoint, and there was a chance we would see something special. At the risk of overusing the word, this group is special to me because I came to expect the special out of them.
I am not thankful for the injuries. I'm not thankful for the illness. But we couldn't have been who we ended up being without it. Adversity is what allowed me to expect anything, and always the best, out of a group of teenage girls.
***Read "Part 1: The People" here.
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Epilogue to a Season Part 1: The People
This is one in a series of posts reflecting on the most recent basketball season. My goal in each of the next several posts is to look at a separate aspect of what made this year such a memorable experience for me personally.
The other night we had friends over for supper. They're a couple we've planned to eat with often, both of us waiting for the end of the season to catch our breath and be able to make it work He is an old assistant coach of mine, and we've been friends ever since. Our kids are around the same age, and we share a love for the Chicago Bulls, 90's bands, and banter. He is part of one of the reasons this season was such a positive experience for me.
The other night we had friends over for supper. They're a couple we've planned to eat with often, both of us waiting for the end of the season to catch our breath and be able to make it work He is an old assistant coach of mine, and we've been friends ever since. Our kids are around the same age, and we share a love for the Chicago Bulls, 90's bands, and banter. He is part of one of the reasons this season was such a positive experience for me.
I'm a relational guy. When I got into coaching, I was passionate about the game and about leading. That was enough. It's not, now, if I'm being honest. Somewhere along the way I figured out that who I work with matters. A lot. And if I don't enjoy who I'm working with, then coaching is simply not a responsible use of my time. When I left coaching for a year, I knew that the only way back was with the right people, and I only said yes when the right person to work with came along.
Most of my best friends are people I have coached with. That's just the way it is. We understand each other. We understand the competitive fire, the frustrations, the challenges, the rewards. Everything I will say in this post, they know. They get it. We've been through the battles together - the daily practice grind, the road trips, the nail-biters, the blowouts; one knowing glance is all it takes to communicate the joy, relief, frustration, exasperation, fulfillment that we share.
The people I was around this season made many of the nights in gyms special to me. I remember one night in particular. It was in our gym, but the opponent was a familiar one. On the other bench coaching against us was a former player. I now call him a friend. In the boys game coached my former assistant, the one with whom I would share a supper table and stories and a exuberant game of UNO around a table full of our young children. I remember coming home that night and telling my wife that it was a great, great night. I barely remember the game. I know that we won, and there is little else that I recall. But I do remember all the stories we told that night. I remember the hugs and handshakes and shared X's and O's and fatherhood tales. I remember knowing that without basketball as a setting, we wouldn't all be in the same place, in the same time, sharing what we were sharing.
So much of what coaching is to me now is that: being in the same place at the same time with people I really enjoy. A couple of times a year my parents are in the gym. My in-laws are there for nearly every game. A college buddy of mine came to one on his way through. I had so many conversations with people I respect and enjoy - those I've coached with and against, those I've umpired with, others I've taught with. We can say that we don't need a ball and a crowd and some lights and a couple of whistles to get together, but the reality is that we do. Why? I'm not sure. Life, I guess. And this is why coaching basketball can be a good part of life.
One night I sat next to a guy I used to coach against and listened to him talk about how he made the decision that this was his last year. On another night I was a spectator supporting one of my coaching friends, and I got to sit next to another former coaching opponent. Two other friends of mine who I don't get to coach with much now both volunteered to come and work with my players on a Saturday. A college friend I hadn't spoke to in at least five years ended up recruiting one of our players.
People matter. Of course the players matter, and they will receive their time and place in this account. But I cannot ignore all the good people I saw over the course of 4 months and the smiles they allowed me to have. Coaching has given me some of the most important relationships in my life. The rewards are deep.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Epilogue to a Basketball Season
When the most recent basketball season ended for me, I began writing again. I needed to get a few ideas down. Ever the optimist, I figured that it would all come out in the writing and I'd have a clean picture of what I was looking for. Having worked on this project off and on for a couple of weeks, I know now there's nothing clean about it. But there is something there.
