I know, I know, the last thing you want to read today is a sermon. But … I did the meditation last night at our Maundy Thursday service and told a couple of stories. One of them is fit to repeat here. If it feels too much like a sermon let me know.
I remember a night in high school when a swim meet had just ended and I was talking to a kid and another kid came up to us and said, “Hey, are you guys going someplace?” Just the way he said it rubbed me wrong and I said, “Yeah, we’re going to Petko’s, meet us there,” and that kid went off to meet us at that restaurant while the first kid and I – who never had any plans to begin with – went to our respective homes. It was NOT a nice thing to do. Life went on, we graduated, I moved away from Flint, Michigan, and onto other places and other things, but … from time to time over the past 35 years I have thought of that night, and when I do I’m always filled with a fair amount of guilt. Whenever someone would mention that guy’s name I’d think of that night and feel bad about what a callous jerk I used to be (as opposed to the nice jerk I’ve turned into).
Last year, through the magic of Facebook, the guy found me. I was living in the Netherlands at the time, so we did a little Facebook chatting, but then I moved back to Michigan and one day he wrote and said he had to come to Grand Rapids and wondered if we could have lunch together. We’re eating lunch, catching up with each other, and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I spilled my guts, confessing how terrible I’ve felt for 35 years and wondering if he could ever forgive me for my unkindness.
“You did what?” he said.
I went through the whole story again.
“That’s funny,” he said. “I remember you were always funny. That sounds like something funny you’d do.”
“You don’t remember?”
“No,” he said, “Not at all.”
“You weren’t scarred for life?”
“No,” he said laughing. “I guess not.”
Well, if he wasn’t, how come I was?
This is the point of last night and today on the church calendar. As Don Henley sang a few decades ago, when you get down to the heart of the matter it’s about “forgiveness.” The first part of forgiveness, from God’s point of view, is that he doesn’t remember. When God remember us, he remembers that he loves us; he remembers that he thinks we do funny and endearing things, but he doesn’t remember the terrible things we’ve done. In Isaiah 43 he says it like this: “For my own sake I will blot out your transgressions and I will remember your sins no more.” For his own sake! Like my friend – better to forget than be scarred by it.
This leads to one of the harder parts of forgiveness – forgiving ourselves. I just touched on this briefly last night, and I won’t dwell on it here, but really if the Good News is good at all, then we’ve got to be able to integrate our lives in a healthy way, to accept and love and most of all forgive ourselves. Like my friend, God forgave and forgot a long, long time ago. Can we do that?
Friday, April 22, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thanks Delta -- This Was Interesting!
I’ll be watching tonight’s Milwaukee at Philadelphia game on ESPN (provided it isn’t snowed out!), hoping to hear Rick Sutcliffe, the color commentator, say something about the remarkably brilliant baseball fan he sat next to yesterday on a flight from KC to Detroit, the first leg of his trip to Philly. The remarkably brilliant fan, of course, was little old me.
Through the ministrations of Delta Airlines, I found myself seated next to Sutcliffe, the 1979 National League Rookie of the Year and winner of the 1984 NL Cy Young Award. We did happen to talk a little baseball. My famous memory worked its quirky charms and even managed to backhandedly insult him – somehow I remembered he was traded from Cleveland to the Cubs for Mel Hall and forgot Joe Carter was in the deal. Mel Hall was a borderline player; Joe Carter was a perennial All-Star. Oops.
For all you long-suffering Cub fans – did you know that Major League Baseball took home field advantage away from the Cubs in the 1984 playoffs? In the best of five series, the Cubs won the first two at Wrigley, lost the next two at San Diego, and had to win game five to head into the World Series for the first time since 1945. However, because there were no lights at Wrigley Field in those days, MLB decreed game five would be played in San Diego because they wanted the game broadcast in prime time. Who knows if playing at home would have made a difference, but the Cubs managed to lose that game and their World Series drought continues unabated decades later.
