Winners and Losers

winners and losers

 

When I was channel surfing last night I paused for a moment on the local access station and listened to a high school coach who was being interviewed. One comment he made caught my attention. “Of course, we always want to win,” he said.

I found myself thinking about the impact of that way of thinking.
So many facets of our lives are defined by the construct of winning and losing.  Not just with sporting events, but also in our work and in our politics, and even our relationships. Did we win or have we lost? Of course, there can only be one winner, right? The rest of us or the rest of the time we are the losers. We remember and celebrate and glorify the winners. The losers – most of us – are first criticized for not trying hard enough or fighting hard enough or being good enough and then forgotten. What an awful way to live.

In the interest of honesty and full disclosure, I haven’t always thought this way.
By nature I am competitive both in the sports in which I competed and with the teams that I have helped to coach. And, competitive, too, in other areas of my life. Looking back on it now, I wish I had done it differently, especially when I was working with children and youth.

Instead of talking only about winning, I wish the coach had said something like this: “Of course we always enjoy winning, but what I stress with my team, in each game we play, is for each person to do their best.” That is the message we need to be giving to our youth.
And, to our elected officials.
And, to our co-workers.
And, to ourselves.
At least, I need to say it over and over again to myself.
In the moment we have…
For the task at hand…
Can we bring our best and do our best?
Maybe if we approached life from that vantage point we would all be just a bit healthier and happier. And, if we are able to do that much, we will have accomplished a great deal.

I Had Been Hoping

Malala

 

This morning the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize was announced.
The prize this year went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
This is the United Nations backed group that is overseeing the dismantling of the stock piled chemical weapons in Syria. By all accounts it is a small group that does important work.  And the dismantling of chemical weapons world wide is certainly an important goal.

But, I had been hoping…
I had been hoping the Peace Prize would be awarded to Malala Yousafzai, the 16 year old Pakistani girl, whose advocacy for education, particularly for girls, made her the target of a Taliban assassination attempt a year ago. Over the last several days she has been in the United States promoting her new book I Am Malala and talking about her experience and her hopes. She has stunned audiences with her courage and her wisdom. I had been hoping she would win the Peace Prize not only for her ongoing witness, but also for what it would say to the millions and millions of young adults around the world, many of whom live surrounded by violence and poverty, who long for role models that promote justice and inclusivity and understanding rather than extremism and violence. What would it have said to them if a 16 year old girl took center stage and spoke of peace and hope and a vision for the future that would inspire us all.  One can only wonder.

I had been hoping…

Creating A Space to Talk

beer

 

This evening a group of us will gather at a local bar, order our beers and spend an hour or so talking together.  It is a diverse group who gathers at this local watering hole once a month. A couple Christians. A couple Jews. With a few nothing or not sures rounding out the group. And, we are a mix of liberal and conservative, Republicans and Democrats.

The topic for our conversation this evening is this:
Is there any way to make sense of or to find our way through the gridlock of opinions that has shut down our government. In other words, we are going to try to do something that our elected officials have not be able or willing to do.
I realize there is no risk for us.
There are no policy outcomes.
There are no upcoming elections in our futures.
Your taxes won’t go up because of anything we say.
Your health care will not be jeopardized by any of the opinions we express.

One thing I am sure of is that by 9:00 this evening we will not have resolved anything.
We will walk away just as we walked in – with differing opinions and differing points of view. But I think we will have accomplished, at least, a couple important things. We will have taken a stab at talking about a challenging issue. And, we will have done our best to articulate our views and opinions thoughtfully and carefully without insulting one another. And, in the midst of all of that maybe we will have listened to another whose views differ sharply from our own and walk away from the table thinking about what has been said and shared.

Maybe if we can do that much…

Back At Me

where

 

What if that which we know and name as God asks us the same questions we often ask about or ask of God?
Where are you?
Why did you allow that to happen?
Why do you sometimes seem so far away?
Why don’t you answer me when I talk to you?
I don’t know about you, but considering these questions as God speaking to me rather than my speaking to God brings me up short.

Lately I have been purposefully taking some time each day to look around me or to look back on my day and ask, “Where did I see or sense something of the Holy?”
Where did I see beauty?
When and where did I experience kindness?
When did grace brush up against my life?
For what do I need to pause and say “Thank you?”
Those are all important questions that I need to continue to ask.
But maybe there are another set of questions I need to consider, as well.
What was God trying to say to me today that I ignored or was too busy to hear?
When was God waiting for me to step forward?
Who needed a word of hope or forgiveness that God was waiting for someone (for me?!) to speak?

I don’t know about you, but I think I need to do a better job.

Leadership

leadership

 

October 1, 2013
The government is officially shut down.
Ideology, it seems, has replaced leadership.
Name calling and figure pointing has replaced governing.
Like many I feel both disgusted and sad.
But, it has forced me to be more clear about my understanding of leadership.

Here is what I mean.
Are elected officials at any level elected to represent constituents or are they elected to lead?  It is a critical question.  On one level the answer is yes. Elected officials are elected both to represent and to lead.  But, what appears to have happened, whether due to gerrymandered districts or polarized politics or the fact that the campaign for the next election begins the day after one has been elected, is that representing constituents has become more important than leading which is the exact opposite of what we need right now.

On a very small scale, here is an example of what I mean.
Years ago I ran for and was elected to our local school board.  Much of the business was fairly routine, but every so often an issue would come before the board on which I had to vote which pitted what was best for my two children against what was best for the entire school system or the entire community.

Leadership, I think, requires both the ability and the courage to look beyond the particular focus or concerns or views of constituents and to do one’s best to see and to move towards what is best for the whole.
Leadership requires a commitment to the common good.
It requires being able to say the best way forward may not by my way forward.
It requires being able to say Yes when others are shouting No or No when others are shouting Yes.
Leadership means risking one’s job in order to be a leader.
It is what we desperately need right now.
But do not have.

And They Shall Know War…

peace1

 

For anyone 18 years old or younger, all they have known for their entire lives, or at least the part of their lives which they remember, is that we have been at war.
In Afghanistan.
In Iraq.
Against terrorism.
It has not had the same type of impact that previous wars have had because there is no draft and these wars are being fought by an all volunteer army which directly impacts only a small percentage of the population of the United States. Yet we have been at war now for over a decade. We have been at war for most, if not all, of their lives.
The lines we stand in at the airport;
The lines we hear from our politicians;
The lines repeated daily in the news;
Remind us, in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways, that we are at war.

I wonder what the long term impact will be on the young people who are growing up in the midst of all of this.
Will being “at war” become the new normal?
Or, become just be how life is?
Or, will they find a different way?
As these young adults build relationships and begin to see the world with different eyes, will they refuse to be hemmed in by the stereotypes and the preconceived notions of how the world is that has so deeply shaped both our understanding and our ability to respond? Will they begin to both push for and to shape a new way forward?
I wonder.

“And, it shall come to pass…they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
(Isaiah 2:4)
May it be so, God.