Of course, that changes when something bad happen. Tuesday night Fitchubrg State hosted Nichols college in an otherwise ordinary early season non-conference matchup. Nichols is pretty good; Fitchburg isn't so much. The game was pretty uneventful, except that Fitchburg was making a late run, led by the truly excellent play of transfer Kewan Platt. Platt will now forever be google connected to the elbow he delivered, seemingly unprovoked, to the face of Nichols freshman Nate Tenaglia. If you follow sports even remotely, you've probably seen the video somewhere.
It was pretty vicious and ugly. Platt checked to see if the ref closest to him was looking before he delivered it, but failed to notice another ref nearby (or the webstream cameras that caught the whole thing). Tenaglia was in pain, obviously, but did and does (so far) seem physically unaffected. He passed a concussion test and hit both his free throws, following the foul. The Nichols team should get immense credit for responding so coolly and appropriately in this matter. Platt got ejected from the game and has since been removed from the team and banned from campus until official processes can be executed.
It got out on Twitter first, with all the various ugliness that comes with just about anything on Twitter. From there, the general consensus was that Platt should never be allowed to play basketball again and should probably be arrested. It likely was assault, although courts have to make that distinction, which they might do - another D3 player was arrested and received a one year suspended jail sentence for punching and stomping on another player and helping to incite a riot at a game last year. Hockey has had some similar issues with violence on the ice, as well as other sports from time to time.
I am a bit baffled by the severity of the reactions, though, even after you discount the Twitter factor. There's been time for discussion, both in person and in more civil, relational online forums, to talk about Platt's elbow, and people still seem pretty set on this moment ruining the kid's life.
First, I should say, I'm all for consequences, although I've written before on this blog about how easily we confuse consequences with punishment in this society. I don't think shame should be a consequence, though, especially an outward, national shame. Being ashamed of one's actions - maybe disappointing family, friends, and coaches, yes - but having national public shame heaped upon you doesn't feel like an appropriate consequence for an action that was extremely localized.
Fitchburg State will do what they do and the school's athletic conference will probably have a say. I hope those are fair and gracious processes not unduly influenced by the attention this has received. Schools are about shaping people and it's really hard to do that if they people aren't there. Every coach talks about shaping women and men of integrity and responsibility, but at the Division III level there's almost nothing else to do. Yeah, win basketball games, but those don't get you much on their own.
I don't know the context, obviously. Platt could have a long history of violence and this is a final straw. Schools can't have violent, angry people roaming around campus; that's not good for the formation of people either. Of course, I don't know if this is indicative of something deeper or just a one-off terrible decision. It's not really my place to even find out.
I do think we should recognize though, even if this isn't a pattern, that kind of violence is indicative of some kind of impulse control problem. That usually stems from some kind of mental trauma or illness, in which case shame is about the worst thing to help someone improve. Platt needs more people on his side than ever - not excusing actions, but offering help and support. I can't see how any of the internet traffic really helps that.
Yes, my site reported on it. We got video (hopefully with more context than the six second that went around Twitter) and we did background work to understand as much as possible. It's news; it happened. We can't shy away from admitting difficult truth, just because it hurts somebody. That's the balance. Recognizing there are consequences to our actions, but also refusing to dehumanize a person or define them by their actions.
We are not what we do. What we think, what we believe, what shapes and forms our understanding, those things are evident only in our actions. But we, as people, are more than just what we do. To define a person by their actions is to dehumanize. Kewan Platt is the kind of person who can elbow a guy in the face and walk away; he'll have to live with that and deal with that and it'll be hard - but we can't say any of us is inherently different. We can't say, given the same set of circumstances - from childhood to relationships to genetics to whatever - that we wouldn't do the same thing. That's humanity.
Now, providing a reason is very different from providing an excuse; we often get those two things confused in society as well. It's always wrong to hit someone. I'm a firm believer in non-violence. I don't think anything justifies what Platt did, ever. There is no excuse for that kind of thing. There are always reasons, causes. We have to be careful not to equate causes with excuses.
Immediately after the video started circulating, a lot of the comments were, "what did the white kid do to deserve that." We justify violence as a response to violence. We do it all the time. I get that it makes sense to some people in some contexts and I've certainly written about violence in other posts; there's not time for that discussion here. What those comments do, though, is recognize that actions depend on context.
We see less fighting in basketball than we used to see. We're less tolerant, so that may have something to do with it. We've also got this global social media platform that amplifies the violence that exists. My freshman year of college, a friend and I drove ten minutes down the road to watch our basketball team play a local rival. During the game, an on-court altercation ensued that really exploded. Eventually people were coming out of the stands to fight players and each other; it was a pretty terrifying experience. We told the story. We moved on. I don't think the local paper even covered it. Times change.
If both players had gotten shots in, we'd be having a very different conversation. It wouldn't have gone viral at all. People get mad playing sports. Adrenaline is running and emotions are high. Earlier this year there were NBA suspensions from punches thrown. It's rare, but not uncommon, even in basketball. It was a defenseless, unprovoked elbow to the face; that's worse.
Is it this much worse, though?
We tend to justify those things we could see ourselves doing and vilify those which seem foreign to us. The gap between the two, though, isn't as wide as we make it. In fact, it's razor thin. A hard foul during a basketball play is a response many might deem appropriate for a perceived slight. If Platt had been tripped or terribly insulted, more people would've come to his defense. It's all about perspective... and context.
I've never been in a frat, but I did go to college in Boston. I've seen some violence from drunk frat boys on a Friday night, maybe even an out-of-the-blue sucker punch or two. You hit a guy in a bar, is it even a 50/50 chance you get arrested? That's assault, but it's not always handled that way.
This wasn't a racial incident, but when you're talking about violence, crime, and punishment in our society, race does matter. I don't want to see another young black kid get his life derailed because of a really terrible decision like this. It's just harder to "learn" from this experience and move on if you're black, especially if Platt ends up with a rap sheet because of it. Anger management is a skill you learn in your teens and 20s. Some kids learn it more easily or more thoroughly than others. The patience we have with people as they learn this skill doesn't have to be dependent on race, but sometimes it is. That's just the truth.
