Dangerous… Challenges

MON., OCT. 23, 2000, 6:25 AM
FARM, STUDY

You considered, last evening, having a Teaching this morning. You went to bed early enough for a good night’s sleep, and I did wake you early. You got up and went out and “rescued” the ¼ rounds from the rain, slight as it was., but then you went back to bed. So I had to rouse you again, with thoughts of the fraternity initiations, pictured on television… which brought thoughts of both high school and college initiations, that you “went through” and then “participated in as an active.” At your age now those thoughts were disquieting enough to make return to sleep unlikely and… to bring you here. Was I responsible? You know I was.

Most adults would consider such initiations dangerous and unnecessary… but might also feel that it is important for this country to have a strong military, to match the best on earth. But you don’t have a strong military unless there is training that is, at times and in places, dangerous… even life threatening.

The main reason that there are initiations of this sort among the young… and for the young… is the “challenge quality.” As a 14 year old, recovering from fever (scarlet, wasn’t it?) you were initiated into Comus Club by yourself. You were the only initiate… all attention was on you. It was dangerous. You could have been hurt or even killed during that night. There were several dangers… but for you they were challenges. As a rather small boy you had been on a football team the previous Fall. You didn’t play a single minute in an official game, but you were avid in practice. No injuries, but o so many opportunities. Then in your senior year, not yet 17, you played every minute of every game. You weren’t hearing Me then, as you do now, but you now realize I was there, particularly a bit later on the cross mountain country hike to the Church Camp.

You later were initiated into Phi Psi… after going through Navy toughness tests and becoming a football player at UCLA. These were all challenges to a young, strong, but not very big Bob Russell. Later, as a coach, you put young aspiring players through “drills” that were dangerous. (And you wonder if you would have continued in this mode if you had stayed in coaching. Realize that this was one big reason why you gave up that “career.”)

You were a Christian during those years of going through danger and putting others through such experiences. My life as Jesus was not a long, safe one. If I had been “safety minded” I would not have come into Jerusalem the way I did, becoming a “challenge” for the Jewish leaders. But I did. I knew what would happen. It was the challenge of doing “what I had to do” that overpowered the threat of danger. After I was “taken” by the Jews and was tried, “convicted,” and then made to carry My cross to Golgotha I could have “escaped” at any time. I had the power, but this was a sacrificial moment. I died… without saving Myself.

It seems almost ridiculous to compare this with the young man in the TV story, who “chugged” the many shots of tequila… and died… “for no reason.” Would there have been, comparably, “no reason” for you to die of a broken neck on a flood control bank, accepting a challenge in a Comus initiation? But you didn’t die. I did… and it, My death and then resurrection, has been a key event in the Christian faith. Countless young men… even a few old… have given their lives in wars which, actually or symbolically, saved this country’s way of life. Were these necessary? Or were they just “gifts”?

You wonder, occasionally, even yet, if there was some “intent” in your son Peter’s death. He was a reckless, “dangerous” football player. Was this a factor in his death… or was it just “an accident.” You shall know the answer to this, after you “move on.”