I Would Not Want Anything in My Life Erased

There are a lot of people who look at our lives and say, “Boy, does that guy or girl have it made.” I wish I could be them.”  This blog is centered on the question, “What is the price that you and I are paying? Is it preparing us to be people with a greater sense of what love and justice mean? Love and justice are the two pillars of ethics. I was struck by a statement that Oprah made: “As I follow the principles of a great thought leader, Authur Brooks, I am becoming happier. I’m, having fun, too – a word that previously didn’t exist in my vocabulary.” How do you find happiness and give it as a gift to others?

I have Duke on my mind as we are moving through games that will eventually lead to the national basketball champion. Even though they have a new coach, a former player for Coach K, Coach K is still the face of the team. The video that I have attached is Coach K’s response to the price that he paid to be considered one of the best coaches that college basketball has produced. He found salvation from people who believed in him and could truly see him at the depth of his being.

What is about these two public figures that have lived lives that people envy? Each of these people lived the question, “What is the price you are paying? Was it worth it? Did it help you to be more loving and more of a servant of justice?” or as a mystic Carlos Castenada phrased it, “Does this path have heart?”

In my life’s journey what I have learned has been based in people believing in me when I wasn’t even aware of it in the moment. Nobody who starts feeling like a nobody needs to know that nobody can make it out of here alone to be somebody. So, like Oprah and Coach K, the key ingredient to take with you on this arduous journey called life is to have someone believe in you and truly see you wiping away your invisibility.

Coach K is transparent in terms of how he reached happiness when there was not much fun to be doing it. Oprah said basically the same thing. I have often been asked this question that we struggle with in my ethics class. Would I change anything about the way that I have lived life with all the agony and ecstasy? My response is that I would change a lot when bad things and early death happen to good people, but I would not erase a thing. That is the critical thing to learn. There is a difference between erasing and changing.

Coach K had a rough beginning at Duke as you will see in the video at the end. He then threw himself into coaching and loss perspective and admits in the video that you will see below that it was friends and two presidents at Duke who believed in him while he was overwhelmed by mental health issues and physical pain. He had submitted his resignation to the powers to be. They did not accept his resignation. He was worth it for them to stand by him. “We believe in you!” I had those same words spoken to me by Jay Crawford when my daughter was seriously ill when he invited me to join EA. I was talking with one of my former Assistant Chaplains who is the Head Chaplain now of a school of 2000 in Hawaii. When we first talked, I was intent on having him join me at EA. He had a back injury that had to be treated by a procedure that was done in Sweden. He said that he would miss the first weeks of school so I should look for someone else. I told him that I would hold the position until he could start because “I think you are worth it. I believe in you.” He lived up to my expectation and then some.

Everyone should learn Oprah’s story. When she was in school as a child, she was on welfare and was being sexually assaulted and raped by family members. She felt that she was invisible. Her nightmare time was also during lunch time in the cafeteria at school where students were out of control, but she always found a corner to read a book. There was a person, Mr. Abrams, who would speak to her and ask what she was reading and then give her books to discuss.  His duty was as a cafeteria monitor when he was really a researcher from the University of Wisconsin. Oprah states that “this man saved me for being invisible.” He made sure that she got to the right school that was just integrated to have her act on her inquisitive nature and to read and learn as much as she could.

I love the motto of Main line Health here on the Mainline. “Be seen. Be heard. Be Understood.”

I would not erase a thing from my life. It is a common theme for Coach K and Oprah as well. As the great English theologian and philosopher Malcolm Muggeridge expressed, “the only thing that has truly taught me anything that matters has come from suffering.”

I carry a lot because of the life I have been called to live. I am the secret bearer and can use what I have not erased from my past to find happiness through the power of believing in others and making the invisible ones to be visible. It has been a privilege to be with people who understand what Muggeridge knew.

The first stanza of the poem “Alone”by Maya Angelou is what Oprah and Coach K know. “Lying, thinking; last night; how to find my soul a home; where water is not thirsty; and bread loaf is not stone; I came up with one thing; and I don’t believe I am wrong; that nobody, but nobody; can make it out of here alone.”

What price are you paying? Is it preparing you to love and be a servant of justice as you hear in your soul to give the gift to others of being seen, heard, and understood grown from the soil of “I see you!” and “I believe in you!” It brings you happiness and if you are lucky the gift of fun as well.  (See short video below)

   Coach K at Duke Overcomes Pressure