I don't think this kind of behavior should ever be excused or justified or forgotten or swept under the rug. I'm just not sure what the end game is here for all the shame? Do we feel good about someone being "worse" than us? That says more about our own guilt and inadequacy than it does about Kewan Platt. It does feel good. I'm sure if you went all the way back in my Twitter feed you'd see some shaming I'm not proud of, but I'd like to think I've learned over time. I'd like to think we all can. I want to believe we can be better, more caring, more compassionate and understanding people than we were yesterday. I'd like to think that of Kewan Platt, too.
Violence creates two victims. Always. It shapes the life of the victim in ways they don't deserve or ask for. It also shapes the life of the offender, regardless of the consequences. In both cases, the only healthy response to violence is knowing, believing that we are more than what we experience, more than what the violence tells us we are.
If we're willing to call Kewan Platt "trash" or "worthless" we might as well just wish him dead, because we're writing off his future. For so many people, the future is determined by the mistakes they make. It doesn't have to be that way for any of us. We don't hear it enough, but we can be something different than what we've been. We have to be, or there's no point to life.
Nate Tenaglia is really the only one with standing to address Kewan Platt. Yeah, his coach and school and family and friends have a responsibility to address what he did; those actions come with consequences. But they, like us, really have one choice: to do what's going to help him be more than he was Tuesday night. Shame doesn't do that, no matter how much it feels like the right way. We've all had enough experience with shame to know that life itself is just a succession of second chances.
It's been a week since the election. The first day or two were terribly emotional - that's how people react, both positively and negatively. There's been a lot of negative. People aren't coming together the way the United States typically does in these times. I've spent a sizeable chunk of the last week talking with upset people, hurting people, angry people. What I have to say are my words and they are knowingly filtered through the reality that I am an educated, straight, white man. While I can't understand all of what many around me are going through, I do see what they are going through and feel the need to say something.
If you think it's the wrong thing or the wrong time or I'm the wrong person, I apologize; you are very likely correct.
With regards to this election, there are real two levels of upset that don't seem to be speaking to each other. People who held their noses and voted for Trump (those who did so happily and with glee can really stop reading; this is not for you) have often said, "he's not going to do the things he said he would," but that misses the point. That statement is one of policy and policy is not at the root of the anger and discontent.
Don't get me wrong, people who don't like Donald Trump's ideas are apoplectic. He wants to build a wall, perhaps limit who can enter the country in ways some find unconstitutional. He has a tax plan that benefits the rich over the poor and expands the deficit with some vain hope that the third time's the charm for disproven economic theory. People don't like his suggestions for the Supreme Court, for the Cabinet, for how to handle his own personal conflicts of interest.
But in the end, those are just policy decisions. It's not like he's the first politician to suggest any of them. He's not. Not even close. People are upset about that, the same way those on the losing side of any election rue the future their now-empowered opponent will bring about. If this were a typical election, "get over it" would be the call of the day - and it would be appropriate. In a Democracy, the people speak, even if a majority of them spoke in a different direction. The system is not fair, but it is universally unfair.
People might be upset about the things Trump said he would do (even if you believe he won't do them), but people are hurt by the things he said - about women, about minority groups, about the disabled: about people. Trump took aim at all sorts of people and even if he was singling out one woman or one disabled reporter or one particular group of immigrants, many, many, many people saw themselves in those abusive remarks.
People did not see Donald Trump as just some guy with policies they dislike (in fact, a surprising number of hurt people I've talked to this week don't much mind many of his policies), but as a guy who's a mean, abusive, cruel, sexist bully - not a person they can respect, even if they agree with his policies. Too many times I've heard someone say, "I can't believe my mom/brother/friend would choose the Supreme Court/abortion/taxes over me." For the hurting people out there, this election was not political, but personal (even beyond the ways proposed policies might personally impact people).
I understand that those people who voted for Trump did so largely for reasons of policy. Whether is was the Supreme Court or abortion or taxes or corruption, most of the Trump votes were votes for some policy that is more likely to happen with him than with Hillary Clinton. I think those angry friends and relatives out there understand those things, too (even if they disagree with you on them) But, as I said, this is not the issue. In the end, I don't really care what you think about any of these things; I might disagree with you on some of them, but they're not worth getting angry about or damaging friendships over.
What is more difficult to stomach, though, is that people I love and care about found these things, particular issues, policy, so important that it was worth overlooking the vile nature of Trump's words and actions - and, perhaps worse, his patent refusal to apologize for them. Even after the election his justified those words with his victory - as if any means of achieving a desired end are good if they succeed.
No ends, no matter how good, righteous, holy, or important, mean enough to justify the means, if the means are Donald Trump.
That's the quandary. That's the divide which people must now bridge if there is any chance in calming the storm or finding unity. It is NOT about what policy you might approve of that I don't - it's about the guy you voted for to get those policies enacted. As I said, I'm the educated, white male in this room - the outrage is only mine by proxy.* I don't have the deep seated personal hurt that so many women and people of color feel right now.
To me this great pain is a sad illustration of what I've been saying and writing all along - we take this process far too seriously. It's not that elections and governments can't be avenues for us to live well in the world and take care of each other, but they MUST NOT become the only way by which we see paths to do this. Real relationships are in jeopardy - both because some people overlooked serious moral and ethical deficiencies in the name of progress, but also because some people have put such (false) hope and faith in the goodness of this nation that their worth was wrapped up in election results.
That is not to say people shouldn't be mad or hurt, that relationships shouldn't be strained by this election, but that we must be committed to working through them with honesty and humility.
There is an argument that Hillary Clinton is no paragon of virtue - and that may be true - but I don't see people upset that someone didn't vote for Clinton, simply that people did vote for Trump. Whether those votes were in spite of his nasty rhetoric, they enabled it and piled hurt upon the people hurt by it. God may have no hierarchy of sins, but the consequences of such are simply not the same. Lying and corruption are not the same as misogyny and assault - they're just not. They have a different bearing on our relationships with each other.**
Another response is that Clinton's policies would be so corrupt and morally bankrupt that she had to be stopped at all cost. That argument is one of policy and while it might be a good one on its own merits, it skirts the real issue of hurt and harm - because we've seen what "at all cost" actually costs. It costs the emboldening of the alt-right and their white supremacist brethren. It costs fear and abuse for women and minorities across the country. While we can be unified in our opposition to such results (and, as I've said, Trump voters especially need to be more vocal and more frequent denouncers of such things), there is hard work to overcome the very real (if unintended) support a Trump vote gave to these people. "At any cost" has a face and it's a familiar one to many of us: wives, mothers, daughters, friends.
