March is Madness

I love basketball. I love to watch it and read about it and listen to sporting news dedicated to it. I loved to play it and wanted to be a college basketball player. The goofy picture here is embarrassing, but it conveys, by my silly facial expression, how much I loved playing the sport. But I need to admit something here--one might take from this that I was an accomplished basketball player myself. I wasn't.

I am 5'3" (with shoes on). In junior high school, I was a point guard (read: not allowed to shoot). In my last season as a basketball player (7th grade for the Western Branch Bruins), I was 10% from the foul line. I have said more often than my husband cares to hear, "if only I had height and talent . . ." He then reminds me that EVERYONE with height and talent probably could have made it past being a bench warmer for her junior high team.

And I'm not one of those basketball fans who hates other teams. I just love the game, especially NCAA basketball. I'm a Duke fan who does not hate UNC (which is enough for people to start questioning my sanity). To me, a great college basketball game is physical poetry, and a poor one is aesthetically irritating. I will even watch classic basketball and cheer out loud, as if the outcome is uncertain.

But this love can get out of control, and we are about to enter that time of year when I lose control, especially in light of the fact that my alma mater, Penn State, perennial cellar-dwellers of the Big Ten, likely will receive an NCAA Tournament bid.

Things we love can be curses. We do them to the exclusion of other (good) things we should do. I usually don't exercise enough during March, and I surely don't get the sleep I need (how am I supposed to see West Coast games if I am asleep by 11:00??) Something in me knew I should give up basketball viewing for Lent, but I was just too weak to even try it. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do that. Easier for me to give up carbs than to go basketball-free for 40 days.

My admission here is related to reading Romans 12 today, as suggested by the Nativity Message Guide. "Do not be conformed to this world . . ." (Romans 12:2). This time of year, I really fail at this. I am so conformed to the world during basketball season. Normally an active person, I sit and watch (and yell). And this year I am doing it without my usual bowl of popcorn (the one sacrifice my weak self was able to forgo during this sacrificial season). Romans 12:2 continues: "but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." The Message Guide is helping me this year, as I have been faithful in doing the "outside readings" and praying about how I can use these readings to be transformed.

If I have one piece of advice for people this Lent, it is to pick up the Message Guide, and use it for more than a place to jot down your quickie grocery list after Mass. Spend some time in prayer, read the short passages suggested (which are selected to dovetail with our Message Series, Tug of War) and use the questions provided to go deeper into the Scripture passage and your own heart. It really helps.

These readings surely renew my mind. I feel more energetic, and at the same time, more peaceful after this prayer time.

And I need that, because Duke is playing Boston College tonight . . .

What's Love Got To Do With It?

The "outside reading" for today from the Message Guide is Phillipians 4:4-9. In it, Paul tells us to have no anxiety about anything, and to let our requests be known to God. Take a minute to read this passage. The first instruction is hard to do but easy to understand; the second is easy to do but hard to accept when what we ask for isn't delivered.

I know people whose hobby it is to worry. When they don't have anything in their immediate life to worry about, they go outside their bubble and latch on to other perceived problems. Grandmothers are really good at this skill, I've found. One I know worries when her grandchildren don't use the bathroom as often as she thinks is healthy or the kids fail to wear a coat outside when it is 68 degrees. Another I know stayed up all night worrying when her daughter left a purse at a wedding reception. Are these events worth that kind of worry? No. Is it easy to turn off needless worry? No.

Even though I poke fun at these ladies (and I will give them up; they are my mother-in-law and my own grandmother), like most of us, I also let anxiety overtake me. I usually reserve it for big things, since other family members are handling the bathroom, coat and purse problems that plague my family. And here is the hard part--when the problem is big, we think anxiety is worth something. But it's not. It just works us up more and more, and tends to lead us to believing that by worrying, we can fix a problem. False.

