| No Eraser Score Keeping is Scary |
February 6, 2000 |
The pro throws down a golf ball, says, "Tell me the purpose of
the game..."
Said, "To hit the ball..."
The pro says, "Nope...the purpose of the game is to swing
the club. When you swing the club correctly you have mastered the
game, and any ball that gets in the way will be directed correctly by
that swing..."
Master the swing.
Read Mark 1:29-39
Could it be that Jesus was getting stressed? A Maalox moment?
Consider: In one day, Jesus is teaching in the
synagogue, healing Peter's mother-in-law, healing the
sick, and casting out demons, dealing with
crowds...more healing, more casting out. And here's
what pointed out the stress in the text..."...a huge crowd of
people from all over Capernaum gathered outside the door to
watch."
(Mark 1:33)
Ever been watched? Observed?
Want to cause me stress? Watch me while I work...don't say
anything... just watch me.
I feel measured, examined...hurried, anxious...
I once watched a man put a new exhaust pipe on my car. He custom
bent and shaped every piece with a special machine. I found it
fascinating.
As he wrote up the bill he said, "If you don't trust a
man to do a job don't ask him to do it." He
found my presence, my watching him, to be obtrusive.
So, the next morning, while it is still dark, Jesus slips out of
the city to find some solitude in a "deserted place."
It was what he needed to do.
And it is what thousands of people do, often early in the morning
when they go out with a bag of clubs and play a round of golf.
Something about going early in the AM before our soul has been
pummeled by the world around us...
When Jesus went to a "deserted place," he prayed.
That's not what most golfers do when they set up on the first tee,
unless it is a prayer concerning their slice.
And there is no way the experience of golf can be equated with a
deeply spiritual, mystical experience.
But there are some lessons for our spiritual lives to be learned
from both Jesus' flight to a quiet place, and a golfer's drive to the
green.
These are lessons which have already been noted by a number of
people, Lee Trevino, for starters.
He may be known more for his swing than for his spirituality, but
he grasps something significant that Christians everywhere ought to
consider: "There are two things you can do with your head
down -- play golf and pray" (The Golfer's Tee Time
Devotional [Tulsa, Okla.: Honor Books, 1997], 79).
Let the golfers among us say, "Amen!"
Certainly the faithful on the fairways this morning would like
their putting to count as prayer.
But before we scoff at their spiritualized slicing and chortle at
their Christianized chip shots, consider this radical proposal:
Golf can be spiritually therapeutic, and as a game, offers some
significant insights into how God wants us to live.
Is this a joke? A setup for a sarcastic slam against
"golf-course spirituality"?
Not at all.
Golf can teach us a great deal about life -- in fact,
psychiatrist M. Scott Peck argues that golf is "life
condensed," a game that contains many spiritual and emotional
challenges in a small amount of time and space.
People persistently line up to shell out big dollars for the
raging golf phenomenon because, quite frankly, it's good for their
souls.
Not great for their wallets ... or even their moods ... but for
their souls.
In his book Golf and the Spirit: Lessons for the Journey
(New York: Harmony Books, 1999),
Scott Peck asserts that
golf -- next to marriage and parenthood -- can be the greatest of
life's learning opportunities.
As a psychiatrist and a Christian, he knows firsthand that we are
willful creatures living in a world that doesn't often behave the way
we WANT it to -- much like a golf swing.
He also senses that how we deal with the hazards of life is quite
similar to how we deal with the hazards of a golf course (61).
I started playing golf at about 16. Played a lot. My
curse on the course has always been a slice. At first when I
would have a bad swing...even though I was the one who swung the
club that directed the ball incorrectly... I would look around and
try to blame those with me for my failing at my swing. They talked
wrong, they made noise, etc.
You could tell exactly where I was
in maturity by watching how I dealt with the hazards on the golf
course.
For example, golf is the finest possible training ground for
humility. No, take that back:
It's the best training ground for HUMILIATION.
If you've ever picked up a club, you know that is the Truth with a
capital T.