That hurt is real and it's not going away.
It's perfectly acceptable to say "wait and see" or "give him a chance" when it comes to policy. That's the rhetoric we're hearing from all sides and, honestly, I think most of your friends and family who are upset can come around to that idea. The policy stuff hurts, but it'll pass. But those hatemongers showed up within minutes of the election - emboldened by the words of our President-elect (not to mention his subsequent appointment of one of their champions to his White House staff). Donald Trump may say, "stop hurting people," but he's yet to denounce the views represented in these hateful crimes, the same views he espoused on the campaign trail and refused numerous opportunities to take back.
I get that people can't be entirely divorced from policy, 1) because policy is intrinsically linked to words and attitudes, and 2) because people really believe in the ultimate value of the policies they support. I do make the distinction, though, because we must understand each other if there is any hope of peace and reconciliation.
If there's anyway forward we must be able to listen to each other - to hear why some policy was worth electing Trump and to hear why no policy could ever be worth it. As much as we don't like it, we should probably also admit how easily we could be on the other side of this divide, how utterly simple it is to overlook personal failings for what we believe to be a greater good, and how easy it is to demonize someone for it.
That doesn't remove responsibility, though. Its not that your friends and neighbors think you're a racist or a sexist, but people felt personally attacked and when the people they loved had the opportunity to defend them with their votes, they didn't; they chose policy over people. There are consequences to our actions that cannot be covered up with good intentions. When we've hurt people we love, we cannot minimize those feelings. We can't say, "I didn't mean to" or "I meant something different," because even if those things are true, the hurt still happened and it has to be acknowledged in order to heal. I suspect the President-elect will be learning that lesson along with his supporters in the weeks and months to come.
I hope the cost of this victory is not too much for our society and our relationships to bear.
*I'm disappointed in this election for sure - and I resonate with many of the things I outline here, but I'm not surprised by this election. I'm saddened that my tribe, evangelical Christians turned out with a record percentage for Donald Trump, but I've spent my adult life dealing with theology and studying scripture. It's no surprise that the people of God choose power over patience; it's always been that way. What breaks my heart are the people, many of whom I love, for whom this reality is just now dawning. This post is not about me, but I feel I have to say something.
**And if you need proof: ask yourself if you feel towards your Clinton-supporting friends the way they feel towards you. It's not just a personal failing that correlates perfectly with voting record or results. Both sides of the comparison may be rotten, and they may be equally bad when it comes to policy, but with regards to people, it's rotten apples vs rotten oranges.
That argument ultimately lasts until it passes from your mouth to someone else's ear. Even if you're not on board with the "my truth is my truth and your truth is your truth" movement, you almost have to admit that everyone is going to have a slightly (or drastically) different perspective on what's true - AND none of us is going to get it completely right. I do appreciate the effort, though. I do think we should be seeking absolute truth - we just can't look at it propositionally; doing so is basically an exercise in absurdity.
What we need to do instead is understand truth relationally. Truth is not some abstract notion or idea or principle - truth is that which extends between two people. The way we treat others, the way we act, tells everyone all they need to know about what we hold true.
This is where a lot of Christians get in trouble - well, religious people in general, really - it's certainly not limited to Christianity. We sometimes get so worked up trying to defend (to others and to ourselves) our notion of truth that we equate our understanding of truth with actual truth. What's more we do so by seeking to prove some truth claim by another person to be wrong or faulty or imperfect. In doing so, though, we betray another truth we'd rather not own up to - in short that being right is the most important thing, that being right comes before showing love and grace to others.
At its core, Christianity hold that absolute truth is Jesus Christ. Truth personified - that idea even came out of his mouth. Christians believe that truth is not an idea or a concept or something to be mastered or defended - truth is a person to know and by whom to be known. Truth is inherently relational. We need to treat it that way.
Jesus never went out to crush the ideas or perspectives of others, he only really had criticism and challenge for his own people - the religious leaders of the day. He was holding people accountable who were already part of his own group - he wasn't challenging strangers or seekers with some propositional knowledge. He just sort of loved people. He did a lot of forgiving, often in ways and places where it didn't always seem wise. He was gratuitous with grace.
This is something we forget when we make truth propositional. We forget that real truth is not a concept, but an action. Truth is living out what we believe to be true - living in imitation of Jesus, seeking to live in peace and value everyone for the human being they are - a human being made up of actions and experiences uniquely formative of that particular individual.
Perspective does indeed matter when it comes to truth. We can only really approach truth when we recognize and respect the perspective of another. Yes, there are certainly propositional values that are important to Christians, but they're not learned for their own sake, but out of relationships - both with God and with the world (and the people) around us.
So when people get up in arms about "defending the truth," I think, "the truth is fine on its own; it doesn't need defending." What the truth needs, though, are people who believe it enough to live it out. That might make a real difference in the world and, who knows, might actually help other people find the truth themselves.
I've put a summary together of the history of this particularly difficult situation - you can read it here.*
NPH is back running again, much smaller than it was before and with a still tenuous future. They've got a new, streamlined board, one without the typical close ties to denominational hierarchy. They will present a report to the General Board. From what I've been told, this report will be kept private, perhaps only presented in Executive Session. I hope, hope, hope, I've heard wrong.
This sort of privacy is what got NPH into trouble in the first place. Handling things behind closed doors has been a long tradition in the Church of the Nazarene and we've really paid a price for it. Furthermore, while that sort of behavior may have been the norm within all sorts of corporate structures in the past, it's just not true anymore. People need transparency.
I recognize a lot of good, well-meaning people made some terrible mistakes in all this mess. More public statements and transparency will make their regret and embarrassment more pronounced. It's honorable to want to protect them as much as possible. But the truth is, those mistakes have been made already. We know what they were (at least we've got a pretty good idea of it). I'm well beyond the point of anger at any one person. I don't want anyone fired. I want our broken system fixed.
