A Reflection on Simone Biles

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Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka

I was listening to a youth ministry podcast that was supposed to talk about the clash between youth groups and youth sports.  The two typically compete for students’ time and youth groups usually lose.  I was hoping for some insight, to hear something I hadn’t thought of that would help me navigate a very real problem in youth ministry.  It was the most disappointing podcast I’ve ever heard.  The podcasters told me to remember the pressure coaches are under and to be more sympathetic to their situation and needs.  I learned that one of the podcasters played elite soccer when she was in high school and rarely went to church.  My takeaway?  I was supposed to support the coaches and hope that I could catch some of these kids after graduation.  It’s something you can get around to “later.”

Simone Biles showed us what “later” looks like.  At a time and place she didn’t choose, her mental and emotional health demanded she stop what she was doing and focus on it.  What drove her to it was the effect her interior life had on her athletic performance.  Most of my social media world supports Simone’s decision – and I do, too.  I think there are a lot of people out there who know exactly what Simone is going through, because they’ve been there.  We’re giving another look to Kerri Strug’s famous vault on an injured ankle.  It doesn’t seem as heroic as it used to.  Now it seems like it was motivated by a desire to win at all costs, with little thought given to the athlete. 

The NPR headline read, “Simone Biles Now Realizes She’s More Than Her Gymnastics Accomplishments.”  Four weeks earlier, I preached that exact message to a group of 9-12th graders at a church summer camp.  I told them God loves you regardless of how well you do in a sport or a performance.  Any competent youth leader could have – and would have – told Simone Biles that years ago, if her training schedule allowed some church time.  I spend a lot of time telling teenagers there are more important things than money, fame, and power, especially if those things cost you a piece of your soul.  Maybe that soul work in youth ministry matters after all. 

I knew a young lady who was a very talented track and field athlete.  I never saw her compete, but I heard from other sources she was Olympics material.  Then one day she injured herself during a meet.  Badly.  “You may never compete again” badly.  As you can imagine, this was devastating news.  She was angry at the world and began to put up barriers between herself and others.  She had been an athlete for so long.  Who was she now?  She was fortunate.  She got some great medical care and the doctors were able to restore her to the point she could compete again.  I don’t know if she got back to that same competitive level or not.  But she and her family were grateful she was able to compete again.

I am grateful there are doctors who can restore broken bodies.  I am grateful this young lady had the determination and the discipline to come back from a severe injury.  Recovery is hard, painful work and I am proud of her for what she accomplished.  But I wasn’t sure she ever dealt with the question, “Who am I without sports?”  The purpose of her recovery may have been only to take her back to the way things were before.  I know you’re supposed to get back on the horse after it throws you, but before getting back on, it would be good to ask yourself why you’re on the horse. 

“If you do not make time for your wellness, you will be forced to take time for your illness.”  I don’t know who said it, but it’s been proven again.  I am grateful that Simone Biles put soul care ahead of athletic performance, even if failures in her athletic performance drove her to it.  I hope she looks upon soul care as more than a way of restoring her gymnastic skills.  I hope she gets in touch with The One who has always loved her, who sees her as a precious gift, and doesn’t measure her worth in Olympic medals.

Maybe Simone Biles can make a podcast that will tell coaches to support youth ministry and that important work goes on there, so that together we can raise up complete human beings, body and soul together.

Random Thursday for Oct 8, 2020

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[Image is “The Jack Russell Terrier” by Vidar Hoel on Flickr [CC BY-SA-2.0] The dog is cute, but it isn’t Wishbone]

Unrelated comments, in no particular order

Remember Wishbone? My children loved that show and learned about the great books. My wife met the dog that played Wishbone at DFW Airport. This year is Wishbone’s 25th anniversary. Check out this article.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/wishbone-oral-history/

Are the kids who want to stay away from Zoom also staying away from TikTok and Face Time?

