Winning, Towels, and Family

Winning and losing. Keeping score. Maybe I'm just a competitive guy, but any personal interaction can feel like a head-to-head. Comparisons are made and I attempt to find in what arena, or in how many, I am superior to another person. That's pride--I struggle to keep it in check. But relationships can be similar. Keep track of what happened: perhaps it will be worth making into a highlight real. Count the score: you have to know where you stand, if you're getting ahead. Make sure you come out on top; make sure you win.

It turns out that is type of thinking is diametrically opposed to the mind of Jesus. Take a fleeting glance at his life, and you will see giving, serving, sacrificing. "Love keeps no record of wrongs." That is why it is hard to be like Jesus. Not because it's complex--it's surprisingly simple--but because it is so divine.

I recently re-listened to a podcast of Selected Shorts entitled "Figuring It Out." The story there is one of my favorite short stories of all time, Ron Carlson's, "Towel Season." It's very apropos because it takes place in summer suburbia. What I enjoy almost as much as the story is an interview with Ron Carlson at the end of the reading. His life motto is, "Make haste to be kind." I love that his stories reflect hope and intentional kindness. He says of his motto, "There's no time to waste. If you have to cross the street [to be kind], do it."

Would I rather "lose"? It's so hard to choose kindness and love sometimes--you feel like you're giving up so much of yourself to do it. They cost. They don't give a glorifying sense of victory. There's no vindication in them. But they are right. They are good. I guess in the end I choose to be the "loser." I hope in doing so I'm choosing to be like Jesus.

"Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" (Tolstoy). Poor Anna Karenina. How tragic to live the life of duplicity and heedless chasing after the wind. But don't we all do it? Don't we all "fight [Jesus] for something I don't really want" rather than to "take what [He] gives that I need"? We just hope that somehow there won't be train wheels waiting to crush us at the end. I confess that I spent years of my life doing it. I repent of being a poor leader and a distracted follower. We all must jump off those tracks of selfishness--it's easy enough to look down the line and see where they lead--and follow the new course Jesus offers. I somehow don't think there are rails for that path. I think it sometimes feels like you are pulling the entire train's cargo through the sand to follow him, but even the struggle (at moments of true clarity) seems worth it.