THE TROUBLE WITH JESUS TALK

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Talking openly about Jesus Christ puts me in either the crazy camp or the Christian camp. Am I the only one? It’s gotten so complicated to actually be CHRISTIAN because of connotations, mythical expectations, spiritual caste systems and the like. I have an MA in Theology which means nothing to non-Christians and perhaps too much to “church folk”. It’s like the smart athlete dilemma. The nerds hate the jock who’s smart because…well…And the jocks don’t totally take the nerdy athlete seriously because no one does both. Analogous is the Christian who drifts between secular and Christian realms with fluidity. I feel like that drifter which sounds like I’m a relativist but hey…PAY ATTENTION. The Jesus we look more closely at on Good Friday seems to have been a drifter, moving effortlessly between two earthly worlds while placing utmost importance on his connectedness to the Father.

I have always had an insecurity issue which I’m sure comes out in these posts and that is what has made it hard to talk about Jesus. It gets easier though having learned how to compete and stand ground in athletic contests. I just hate how talk of Jesus is either lunatic talk or elite banter. When I relied on Jesus all those years I struggled to find my identity through basketball, I wasn’t trying to be in a club. I was just desperate, even more than now perhaps.  I would have these genuine experiences with Jesus, the kind so real and yet so unexplainable. Other times I would see that the fruit of those experiences was a confrontation with gross injustices like child abandonment, hedonism and greed. My anger would invariably put me at odds with people on the Christian side and the “other” side. To one group I was graceless and sinful in my determination to combat the evils so intensely and to the other I was just a prude who loved to judge other people. All I know is that I believe in Jesus and the spring festivities that come with honoring his sacrifice. I’m cool with whatever camp that puts me in. BTW…He is the 6ixth Man and you’ll likely spend an entire lifetime figuring out when to bring him off the bench. T.G.I.G.F

GHOST OF STUDENT PAST

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The rich and the poor have this in common…they both prefer rich over poor. One of my former students is a USC Trojan now and she was on Facebook earlier today when she accidentally started a chat conversation with me. I quickly released her of any obligation to talk to me. I know how awkward it is to “butt dial” someone and then feel like you have to hold a meaningful conversation. Nevertheless, she said she was glad for the impromptu conversation. It was close to time for a class so she didn’t have long to talk, just long enough to remind me that, “Adults…,” as she distantly referred to us “never seem to do the things they have passion for.” I hope she doesn’t sue me for libel but that’s pretty close to her quote.

Needless to say, it led me to a question I’ve been asking for too many years to count, why money matters so much. People say it doesn’t but the lifestyle of most people in the lane next to yours says it does. I wish my conversation with my former student had lasted a bit longer. The wisdom came swiftly as if from “Jaga” the old Thundercat spirit who guided Lion-O and his band of brave feline hybrids on Third Earth. (Pardon the cartoon reference from my childhood…waited a long time to work that one in.”

At any rate, my student seemed disgusted that everyone makes the means of money and end all. She basically said “Good for you Mr. Coulter for doing what you are passionate about…” and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I’m just as nervous, stained with avarice and opportunistic as other adults until the Lord reminds me to offer my gift whatever it is.’ There’s a practicality to living on this Earth but my former student cut to the quick as if to unknowingly check the teacher – Get ya mind on something that really matters Mr. Coulter. Alright already. I stand haunted and humbled. FIGHT ON!

KIDS WHO DON’T PLAY AROUND

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Phoebe Prince has gained posthumous notoriety, the kind we could all do without because it is attributable to her abuse by peers and ultimate suicide. The accounts I’ve read and watched say that Prince was bullied in the “cyber” fashion as well as the old school way – that is, physically. Nine of her peers at South Hadley High School, in Massachusetts, have been charged with a number of crimes that carry life-altering penalties. Parents are outraged and administrators are now being blamed for not stepping in.