We don't have any sort of whistle-blower policies in place at our denominational headquarters. People who know of problems are afraid to bring them to light. That has to change. We've operated on relational trust more than hard facts, where things get done by handshakes and connections. That works, to some extent, when you're small and insular - but it's not going to work anymore.
The structure we have in place no longer serves the best needs of the denomination. The Board of General Superintendents exercises far more power in practice than they have by polity - that's dangerous for even the most holy of people.
I've been told decisions about the future of NPH and how to handle the problems of the past year will be left in the hands of the General Board. They'll decide what is made public and what is kept behind closed doors. I'm a little skeptical, to be honest, since the BGS and the General Secretary typically set the agenda for these proceedings and have been less than open during this process. I hope the General Board will make the choice for transparency. We've got some dirty laundry in the family. It's sad, but true. It's time for us to lay it out in the light of day so we can heal and move on.
In the narrative summary linked above, I put forth a request for some sort of Truth and Reconciliation type procedure, whereby those involved can explain their part in the NPH matter and be forgiven. People don't need to be raked over the coals. No one expects our leaders to be perfect. The Church of the Nazarene is full of love and forgiveness. We simply need to know what exactly happened, why it happened, and how we're going to prevent it from happening again.
I don't need to agree with the direction my denomination's leaders go, in fact, I probably disagree more than I agree. I don't need to agree, but I do need to trust. I need to trust that our leaders, our structure, and our process is functioning ethically and efficiently and, most importantly, in the mode of Christ. I'm just not convinced of that.
It pains me to say it, but it's true. The NPH affair involved massive monetary losses, but the response has been mostly an attempt to smooth over the problems, not fix them. This might be the largest scale issue we've faced, but it's certainly not the first. Without changes in structure and process, clearly outlined, with means of accountability, it's difficult to believe the same problems won't creep up again.
I don't expect the General Board to make huge changes. It is responsible to wait for the General Assembly, but we need some signal that it's being taken seriously. Having the NPH report presented in private is the exact opposite of what's needed. I hear that NPH report might contain some unflattering opinions about the actions and attitudes of the denominational administration towards NPH. That could be difficult to hear, but those grievances need to be aired.
If we really are the family we so often claim to be - I've seen first hand how Nazarenes from around the world can meet and find common acquaintances within minutes, an impressive feat for a denomination of 2+ million - we need to be willing to have the tough discussions, live with disagreements, work together. But to do so, we all need to be in on the conversation. Yes, we elect representatives to run things, but we don't elect them to shield us from reality.
If anyone has survived in the Church of the Nazarene for any length of time, it's because we love this denomination and the holiness ethic around which it's built. We want to be a strong force for good in the world. No one wants to see us weakened. We love the Church of the Nazarene. We love the publishing house that's supported and nurtured it for so many years. We love our elected leaders, who execute some of the most difficult responsibilities imaginable. And because of that great love, this just can't be left alone. We can't sweep another problem under the rug and hope for the best next time.
Let's put it all on the table, cry and grieve together, forgive and forge a new path to better enable us to be the people God's called us to be in the future.
*This narrative was shaped and formed by a lot of conversations over a long period of time. It's been amended and adjusted considerably over time. Much of the documentary evidence forming the outline of this narrative can be found linked from this page. I may still have some things wrong. I would love to be in conversation about where this narrative can be further refined to better reflect the reality of the situation.
Rice apologized, his wife sat by his side; even her father showed up to the press conference, affirming that the family loved Rice and would work through the pain together. Coaches, friends, media members all came out in support of Rice, who does not have a history of criminality and seems to be a responsible person. He did not shy away from the truth, owned up to his wrongs, and professed a desire to fight domestic violence in the future.
Earlier this week, video from the elevator came to light. I haven't watched the video; it seems like something I wouldn't enjoy. Consensus says it shows a professional athlete knocking a woman unconscious and then seemingly be more upset he has to do something with her body than that he's hurt the mother of his child.
Almost immediately, the Ravens terminated Rice's contract and the NFL made his suspension indefinite. The Ravens contend the video shows exactly what Rice described to them in an earlier investigation, yet the visceral pain of seeing it on film made them change their mind about an ongoing relationship. To muddy things even more, the NFL claims the video does NOT match the story Rice told them and, by inference, is accusing him of trying to hide the truth.
Adding even more fuel to the fire, Rice's now-wife, continues to be vocal about her anger with the Ravens, the NFL, and the media. Her contention: if she's moving past the incident, everyone else should, too. She might be completely sincere, then again, victims will do almost anything to prevent further victimization; it's just impossible to know.
Listen, hitting your wife is never acceptable. Hitting anyone is wrong, as far as I'm concerned, but there's near universal agreement that physically assaulting someone weaker and more vulnerable than you is cowardly and vile. No one is going to excuse what Rice did, and, despite what I might say about media coverage, this shouldn't be swept under the rug. People don't need to pipe down.
I do suspect, though, we'd all benefit from taking a step back and a deep breath before diving in for round three.
The NFL has ridiculously bungled this debacle in every way imaginable. A lot of the media attention is rightfully focused on how the league is handling the fallout. I'm less concerned about this, mostly because everyone else is concerned (at least) enough to get something done.
I'm struggling with exactly what kind of message we're sending to people.
Yes, Rice needs to face the consequences of his actions - something he's at least said he's willing to do. Shortly after this incident, the NFL released new guidelines for domestic violence - a six game suspension for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second - which have so many loopholes they really mean nothing. I'm fine if Rice misses a whole year for this. Josh Gordon is sitting out a year for smoking pot a few times - that offense and this one aren't even measurable on the same scale.
I think it might be too serious a penalty, but if Ray Rice can never pay football again, he certainly can't complain an injustice has been done. Part of confessing and submitting to discipline is the loss of control. It comes with the territory and if Ray Rice is the kind of otherwise stand-up guy everyone seemed to think he was six months ago, then he'll be prepared to do just that - even if he disagrees with the punishment.