A follow up on an earlier post, where John Hagee and Robert Jeffress might be players in their own antichrist scenario. Eric Metaxas appears to have joined the club. He alludes to Revelation 13:4 “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”

Try to stay sane.

Signs of the Apocalypse #2: What’s an apocalypse for?

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Image is “The Unveiling” by Peter Kaminski on Flickr [CC BY 2.0]. I have no idea what’s under there]

Apocalypse literally means “to unveil.”  It’s the opening word of the Book of Revelation, a revealing.  The writer lifts the veil from the world we see to reveal things as they really are. 

Being killed is not the worst thing that can happen to you in Revelation.  The worst is being seduced, giving ourselves over to forces that will destroy us.  Power is seductive in Revelation.  I can think of no other biblical book that deals with the toxicity of power like Revelation.  The seduction in Revelation is to confuse power with truth, worthiness, or righteousness.

You’ve probably heard the quote, “If you really want to test a man’s character, give him power.”  You’ve probably also heard, “Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.” 

Apocalypse means “to unveil.”  We’ve had a lot revealed lately. 

We’ve had pastors reveal their willingness to compromise principle to be near power.  They’ve replaced loyalty to principles with loyalty to a president.

Our Supreme Court confirmation process has revealed a Senate majority leader willing to make his own rules for partisan advantage.  Because who’s going to stop him? 

The pandemic has revealed how politicians will pressure public health officials, compromising science to benefit the politics.

The president has revealed his unworthiness for the office in his expectation that the government will serve his personal interests, rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies.

We’ve seen a revelation about ourselves as a people.  The problem with the president is not his incompetence, his racism, or his lies.  There are incompetent racist liars everywhere.  The problem is that people vote for him.  People uncritically accept his words and interpret his wealth as a sign of his worthiness and credibility.  He’ll protect them from their shared enemies.  People have been seduced.  Seduced into believing that if you have power, you don’t need law.  Seduced into believing that wealth and the power that comes with it are signs of righteousness.

Apocalypse means “to unveil.”  This is an apocalyptic moment not because of what’s being destroyed, but because of what we’re learning. We haven’t made the progress we thought we had against racism, sexism, or any other ism.

– Our Constitutional government isn’t a set of rules, it is a discipline that must be practiced by the governing and the governed.  It’s only as good as our willingness to live by it.
– People will trade uncomfortable facts for great-sounding lies.
– We are looking for permission to give in to our dark sides and we will enable those who grant it.

I am on the record as opposing comparing people to Hitler and the Nazis.  What I really oppose making those comparisons as a first resort, reflexively, without thinking.  I have been thinking and I want to bring up the Nazis.  Work with me. I grew up hearing that Hitler was an evil genius who bent Germany to his will through brilliant oratory and sinister propaganda.  He repeated his lies often enough that people were programmed into believing them.  Hitler supposedly carried out an evil plan on an innocent population.

I think that’s garbage.  I think Hitler told people what they wanted to hear.  I don’t think he was brilliant, just a slick salesman, giving people permission give in to their dark sides.  People believed his lies because they wanted to.  They believed it all the way into a world war that destroyed the country.

Apocalypse means “to unveil.”  The point of revealing is to recognize and resist the seduction of power.  The people in Revelation 13 marvel at the beast and worship it.  But the beast and its followers are destined for a lake of fire.  The kind of power the beast represents does not come from God and is destined for destruction.  Yet we continue to see that kind of power as worthy, virtuous, even godly.  The most important revelation in Revelation is our capacity to give ourselves over to what will destroy us.

These are apocalyptic times.  See what the times reveal.  That’s my take.  In 666 words.

Random Thursday for October 1, 2020

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Image is “Stop Shouting from the Sidewalk” by Torbakhopper on Flickr. [CC-BY-ND 2.0]. Nice shoes.

Unrelated comments, in no particular order.