Enter my two cents. Prince was 15 years old when she hanged herself in the stairwell that leads to her apartment. That was on January 14. And despite having known people to attempt and commit suicide, I always wonder what makes a person do such a counter-intuitive thing. At what point does a person forfeit a lifetime because the looming gloom of daily high school life is so ominous? Why does envy lead to predatory actions? Why are one out of four students bully targets? The questions are endless and to a degree, moot. If we think about it, isn’t the culture at large riddled with behavior that makes people think bullying is a survival skill, the “better you than me…” philosophy personified?

I hear the counterargument from people saying, “You can’t blame suicide on a bully.” But odds are, if you say that, you ain’t never been bullied homie. I can attest that when the bullying is repetitive and daily, extreme solutions become attractive. You’ll do anything to stop the bleeding so-to-speak. We’re a bully culture aren’t we with are emaciate runway models dictating to the mass of women. Poor people pretend to be rich and then whet the appetites of the crabs in the barrel by bragging about what they have. People compete for the same lovers, as if there’s a shortage, using seduction to disintegrate marriages. We are masterful bullies religious folk included. But when our young people perfect the craft we act surprised. We’re not surprised; we’re alarmed because when Phoebe Prince dies, it’s not just kids being kids. Now there’s consequence and we hate consequence.

I’ve learned much from my time in high school as a student, teacher and coach. I surmise that administrators are about as removed as you can be from much of the social subculture at school despite being on campus. To understand what goes on in the pressure-filled world of a student you have to infiltrate. You have to be an insider, gaining the trust of the students by leaving your door open at lunch time and inviting conversation. You have to have crossover appeal to the bully and the bullied and provide a haven away from the constant comparison/contrast rat race that is American society. Best believe that there is bullying in the bloodstream of our country. The need for a transfusion is apparent with every statistic, one of which says that more than 100,000 students carry a gun to school for fear of being bullied. I got an idea…take the lenses off when you look at your children, your students, your players. Teenagers are not kids and everything they do is not cute. It’s not about sticks and stones and words hurting. That’s a given. The new conversation concerning bullying is about not passing the buck to the victim and saying, “kids are weak these days.” Accountability is the reprise. Or else, sooner or later bully victims and their sympathizers will wage a war the likes of which we haven’t seen.

RESOLVE in a VACUUM

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The New Jersey Nets have 10 wins and 64 losses on the season but they celebrated not setting the NBA record for most “L’s” in a season. The word RESOLVE comes to mind because I was up ’til about 2 a.m. writing about it last night. One of the pillars in my  curriculum for coaches is the R-word which literally means “…firmness of purpose or intent…”

When you’re the worst team in the NBA throughout a grueling 82-game season, where do you find the resolve to compete? What is the purpose collectively or individually? If you’re not a marquee piece, you know your job isn’t safe. After all, you’d probably fire yourself if you were the general manager because it’s bad business to gainfully employ people who no one wants to watch. But what’s the purpose found in the midst of a 10-win season with six of those being home victories?

Maybe a better question could be asked of the college or high school team with the same woes. There’s a pretty hefty monetary incentive to keep your head up in the NBA but purpose has to be extremely clear when you’re a laughing stock. I can’t get my head around it unless I find something analogous in my own life. And the analogy is literally elementary. I think the New Jersey Nets find resolve the way I did in the mid-to-late 1980s as I was bussed to a better school more than an hour from my inner-city home. The purpose was simple: SAFETY, A BETTER EDUCATION, a WAY OUT of POVERTY. So when I was occasionally called a “nigger” by a kid or when I envied the clean streets of the neighborhoods adjacent to the school, I stayed motivated. You can be 10-64 and still feel like a franchise building a championship roster.

ALLEGIANCE ISSUES

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Today is Monday to some and nothing more. Christians of all denominations are in a season, however, that illuminates the sacrificial suffering of the most famous competitor of all time. If you thought, “Lebron…” I appreciate your humor. Jesus Christ is the name and he’s the game of the week.

