One Step

I'll start off today with a poem I wrote a while ago as I was preparing to graduate from college:

One Step Forward Taken


Somewhere outside empty,
around the corner
from unrest and
down the next
street from destiny
is my intended
destination. I sit
in my life
like a kid
in the car
in the family
driveway and say
Are we there
yet? knowing only
leaving and arriving.
Wherever there is,
I can’t get
to where real
and fake diverge
all at once,
so I tend
to take less
than the first
             step.




I wrote this poem in the midst of thinking about moving out of academia into "real life," but I've realized since then that it applies to so many different situations.  It seems like my brain always wants to do things later or somehow start at a more easily defined time, e.g. "I'll start my workout plan on Monday, but today's Thursday so there's no use starting it now"  or  "Next month I'll have to eat healthier, but this one is already pretty shot" or "Next year I'll really start working towards my goal of dunking a basketball"-- you get the idea.  Goals that seem very big just can't be accomplished all at once, and that can often lead to putting off even their smallest beginnings (which then leads, of course, to putting them off again later).  Those are just examples, but it can happen with anything.

Am I the only one that does stuff like that?  No? Good, I didn't think so.  I think it's really an example of how we listen to the voice of fear in our lives.  The whole situation reminds me of something my pastor likes to say, which I will paraphrase from the Ricktionary like this: "Our enemy always wants us to do things a little, and later.  God wants to give us more, and now!"  And isn't that the truth?  It seems like there is often a questioning voice advising us to hedge our bets or put things off until we're more ready or the time is more right.  But when is that, exactly?

What I'm trying to learn to do is take the first steps.  If I realize something needs to change in my life, I don't want to finish out this week doing it wrong and start trying it the right way on Monday!  I need to accept that real change is messier than that and can't be confined to my (sometimes unreasonable) desire for order.  I want to take the first step toward doing the things God has placed in my heart right now, right here in the middle of all the ridiculous mess and chaos.  I don't have time to wait for things to be more right or ready.  A little and later just isn't going to cut it for me; I need more of God and his help, and I need it now!

That might seem a little demanding, and I guess maybe it is.  All I know is that God has given us the green light to come after him with that kind of intensity.  Check out Genesis 32.  Jacob wrestled with God (!!) all through the night and wouldn't stop until he received a blessing.  He wasn't like, "let me just get things straight with my brother who wants to kill me and then I'll start following you and seeking your blessing."  He knew he couldn't go any further without God's blessing and he needed it right then.  He took the one step he needed to take, even though he took it (and every other step from then on) with a limp.

I don't want my fear of limping to get in the way of my taking that first step, whatever it may be.

There's no time to waste.

Witness?

I don't know how much this is true anywhere else, but in Cleveland sports are a religion.

There's really no other way to explain it.  I was reading the newspaper the other day, and they had all these photos of people looking extraordinarily downcast after watching yet another highly touted Cleveland team bomb out of its league's playoffs in spectacular fashion.  In this most recent episode, the Cavaliers essentially rolled over and died against a team they were probably better than, all the while looking lethargic, scared, and relatively hopeless.  Sound familiar?  Those are also a lot of the same problems the city in general has, ironically.

Now, disappointment and heartbreak are pretty foundational to Cleveland sports.  Every time a Cleveland team is getting even remotely close to doing something good, the sports shows inevitably have to air the montage of all of Cleveland's past failures.  I've seen this so many times that I can tell you what's coming and in what order without even watching it-- Willie Mays' catch, the Drive, the Fumble, the Shot, and 1997 game 7 are the standard lineup, sometimes with other humiliating moments thrown in for good measure.  My point in saying all this is that you might think Clevelanders would be getting used to this stuff.

This time, though, there was an extra layer of despondency and fear attached to the loss.  This particular loss happened to be in the last year of the contract of Cleveland's self-appointed savior, meaning that he could end up cutting his losses and leaving Cleveland to join another team with a better chance of winning.  I'm sure you know who I'm referring to-- giant billboard downtown?  arms outstretched in a travesty of the cross? army of fans in shirts that say "WITNESS" right above a Nike swoosh?  Yeah, that's the guy.  The imagery is almost too obvious: Cleveland is looking to LeBron for salvation.

I think somehow people have bought into the idea (read: lie) that if Cleveland could just win a sports championship, the city would be saved or somehow set on the road to recovery.  Now the best chance in years for that to happen might leave town.  You can start to see why everyone is so upset.  There's no denying the fact that LeBron's arrival and time in Cleveland have brought a lot of money to the city that otherwise wouldn't have been there, both in ticket sales and the spending of people who come from across the nation to see him.  But even if he could deliver on his promise and bring a championship to Cleveland, all of its deep, systemic problems would still exist.

It's easier, though, not to think about those real problems.  People who want to ignore them (or at least get a small respite from them) readily turn to sports as an escape, and that's where the salvation problem begins.  I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with sports; if you know me, you know I enjoy both playing sports and watching well-played games (which Cleveland unfortunately supplied very few of in this year's playoffs).  That's the thing though: sports were meant to be enjoyed.  When I saw all those depressed faces in the Plain Dealer, I couldn't help thinking that the point was being missed somewhere.  Obviously, we all want our team to win, and that's fine.  But when it becomes so pivotal to our emotions that we can't enjoy it anymore, then I think we're starting to head towards Jonah 2:8 territory.

Remember that verse? It says "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."  I feel like a lot of Clevelanders were and are forfeiting some happiness and grace they could have had by clinging to idols, whether sports, winning, or LeBron himself.  I have to include myself in that group as well.  For a lot of my life, I've lived and died with Cleveland sports.  (I wasn't really sentient for most of those montage of failure moments, but my 10-year old self was crushed after the '97 world series.)  You'd think all the disappointment might get us looking for something better.

But you know what? This isn't just about basketball or even sports in general.  The same thing happens any time we cling so tightly to things that we miss God.  This is the natural condition of all of us in our fallen state, and it's the perfect opportunity to have a real witness.  We all have things we've put our hope in that have dramatically let us down: people, relationships, jobs, money, and yes, even sports teams.  No one is exempt from this, even if they could care less about the free-agent saga of LeBron. 

We can always share our stories of our idols failing to satisfy.  And then... then we can bear witness to the One who is worthy of our praise, who has never let us down, and who will never leave us for another team.  He sees the problems in Cleveland that run much deeper than the ineptitude of our sports teams, and they don't scare him.  Our job is to show him to the people who are looking for him in a team, a relationship, or a freakishly athletic and egotistical superstar.  I think that's what it really means to be a witness in Cleveland.