We have to send the right message to our children. Our sons and daughters need to know what to expect and how to act in a relationship. Too many young men think it's ok to dominate their partner and too many women agree. Part of the reason I'm happy to have this ongoing public conversation is simply because it needs to be had. If this allows even one person to question their own abusive relationship, it's worth it. Yes, it's unfair that the Rice's private pain needs to be so public, but this is just the kind of public service to combat domestic violence Rice claimed to want to dedicate his life to doing. It's a worthy uncomfortableness.
At the same time, it really feels like we're throwing Ray Rice away. His team - the only team he's ever played for, the team that stood ready to back him up - has tossed him away. The league has made him a pariah, the media is portraying him as essentially worthless. As much as I want my daughter to know what to expect from a partner (and how to treat one), I also want her to know that when she makes mistakes, even big, giant, public, unconscionable mistakes, that her family will stand beside her. We may not shelter her from the consequences, but we'll walk with her through them.
Right now, no one wants to be anywhere near Ray Rice - and that's going to be bad. It'll be bad for him, for his wife and daughter, their extended families. It's bad for his teammates and for society at large.
We've become such a throw away culture that the air of disposableness extends to people. Our celebrities are fictional - they are personas, specifically created to tell a story and make money. We don't really know the people we so desperately want to know. This makes them easier to throw away. If Ray Rice is never on TV on Sunday or on Jimmy Fallon's couch, is easy to believe he no longer exists.
When an NFL player is caught using drugs - not PEDs, but real drugs - when an NFL player has a problem with addiction, be it alcohol, cocaine, or painkillers, the league provides a ridiculously comprehensive treatment plan. They do everything they can to show the player, despite the suspension and loss of income, that they actually care about their well being (the sincerity of that care is a topic for another day - cough, cough, concussions).
Maybe the league will take similar action with Rice. Perhaps they will, once the PR storm dies down, come alongside him and his family, provide counseling, accountability, education, and a path to redemption. If so, then why not make that clear from the get go? They haven't even talked about supplying help to Rice's wife. If she wants to get out of this relationship, it'll mean heavy court costs and a vastly different lifestyle than the one she's become accustomed to. An abused wife doesn't face a fair fight against a rich and famous husband - at the very least the NFL could be on her side.
Ray Rice can't be thrown away, because Ray Rice is human. If Ray Rice can be thrown away, then I could be thrown away, or you or your son or my daughter. As easy as it is to rationalize, we can't simply ignore, eliminate, or otherwise forget the people we can't deal with. We have to live with each other, we just do.
If I'm a man, struggling with my conscience over the way I treat my wife or my kids, what about this incident would make me seek help? I think it would do exactly the opposite. When the result of confession is condemnation and retribution, you'll have no more confession. Forgiveness does not equate to forgetting, to letting someone off the hook. Consequences are consequences - and, quite frankly, it's easier to make sure they're faced when the person in question believes you have their best interest at heart.
It's real easy to try and satisfy our anger and the injustice of the moment by sacrificing the guilty party - that just doesn't help anyone. Doing something simply because it makes us feel better is a terribly selfish way to act.
I think we cling to condemnation as a way on insulating ourselves. We refuse to admit that we're capable - given different circumstances or opportunities - of doing the awful things we see on the news. Because we flee from that admission so readily and so easily, we have to prove people like "them" are somehow different than people like me.
They're not. They're us.
The only way we can truly tackle huge problems like domestic violence and uncontrolled anger, is to do so together. There are no good people and bad people; there's just people. We do awful things sometimes. We do awful things a lot of the time. We're people. It's not a reason and it's not an excuse, but it is a reality - and we have to deal with it.
In hindsight (and at my wife's suggestion) I probably just should have had her help me pick them up. In the moment, I didn't think of it. I reminder her what I'd told her every day that week, "We don't play with our food. We don't throw our food." And I asked her to say "sorry" for spilling her cheerios.
She's said sorry before. She recognizes when she's done something wrong and when we ask, she's pretty good about apologizing. That morning she refused. "No!"
She's almost two. The "nos" have arrived and more are on the way. I get that.
I picked up the spilled cereal and told her she couldn't get down until she said, "Sorry, Dad." She was not happy about that. She screamed and (fake) cried for a while and just kept getting angry. I picked her up and sat her on my lap and calmed her and explained what had happened and why she needed to apologize.
My first thought was that she was too young to quite understand what had happened and I know children that age have trouble with if/then statements and consequences. So I asked her why I was upset and if she'd done something wrong. She responded pretty quickly and clearly that cheerios on the floor were her fault and it was wrong. I was surprised at her level of awareness. I asked if she would say "sorry." Again she refused.
I tried a different tactic, again asking what happened and she responded the same way. I asked if she would do it again. She got a huge smile on her face and said, "Yes!" She clearly had fun spilling the cheerios.
This is where the true parent conundrum comes in. She clearly knew what she did, that I didn't like it and she didn't care. She also knew I was holding her in my lap and she wasn't to get down until she apologized. Who gives in here?
If I believed she wasn't quite aware of what was going on, I could let it pass. Reminder her of right behavior and save the real lesson for later. But she knew. I could tell she knew. She said she knew. I could see in the mischievous eye twinkle she knew exactly what was going on.
It was a real battle of wills. And I'm pretty stubborn.
We sat on that kitchen chair for more than an hour. Every few minutes she'd ask to get down or cry and we'd go over the events of the morning again and I'd ask for an apology. "No!"
Finally, I knew this couldn't go on all day. I called my wife at work to explain. She didn't have any idea either, but she reaffirmed that we shouldn't let her get away with things she knows are wrong. She also hinted that perhaps 75 minutes of sitting was punishment enough. I put my daughter down after one more discussion and she calmly went and sat on the couch by herself for another twenty minutes and it allowed us both to recover. We had a great day overall.
It got me thinking, though, about apologies. Even a child younger than two had the urge to hold out rather than apologize for something she's not really sorry for. Where does that come from? It makes sense to me in older children or adults, people with a more developed sense of self and relationship - it's a protection, a sign of independence - but a child that young. I wondered (I still do) if it's something deeper.
In my family, after every fight, we had to say "sorry" and "I forgive you," whether we meant it or not. There were always those times when one or more of us refused and we had to sit in our rooms until we complied. Most of the time we said it just to be done with it and moved on (whether we meant it or not). I was always amazed that my parents never seemed to know (at least they never indicated they knew) that we were lying.