Golf is a game that pushes players to attain perfection in
driving, pitching and putting -- a goal that is clearly unattainable
for human beings.
Even the greatest players in the world hit some ugly, awful,
embarrassing and just plain bad shots.
The reason this lines up so clearly with our spiritual
life... in golf we can see the article about correcting our
fault, with pictures, in Golf Digest... we can
get out our club and go out and practice in the yard... we can
consult a pro who gives us good advice and gets us to a new place in
our game... and yet, on the course...there it is
again... our fault.
And while I don't enjoy being humiliated, I do need it. It's a
part of spiritual growth.
In the Christian tradition we have a word for this...
kenosis, which means
"self-emptying."
In Golf, my experience is that it is only after many attempts
at change that the change finally comes... making
small changes each time I swing the club.
In the Christian discipline of kenosis, we are
challenged to get out of our own way and empty ourselves of anger,
self-centeredness and false hopes.
To be specific:
- Be attentive to the hazards ahead of you,
but empty
yourself of your fear of them.
- Strive to do your best,
but empty yourself of your concern
with your score.
- Learn from every mistake,
but empty yourself of any shred of
self-hatred for your imperfections.
- Compete,
but empty yourself of shame that you are not
measuring up.
- Play to win,
but if you fail to do so, empty yourself of
any remorse (283-284).
- Use your mulligan.
- Take an unplayable lie.
- Play one hole at a time.
Golf also convinces us of the inescapable necessity of
teachers.
Whether we admit it or not, we all need help with our game,
and we should welcome the friends, mentors and teaching pros that
God sends us when we need them.
Mentoring is an especially fruitful form of guidance because it
carries with it a form of unconditional love -- when a mentor
reaches out to us, we are accepted as we are and are
empowered rather than simply instructed (24).
Getting away to a "deserted place" can keep our
lives in balance and bring us closer to God.
In such a place, whether it is on the golf course, the lake or
the backyard patio, we can be reminded to live in the tension of
life the tension between our yearning for perfection on the
one hand, and our tendency toward imperfection on the other
(61).
But golf, especially, can help us to empty ourselves,
remembering
that the point of self-emptying is not to diminish ourselves,
but to make room within ourselves for something new and
unexpected and life-enhancing and divine.
Scott Peck admits that he used to be enraged at himself for failing
to be perfect,
on the course and elsewhere.
But one day he had an experience on the golf course that opened
his mind to new possibilities.
"I was paired as a twosome with a man my own age,"
he recalls.
"He was a top-ranking executive of a golf products
corporation and, befitting his profession, a superb golfer with a
single-digit handicap.
He was also a gentleman... a gentle person who exuded a
peace from within that was calming to be around, and
therefore one I was unusually open to learn from.
He taught me several worthwhile things about golf that day, but
the most valuable was on the 15th hole, when he noticed that I was
depressed after a triple bogey on the previous hole and, as a result,
continuing to play poorly.
'You know,' he commented mildly, 'we have an expression
in golf: "One hole at a time"'(225).
A light bulb went on for Peck.
In other words, Don't become obsessed with the past.
Don't become paralyzed by concerns about perfection or
imperfection.
Forgive yourself. Unburden yourself.
Love your imperfect self in the same way that God loves your
imperfect self.
Play the game of life one hole at a time.
Are you able to do this? It's called being present in the moment.
Were you awake last night worrying about something coming up?
Did you sleep poorly because you were carrying something from past
games?
Part of Spiritual development is to discipline ourselves to play
one hole at a time.
The pro throws down a golf ball, says, "Tell me the
purpose of the game..."
Said, "To hit the ball..."
The pro says, "Nope...the purpose of the game is to swing
the club. When you swing the club correctly you have mastered the
game, and any ball that gets in the way will be directed correctly by
that swing..."
That is the spiritual life... you are not to do one
thing...be righteous, or go to church, or sing
loud or anything... take care of your swing...work on
grace flowing through you and everything that grace touches will be
directed correctly...
Jesus said it this way,
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else will fall
correctly into place."
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