My next few blog posts will be what came out, in the most organized manner I could find. Whether you care about basketball or not, I think there's something there for you. Either way there's something there for me, and I know that makes the writing worth it.
What follows in this post is the beginning of the writing and the direction for the next few posts. I started it about a month ago. Thanks for reading. . .
I have exited another basketball season, this one number 15. And it is the exit that is always hard. I have been a basketball coach, and almost nothing else, for months. Now I hit the reset and attempt, as soon as possible, to be a different man. A nightly father who checks homework and helps to set the table. A husband who woos his wife on Friday nights rather than making eye contact from across the gym and an adrenaline-cluttered post-game rehash on the couch. A friend who communicates. A writer. These have been foreign to me. How long will it take to make those clothes fit once again and recognize myself in them?
Some years the transition is easier than others. I have never been okay with losing. I've got to state that right away. But some seasons - the ones without chemistry, the ones with unnecessary strife, the ones with uninterested players - those seasons I was more ready to turn the page. Those seasons I walked out of the gym after the tournament loss and breathed the air of newfound freedom. There are years like that. Any coach telling you the truth will say that.
This year was not that way, though. Not even close. I've been telling a few people close to me that there was a 3-4 week stretch at the end of our season that was as good as any month that I've coached in my 15 years doing this. The joy in the gym was palpable for so many reasons, reasons I could never have predicted. If I could only bottle it. . . And now it's done.
I'm stuck now, because I'm a week out of it, and I'm sitting here at this keyboard wondering if I should, in fact, be at the keyboard. On the one hand, I've had my mourning process. I was sad last Tuesday night when it was done. Really sad. I knew what I was saying goodbye to. Whether or not I get to coach with this program next year, it doesn't change the fact that what this group was and what this experience was will not occur again. So I allowed myself to be sad, and my family not only allowed me to be sad but were sad right along with me. But I did that already. I lost the sleep. I wandered about the house aimlessly in the middle of the afternoon the day after, wishing I were in the gym. I tried to inject myself back into the daily rhythms of our home, stumbling in and out of the way. That's all done now. And to sit here and write about it risks me thinking about it at 3 AM when I'm awoken by any random nothing and left to the wanderings of my brain. Much of me wants to make a clean break and move on.
But there's another part of me that wants to make sense of it by writing about it, that wants to figure out what made it so, so good and get it down so that I can understand it. There's a part of me that knows I'll forget it, that I've already forgotten pieces of it, and if I don't get it down now I may never remember exactly how this felt and why it felt that way. And there's the part of me that wants to be a writer again, wants to prove that I can focus on something longer than 15 minutes, that I can write what I know and write so that I can know because I haven't been that guy in a while. That's probably the guy who found 6 other things to do tonight before I faced the keyboard, the same guy who waited a week to do what he said he wanted to do when the season was over.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I've decided the journey is worth it. I'm going to get the words down and find out what's there.
Over the next several posts I'm going to attempt to explain, partly to an audience, mostly to myself, why this was special. I haven't got it all figured out, but it's in pieces. And the pieces fit together somewhere inside of me, in the part that appreciates these couple of months and knows it wasn't just another season. Little by little, I'll be sharing those pieces here.
My next few blog posts will be what came out, in the most organized manner I could find. Whether you care about basketball or not, I think there's something there for you. Either way there's something there for me, and I know that makes the writing worth it.
What follows in this post is the beginning of the writing and the direction for the next few posts. I started it about a month ago. Thanks for reading. . .
I have exited another basketball season, this one number 15. And it is the exit that is always hard. I have been a basketball coach, and almost nothing else, for months. Now I hit the reset and attempt, as soon as possible, to be a different man. A nightly father who checks homework and helps to set the table. A husband who woos his wife on Friday nights rather than making eye contact from across the gym and an adrenaline-cluttered post-game rehash on the couch. A friend who communicates. A writer. These have been foreign to me. How long will it take to make those clothes fit once again and recognize myself in them?
