JEREMY LIN AND THE RANK OF UNDERDOG

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The latest underdog craze is the New York Knick’s Jeremy Lin who’s been lightin’ up scoreboards and testing his mettle against NBA elite just one season after being cut by the Golden State Warriors. But it’s easy to root for a guy who has nothing to lose isn’t it? If he doesn’t succeed, no one really expected him to and if he drops 27 points and 11 assists or breaks cultural barriers or does the unimaginable in his first five starts, then it’s bonus material. That’s what we say but we only root for underdogs because they are the embodiment of ordinary people right?

We produce mythological type images of a unsuspecting hero who defies the odds that daily trample us all underfoot. We love the story too. But there’s something wrong with loving the story of the underdog too much. Have you ever told anyone the unadulterated version of the darkest time in your life? If you have, you know that the listener has trouble with that part of the story. But I think we manage to bedazzle the path the underdog took and focus solely on the current position of a Jeremy Lin. Nevertheless, no matter how romanticized,  Lin’s road to the NBA has surely been grueling on some mental, emotional and physical levels. It had to be or else he wouldn’t be the first American-born Taiwanese-Chinese man to ever play in the league.

I wonder if people see themselves in the unsettling portions of the story not featured on radio clips and ESPN Top 10 Plays. I remember Mike Tyson’s story of being on the streets, orphaned at 16 and arrested 38 times by the time he was 13-years old. He was a magnet of illegality and brutality until his mentor Cus D’Amato got hold of him. And even when Tyson became the youngest heavy-weight boxing champion ever, he was haunted by a horrifying past that would eventually be his virtual undoing.

The point is, whenever you root for the underdog, if you see yourself in him, it should bring you to a place of reckoning. To be a “dark horse” is to step to the crossroads with strange confidence. The crossroads is in what you will choose to pursue, to attempt, to endeavor. So many times in life we find ourselves undrafted (unwanted), cut (disposed of), in jeopardy of being released (fired/laid off). This is usually the back story of a long shot. It is also why, the journey is more important than the destination. Underdogs attempt the incredible. Most of us don’t.

The dark horse must earn his/her title. If we won’t blaze a trail, we aren’t fit to be called underdogs. We have a way of admiring from a safe distance instead of choosing to replicate character. And we do this because it’s easier than becoming like the underdog in his/her submission to pain, rejection and potential demise. We have a euphemism for not risking failure and it’s called “realism.” We leave the significant acts of humanity to the caste of heroes and heroines while we sip diet coke. But who are the underdogs of history except Goliath’s David (a shepherd), Shirley Chisholm (a female immigrant with Carribean roots), Mohandas K. Gandhi (an East Indian), Martin Luther King Jr. (an unassuming pastor), etc. Were they realists? If we see ourselves in Jeremy Lin, it must mean we are willing to prepare for and attempt something big. Otherwise, we have nothing in common with him. Lin is just another guy who figures he’ll take as much as his God, his skills and his situation will afford him.

NAKED AND ASHAMED: PART TWO

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NAKED AND ASHAMED: PART ONE

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GOOD AND BAD FUEL

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DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS

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My students recently read a piece from the Power of Nonviolence, a personal narrative about a man named John Lewis who participated in sit-ins during the 1960s. A lot of kids questioned the notion of nonviolent protest, said they seemed to lead to violence because the Gandhis, Throreaus and Kings of the world ended up assassinated and/or jailed. Jesus Christ is also in this category of misunderstood leaders whose earthly life ended because of suspicion, fear and brutish corrective measures.

And so in reading with the kiddies, I naturally was led to think about how the unfamiliar scares people to death, literally throughout world history. When movements, particularly the nonviolent sort, are squelched, it is often at the hands of weapons and because of a latent fear. Someone or some entity is afraid of losing power, money, status, etc. but the consummate preventive solution is always manually silencing your opposition.

When all else fails, you shut people you don’t understand up with force…I guess. And so it resonated when I read a devotion prescribed to me by Prudence Dancy (Renewed Living Ministries), a friend whose very life revolves around spiritual formation. Her prescription started me off in I John 3:1 and the second half of that  verse says, “…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” And I thought, shoot…seems like people malign what they don’t fathom. It’s like the sixth grader who thinks math is dumb because he’s rockin’ a D-minus.

Tim Tebow (Denver Broncos) professes faith in Jesus Christ, clearly exposes a motive bigger than football for his lifestyle and people find him perplexing. And honestly, people just found him intriguing because when a rabbit foot is on a roll, people want to know where they can buy one. He was 6-1 as a starter and most recently had helped his team when a slew of games in unorthodox fashion. But he’s not that interesting at all, just unrecognizable because when people listen to him talk, it sounds like mumbo jumbo, gobbledygook nonsense. But truth be told, it’s not maniacal, especially if it drives a millionaire to espouse charity, compassion and mentoring. What’s weird about that? But it is uncommon and strange enough for a cynical world to cry foul when they see individuals willing to risk reputation and well-being for core belief.