There’s been a lot said about the presidential “debate.”  Let me add two things:
– Joe Biden said he could handle a bully.  Apparently he can’t. 
– Trump sounded like his debate prep came from the crowd at a MAGA rally.

Here’s something that might help Joe next time, from The Atlantic, How to Win a Debate with a Bully

A tweet from a seminary friend, from 2017

Try to stay sane.

Signs of the Apocalypse #1: What if Jeffress was right?

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[Image is “The antichrist drives a BMW” by gus bus on Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0]. I thought he’d drive something sportier.]

So many comparisons between 2020 and the apocalypse. And maybe they’re right. Look at what’s happened:

  • A world-wide pestilence, disrupting the everything we consider normal parts of life.
  • So much of the west coast is on fire that we see the smoke on the east coast.
  • Hurricanes causing flooding along the Gulf coast. So many of them we’ve used up the English alphabet and we’re into the Greek. There is no plan for what happens if we use up the Greek alphabet.
  • Upheavals and divisions in politics like never before, politicians grooming their followers with falsehoods, and the two sides can’t agree on what facts are.
  • And all of this is hitting us at the same time.

I think Robert Jeffress, one of the president’s go-to pastors, may have been right in his 2014 book Perfect Ending, that president Barak Obama was preparing the country for the Antichrist.  In an interview for the National Catholic Reporter, Jeffress didn’t call Obama the Antichrist, “But what I am saying is this: the course he is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist.”  Maybe Jeffress was right.  Maybe that’s what happened.

I heard John Hagee, a San Antonio pastor, explain how all this will come about.  He said things would get so bad that we’d turn everything over to a dictator – the Antichrist, quite literally an agent of Satan, who would seem to set things right, but in fact would be paving the way for the worst time in human history – The Great Tribulation.  Jeffress makes a similar statement in the interview quoted above, “‘. . . Americans are willingly giving up their freedom for what they’re told is a greater good,’ he said. ‘A future world dictator will assume power under the guise of the greater good of the world.’”

It’s clear that Jeffress and those like him thought that Obama had done terrible things as president, things like allowing same-sex marriage and the passage of Obamacare.  We were headed to socialism in a handcar.  Then along comes Mr. Donald “I alone can fix it” Trump.  He’s the one who will save us from socialism, from foreign hordes streaming across the border illegally, from the gun grabbers, the baby-killers, and anyone else out there to take what’s ours.  We can say a lot about appointing judges and Supreme Court justices, a lot about banning abortion, and a lot about tax policy, but we are going through a time of major societal change and there are people who are afraid their world will be swept away by it.  Literally afraid.  For them, the upcoming election is literally about their survival.  They’ll tolerate a lot of constitutionally and morally sketchy things from someone who will save their lives.  Things are bad and we now have a leader, a chosen one, doing a lot of sketchy things in the name of making the country great again. A deliverer.  Do you see the pattern?

Are Hagee and Jeffress players in their own scenario?  Are they enabling the thing they warned us about?  The most ironic outcome is often the most likely.  Much of what they say about antichrist comes from Revelation 13, but there is a less-popular figure there, too.  It’s often called the False Prophet and it forces everyone to worship the Antichrist.  I’m not calling anyone any names, but if Trump fits the antichrist pattern, then we should look for a false prophet.  It’s there in Revelation.

I wonder why a movement that teaches us that Satan’s agent will work through politics has been so careless with its loyalties.  In referring to antichrist, the letter of 1 John tells us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).  Don’t be too eager to follow what feels good, what confirms your prejudices, what makes you feel safe.  In Revelation, it’s the seductive things that lead us to our doom.  So that’s my take.  In 666 words.

Random Thursday for September 24, 2020

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Unrelated comments, in no particular order.

Things that are worse than slavery:
Bill Barr tells us that stay at home orders are worse than slavery.
Ben Carson says Obamacare is worse than slavery.
Here is a list of a lot of things Ben Carson says are worse than slavery. (How does he know?)
Keep watching this space, more are bound to turn up.

Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
It appears Republicans have discovered the Constitution. Democrats want two wrongs to make a right. And Mitch McConnell can make up whatever he wants and call it tradition. The rule of law is only as strong as our willingness to live by it.

Remember when a Democratic-controlled Senate approved Anthony Kennedy for the Supreme Court in the last year of Reagan’s presidency? What does that do to McConnell’s tradition?

I’m reading What’s the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank. It’s about how people keep voting for politicians who oppose their interests. It could have been written last week.

Germans have an ice cream dish that looks like spaghetti, down to the tomato sauce and parmesan cheese, called Spaghettieis. That’s strawberry sauce and white chocolate on vanilla ice cream. [Image is “I just became aware that Americans don’t know ‘Spaghetti Ice Cream'” by Frederik Hermann on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)]

Try to stay sane.

Encore: Thoughts on LPYC Choir Tour – Day Three – The Bean

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As I’m working on (yet again) restarting this blog, I thought I’d bring back a series I wrote in 2014 about a youth choir tour, originally published in July 2014.  Enjoy.

This is one of a set of blog entries inspired by the 2014 tour of the Living Proof Youth Choir (LPYC) of Christ UMC in Plano, Texas. It isn’t meant to be a summary of the tour, but a set of reflections prompted by events on the trip.

Day Three (a Monday) ended in Chicago at The Bean. Its real name is the Cloud Gate, but no one calls it that. It’s the large reflective sculpture sitting in Millennium Park. The tour logo is “My Life is in Your Hands” written into the outline of The Bean.

bean overview

Travelling to The Bean was a pilgrimage for me. Two years earlier, I heard Amy Krouse Rosenthal speak at TEDxSMU 2012. In June 2008, she posted a video to You Tube called “17 Things I Made”. She showed 17 things she made, then asked people to join her at The Bean at 8:08pm on 8/08/08 to make an 18th thing. She’d be carrying a yellow umbrella.

She expected 40 people to show up. There were 400.

She filmed the event. They made all kinds of things. They made a grand entrance. They made new friends. One guy got a bunch a flowers and passed them out to passersby, so he made their day. The goal was to beckon lovely. There is so much ugly in the world, it was time to focus on lovely, to beckon lovely. They tried to make the most of their time here.

At 9:09am on 9/09/09, Amy returned to The Bean to help people have a lovely day. She gave directions to tourists, gave away gifts, and brought a musician to serenade passersby. It was a lovely day. She made the most of her time here.

At 10:10pm on 10/10/10, Amy called everyone back for another Beckoning of Lovely at The Bean. They shared ten special moments. They found the flower guy from two years ago and gave him flowers, making his day. They jumped for joy. They concluded by listening to a classical quartet play Vivaldi while someone blew thousands of bubbles into the air. They made the most of their time here.

At 11:11 am on 11/11/11, Amy held the final Beckoning of Lovely at The Bean. The theme was: We Are All One. (The video is 11:11 long.) They sang Happy Birthday to all those with birthdays that day, including a phone call to someone whose 11th birthday was on 11/11/11. One of the attendees proposed to his girlfriend. They passed out pillowcases and markers; you were to make a new friend and get them to sign your pillowcase. Amy called up women who had travelled the farthest to get there, gave them matching necklaces, and told them to always keep in touch with each other – and they do. They all made the most of their time here.

Amy took the yellow umbrella she always carried to Beckoning of Lovely and hid it in the bushes in the park.

Amy was at TEDxSMU on 12/1/12. She told us someone named Angela found the yellow umbrella and is holding on to it. She then issued a challenge. According to the Mayan calendar, the world was going to end on December 21, 2012. That gave us ten days, from 12/12/12 to 12/21/12, to Beckon Lovely and Save the World. We all got little yellow PostIt pads and were told to leave little “Beckon Lovely” notices wherever we went. In those ten days, we were to add something lovely to the world and make the most of our time here, hopefully inspiring others to do the same.

