Life between victories

First written for inklingz.net, July 2009. Lightly edited; the original site is gone.

I have two inkling-s posts outlined in my trusty notebook, but got home today and found something that struck me as more important. There was a catchy quote on a small envelope in my mailbox. I read it twice, my interest piqued—but I guess not enough to open it. Distracted by my other mail and without really thinking about it I threw it down on my dining room table, got myself ready for a run and headed to Central Park.

Back from my run, I sat down to eat—and the envelope was still staring at me. Its invitation reads like a tiny prayer:

"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

— unattributed

I keep coming back to the two halves of that line. Win, or lose well. Those are the only options it can see, and for a long time they were the only two I could see either. I think that is why I left it lying there—the second half had already asked me something, and I would rather run than answer it.

Once the wrapping was off, I could see the mailing was an appeal from the Special Olympics. The gift inside is a picture of a young man, red-headed, pale and freckled like me. He has a medal around his neck and his hand held high above his head, obviously in the joy of triumph.

Two things gripped me. The first is that we're really not so different—this boy and I…or you and I for that matter. We all want medals and moments of triumph. We all want to be loved. We all want to sense that our lives are somehow meaningful.

Yet, I am personally so quick to dismiss others as not smart enough, not good looking enough, not successful enough, not something enough to deserve my time. God is challenging me in this lately and I am trying to see people as image bearers of God—each one made, known and valued by him.

The second thing that struck me is harder to say, and it isn't that I am too fond of winning. Most people are fond of winning. What I do with it is the problem. I use it. Every medal goes into a file I keep on myself, evidence submitted in a long-running argument that I am worth the space I take up—and the run in the park, the work, the being useful to people, all of it goes into the same file. Which means a loss is never only a loss. It is a verdict.

I used to read the second half as the escape hatch. It isn't. Bravery in the attempt goes in the same file—it is just a thinner piece of paper. The prayer gets me as far as a better exhibit, and no further.

At the Jordan, before a single miracle has been worked, a voice over the water says, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). Nothing had been submitted yet. That voice reaches me only because the Beloved Son went into that water and on to the loss my file deserved—and it reaches me only in him, accepted in the Beloved, adopted and made a co-heir (Ephesians 1:6; Romans 8:15-17). I keep submitting. The verdict came down before anyone opened the file.

Christ went down into our weakness and died in it. That is not a consoling idea offered to people who are losing; it is something that happened. And Scripture keeps staging it that way. God sends Gideon against an entire kingdom with three hundred men whose hands are full of trumpets and clay jars, and says why, right out loud: so Israel cannot boast that its own hand saved it (Judges 7:2). It has to be that lopsided before anyone will admit whose hand it was. That is Israel and not me—but it is the same instinct, scaled down to one man and a file.

And I look forward to the day when everything broken is fixed—not because hope suits my temperament, but because a body came out of a tomb. That makes the repair of bodies a matter of time, not of outlook. Jesus' miracles were signs of creation being set right—eyes made to see, ears made to hear, decay reversed. God's ultimate promise is that He will complete this restoration, returning a state of shalom—complete peace and well-being—to this broken world.

That promise is guaranteed, but life tells us it has not yet been fully realized. Until it is, we live with the unnaturalness of disabilities, sadness, pain and death. The unnaturalness is in the condition and not the person; what is promised is the completing of a person, not the erasing of one.

So the boy in the photo surely has many struggles to come, hopefully with a few more victories in between. I was going to write that he shows more of God's mercy and love through his life than I do through mine—but that is still a ranking, and all it does is move him to the top of it. The truer thing is plainer. He and I stand under the same promise and need the same hand. His weakness is visible and mine is not, and he has less reason than I do to pretend otherwise; that is the whole of the difference, and it is not a spiritual one.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth…"

— Matthew 5:3-5

Three of the eight, and I notice I stopped there. Mercy, purity, peacemaking come further down the list, and those ask something of us. These first three ask nothing. They are not qualifications to acquire; they describe people with nothing left to submit. The empty hand comes first, and the rest follows from it.

As for me, I am not sure a resolution is what this calls for. What I keep landing on is that the medal was hung around my neck a long time ago and not for anything I ran—Christ took the loss and handed over the victory. I believe that the way I believe things I have been told. I have not stopped adding to the file. But the envelope is still on the table.

Incidentally, the Special Olympics is raising money, but they are also encouraging attendance at competitions around the country. It's a chance to communicate to participants that they are special–whether winners or losers of the games.

I'd like to go and watch, and cheer, and not be taking notes.