Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.
~~~~~~~ Yogi Berra
Ok, one more personal anecdote, despite yesterday's promise. I'll try to make it short. The summer I turned 19 or 20, I inherited the job of coaching a Little League team in my little hometown up in the panhandle. My dad agreed to help me, and while his fund of baseball knowledge was far superior to mine, he had gone blind by then so I couldn't exactly put him in charge of pitching BP. Anyhow, three kids and one mom taught me most everything I know about communication and leadership in a 60-day crash course, lessons I've tried to remember to this day.
This mom had two boys on the team. One was a great big ol' kid, 12 years old; the other was a scrawny 8-year-old who didn't belong at that level. I mostly tried to keep the little one from getting hurt at practice. After our first game, I'm sacking up the equipment down in the dugout, when a beautiful sunset was blacked out by the looming presence of this mom, towering over me. It was like a biblical prophecy. "Yew know what I'd do if I was yew?" she drawled. Going with our Bible theme, I began to pray that the earth would swallow me up, but she says "That little un of mine, he don't belong here. We gotta send him back to the minors. And that big un? You need to kick his butt." I started to protest, but she interrupted "No I mean you gotta kick his butt; it's the only thing he understands."
I said three boys. The third was very different. He came from what we called back then a "broken home." His parents were divorced. He was a great athlete, but reaching him was very different. If you raised your voice in criticism, you lost him. You could see it in his eyes, in the cloud that formed over his little face, producing a rainstorm of tears. If you had two functioning synapses, you knew never to let that happen again. Like Pooh and Piglet from yesterday's Gift, you had to touch this kid. You had to put a hand on his shoulder. In those days you could hug a kid without getting turned into CPS or going to therapy. He responded mightily.
And the big ol' kid? I stopped just short of taking a bat to his thick skull. His mom beamed, and he hit 12 home runs on the season.
One size does not fit all. Each of us is unique. On the days we feel too dumb, too old, too...whatever, we'd do well to remember that "...we are the clay...He is the potter, and we are all the work of His hand." He knows how to communicate with each of us, in a way that speaks to US, whether we need our butts kicked, or our hand held.
Take the field. Who can I reach today, by taking a different approach?
May you know the blessings of Peace.
NT
Ephesians 2:10
Dedicated to Allen Jones, who was truly unique.
