Saturday, September 22, 2012

A Prayer for Civility

I need to provide a little background for this post.  I'm really not a big fan of discussing politics, and I've become less of a fan over the last few years with the negative tone that all political ads, debates and discussions have taken.  There has always been contention and fighting between the parties, that's the way the system was designed, and for the most part over the years, it seemed to have worked.  The goal always seemed to be the greater good, but maybe I was just too naive.  Maybe the goal always was to make yourself look better, or better yet, make your opponent look much worse. 

Anyway, the tone from the two parties has been largely negative, and in the era of continuous and constant connectivity, it has spilled over into our everyday lives and in all of our communication.  Whether it's news feeds on the internet, television or social media like Facebook, we get a constant barrage of negativity.  Very little "my candidate is the best because ..." or "my party has the best interest of the country because ...", but negativity or personal attacks on the various candidates.  OK, I'm not telling anyone anything new here, I realize that.

Where it really hit me was when two of my cousins, who I love dearly, started sniping at each other on Facebook.  While politics can be and will be contentious, it doesn't have to be personal.  When I saw the posts back and forth, it reminded me of hearing the stories from history that talked about brother versus brother fighting in the Civil War.  So, it inspired me to a Prayer of Civility, that is not affiliated with any political party, it's bi-partisan, not endorsed by Fox or MSNBC, not affiliated with any particular religious denomination.  And it goes something like this:

"Gracious God, I'd like to lift up the following people to you in prayer, and ask you to look over them and help them see their way through these difficult times. 

I lift up to you, President Obama and Vice President Biden and I ask that you look after them as the Republican National Committee and groups such as Fox News and the Tea Party unleash their venom of hatred and lies toward them during this election year.

I lift up to you, Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan and I ask that you protect them as the Democratic National Committee and groups such as MSNBC and MoveOn.org attack them with vicious attacks on their personal character and beliefs during this election year.

I lift up to you all of those people that use you and your son, Jesus Christ, and try to align their party with what you would have us do.  Help them to understand, Jesus would never be a Republican, He would never be a Democrat, Jesus was a radical, and He would be appalled at anyone trying to align their political agenda with His teachings.

I lift up to you our nation as we have grown more and more into worshipping other names besides yours, names like Prada, Gucci, Lexus, Nike, help us to see that the worship of things, and the money that buys those things, is very short-sighted and short-lived.

I ask that you help some of us to see that not everyone who is on welfare is on welfare because they are shiftless and lazy. 

I ask that you help some of us to see that not everyone who is rich, or corporations that are rich, are greedy and self-serving.

I ask that you help some of us to see that just because someone is different, a different religion, different national origin, different sexual orientation, different race, that doesn't mean that they are inherently evil or bad.

I ask that you help our politicians see that compromise, working together, listening to one another, isn't a weakness, it's a strength.  We're all in this together, and the only way to grow and improve this nation, and our world, is through working together.

Finally, Lord, I ask that you help me to walk the talk.  It's easy to say all of these things, but it's much harder to live them.  Help me to practice what I preach.

In Jesus name, I pray, Amen."

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Death of Sandlot Sports - And So Much More?

Many, many years ago, I remember we used to go up to Scharman Field everyday during the summer for pickup baseball games.  We'd have a handful of kids show up, someone would have a bat, someone would have a ball, some would have baseball gloves.  If you were lucky, at least one person was left-handed and had a left-handed mitt, if not you'd have to wear a glove on the wrong hand.  When you'd go from the field to batting, you'd throw your glove to a guy from the other team because you never had enough gloves to play.  You'd always end up with an odd assortment, various kids you didn't know, never enough to field two full teams.  You'd pick up teams, sometimes an even number, sometimes not, usually something like five against five.  For those who understand baseball, traditionally, it's nine against nine.  When you have five against five or less, you had to get creative.

You'd have a pitcher, two infielders and two outfielders in the field for those times you were lucky enough to have five against five.  Right handed batters could hit to center field and left field, left handed batters could hit to center field and right field.  Outfielders would shift from left field to right field when a left handed batter came up after a right handed batter and vice-versa.  If you hit to the wrong field, it was an automatic out.  The team at bat would have to supply the catcher.  For those times you weren't lucky enough to have five against five, sometimes you'd have imaginary runners.  Sometimes, if you didn't have a first baseman, you'd throw to the pitcher to get the person running to first base out.  You'd then have to judge if the runner beat the throw or not.  You'd have to judge whether the imaginary runner beat the throw or not.  You'd have to imagine ....  Ah, you'd have to imagine.  We imagined so much, we'd imagine we were Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Bob Gibson.  By the way, I was always Vida Blue.  But as usual, I digress.

As you can imagine, there would be many points of contention and argument.  Did my imaginary runner beat the throw?  That hit to the outfield, was it directly to center field or slightly to the wrong field, meaning an out.  We threw that guy out at the plate, but your catcher dropped the throw on purpose!  We'd argue and argue, and eventually we'd come to an agreement, and go back to playing.  Or not.  Sometimes, we'd end up fighting.  Sometimes, someone ended up with a bloody nose.  Sometimes, you'd have a kid, who brought the ball or bat, get mad and take his ball or bat and go home.  Then, of course, the game ended, we didn't have a key ingredient to play.  More often than not, that didn't happen, we all had a vested interest in the goal - playing baseball.  We'd play until lunchtime if it was the morning, until dinner in the afternoon and until it was too dark to see the baseball in the evenings.  We lived to play baseball.

Years later, when I coached soccer, I'd always let the kids just play for the last 10-15 minutes of practice, instead of doing drills.  I'd say "no rules, just play, have fun".  Most of the kids could do it, they enjoyed the lack of structure and the chance to just play.  But you had certain kids that just couldn't handle it.  Every couple of minutes, they'd come over to me complaining that the other kids weren't playing according to the rules.  I'd try to explain to them that there weren't any rules, they were just supposed to have fun, but they couldn't deal with it.  They wanted or needed a grown-up to tell them how to play. 

We've given our children complete structure now for sports, set practices, coaches there all the time, parents at practice, parents at games, referees for games, set times, set positions, structure, structure, structure.  No creativity, no negotiation, no fighting, no imagination.  We want to control everything for our children, "protect" them, and in the process, we've taken away their ability to grow and learn and develop their skills for their future grown-up lives. 

I've been wondering lately, is that the problem we have now in our government?  It used to be, or at least it seemed, our political parties could work together.  Sure, they would argue, they would fight, they would bloody each other's noses periodically, but they figured out a way to work together.  They practiced the Stephen Covey approach - seek to understand, before you can be understood.  In the end, they had a vested interest, the good of the country.  It really doesn't seem that way anymore.  It seems like they are looking for someone to tell them what the rules are and how to play fairly together.  They are focused on their own good, their own party's good, and not the good of the country.  In the end, they are willing to take their bat and ball and go home, even if it means the country suffers for it. 

Maybe we need to dump all of the fancy uniforms, the fancy shoes and gloves and bats, the leagues, the "select" programs, the coaches, the referees, and most of all, the parents, and let our kids play again.  Let them grab whatever tools of the trade they can pull together, meet up at the local field, pick up some teams, and just play.  Maybe then we'll develop some future leaders for this country that know how to negotiate, compromise, do what's best for the good of all, and build a better country, and world, for all of us.  I can only imagine.