After the 1984 season, coming off the Cy Young, Sutcliffe was a free agent and was courted by his hometown Kansas City Royals. They offered him a lifetime contract – similar to the deal they had given George Brett. How many of us have that sort of chance in life? But something happened in Kansas City that winter – the intensity of the attention got to Sutcliffe. He told me that reading about it every day and being approached everywhere (he mentioned being “cornered” in a restaurant) repelled him. He didn’t want to be that famous – he thought of his two-year-old daughter and he wanted a chance for her to have a normal life. So he rejected a lifetime of financial security and re-signed with the Cubs. I thought that was a marvelous story of someone standing at a crossroads and seeing the down side of the things so many of us fantasize about.
Another crossroads came as his career was waning. He said he was aware of players using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. He even “named names” of former teammates he could hardly recognize anymore because of the physical changes that had happened to them. He made the decision not to use – and wondered for years if he’d made the right choice. After all, look at what steroid use did for the late careers of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens – they defied time and became better players late in their 30’s than they had been when they were younger. At that time steroids were not illegal in baseball. There were millions of dollars at stake. The health risks were not as well documented as they are today. Why not do it?
I thought of how easy it is for fans to look down on players who chose to use steroids – but we have no idea what we’d do in similar circumstances. How many people reading this have left a few million dollars on the table? And, even today, what are the consequences for those who did choose steroids? The record books aren’t going to be changed. Nobody is making Mark McGwire or Alex Rodriquez give back the tens of millions they earned. Why shouldn’t they have done it?
Sutcliffe mentioned his daughter to me again, and said, “She tells me I have the benefit of being able to fall asleep at night with a clear conscience.”
It’s a remarkable thing to think about. As I raced through the Detroit airport yesterday in a mad dash to get from gate A21 to gate C24 in 17 minutes, I was reflecting on how cool it was to have been able to talk to him for an hour or so. If you don’t have anything going on tonight, turn on ESPN and listen to the big guy for a while. It might help you keep in mind our common humanity, and the twisting paths our lives take.
Through the ministrations of Delta Airlines, I found myself seated next to Sutcliffe, the 1979 National League Rookie of the Year and winner of the 1984 NL Cy Young Award. We did happen to talk a little baseball. My famous memory worked its quirky charms and even managed to backhandedly insult him – somehow I remembered he was traded from Cleveland to the Cubs for Mel Hall and forgot Joe Carter was in the deal. Mel Hall was a borderline player; Joe Carter was a perennial All-Star. Oops.
For all you long-suffering Cub fans – did you know that Major League Baseball took home field advantage away from the Cubs in the 1984 playoffs? In the best of five series, the Cubs won the first two at Wrigley, lost the next two at San Diego, and had to win game five to head into the World Series for the first time since 1945. However, because there were no lights at Wrigley Field in those days, MLB decreed game five would be played in San Diego because they wanted the game broadcast in prime time. Who knows if playing at home would have made a difference, but the Cubs managed to lose that game and their World Series drought continues unabated decades later.
After the 1984 season, coming off the Cy Young, Sutcliffe was a free agent and was courted by his hometown Kansas City Royals. They offered him a lifetime contract – similar to the deal they had given George Brett. How many of us have that sort of chance in life? But something happened in Kansas City that winter – the intensity of the attention got to Sutcliffe. He told me that reading about it every day and being approached everywhere (he mentioned being “cornered” in a restaurant) repelled him. He didn’t want to be that famous – he thought of his two-year-old daughter and he wanted a chance for her to have a normal life. So he rejected a lifetime of financial security and re-signed with the Cubs. I thought that was a marvelous story of someone standing at a crossroads and seeing the down side of the things so many of us fantasize about.
Another crossroads came as his career was waning. He said he was aware of players using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. He even “named names” of former teammates he could hardly recognize anymore because of the physical changes that had happened to them. He made the decision not to use – and wondered for years if he’d made the right choice. After all, look at what steroid use did for the late careers of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens – they defied time and became better players late in their 30’s than they had been when they were younger. At that time steroids were not illegal in baseball. There were millions of dollars at stake. The health risks were not as well documented as they are today. Why not do it?