Of course they knew.
My parents were teaching us a whole mess of valuable lesson that I only came to appreciate much later. First, they were showing us how to finish a fight. When the arguing is done and the offenses are made, you apologize - and you forgive. That's how reconciliation happens.
What's more, they were teaching us (without us ever knowing - I was well over 20 and married before it dawned on me what I'd learned) that saying things you know deep down to be true (even when you don't feel like meaning them) helps you to internalize and live them out.
I say I'm sorry when I've hurt someone, not because I feel sorry or because I always regret saying what I said, but because I know this relationship is not one I want permanently broken. I know a fight takes two (or more people) and everyone is to blame in some measure (even if it's just a little bit), therefore an apology will be necessary unless we're ready to write off the relationship altogether.
I apologize because I know it's necessary, not because I'm sorry. And, you know what, that apology helps me be sorry. It might not happen right away, but it begins the healing process, both internally and within the relationship. The same thing applies to "I forgive you;" you don't have to feel it, just know it's necessary.
The principle applies to a lot of things. I've found it especially helpful in matters of faith or ethics. Saying, "all people are valuable" might be a lie if we're judging by our feelings and inclinations, but if it is a faith claim - something we believe deep down (even if we don't feel it), it is still true. What's more, saying it helps us feel it.
A lot of people will say this is being fake. I tend to believe that accepting your feelings as determinative of your actions is being fake. That's not really who you are, it's just how you feel in the moment. Feelings change. Our core beliefs rarely do. In fact, I'd say speaking only out of our feelings betrays a belief that our feelings define us.
Your feelings do not define you. No one wants to be judged by their weakest moment (or their strongest, really - that's a lot to live up to). We want to be taken for who we really are.
I'm not saying feelings don't matter - and speaking them aloud is quite helpful. "I don't want to be in this room right now," or "I don't like you very much at the moment," can be positive steps to resolution. But the expression of our feelings does need to be accompanied by an expression of our belief. "I don't like you very much right now," needs to come with, "I love you and that will not change."
I hope my daughter learns to apologize. I hope we can convince her that it's healthier for her and for everyone else to use those words of calm and comfort easily. I hope she can learn early that her feelings do not define her, but for now, I'll enjoy my stubborn little girl and the fact she still wants to talk to me about everything.
In the end, though, as much as everyone says she acts like me, she's very much like her mom in this way. After a few hours of cooling off, I asked her again about the cheerios and what happened in the morning. I asked if she'd say, "Sorry." She smiled and said, "sorry, Dad," and went right back to playing as if it were no big deal.
I suppose I still have a few lessons to learn about how to argue, myself.
Sisten Helen was humorous and serious. She's dedicated significant time to victims' families and in the midst of communities that produce disproportionate amount of death row inmates. I don't need to recount the night here. She speaks often and my twitter feed from the night is quite thorough (Oct 9).
There was talk about the psychological, spiritual, economic, and social ramifications of capital punishment, but in the end, the night was not about death, it was about love and forgiveness. Helen Prejean's journey has been one of downward mobility in imitation of Jesus. She moved from a comfortable suburban existence to life as a nun in urban New Orleans. She was teaching school to poor children when someone asked her to write to a prisoner.
In the end, she said, "Forgiveness is not allowing the love inside you to be overcome with hate, or else you have become what you hate," a lesson taught to her by a man whose only child was raped and murdered by the man she went with to the death chamber.
My takeaway from the evening was essentially, "No wonder the Pope is optimistic - he gets to meet people like Sister Helen everyday." Yeah, the Catholic Church has a lot of issues. They have been irresponsible and obstinate in a lot of ways. The Pope has his work cut out for him. But as many issues as exist, he still spends most of his day meeting people like Sister Helen, ordinary catholics sharing love and peace with the world around them.
You can't be anything but excited around Sister Helen. She has a way with words, a way with people that transforms the deep tragedy of death into warmth and love. I believe that is what the gospel is all about.
Or do I?
After that service on the 20th, I got home and saw Twitter was all atwitter with some terrible thing Mark Driscoll said. I was about to join the fray and post a snarky comment, when that pesky conscience reminded me of the sermon I had preached that very morning. I had used the example of John Lewis reconciling with many of the racists who'd tried to kill him, as a means of illustrating that even our Christian brothers and sisters who are dead wrong don't deserve to be disowned. (I told you, the Church is a radical lady.) I just couldn't join the crowd and denounce Driscoll. I needed to think.
Luckily that week was my retreat, so it was another of many ponderings. I realized that I'd always defined "the Church" not as any institution or denomination, but as the people of God who lived faithfully in the way of Christ. I still think that's the correct definition. There's a lot of people who go to services who aren't part of the Church - and I suspect there's plenty of those who are a part of the Church without knowing it.
I've always said I love the Church. I think I mean(t) both the idea of God's faithful people and also those Christians with whom I have relationship. The people among whom I live and worship are far from perfect, but I know them and I'm committed to getting along with them. In those terms, I love the Church.
I can't say, however, I have a lot of love from people like Driscoll, who I believe is wrong in almost everything he says. I think he's been hurt somewhere along the line or his human faults have pushed him in the wrong direction. I think he's often missed the point. He isn't alone, of course, but he tends to be the poster child for such persons - and he doesn't seem to mind it.
However, in the course of my ponderings I realized that there's just no sense to my perspective on this. In choosing to define Church by faithfulness instead of attendance or self-identification, I ended up being the arbiter of who was living faithfully in the way of Christ and who wasn't.
The Church is imperfect. That's not the issue. The issue was how difficult some of those imperfections are to live with. Honestly, I imagine Mark Driscoll could say the same thing about me. I'm far from perfect, but I gladly cling to God's grace in those instances. I suppose I need to extend that same grace to other imperfect brothers and sisters (even the ones who claim to represent absolute truth).
But that doesn't make me feel any better, really. I mean, where do we draw the line? Does every person who claims faith in Jesus Christ get to be part of God's people? I think that's what scripture says, scary as that may be. Who is my brother? Is Mark Driscoll? What about Fred Phelps? Can someone spouting hateful filth, directly counter to the gospel (or my perception of the gospel) really be part of God's people?