I think the unfamiliar can be immediately polarizing like the issue of segregation pre-1964. But strangeness can also be faddish and cult-like as people lift their glasses while watching admirable people proclaim truths that should govern us all. But whether the culturally virtuous weirdos of past and present arouse violence or entertain, I realized that this tendency of people to make fun of morals and debunk spiritually driven people is based in fear.

Loving enemies, forgiving, ridding your thought life of adultery and poisonous anger are the types of things our society says are ridiculous. Because what would life be like without our self-medicating? We legislate our arrogance, our right to comfort, our right to remain silent on controversial issues, etc. We’re afraid of making people mad at us or jeopardizing illusory ease we conjure up for family. But the strangers of history probably weren’t trying to create a pantheon of Hall-of-Fame martyrs. God makes no sense to most people but neither does a V-8 engine for most of us. I get it now. “…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” If you’re going to stand for more than situational ethics like the heroes and heroines of history, you’ll have to be outfitted with the grim truth that you will not be understood. Why should you be? The guy who invented truth didn’t make it to his 34th birthday.

DISLOYALTY

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I’m a confirmed disloyal individual, I think. You might be as well. Far back as I can remember I’ve been giving people reasons to not like me. I’ve often thought that people can like the you they make you out to be but the minute you disappoint??? Now you’re the brotha they love to hate, as Ice Cube once coined it.

So it stands to reason that you need only to fail to fulfill expectations to become “that guy.” People are loyal to ideas (usually their own), money (usually due to an obsession with comfort) and idols (usually the thing they’ve come to value/worship the most). Consequently, if you’re going to be adored in this world, you’d better align your activity with one of the previously mentioned big three. Ideas, money and idols get projected via a pretty blatant exchange. We transact  loyalty for loyalty all the time.

But me? I learned a long time ago that if you’re not loyal to those big three people think you either don’t live in the real world or that you are selfish. I’ve been labeled everything from selfish to crazy to ungodly. But I, like you, have determined that loyalty belongs in one place – unchanging principles. It’s an easy saying up front but hard on the back end. Because it means if your brother robs a bank, you admit he deserves prison even if his motives were noble. It means that when your daughter is being menaced “by dem mean gurls at skool” you don’t march down and start swingin’ fists at little kids. The truth is that the world works on this grand scheme of loyalty networking. But if you’re brave enough, character driven enough and can handle losing the approval of many, you’ll actually only be disloyal to evil. And that can’t be so bad can it?

PARIAHS OF SPORT

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Aren’t Tiger Woods, Michael Vick, Joe Paterno, and Kobe Bryant unforgiveable? These are the men of scorn in athletics with the recent addendum of Penn State University’s beloved Joe Pa. And what makes a pariah? Well, here’s what happens: people who think they’re better than the heinous, notorious all-stars find rest in positions of judgement. And then poof…PARIAH.

And this is not to say that having certain behaviors be deemed unacceptable is a bad thing. All it takes is a loving parent to tell you how they feel about absolutes when it comes to protecting the innocent. And by-and-large the world frowns upon marital infidelity. And it’s also generally uncool to wantonly abuse animals right? Right. But when a pariah is formed, the world breathes a sigh of relief because it suddenly, and momentarily, can stay feelings of ultimate failure. There’s a lot to be said for being bad but not the worst culprit of evil. After all, you might think an illicit thought but at least you didn’t “sext” message women to whom you weren’t married.

But ahh the pride before the fall. The pariah can create a diversion from oneself as superstar sins drift beyond personal feasibility. In simple speak, focusing on the Mount Rushmore of ethical infidels makes us think our “poop don’t stank.” And I’m not talking about the pundits. I’m talking about a world of regular folk who drive themselves to work and make less than $100,000 a year. These people look down their noses at the people who fall from grace and say, “I’ve never and I’d never…” Trouble is, “We’ve always and We’d definitely…”

We do not believe in redemption though we love redemption stories. We are not a rehabilitative culture because some of our funniest jesting involves references to Robert Downey Jr.’s Betty Ford Clinic fame. Ricky Gervais had me roaring with that one. But seriously, when the big guns go down, the guys who are worth billions, we are mortified and appalled. We wonder, ironically, how the humans we turn into idols fail us. Why do they behave so strangely? Better question is, “Why do you not behave as they do?” What will stave off your barbarism? It’s a vital question because if not answered, you will become the poster child for hypocrisy. Neglect the source of your ethics and morals and you will vacillate between nobility and treachery. You will not throw stones from a glass home but rather from the living room of one through your own windows. The pariahs of sport are signposts but we treat them like exceptions. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a log in your eye and your son or daughter’s eye too. But it’s cool. Logging is dangerous work but there’s an unseen reconciler who specializes in it.