I thought of how easy it is for fans to look down on players who chose to use steroids – but we have no idea what we’d do in similar circumstances. How many people reading this have left a few million dollars on the table? And, even today, what are the consequences for those who did choose steroids? The record books aren’t going to be changed. Nobody is making Mark McGwire or Alex Rodriquez give back the tens of millions they earned. Why shouldn’t they have done it?
Sutcliffe mentioned his daughter to me again, and said, “She tells me I have the benefit of being able to fall asleep at night with a clear conscience.”
It’s a remarkable thing to think about. As I raced through the Detroit airport yesterday in a mad dash to get from gate A21 to gate C24 in 17 minutes, I was reflecting on how cool it was to have been able to talk to him for an hour or so. If you don’t have anything going on tonight, turn on ESPN and listen to the big guy for a while. It might help you keep in mind our common humanity, and the twisting paths our lives take.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
A Radio Program
I think this is cool but I'm biased. If you click here http://spotlightradio.net/listen/teammates/ you can read and listen to my first radio script that has been produced. It's one of my all-time favorite stories. This will be broadcast sometime this month, but you have to live in someplace like Mumbai to hear it -- it's produced for the non-English speaking world.
Friday, April 1, 2011
All Things Fred
Here's an April First treat instead of a trick. Go to www.buechnerinstitute.org and peruse the site. If you click on the link to their blog, you will see a short message I gave at the inauguration of the Buechner Institute four years ago. But don't stop there. You can read some of what Katherine Patterson (author of The Bridge to Terebithia) said at the BI a few weeks ago, and you can find information on this year's Buechnerfest. Give it a serious look -- you won't be disappointed.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Last Boy
What American boy of a certain age didn’t want to be Mickey Mantle, the sublimely talented, golden-haired centerfielder of the New York Yankees in the 1950s and 60s?
Read The Last Boy, Jane Leavy’s recent biography of Mantle and you may ask another question – who would want to be him in the 1970s, 80s and 90s? He was not a very nice person – who knew their hero was an abusive roaring drunk and womanizer of mammoth proportions? He was enabled by sycophants around him that were unable to see the broken-down alcoholic he had become because they were blinded by the memory of what he once was. It is a sad, sobering, yet extremely compelling book to read.
The use of the word “boy” in the title is telling – Mantle went through his life unable to make adult decisions. The best decisions of his life came too late – he entered the Betty Ford Clinic and cleaned himself up at the same time he acquired the cancer that killed him at the age of 64. After his playing career ended he made his living by being Mickey Mantle – everyone it seems was happy to boast that they had bought a round for The Mick, and the baseball memorabilia business was fueled by people’s desire to own anything connected to Mantle. At his worst he would blow his nose into a Kleenex and give it someone as a collectible or sign obscene comments about the anatomy of little boys’ mothers onto baseballs. One diagnosis is that he suffered from “acquired situational narcissism,” and he was undone not so much by alcohol as by his celebrity.
Leavy digs deep, revealing complexities about Mantle: that he was a shame-filled bed wetter as a child, that he had been sexually abused and that he never had the ability to stand up to his emotionally controlling father. She did something like 500 interviews for the book, and, most significantly, draws on her own encounters interviewing a drunken Mantle in 1983. The book is meticulously researched and beautifully written.
She sees Mantle as much more than a baseball player, she sees him ultimately as a national icon. The subtitle of the book is “Mickey Mantle and the end of America’s Childhood.” As a baseball player he was proof of America’s promise, he was who everyone wanted to be, and in his own words, “what this country is all about” – a boy from the lead and zinc mining fields of Oklahoma who grew up to be … Mickey Mantle. His playing career ended in 1968, as tumultuous a year as exists in American history, a year of souring on the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, of race riots and finally the election of Richard Nixon. How many of us long for the days before 1968; before everything got complicated? And how many of us wish strapping heroes like Mickey Mantle could remain forever young?
