It’s the Race that Counts

Okay . . . I’m old enough to accept that I’m not going to come out on top.  I’m not going to win the race.  It’s just not in the cards.  The best I’m going to do is to get a “participant” trophy.  I can handle that at my age.  It is just not going to happen.  The odds were just too great.  Something like a zillion to one.  In the end I think that is what everyone should get—a “participant” trophy.  After all . . . we finished the race and that was the goal all along.

In the end, isn’t that what we all deserve?  Recognition for a race well ran?  That we finished.

 

My grandchildren have reached the age when they are now competing in competitive sports.  They are no longer playing sports for the sake of playing, enjoyment, and exercise.  Nope.  They have entered the realm of “winners and losers”, bragging rights, and all the marbles.  There is more seriousness to the sports they engage in.  A sharper edge.  It is the weeding out of “winners and losers” . . . a pecking order . . . a caste system of sorts.  It has taken the fun out of sports.

 

As my children grew up, I had various roles in their sporting adventures.  In their younger years I encouraged them to try out sports.  I was a cheerleader for their sporting endeavors.  I also coached them.  I coached soccer, basketball, track, and cross country.  When I first started coaching it was about teaching the skills and enjoyment of playing the sport.  The competition wasn’t important.  It was for the pure joy of the sport.  But somewhere along the way I slid into the “dark side” . . . the competitive side.  It was all downhill after that.  I lost track of the exhilaration of sports for the sake of sports.  Lost track of my kids as individuals only to see them as cogs in the competition machine.

 

Sports lost their joy.  For that . . . I apologize to my children and all the kids who endured my slide into the “dark side”.  If I killed the joy of sports for anyone . . . I apologize.  Competition is a sneaky, slippery slope to navigate.

 

I know.

 

Recently at my granddaughter’s lacrosse game, I caught myself with a toe in the “dark side” . . . I was shining about the officiating or lack thereof.  In a close game against an aggressive team the granddaughter’s team was losing.  Now it couldn’t be that the more aggressive team was more experienced and skilled than the granddaughter’s team—they obviously had played the sport longer.  No, the competitive spark in me turned towards the most obvious problem for any spectator—the referees.  Thankfully the whining was contained within the confines of my granddaughter’s mother—my daughter.  It probably triggered all sorts of PTSD flashbacks from the days when I coached her or sat in the stands at her games.  Poor kid.  Besides, it was ridiculous on my part, the referees were doing their best as middle school kids made to volunteer to officiate.  Kids!  Shame on me!  Thankfully I recognized the awakening of the monster within me.  Unfortunately, the daughter caught the brunt of my whining.

 

I apologized.  Then I spent a lot of time thinking about it.  I concluded that it is the fought of competition . . . the need to have “winners and losers” . . . the need to determine the “best” . . . to have a pecking order . . . a caste system.  We live in a society of ranking.  A need to determine the “top to bottom” . . . to declare the “best”.  Competition has ruined life.

 

We live in a competitive world.  It is not just sports—it is everything.  Everything is a competition.  Think about it.  Education is competitive—class ranks, scholarship, valedictorian, dean’s list, grades.  Business is competitive.  Politics is competitive.  War is competitive.  Dog shows.  Music.  Art.  Religion.  Shoot!  We even compete to see who has the best yard.  We rank everything . . . declare things the best . . . have our “top twenty, forty, hundred” lists.  We live in a competitive world.

 

I think competition is destroying life.  That competition has taken the “joy” out of life.  Everything is a competition.  It has worn me out!  It has saddened me as I’ve watched it take the “joy” away from so many.  It has all come about winning.  Only one can win—the rest, well they are “losers”.  No one wants to be a “loser”.

 

May its not competition that’s the problem.  May it is the need to have “winners and losers”.  Instead of having “winners and losers” we should embrace the participation award.  After all, everyone competed and should be acknowledged for doing their best . . . for showing up.  The problem with that is that we have glorified “winning” and declared “losing” as bad.  I’ve seen it with my children.  I have seen it with my grandchildren.  Someone is always keeping score . . . declaring “winners and losers”.  Go to any pee wee sporting event in which the score is not being kept and any kids in the game will be able to tell you . . . they know the score . . . they know whether they have won or lost.  It is too ingrained in the psyche of human nature . . . in society.

 

How terrible!  This was never the intention of the Creator.  I think it was the intention of the Holy for a unified effort towards everyone finishing the race together.  Not individual achievement, but the totality of creation.  It wasn’t about who got there first, but that everyone got there.  That is what I believe the Creator intended but we have even bastardized that to the point where we preach “us” against “them” as God’s favorites.  No matter what anyone says, the Holy plays no favorites.  All of creation belongs to the Creator—the call is to be “one”.

 

With that in mind, I probably need to work on keeping the competitive monster locked away.  Instead, I need to focus on enjoying the race . . . enjoying the people . . . enjoy watching how all the pieces fit and work together . . . striving to be the best that they can be.  Striving to cheer everyone across the finish line.  It is a long race, this thing we call life, and it sure helps having someone cheering you along.

 

As I said, I’m not going to go out on top when the end comes.  Nope, I will be lucky if I am 11,397,521,198^th.  I’ll take that participation trophy with pride as an acknowledgement that I made it, and someone noticed my effort.  It’s not whether I win or lose, it’s how I run the race.  How we all run the race.  That’s what matters.  May we all run to our greatest potential.  That is what makes the Creator smile . . . not winning . . . not losing . . . participating.

