In our town, there is a high school P.E. coach named Paul who I have encountered on several occasions. The first time was earlier this summer when I met him and his adult son Jakob atop a steep hill in our area that is popular with runners and mountain bikers.
As the school year dawned, I saw him again regularly at a track where I go for training runs. He had his soccer team running drills there.
I don't know how many kids are on that team, maybe 20 or so. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities. When they run laps, some finish far ahead of the others. Yet, as they finish they gather and call out encouragement to their teammates. "C'mon! You can do it! Great job! Way to go, man!"
Everyone on the team cheers until the last runner has finished his mile.
It's not that I would expect them to yell, "Move your butt, slow-poke!" but they could finish their mile and just talk to each other until the rest wrap it up. Instead, they stay involved with one another, lifting each one up, making sure everyone knows they are important to the team and worth cheering.
They are learning that cheering another person's success does not diminish their own.
What a valuable lesson to teach.
Way to go, Coach!
Pace e bene,
Fr. David+
Showing posts with label humanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanity. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2012
My Name is David and I Am Needy
I am a needy man. I have moments of despair and doubt, loneliness and uncertainty, disappointment and pessimism. I need reassurance in those moments. Sometimes I can get it directly from God, feel the Presence, have a clear conversation with Jesus. Sometimes I get it indirectly, through a moving song, film, book, poem or even facebook post. Sometimes I get it personally, receive it from someone who loves me.
On my best days, I am still needy. What makes them my best days is that I recognize that fact and ask for what I need.
Maybe I'm setting the bar too low, but I anticipate I will always have one need or another. I live in a world made of human beings and temporal things. People are here for a season, not always available, passing on or away. Things last for awhile, then evaporate or wear out or become obsolete.
Don't get me wrong; there are a handful of people I trust completely, and others to whom I respond according to what they present. I'm not cursing my life in a temporal world, nor preaching that everyone is useless and going to hell in a hand-basket.
I'm just saying that sometimes I am needy and I reach out to these sources in order to satisfy my need.
I believe my neediness is what guides me to God. I am not self-sufficient, and how foolish it is when I think that I am. I needed parents and a heritage in order to get here in the first place. I needed care, food, direction, lessons, training. I did not teach myself to ride a bike the moment I popped out of the womb. People encouraged me to sit up, crawl, walk, run, and so on until I began experimenting with that daunting two-wheeler (four-wheeler if you count the training wheels!!).
Yes, my name is David and I am needy. My ultimate satisfaction will be my union with God. Every need I feel is a reminder and a signpost that leads me deeper and deeper into that union.
Tonight I had a brief encounter with a group of people who do not know they are needy. The claw and clamor for recognition, demand their superiority, and fight like the Gospel's "sons of thunder" for first place in a competition they believe leads only to first place or dead last.
Our false sense of independence is what throws us into these violent competitions. Ego wants a statue erected to it and the best seat at the dinner table.
Jesus doesn't support that attitude. He says to not take the seat of honor, but the lowliest one at the table. He says in order to be great in God's world, we are called to be servants, not slave-masters.
If we give up competition, what is left? Give up competition! How un-Western, let alone un-American!! What is left is cooperation governed by compassion. If we are busy serving each other, nobody needs to win because everyone will.
When we act as if we have no needs, we are dangerous to ourselves and others. We no longer see ourselves as human. How can we then relate to the humans around us?
No, my friend, I hate to disillusion you about priests, but I have to let you know this one is chock-full of needs. That is what opens me to love.
Thank You, God, for bringing me to the point of recognizing how wonderful it is to be needy.
Pace e bene,
Fr. David+
On my best days, I am still needy. What makes them my best days is that I recognize that fact and ask for what I need.
Maybe I'm setting the bar too low, but I anticipate I will always have one need or another. I live in a world made of human beings and temporal things. People are here for a season, not always available, passing on or away. Things last for awhile, then evaporate or wear out or become obsolete.
Don't get me wrong; there are a handful of people I trust completely, and others to whom I respond according to what they present. I'm not cursing my life in a temporal world, nor preaching that everyone is useless and going to hell in a hand-basket.
I'm just saying that sometimes I am needy and I reach out to these sources in order to satisfy my need.
I believe my neediness is what guides me to God. I am not self-sufficient, and how foolish it is when I think that I am. I needed parents and a heritage in order to get here in the first place. I needed care, food, direction, lessons, training. I did not teach myself to ride a bike the moment I popped out of the womb. People encouraged me to sit up, crawl, walk, run, and so on until I began experimenting with that daunting two-wheeler (four-wheeler if you count the training wheels!!).
Yes, my name is David and I am needy. My ultimate satisfaction will be my union with God. Every need I feel is a reminder and a signpost that leads me deeper and deeper into that union.
Tonight I had a brief encounter with a group of people who do not know they are needy. The claw and clamor for recognition, demand their superiority, and fight like the Gospel's "sons of thunder" for first place in a competition they believe leads only to first place or dead last.
Our false sense of independence is what throws us into these violent competitions. Ego wants a statue erected to it and the best seat at the dinner table.
Jesus doesn't support that attitude. He says to not take the seat of honor, but the lowliest one at the table. He says in order to be great in God's world, we are called to be servants, not slave-masters.
If we give up competition, what is left? Give up competition! How un-Western, let alone un-American!! What is left is cooperation governed by compassion. If we are busy serving each other, nobody needs to win because everyone will.
When we act as if we have no needs, we are dangerous to ourselves and others. We no longer see ourselves as human. How can we then relate to the humans around us?
No, my friend, I hate to disillusion you about priests, but I have to let you know this one is chock-full of needs. That is what opens me to love.
Thank You, God, for bringing me to the point of recognizing how wonderful it is to be needy.
Pace e bene,
Fr. David+
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