Read The Last Boy, Jane Leavy’s recent biography of Mantle and you may ask another question – who would want to be him in the 1970s, 80s and 90s? He was not a very nice person – who knew their hero was an abusive roaring drunk and womanizer of mammoth proportions? He was enabled by sycophants around him that were unable to see the broken-down alcoholic he had become because they were blinded by the memory of what he once was. It is a sad, sobering, yet extremely compelling book to read.
The use of the word “boy” in the title is telling – Mantle went through his life unable to make adult decisions. The best decisions of his life came too late – he entered the Betty Ford Clinic and cleaned himself up at the same time he acquired the cancer that killed him at the age of 64. After his playing career ended he made his living by being Mickey Mantle – everyone it seems was happy to boast that they had bought a round for The Mick, and the baseball memorabilia business was fueled by people’s desire to own anything connected to Mantle. At his worst he would blow his nose into a Kleenex and give it someone as a collectible or sign obscene comments about the anatomy of little boys’ mothers onto baseballs. One diagnosis is that he suffered from “acquired situational narcissism,” and he was undone not so much by alcohol as by his celebrity.
Leavy digs deep, revealing complexities about Mantle: that he was a shame-filled bed wetter as a child, that he had been sexually abused and that he never had the ability to stand up to his emotionally controlling father. She did something like 500 interviews for the book, and, most significantly, draws on her own encounters interviewing a drunken Mantle in 1983. The book is meticulously researched and beautifully written.
She sees Mantle as much more than a baseball player, she sees him ultimately as a national icon. The subtitle of the book is “Mickey Mantle and the end of America’s Childhood.” As a baseball player he was proof of America’s promise, he was who everyone wanted to be, and in his own words, “what this country is all about” – a boy from the lead and zinc mining fields of Oklahoma who grew up to be … Mickey Mantle. His playing career ended in 1968, as tumultuous a year as exists in American history, a year of souring on the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, of race riots and finally the election of Richard Nixon. How many of us long for the days before 1968; before everything got complicated? And how many of us wish strapping heroes like Mickey Mantle could remain forever young?
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Book or the Movie?
I was seated on an airplane next to a six-month pregnant woman a couple of days ago and our little plane was buffeted about both on take-off and landing by a fair amount of turbulence. She didn’t like it – in fact she reached out and grabbed my arm to steady herself on five different occasions.
Every time she’d apologize, and every time I’d say, “That’s okay.” I figured she could grab my arm all she wanted as long as she didn’t go into labor. At one point she said, “When I was overseas I did a lot of flying on Blackhawks and Chinooks but it was never like this.”
“Were you in the army?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I was in Iraq for 14 months.”
My opinion of her changed in a heartbeat. Up until that moment I’d thought she was (for lack of a better word) a bit of a chicken. Now I thought different. She was much braver than me. 14 months as a soldier in Iraq? No thanks. I’d want to do that as much as I’d want to be six-months pregnant.
On the plane I was reading Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby’s memoir about growing up a fan of the English soccer team Arsenal. She asked me if the book had anything to do with the Drew Barrymore movie of the same name. I had to begrudgingly admit that yes, the movie had a connection to the book, but that Hollywood had totally mangled the job, turning a revealing look at male obsessions into a romantic comedy.
She asked, “Do you always read the book before you see the movie?”
I don’t always do that, but I had to admit that a lot of times I do, and usually when I do I am disappointed.
“I know,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to read the book first – it would spoil it because you’d already know what was going to happen.” That really wasn’t the spirit my remark was offered in, and I was trying to figure out how to re-state my position when she said, “The Notebook – now that was a great book that was turned into an even greater movie.”
She had me at a disadvantage. Although I think there might well be a copy of The Notebook in my house and although the movie has played at my house several times, I’ve never read or watched it. Sorry Nicholas Sparks.
Our conversation did get me thinking about the old “book or movie?” question. In my mind it’s rare for the movie to top the book – my standard answer is there are only two movies that pop into my head as being superior to the book: The Godfather and Ordinary People.
