Athletics?

SAT., OCT. 19, 1996, 6:01 AM
FARM, STUDY

It now is close to the end of the baseball season and, oh, about the middle of the football time. Volleyball is in full swing, and practice for basketball commences soon. Didn’t you think I, the Holy Spirit, was aware of this aspect of earth life? There is little mention of comparable sports and competition in My Holy Scriptures, but athletics have not arisen against My Will… they are not an evil.

Think back. Consider that I was guiding you and your life well before this active phase of tangible Teachings began. You had enough success in your senior year in high school to give you the confidence to try for… and succeed in… university teams. It was wartime, and it was well before the era of huge football players and swift, black runners. Being an athlete and a part of teams was a great part of your life in the late teens and early 20’s.

Then came coaching and your desire to “give back”… to help young boys have their share of what you had enjoyed and from which you had profited. And so you coached, with some success, but also I led you to Punahou School, where you also had success as a classroom teacher. Your field became health, and this took you to Stanford, but then back to Punahou, with the gift of a final successful coaching season in football, to match those you already had in track. You had other professional and learning experiences there also (some telling you what not to do, as a life work), and you were gently turning toward what We had planned for you.

The years as a young assistant professor at Stanford gave you opportunities for writing, editing, and research. What you undertook and accomplished in curriculum work was helpful in getting you a spot on the writing team of the School Health Education Study. And also be aware that I urged you to begin morning writing meditations… though I was not directly with you then.

When your Department was not to continue there you struggled with where you would go and what your career would finally be, for you were still, then, in your 30’s. You prayed to Me, and the phone call came. You would be moving to this small Midwestern town and to a university with its doctoral program in your field just beginning. Remember, you took over the office of the second graduate of this program of which you have been a part for over 30 years.

And it all began, symbolically, with athletics. You shall watch yet another contest today, still an enjoyable recreation for you. The body contact and the camaraderie were a part of your life that can still be appreciated, vicariously. Your body, at 70, no longer works in ways that would urge you to compete in such sports, but you were an athlete. It was a fine part of your young life, and it was a means to what you enjoy today.

Athletic competition can include Me, and some athletes are active Christians or spiritual persons… sometimes both. I can be as involved in sports, from the playground to the professional stadia, as much as I am in other aspects of life. I rarely affect scores or team victories, directly, but I sometimes respond to prayers of individual athletes… as I do to prayers of others, for help.

Athletics has its seamy, sinful side… as it is, also, with politics and economics. But I can look for the positive and appreciate the ways in which athletics are a factor in spiritual growth.