Some years the transition is easier than others. I have never been okay with losing. I've got to state that right away. But some seasons - the ones without chemistry, the ones with unnecessary strife, the ones with uninterested players - those seasons I was more ready to turn the page. Those seasons I walked out of the gym after the tournament loss and breathed the air of newfound freedom. There are years like that. Any coach telling you the truth will say that.
This year was not that way, though. Not even close. I've been telling a few people close to me that there was a 3-4 week stretch at the end of our season that was as good as any month that I've coached in my 15 years doing this. The joy in the gym was palpable for so many reasons, reasons I could never have predicted. If I could only bottle it. . . And now it's done.
I'm stuck now, because I'm a week out of it, and I'm sitting here at this keyboard wondering if I should, in fact, be at the keyboard. On the one hand, I've had my mourning process. I was sad last Tuesday night when it was done. Really sad. I knew what I was saying goodbye to. Whether or not I get to coach with this program next year, it doesn't change the fact that what this group was and what this experience was will not occur again. So I allowed myself to be sad, and my family not only allowed me to be sad but were sad right along with me. But I did that already. I lost the sleep. I wandered about the house aimlessly in the middle of the afternoon the day after, wishing I were in the gym. I tried to inject myself back into the daily rhythms of our home, stumbling in and out of the way. That's all done now. And to sit here and write about it risks me thinking about it at 3 AM when I'm awoken by any random nothing and left to the wanderings of my brain. Much of me wants to make a clean break and move on.
But there's another part of me that wants to make sense of it by writing about it, that wants to figure out what made it so, so good and get it down so that I can understand it. There's a part of me that knows I'll forget it, that I've already forgotten pieces of it, and if I don't get it down now I may never remember exactly how this felt and why it felt that way. And there's the part of me that wants to be a writer again, wants to prove that I can focus on something longer than 15 minutes, that I can write what I know and write so that I can know because I haven't been that guy in a while. That's probably the guy who found 6 other things to do tonight before I faced the keyboard, the same guy who waited a week to do what he said he wanted to do when the season was over.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I've decided the journey is worth it. I'm going to get the words down and find out what's there.
Over the next several posts I'm going to attempt to explain, partly to an audience, mostly to myself, why this was special. I haven't got it all figured out, but it's in pieces. And the pieces fit together somewhere inside of me, in the part that appreciates these couple of months and knows it wasn't just another season. Little by little, I'll be sharing those pieces here.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
The Long Road Back
So how do you turn a writer into a non-writer? How do you make a blog go silent?
One way is to get a dog. A puppy anyway. A big hulking chocolate lab puppy who drops toys onto your lap whenever you sit at the computer screen. A mass of energy who alternates between making you laugh and play and scream in frustration at yet another clandestine mission of destruction. That will slow a writer down in a hurry.
Or you ignore the laws of momentum until the snowball is rolling at uncontrollable speeds. One day of doing anything is nothing. But string two or three or four together, and the immutable laws of physics kick in, the gravitational pull hurtling your motivation downward at a steady increase of 9.86 meters per second. Make that six weeks worth of days and momentum, and you wake up and realize you don't have any idea how to reverse it. You want to, and you need to, but you forget how after so many days of just not writing.
You also start worrying about who your audience is and how to please them. You wonder who that audience is, and you forget that it never really mattered before. You start thinking about how to grow the audience. You become a marketer of that audience rather than a writer who needs none. And every time you want to write again, the doubting voice in the back of your head whispers, "Who really cares about this? Who would actually read this?"
You then want to make sure that whatever you write after an absence of writing is worthy of that absence. Finding nothing, the absence grows larger.