Who gets to decide who's faithful?
I hope it's not Mark Driscoll or Fred Phelps - but God help us all if it's me.
Ultimately, though, it isn't about who's out and who's in. That's sort of the point I was making at the beginning of the post and in that sermon that messed me up so badly. We're all in - that's the beauty of grace. It doesn't mean we're all right and it can certainly mean some people are all wrong. I'm not going to sanitize the hurtful, hateful, or haphazard things people say in the name of Christ. When you look at it, we're all getting things wrong.
The real point is the way we treat one another. A wonderful old professor of mine explained the original definition of heresy as defined by the early Church - a heretic is someone who refuses to come to the table. A heretic is not someone who is kicked out of the Church, a heretic is someone who refuses to be part of the Church.
If I invalidate the faith claims of another, I am the heretic. I can't pile on Mark Driscoll with everyone else, I don't even know the guy. I can certainly critique and counter his ideas - and I'll continue to do so. But I also imagine there's a few things upon which we can agree. If we ever get the chance to talk, perhaps we'll better understand each other and, in the process, better understand this God whom we serve.
In the end, if we're not going to defend the Church from some of her inadequacies, there's really no reason to defend her from any of them. There's hope for our future - that's the claim we make and affirm; it's the reason we have faith. That doesn't mean we excuse the past or the present, but it means we can't completely condemn them either.
#hope
What I saw was the ultimate competition. Thousands of miles raced over all kinds of roads - and not just one big race, but individual races each day and multiple races over the course of the event. The yellow jersey, the white, the green, the polka dot. It was unreal.
I loved it.
In 1995 the big Spaniard Miguel Indurain won his fifth consecutive Tour, tying him with Anquetil, Hinault and Merckx, the giants of the sport. He was the first to win five in a row. He was not a specialist, performing well in the Time Trial and in the mountains, but dominating neither. He was simply a machine, willing his body to do things no man on the planet could do, and doing it in a monotonous, mechanical fashion. He destroyed people because of his consistency. Even on days when he lost ground, he was always lurking right behind, pounding away on the pedals and refusing to be dropped.
The next year was 1996. The end of one era and the beginning of another. Bjarne Riis won the event, almost gifted by his young protege, Jan Ullrich who seemingly was stronger (indeed in 1997 the defending champ waved Ullrich on to win in a gesture of ultimate grace that makes him more of a cycling legend than his 1996 win). Indurain appeared a shell of his former self. He looked pedestrian, finishing well down in the pack. He could just not keep up.
At the time I assumed that there was a cliff in cycling, a moment when great champions just dropped off the face of the Earth and that Indurain could not fight his moment off. Over time, over eighteen further Tours I learned that it's simply not true. That kind of physical gift does not just disappear if the training continues. There is a point where a champion can no longer be a champion, but in cycling, the demands on the body are so strong that genetics has as much to do with success as training. Some people are just better and they don't cease to be better because of age. In cycling, you fade away; you don't fall.
It was the memory of that moment, of watching Indurain slip back and become mediocre, that confirmed to me the truth I did not want to admit: Lance Armstrong was doping along with everyone else.
Before we go too far. LiveStrong is a tremendous success and a wonderful legacy. They do great work and I am glad to see that Armstrong's refusal to fight doping charges has not hurt (in fact helped greatly) the mission of the organization.
I also believe that Armstrong is one of those genetic freaks. A grand cycling champion, built for success in the sport - and one who also trained harder and more intentionally than anyone else (prior to Armstrong everyone ate pizza and drank beer all night because they burn 12,000 calories a day racing - now they have dietitians). I have no doubt in my mind that were the playing field level, Armstrong could win all seven of those Tours again. The playing field was level, but it was not clean.
From the outside, there were few real hints of a massive problem. The Tour raided the Festina HQ and threw the entire team out of the race one year. There were some failed tests here and there. We were OK. Lance was OK. Then the dominos began to get bigger and more frequent. Ullrich lost his title, as did Tyler Hamilton. Riis admitted to doping during his win in 1996. Guys, big name guys, were dropping like flies.
In the end, cycling came clean. The whole sport. Everyone fessed up and came forward. People admitted they were doping; the tests changed. The era was written off and the sport began to move forward. Well, for everyone but Lance Armstrong. He stubbornly refused. Even when it was more and more apparent that everyone in the sport was doping. He began to stand out like those few crackpot scientists who still claim the Earth is flat.
My brothers and my dad and I used to play online scrabble. Words with Friends before Words with Friends was a thing. At one point an email went out, "why are we still playing this, clearly we're all cheating." We were. The games ended.
That was cycling from 1996 through 2011. The final lost appeal from Alberto Contador spelled the end. The end, of course, for everyone but stubborn Lance. The guy who refused to give in to cancer, refuses the inevitable.
There's just no excuse anymore. He keeps claiming he never failed a test. He didn't. 75% of the doping racers didn't either. The tests have never been that great for the kind of doping most beneficial in cycling. In fact, Lance mysteriously retired about the time those tests started getting accurate. Barry Bonds never failed a test. "But MLB tests are a joke." Marion Jones never failed a test either - and she went to prison.
Armstrong gave up at the final hurdle of a defense that had lasted millions of dollars and thirteen years? Really? The guy who takes nothing from anyone, the most stubborn man in sports gives up right at the finish line? Really? Lance doesn't want the damning evidence and witnesses aired in open court. He wants this to go away, quickly. It should. There's no need to linger. He's forced us to linger long enough.
USADA has been accused of being on a witch hunt. USADA may be power hungry; I'll give you that, but Armstrong is not being treated any differently than anyone else. It's simply that everyone else who's been caught admitted it and moved on. Armstrong is the only cyclist with the kind of money to be able to fight it this far. If you want to know what a brutal witch hunt looks like, check out what Contador has gone through the last five years (and deservedly so).
Nearly a dozen former teammates, coaches, and doctors were set to testify against Armstrong. Sure, some of them were former dopers (but again, nearly every rider falls into this category). Some of the "disgraced former teammates" were caught on tips from Armstrong's camp after leaving his team or angering him in some way. It's tough to refute multiple doctors and friends who put Armstrong in the middle of a massive team wide doping plan, lasting almost a decade. They've got one doctor who says, "I injected him myself."