All of which leads me to ask four questions:
1. Would you like to spend 14-months as a soldier in Iraq?
2. Would you like to be six-months pregnant?
3. Do you generally prefer the movie or the book?
4. What movies would you say exceed the book?
Every time she’d apologize, and every time I’d say, “That’s okay.” I figured she could grab my arm all she wanted as long as she didn’t go into labor. At one point she said, “When I was overseas I did a lot of flying on Blackhawks and Chinooks but it was never like this.”
“Were you in the army?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I was in Iraq for 14 months.”
My opinion of her changed in a heartbeat. Up until that moment I’d thought she was (for lack of a better word) a bit of a chicken. Now I thought different. She was much braver than me. 14 months as a soldier in Iraq? No thanks. I’d want to do that as much as I’d want to be six-months pregnant.
On the plane I was reading Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby’s memoir about growing up a fan of the English soccer team Arsenal. She asked me if the book had anything to do with the Drew Barrymore movie of the same name. I had to begrudgingly admit that yes, the movie had a connection to the book, but that Hollywood had totally mangled the job, turning a revealing look at male obsessions into a romantic comedy.
She asked, “Do you always read the book before you see the movie?”
I don’t always do that, but I had to admit that a lot of times I do, and usually when I do I am disappointed.
“I know,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to read the book first – it would spoil it because you’d already know what was going to happen.” That really wasn’t the spirit my remark was offered in, and I was trying to figure out how to re-state my position when she said, “The Notebook – now that was a great book that was turned into an even greater movie.”
She had me at a disadvantage. Although I think there might well be a copy of The Notebook in my house and although the movie has played at my house several times, I’ve never read or watched it. Sorry Nicholas Sparks.
Our conversation did get me thinking about the old “book or movie?” question. In my mind it’s rare for the movie to top the book – my standard answer is there are only two movies that pop into my head as being superior to the book: The Godfather and Ordinary People.
All of which leads me to ask four questions:
1. Would you like to spend 14-months as a soldier in Iraq?
2. Would you like to be six-months pregnant?
3. Do you generally prefer the movie or the book?
4. What movies would you say exceed the book?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Unbroken
The question I want to ask you about Laura Hillenbrand’s recent book Unbroken is not “Have you read it?” but “Have you read it yet?” Outside of small children, I cannot imagine anyone who would not enjoy this book. I found myself up until about three in the morning on two different nights during the week that I read it. I had to learn how it came out.
The book is the true story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete and at one time America’s best hope to break the four-minute mile. He’s the kind of guy who goes to Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympics and hands his camera to Joseph Goebbels to snap a picture of Adolf Hitler for him. Goebbels complies! Louis enters the Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II, and that’s about all I want to say about the story because you need to read it for yourself. Let me know when you have.
I’m fascinated by Laura Hillenbrand, by the way. She’s the author of two books, Unbroken and Seabiscuit. Both books are absolutely captivating and are also built on mountains of research. What fascinates me about Laura Hillenbrand is that she is homebound, battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, while putting out a wonderful book once every ten years. Unbroken describes Loius Zamperini, and when you have read his story you’ll feel fortunate your life has been so soft in comparison. But “unbroken” is also an apt word to describe Laura Hillenbrand, and I can’t think off the top of my head of another author whose work I would so universally recommend. Read, please!
The book is the true story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete and at one time America’s best hope to break the four-minute mile. He’s the kind of guy who goes to Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympics and hands his camera to Joseph Goebbels to snap a picture of Adolf Hitler for him. Goebbels complies! Louis enters the Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II, and that’s about all I want to say about the story because you need to read it for yourself. Let me know when you have.
I’m fascinated by Laura Hillenbrand, by the way. She’s the author of two books, Unbroken and Seabiscuit. Both books are absolutely captivating and are also built on mountains of research. What fascinates me about Laura Hillenbrand is that she is homebound, battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, while putting out a wonderful book once every ten years. Unbroken describes Loius Zamperini, and when you have read his story you’ll feel fortunate your life has been so soft in comparison. But “unbroken” is also an apt word to describe Laura Hillenbrand, and I can’t think off the top of my head of another author whose work I would so universally recommend. Read, please!
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