Worst of all, you fear that you really have nothing to say. And you realize that the reality is you probably don't. And you don't because you quit asking so many questions, quit viewing events as part of a larger story rather than an immediacy to be dealt with. You don't read as much and think as much and listen as much. You allow yourself to run near empty, believing that much activity is the same as good activity. You allow fatigue to produce fear and you call it rest. When there is nothing to say, there is no hunger to say it. The blinking cursor chastises. It is far easier to not having something to say away from the keyboard than it is right in front of it.
Then it just seems hard. Too hard. And it is hard. Momentum has made it so. You may want so badly to turn it all around, but every day of not writing, of waiting, has a price. That price is the feeling right now, the one making each clause seem impossible. That price is the long road back.
The long road back starts with a single post. Sometimes it starts with several single failed posts, or a handful of half-started ideas jotted on envelopes or paper scraps that sometimes make it to the table and sometimes don't. But those failures lead to something, eventually. Hopefully a small victory.
The first post is easier than the second. The second is probably easier than the third. But a third, and then a fourth, scratching those out when the renewed freshness is gone and the grind is back, those are the hurdles to getting momentum back in your favor. A mere relapse away from idleness becomes a rhythm. I seek the rhythm.
How does a writer become a non-writer? How does a marriage become distant? How does a prayerful life become prayerless? How does the disciplined diet become an extra 8-pound afterthought? For many reasons. Some of them good. But of more interest to me now is the long road back.
One way is to get a dog. A puppy anyway. A big hulking chocolate lab puppy who drops toys onto your lap whenever you sit at the computer screen. A mass of energy who alternates between making you laugh and play and scream in frustration at yet another clandestine mission of destruction. That will slow a writer down in a hurry.
Or you ignore the laws of momentum until the snowball is rolling at uncontrollable speeds. One day of doing anything is nothing. But string two or three or four together, and the immutable laws of physics kick in, the gravitational pull hurtling your motivation downward at a steady increase of 9.86 meters per second. Make that six weeks worth of days and momentum, and you wake up and realize you don't have any idea how to reverse it. You want to, and you need to, but you forget how after so many days of just not writing.
You also start worrying about who your audience is and how to please them. You wonder who that audience is, and you forget that it never really mattered before. You start thinking about how to grow the audience. You become a marketer of that audience rather than a writer who needs none. And every time you want to write again, the doubting voice in the back of your head whispers, "Who really cares about this? Who would actually read this?"
You then want to make sure that whatever you write after an absence of writing is worthy of that absence. Finding nothing, the absence grows larger.
Worst of all, you fear that you really have nothing to say. And you realize that the reality is you probably don't. And you don't because you quit asking so many questions, quit viewing events as part of a larger story rather than an immediacy to be dealt with. You don't read as much and think as much and listen as much. You allow yourself to run near empty, believing that much activity is the same as good activity. You allow fatigue to produce fear and you call it rest. When there is nothing to say, there is no hunger to say it. The blinking cursor chastises. It is far easier to not having something to say away from the keyboard than it is right in front of it.
Then it just seems hard. Too hard. And it is hard. Momentum has made it so. You may want so badly to turn it all around, but every day of not writing, of waiting, has a price. That price is the feeling right now, the one making each clause seem impossible. That price is the long road back.
The long road back starts with a single post. Sometimes it starts with several single failed posts, or a handful of half-started ideas jotted on envelopes or paper scraps that sometimes make it to the table and sometimes don't. But those failures lead to something, eventually. Hopefully a small victory.
The first post is easier than the second. The second is probably easier than the third. But a third, and then a fourth, scratching those out when the renewed freshness is gone and the grind is back, those are the hurdles to getting momentum back in your favor. A mere relapse away from idleness becomes a rhythm. I seek the rhythm.
How does a writer become a non-writer? How does a marriage become distant? How does a prayerful life become prayerless? How does the disciplined diet become an extra 8-pound afterthought? For many reasons. Some of them good. But of more interest to me now is the long road back.
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