Amy left us with this thought: What you seek, you will find. What you summon, will find you.

At 7:55pm on 7/14/14, I arrived at The Bean with LPYC and chaperones. The Bean is the perfect public sculpture because you don’t look at it, you interact with it. I took a selfie with myself.

selfie with myself

Interacting with The Bean means interacting with each other. Everyone was taking photos with friends, pulling people together for photos, and photographing their reflections. We made friends with man who had a lizard. We saw a group of dancers there for a photo shoot. We saw what kind of bizarre reflections of ourselves we could create. As the sun set, we took a group photo in front of The Bean.

david with lizard

It was fitting to start three amazing days in Chicago visiting what is for me a place to connect with others and focus on what is most uplifting. While in Chicago, what we sought, we found.  What we summoned, found us.  We beckoned lovely and made the most of our time here.

Totally true fact: I looked around in the bushes for a yellow umbrella. Just in case.

Encore: Thoughts on LPYC Choir Tour – Day Two – Owning the Music

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As I’m working on (yet again) restarting this blog, I thought I’d bring back a series I wrote in 2014 about a youth choir tour, originally published in July 2014.  Enjoy.

This is one of a set of blog entries inspired by the 2014 tour of the Living Proof Youth Choir (LPYC) of Christ UMC in Plano, Texas.  It isn’t meant to be a summary of the tour, but a set of reflections prompted by events on the trip.

Tour Day Two was a Sunday.  The choir sang for the two worship services at First & Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Missouri.  Their program is a worship service, with hymns, responsive, readings, and corporate prayers in between the songs.  The pastor introduced us, then turned the worship hour over to LPYC.

I attended most of the rehearsals the week before the tour.  Rehearsals recall the old saying that if you like sausage, you shouldn’t watch anyone make it.  Trey, the director, spent his share of time telling the youth to stop talking and put away their phones.  It takes effort to pull a group of high schoolers’ voices into a choir.  Going into the tour, I felt that they knew the music well, but as I was listening to them that Sunday morning, I heard a level of mastery I didn’t hear in the rehearsals.  There’s knowing the music and there’s owning the music.

At the second service, the choir added hand motions to Praise His Holy Name.  It started in the guys’ section and rippled over to the girls’ section.  They loved the song, felt comfortable playing with it, and so they had a little fun.  This was, of course, as much a surprise to their director as it was to everyone else.  But when you own the music, you can make things happen.

Two days later, LPYC sang at New Kingdom Church, an African-American church on Chicago’s West Side.  When they sang Praise His Holy Name, the energy level in the room, high to begin with, doubled or tripled.  When you own the music, you can make things happen.  Instead of ending the song, Trey kept it going.  It was guys only, then girls only, with the piano, without the piano, then going down to a whisper and back up to a shout.  The choir agreed it was their best tour experience ever.

When you own the music, you can make things happen.  When you own the music, the message follows.

A few years ago I sent a survey to our clergy asking how long it took to prepare a sermon, where their ideas came from, who their preaching heroes were, etc.  I was especially interested in how long it took to pull a sermon together.  I thought the more experienced preachers would take less time, and when it comes to pulling the text of a sermon together, that’s true.  But the process of sermon preparation changes with experience.  All pastors read the scriptural text two to three weeks before that Sunday and then mull over the passage, looking for the message they need to bring out.  Experienced preachers know how to dwell in the scripture over that time.  It becomes a part of them.  They learn how to be open to the insights God brings over that time.  They learn how to own the scripture and it shows in their preaching.  They’ve found their voice and are confident in it.

I’ll talk about Glenn Burleigh’s Order My Steps in a later post, but let me say now I woke up each morning with “Order my steps in your Word” running through my head.  In my morning devotional time, I pondered what it meant to “walk worthy, my calling to fulfill”.  When you own the music, the message follows.  It’s a part of you like nothing else is.  That’s why we sing so much of our theology.