We can't. We can't undo other people's mistakes. We can't make other people sober, or honest, or faithful. Only God can do that, along with a willingness, the free will, of the person who is the object of our worry. Again, easy to understand; very, very hard to do.

But another part of this passage helps us with our anxiety--ask God to intervene. Make our requests known. Ask for healing, for mercy, for a change of heart and behavior in our troubled family or friends. Ask for opportunities to lead that person to Christ. Ask for your own anxiety to ease.

Some of us out there are in real battles right now. Maybe our families are falling apart. Maybe our jobs are in jeopardy. These are big things, anxiety-causing events. Just step back. Ask God to help you.

Pray. Pray. Pray.

Just try it. The worst thing that happens is that you stay right where you are. No one has ever fallen deeper into a hole by praying.

God doesn't promise us a rose garden (or maybe that's country singer Lynn Anderson). And he doesn't promise us that these worries will evaporate for us, or even be fixed. He only promises us love. But, to turn another musical phrase, it's all we need.

The Peter Principle

You have probably heard of the Peter Principle, the theory that in organizations, workers tend to rise to the level of their incompetence. This phrase was coined in the mid-1960s by a educator, Dr. Lawrence Peter. We, chuckling or perhaps cursing under our breath, can all think of a boss or co-worker who fits this theory. "How did he get that job?"

But before I read about Dr. Lawrence Peter, I always wondered if the Peter Principle was biblically based. When I first started reading the Bible, Peter struck me as one of the least likely to be chosen to be the rock of the Church. Sometimes he certainly seemed incompetent. He wasn't the guy who always caught on the fastest (when Christ was going to wash his followers' feet, Peter asked for a whole bath--"wash my hands and feet as well") (John 13:6-11). He was also not fully trusting--he balked when Jesus told him to lower his fishing nets after a night of fishing without results (Luke 5:5). He was not even honest with Jesus all the time. Peter promised Jesus that he would never deny Him, but we know that he denied Christ three times (Matthew 26:35; 69-75). He could be very impetuous, for instance, cutting off the ear of the soldier when Christ was seized by the Roman officials (John 18:10-11). For this misdeed, Jesus reprimanded him, reminding Peter of Jesus' fate--"shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?"

In my mind, Peter seemed incompetent at times, less likely to be chosen the leader of the Church than, say, John, the beloved disciple of Jesus. So, how did he get that job?

In our current message series at Nativity, Tug of War, we are talking about the spiritual battle we all undergo. The message discussed how God speaks to us with specific, perhaps firm, but loving thoughts when we don't live up to His expectations or our talents, but the devil speaks to us with vague generalizations about ourselves, like "you're bad" or "you're stupid" or "you're incompetent." God's message is always laced with mercy; the devil's message is always heavy with condemnation and despair.

This past week, I felt quite incompetent in something I was handling. I had two different strains of thought. The first was "you are truly incompetent. How did you get this job?" These thoughts were vague, too general to be helpful, and full of despair. Later, I had some other thoughts. I thought, "you could have handled that situation differently if you were more merciful to another's situation" and "you could have controlled your tone of voice a bit better" (I also had flashbacks to my wise mother, telling me in my teenage years, "Kathleen, it is not what you say, it's how you say it"). Those thoughts were specific and firm but also laced with mercy and understanding that I am still loved even though I made some mistakes.

The first thoughts I had were not of a godly origin. They were unhelpful, and in fact, sent me in to a few-hour period of feeling angry and not worthy of the job was I charged with. The later thoughts were from God. I know that because they were healing, though not necessarily easy to accept, because I had made some mistakes. And I hate to admit that.

God spoke to Peter as he spoke to me in my thoughts--with a firm, guiding love to help me improve myself. So maybe we can recast the phrase "the Peter Principle." I propose it have a new meaning: that we are human and in that sense, we are incompetent compared to God, but if we listen to his positive yet firm direction, we can be the kind of disciples that Christ wants us to be.

It worked for Peter. Maybe it will work for me too.