Buzz Bissinger, never one to shy away from press of any kind, wrote a piece for Newsweek defending Armstrong as a hero, "even if he did use something." The argument being that he was still better. In a sport where everyone was doping, he was still the best.
It's a legitimate argument, but it doesn't make him a hero. In Lance's statement, probably the last statement he'll ever give about cycling, he said he's quitting his fight because cycling doesn't need this. It's true. Cycling doesn't need this. Cycling needed their greatest champion to come clean five years ago, to take responsibility for his part in a rough era of the sport, apologize, and move on.
Almost every one of the dopers is back in the sport. They have to be. There would be no sport without them. Bjarne Riis manages a team. Jonathan Vaughters, a teammate of Armstrong's and one in the middle of the controversy, manages one as well. Even those riders who were never formally implicated, but assuredly were doping have made the transition to clean riding without any fanfare. Not a single rider has made any noise about "being clean the whole time" - that's a telling fact.
Everyone - the media, the riders, the teams, and the fans know what went down. The sport was rotten to the core. It has been fixed (we hope). The only ugly spot left is the refusal of Armstrong to participate in the resurrection of the sport he claims to love.
Remember, for all the good his cancer foundation has done in the world, Lance has always been a selfish person. He was a selfish teammate, both as a supporting rider before cancer and as a team leader afterwards. He dumped his wife and three young children when he got famous and didn't want to be held back from TV appearances and Hollywood parties. He dated Sheryl Crow until she wanted kids and dumped her about the same time she was diagnosed with cancer herself.
It shouldn't surprise us that his own reputation comes before anything else, even the good of his sport. This is who he is. Likely this stubbornness (along with his outrageous CO2 max) made him such a great champion, such an amazing rider. I will never forget the way he just dropped the best cyclists in the world on the most difficult mountains as if they were standing still (and despite their incredible doping - enough to kill a few of them, by the way). Ironically it's that reputation that is being tarnished by his refusal to just make things right.
This controversy is solely a US controversy. Here, where cycling is a fringe sport at best, where cycling is only in the news when Lance Armstrong is in the news, we get a media story crafted mostly by the NBC promotions department and Lance's own PR people.
In the real cycling world, in Europe where it is a way of life, this story was over well before any formal charges were leveled at Armstrong. The whole sport was dirty. Everyone was guilty by association. They've always hated Lance - not just because a brash American ruined their fun, but because they knew what was going on. This is a whole lot of nothing. People on Lance's side are those ignorant of context.
I love cycling. I love the Tour de France. I loved watching Lance Armstrong ride. Those memories are not tarnished. Those superhuman performances will always be with us. Those impossible feats of strength, the lack of human frailty, the dope-fueled records, they are forever a part of the sport.
This year's Tour was the first I got to watch with my daughter. She was about two months old as we watched Bradley Wiggins celebrate on the Champs Elysees. He beat defending champion Cadel Evans. In both of their Tours the drama was gone. Both men simply rode at the peak of disciplined performance. Neither one exhibited short bursts of superhuman strength, but an insane ability to put their body through torture every day for three weeks. They muscled through the event with machine-like consistency.
It was as if we'd come full circle. The champions of the near future will be more like Indurain than Armstrong. The races may be less exciting, but they will be no less impressive. Perhaps one day the mix of genetics, training, endurance, and pure stubbornness will coalesce again into a five-time champion to rest alongside Indurain, Hinault, Anquetil, and Merckx - but they will always be standing in the towering shadow of Armstrong.
The doping is forgivable, given the context. The stubbornness is understandable given the man. It just boggles the mind that he can't ever let it end. The only thing I hold against Lance Armstrong, the only thing most anyone holds against him, is simply a refusal to be human.
That's all we ask.
That personal tragedy, combined with some serious knee problems made for three down years for the world's greatest golfer. A likable, nice guy - destined for stardom from the age of two. He married a gorgeous model, had two beautiful kids and more money than God.
I'm not going to dwell on the speculation. Is Tiger a sex addict? Maybe. The tales of his escapades certainly don't fit entirely the model for a cheating rich guy. Did the absence of his father lead him astray? Certainly the role models he chose upon his father's death are better examples of selfish, entitled athletes (it's not like Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley have had a lot of marriage success).
Tiger's tragedy is not an uncommon one. We'll probably never know whether he was truly sorry or simply sorry he got caught. I'm pretty confident he loves his kids and probably still loves his now ex-wife. I'm not sure he does, or ever did, love them more than himself.
I appreciate some of the changes he's made - dropping friends who enabled him and embracing a few who seem to genuinely care (Roger Federer knows how to be the best in the world and is also, by all accounts, a committed family man). He got rough treatment for the way he fired caddie and former best friend, Steve Williams. Obviously it could have gone better, but the people who don't have our best interests in mind don't usually change their tune when the relationship comes to an end.
So many people are unhappy with Tiger. There's a lot of people rooting for him to lose. Tiger's screwed up royally and quite honestly he doesn't deserve anyone's sympathy or forgiveness; I'm not sure he's ever asked or cared. I do think measuring worth has no place in forgiveness anyway.
There's a lot to respect in Tiger's focus and discipline on the course, but he's still just a human being. He stopped being a person society could respect; will society learn the lesson when he returns to respectability?
Tiger Woods shouldn't have been a role model, even when he was a well-behaved clean-cut golfer. Perhaps that's the problem: we live in a society that doesn't quite know how to define success and therefore doesn't know what to look for in an example. We're a dichotomous society - we want heroes who give us permission to be self-indulgent, but we also want them to be happy, well-balanced individuals.
The trouble is simply that those two things don't go together. The only way to satisfy that burning desire inside us to be fulfilled is, paradoxically, to forget ourselves and think of others, serve others, love others.
Tiger Woods certainly learned one way it doesn't work; he's also got plenty of opportunity to serve others. The choice is whether he's going to allow his life to be centered around him once again or if he'll really be different. That's almost as exciting to watch as his assault on the record books.