I’ve looked on iTunes for recordings of Keith Hampton’s Praise His Holy Name, Mark Miller’s I Believe, and Glenn Burleigh’s Order My Steps that are as good as what I hear from LPYC.  I haven’t found them.  I am, of course, completely biased, but I can’t imagine these songs coming from anyone else.  That’s the other part of owning the music and the message, you’re part of a bond.  I’ll have more on that later.

Great things happen when you own the music.  Greater things happen when you own the message.

Encore – Thoughts on LPYC Tour 2014 – Day One

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As I’m working on (yet again) restarting this blog, I thought I’d bring back a series I wrote in 2014 about a youth choir tour, originally published in July 2014.  Enjoy.

This is the start of a set of entries inspired by the 2014 tour of the Living Proof Youth Choir (LPYC) of Christ UMC in Plano, Texas. It isn’t meant to be a summary of the tour, but a set of reflections prompted by events on the trip.

The first stop on the tour is Springhill, an assisted living facility in Neosho, Missouri.  This tour will take us to St. Louis and Chicago and back.  We will sing for churches, for a children’s ministry, for a homeless ministry, and for places like Springhill.

The choir program includes Christ has Broken Down the Wall by Mark Miller. It works the way most powerful songs work, with a simple melody and simple words. It starts with a solo voice:

Christ has broken down the wall. Christ has broken down the wall. Let us join our hearts as one. Christ has broken down the wall.

The soloist this year is Natalie, who sings as if the song was written for her. I can’t listen to this song without feeling the tears, and they start when Natalie starts. By the end of the tour, Natalie will sing through her own tears.

We’re accepted as we are. We’re accepted as we are. Through God’s love all is reconciled. We’re accepted as we are.

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time in assisted living facilities. It’s a place where your limitations seek to define you. As my mother’s dementia worsened, her needs became greater than our ability to respond. My sister and I placed her in a facility that cares for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, where she lived until her death last April. The same week as her death, my father suffered a severe stroke. He’s recovering well, but he now has to learn to live with a set of physical limitations. He’s living in a facility that can assist him with those tasks he can no longer do safely. I associate these places with limitations, with finitude.

The people here live with finitude. The rest of us know in our heads that we’re finite, but we’re able to go for long stretches without thinking about it. In this setting, I listen to a song that tells me how we’re all accepted, limitations and all.

Cast aside your doubts and fears. Cast aside your doubts and fears. Peace and love freely offered here. Cast aside your doubts and fears.

The idea for this entry came from this verse. It seems that life saves some of its biggest challenges until you’re frailest. Your limitations remind you of what you can’t do. You’ve lost friends and loved ones. It takes a lot of courage to grow old. You get to see those who embrace life even at this stage.

We will tear down the wall. We will tear down every wall. God has called us one and all. Christ has broken down the wall.

They sing this verse with such conviction that I believe they will be the ones to do it. The words change from “we will tear down the wall” to “we will tear down every wall”. The singers may be young, but they understand finitude. There are those with chronic health problems, those who have family members with chronic health problems, and those whose parents have divorced. There are those who bring themselves to church; whose families don’t share in the faith they have found. Being a teenager means wanting greater independence, but not being able to claim it just yet. These singers know about walls.

After the choir sings, the students visit with the residents.  They get along so well, everyone smiling and laughing.  The residents share their stories and the students are eager to listen.  There’s a joke that says grandparents and grandchildren get along so well because they have a common enemy. These high school students and these elderly residents have finitude in common. It’s another reminder of how important it is to have each other, how much we really need each other, how important it is for us to connect with each other.

After all, it’s “WE will tear down the walls.”

This link goes to a video of the song being performed on a previous choir tour. You will see that year’s choir performing at churches, visiting the residents of a nursing home and a homeless ministry, and having some fun.