In life we have moments of confusion and moments clarity. And if we have the maturity and courage to recognize the challenge and possibility of these moments, sometimes they blend together to become the greatest we can experience. They become turning points and moments of growth.
So I would like to tell a story very personal to me. It doesn’t involve a tragedy, though it was tragic to me, and without explanation the full gravity of the moment would have gone unnoticed to anyone present for the actual moment. I did tell this story once when I was asked to give a talk my senior year in high school at a retreat, but since then, I have not mentioned it to anyone.
As I have made very evident in this blog, I had a love affair with the game of baseball. It played a central role in my life for many years. Spring has always been my favorite time of year, not because of the beauty and sprouting of life, but because it was the beginning of baseball season. I would spend all winter thinking, dreaming, and preparing. One spring, more specifically one day of a certain spring, will always stand apart from the rest. It was a day that forever changed my life. I was looking forward to the spring of my junior year from the moment I realized that we would have a serious chance to contend for a title. I have pages dedicated to it in the journal we had to keep in my freshman English class. This year was to be the greatest year. We opened at Avista stadium, the grandest stage in the area. A stadium that boasted the original batting cages used by the Dodger greats at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. We won that game, a game that the rest of the city thought we should lose, and the next game we were to play North Central, the preseason favorite. The excitement I had driving to their field a couple days later was something that can’t be explained and one that I truly miss. I remember saying on the way there as I drank my pre-game Red Bull, “After today everyone will know we’re for real. Today we make a name for ourselves.” I was so pumped. All through warm-ups I was jacked and ready to go to battle with my teammates, many of whom who were like brothers to me. We had been playing together each spring and summer for a few years now and some since I was much younger. The previous summer we were just a series win away from going to the state tournament. In many ways, we had grown up together. Games were often the beginning of the kind of summer evenings and nights where you wake up having grown at the exponential rate of adolescence. That team meant so much to me--because I loved baseball and because I loved being part of a team, especially that one. And as a catcher, I was a leader of that team, which I embraced and loved more than anything that wasn’t a person. My intensity and love were seen and known by every person I have ever stepped on the field with. That I guarantee you. I wanted the ball and the pivotal situation to come through me every time. The baseball field was the one place in the world that I felt complete control and confidence.
And then that spring day it happened...
As is ritual for a catcher, I was warming up with the starting pitcher when a teammate came over to me. I will never forget this moment or the look on his face as he told me something that would have an enormous influence on the rest of my life. He told me that I wasn’t playing. I didn’t believe him. I laughed and shook it off, but he had that expression on his face that people have when they know they are telling you something that you don’t want to hear and might possibly not believe. He told me he wouldn’t joke about something like this, not with me. This was the first moment I allowed myself to believe it might be true. You see, I couldn’t remember ever missing even a single inning since I was in 5 grade. One time I had a coach who tried to rest me the second game of a double header in 100 degree heat. I refused. It was the most defiant I have ever been with a coach. After a discussion in the dugout, he knew that I was not going to sit no matter how practical it may seem on paper or how many coaching manuals preached it. So when this teammate told me that my name wasn’t on the line-up card I walked immediately to the dugout to see for myself, not believing it the entire way. It took me a long time to forgive my coach for not having the guts to tell me in person, as he knew how much it meant to me. I got to the dugout and saw that it was true. As I said at the beginning of this post, no tragedy took place, and in the grand scheme this doesn’t even compare to real difficult events in life, such as loss. But I had an irrational love for this game. This was that difficult for me. It still bothers me a little as I write this. When the team took the field to start the game and I learned what it felt like to sit in a vacated dugout, I began to lose my composure. It’s the only time that has ever happened to me on a field. My world was instantly halted. I felt nothing was ever going to be the same... and it wasn’t. A young prodigy of a baseball player had taken my position, my team, and what felt like everything. I sat on the bench and seriously considered transferring to another high school. I’m serious. I was using everything I had to keep a balance between anger and sadness, and I was doing everything I could to muster the courage to keep from crying. No one wanted to come near me. I don’t blame them. What was there to say? Everyone knew what this meant to me. So I just sat there, stunned and red from anger. I began asking a question over and over in my head. No matter how hard I tried, I could not answer that simple question we all ask when we feel injustice: “Why?”
I was sitting on a nearly empty bench when it happened.
I made a promise with God.
I told him that I didn’t understand this. I felt it was unjustified and cruel. And I told him that he knew how important this was to me and how hard I had worked and for that reason I couldn’t answer the question: “Why?”
And then suddenly everything became clear. Two words came to me that changed my life. These two words were the only thing that kept me from having a breakdown--one that would have effected every aspect of my life at the time. I have kept them with me ever since. They have been my only weapon at times in my life. I learned them that spring day in that empty dugout.
“Ok God.”
I spent last weekend doing one of my final bucket list items while I am here in Scotland. I drove to Ayrshire, the land of the Cunningham Clan. I went there to drive the roads and walk the land. And I went there to perform a scavenger hunt of sorts to find some of the ruined castles left behind by Cunninghams many centuries ago.
In most cases I had nothing but coordinates to find these ruins. Operating in a language of latitudes and longitudes I began my search after traveling the three and a half hours to the region. I had a GPS and a slew of google map directions on my desktop (without an internet connection). After 7 hours (11 total on the day if you are keeping track) of driving the most dangerous roads I have ever encountered, walking through vacant fields, following rivers and creeks, talking to strangers in pubs along the road, and pulling over to consult the maps on my computer every 15 minutes, I had found exactly zero of these castles. And then my computer battery ran out. I half expected this to lead to some deus ex machina moment in which I, freed from technology, stumble upon my destination. However, no Scottish farmer clad in tartan emerged from a field with staff in hand to stand in the middle of the road to stop me and offer directions. I was just lost.
As I called it quits for the night due to the light fading behind the hills. I saw in my rearview mirror the hint of a sunset. There are a couple of rules I live by: when you see a sunset, stop to watch it, and when you come to a body of water, walk up and touch it. So I turned around at the next exit and made my way west to race the sun to the horizon. When I got to the sea, I pulled my car over on a piece of a field and sprinted to the edge of the water to catch the final glimpses of one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. I stood alone on an empty beach listening to the waves lap onto the shore. I looked up at the sky and spun around slowly taking in the moment and I was overcome by a feeling...completely consumed by it. It was too intense to call happy and not jubilant enough to call joy.
I was content. I was at peace.
Perfectly content. I knew I was exactly where I was suppose to be in the world at that very moment. I was always meant to be on that beach, at that moment. Everything I have done to this point had led me there. Every success and failure pushed me in a direction to be there. Every happening in my life played a part in getting me there for that instant. I replayed my entire life in my head as I watched the sun extinguish itself into the water. I wanted for nothing and I appreciated all the moments and people that led me there.
As I left, I walked out and touched the water. Then I looked to the sky and said the one thing that was on my mind.
"Ok God."