 

I Didn’t Know

Someone lied to me.  Someone lied to me when they told me that life was a race.  That life was a race that each of us has to finish . . . but, racing is competition . . . competition means that there are winners and losers.  If life is a race, and someone has to win, then it is a competition.  Life is a competition . . . that is what I have been taught since I was a little kid.  I was taught to strive to be the best . . . the best in my classes . . . the best in sports . . . the best at playing games . . . the best at everything . . . to be the winner . . . to be number one.  I was taught to be competitive.  That was what I was taught, and it is a lie.

I used to be competitive . . . I worked hard to be in the top of my classes all through school, but there were always others ahead of me.  I worked hard to be good at the sports that I loved, but someone was always better than me, faster than me, or stronger than me.  In my jobs I strived to be the best employee, show up early, stay late, do more work, but everyone got paid the same as me and usually got promoted before I did.  Even in the ministry there is competition . . . it is usually judged by the size of the church one serves . . . the bigger the better . . . sort of like church envy.  You can see it in the reaction of other clergy whenever I tell them that I have basically served small rural churches for the past fifteen to twenty years.  There is that look of pity in their eyes.  Typically, I have been told I am a nice guy, and everyone knows, nice guys finish last.

I bought into the idea that there had to be winners and losers . . . that only one could win.  That life was a race, a competition, something to be won.  Line everyone up and let’s see who is standing at the end . . . that will be the winner.  That is what we are taught as children by the society that we live in . . . by the world in which we live . . . and, the thing is, no matter how hard we try, most of us are pretty lousy at this competition thing.  But, that is the world we live in . . . schools are competitions, work is competition, recreation is a competition, even churches are competitive . . . there are winners and losers.  Someone has to win, everybody else loses.

But, I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know that that was a lie.  Life is not a race . . . it is not a competition . . . there is not one winner in the end with everyone else losing.  That is a falsehood . . . a lie.  I’m tired of living a lie.

Life is not a race.  It’s not.  Life is a great big present waiting to be opened . . . over and over again.  The problem is that we are too busy racing through life to discover its wonderfulness as a gift.  We are too busy competing to see the joy and blessing that life really is.  We are too occupied in trying to be number one that we miss that we are all number one in the eyes of God.  We are precious in the sight of God . . . and, yeah, I know . . . that is that mushy Christian crap, but it is true.  It is true, because God has a pretty high opinion of Godself . . . and, each and every one of us was created in the image of God.  At least that is what the scriptures tell us, and we know that the scriptures never lie! 

You see, being created in the image of God . . . well, that is pretty impressive . . . that makes each and every one of us gifted and talented.  Each and every one of us has been gifted and blessed by God with talents . . . again, another scriptural reference, and scripture never lie!  Each of us is gifted and talented in a particular area . . . the challenge is to discover what that particular area is, not to see who finishes first.  And, likewise, every single one of us has particular challenges . . . we don’t always do well in every situation or place in which we are placed.  The goal of life . . . this journey we are on . . . is to unwarp that gift of who God created us to be, embrace it, and live it to its fullest potential.  The cool thing about that is that no one else can be me or you . . . no one else can unwarp the gift and live it for me or you . . . it is yours and mine . . . one of a kind!  And, sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize it.

Buying into competition . . . buying into life being a race . . . does not help.  It keeps us from focusing on what is really important and that is discovering this gifted and talented person that God has made us to be . . . from discovering that we are a chip off the ol’ block of God.  There are no winners and losers in life . . . there is only you and me . . . and, we need each other.  We need each other if we are going to make it.

I will admit that there is still a competitive spark lurking around inside of me.  I see it come up when I commute to work every morning . . . I ain’t going to let anyone get ahead of me . . . just drive like a bat out of hell!  I don’t like it, but it is inbred in me to want to pass people, get ahead of them, and beat them to some imaginary finish line.  Usually, sad to say this, I give them the #1 sign when I whip by them.  It shows up in work . . . and, it even shows up in church.  It is not something that I am proud of because it defeats the purpose of unwrapping God’s gift for myself or others.  It is dropping into that lie.

So, I have decided to quit lying to myself . . . decided to quit living the lie . . . and, to quit buying into this idea that life is a race.  Instead, I am going to try and embrace the idea that life is a journey . . . a journey into discovering who God created me to be . . . a journey into discovering what Godly gifts and talents God has blessed me with . . . and, a journey into using those gifts to do God’s will.  That will, I believe, is to help others switch over to the real meaning of life and not to buy into it being a race or competition. 

Thus, I begin.  I begin by saying that we are all the children of God . . . created in God’s image . . . gifted and talented.  I begin by saying that our purpose in life is to discover who we are as the image of God, embrace those gifts and talents, and seek to do God’s will in our lives.  It is not an easy journey . . . there are good days and bad days . . . there are mountaintops and valleys . . . no one ever said that it would be easy.  And, I begin by saying, that we are okay.

We are okay.  A journey is not made in a single step or day.  It is a lifetime.  And, we are okay . . . as we are gifted and talented, we are also challenged . . . that is life.  Plus, we are never alone.  We have God . . . and, we have one another.  Together we shall succeed . . . we shall succeed because we are of God.  Don’t buy into the lie . . .