The funny thing about the Christian religion and is how it polarizes households, marriages, communities, politics and arguably the world at large. There’s disputes of earthly proportion that have flooded the air waves and the topics that trend online. But back to the competitor in question. The history of Jesus’ crucifixion holds that it was a penalty administered without cause and this made me think. Actually, I felt literally like God was speaking but I was about to say, “I thought” because I still have pretense in me and fear of being considered a weirdo. Nevertheless, I was upset about an encounter I had with someone recently because I felt the person snubbed me. It was more like the many conversations we probably all have where you seem to do all the listening while the other person raves about their life. All the while, you’re playing verbal “Double-Dutch” waiting for the perfect place to jump in with your tidbit. I didn’t get my tidbit in so I was salty.

Later that day is when I felt like Jesus reminded me of what happened to him, or better yet, what he rendered willingly – his life. There was not the slightest allegiance to this world. My problem is that I pledge allegiance to the validating symbols of our age. But the truth is that the best competitor knew his opponent well. Suffice it to say he would have hardly had one day ruined by the driver giving him the finger, the snub by church goers who act superior, the racists who allow indoctrination to betray intelligence, etc. Jesus is never described as petty in the scriptures because he wasn’t. I am petty, however, and many other things that reek of allegiance to the game played on Earth. May the Passion of the Christ continue to work on my game.

ALL SALES FINAL

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Brazil was one of the many places that taught me how much I needed to stop pretending.

I never considered myself a salesman until I left my steady 9-to-5 to create my own. I sell something that’s hard to define but it includes reputation, transparency, self-awareness, stuff like that. And the beauty of my product is that it’s dependent on who I am and who I am becoming. One act of adultery, one con, an ounce of intentional pomp and my product is ruined. I sell the notion of a constantly transforming self and my conveyor belt happens to be basketball.

I reflected on this during a conversation with a friend this afternoon. I said that my business actually holds me accountable because if I’m not learning from the lessons in my own life, I’m a fraud. There is no 6ixth Man if I’m not the 6ixth Man; at least there’s no company that I can respectfully run. Even claiming to be credible as a consultant for character formation is like taking the clergy mantle. It’s the bullhorn to complement the bulls-eye I painted on my chest when I said, “I’ve got something the world needs.” Start a business, sell a product and that’s exactly what you’re doing and that’s all the more reason to make sure that the thing you’re selling is the thing you would buy and are buying yourself.

Like the rest of the world, I’m no stranger to the people who proudly adorn the “business person” label all the while raping and pilfering unsuspecting consumers. Millions earn their living writing a bill of sale for a bill of goods but now that I actually sell something, not a day goes by that I don’t concentrate on making the product I sell a living organism. “How can I submit to the truth today?,” I ask. What about tenacity, resolve and motive for competition? Am I addressing these pillars in my own life? Hopefully the answer is yes because the moment it’s not, I’m done. There’s selling out and then there’s selling yourself. Who knew the latter would be so risky and so liberating.

The BIGGEST little things

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Ah the little things and the joy they bring. India Arie sang about them and last night the Atlanta Hawks benefited from them. If you’re not a basketball fan you may not know exactly what a blockout is or why it’s so important but this I can assure you, it is necessary. Josh Smith and his teammates make for one of the NBA’s most high flying acts. They’re the athletic team you don’t want to play as the season comes to a close. They all bounce, except for Mike Bibby. But last night, with the score tied and seconds on the clock Joe Johnson takes a shot from the left baseline side of the hoop to win the game and misses it. Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic comes over to help on the shot but when the shot misses and takes a high and opposite bounce, my man Josh Smith flies in with the left hand and smashes. That’s game…Hawks.

My college coach always told us that professional players often forgot to do the little things necessary to secure a victory. He said that they take plays off and that NBA coaches harp on the same details that he would bore into our skulls at practice. I was foolish as a youth thinking that the pros have millions of reasons to play the game perfectly and with efficiency. But the older I get the more I believe my college coach. Heightened skill and acumen doesn’t make you more diligent anymore than increased salary graces you with better manners. Dwight Howard made a basketball mistake by leaving poor Rashard Lewis to block out not one but two Hawks. And though we never say one man can’t lose a game that’s code for the press conference. If you skip a detail that you’ve practiced a million times because you zoned out, were apathetic or felt like taking your chances then your sense of competitiveness needs refining. Better focus on the little if you want the big.