Truly Left Over Talent

Hi Guys...Spliiter

Out of all the words in the English Language you could have started off with to describe that first practice, "joyful" is the perfect one.

Buried in my stuff here in my study somewhere is an article written by a really neat guy. If I could find it, I would quote the whole thing here. The article is about the word "joy", as opposed to happiness,or pleasure, delightful, etc.

He defined joy something like this:

Joy occurs when one reaches out with both arms and embraces both the bitter and the sweet, the happy and the sad, the frustrations and the breakthroughs, the loneliness and the fellowship...because all of these things are required to lend a rich and meaningful texture to our lives.

He talked about people missing out on genuine joy, because they are so careful to try to avoid the seemingly not so neat feelings like loneliness or sadness, or frustration.

Then he sort of waxed eloquent and said something about our lives being a tapestry...pointed out that every tapestry had threads going two different directions, the warp and the woof? Anyway he went on to point out that a tapestry would simply fall apart without both of those directional threads.

His article has had a profound impact on the way I look at stuff. Sometimes I find myself giggling at the strangest occurrences...happenings that would make a lot of people frown...or grimace.

This seemingly wierd stuff above sort of ties in with your other two posts, Splitter.
One, I think some of the best friends I ever made were the men and women out on a LL field doing the scut work of making the field ready for the kids. We honestly did have a ball, once we got into it, and the horseplay and wry comments are part of my "fond memory collection".
Two, Competitive vs. recreational divisions is a conflict in motives. If the parents and coaches in the so-called competitive divisions aren't allowing the kids to recreate, then they are just stupid. Conversely if the parents and coaches in the recreational divisions aren't teaching and leading their kids to do their very best, then they are taking away the joy the kids might have from "a job well done".

In my book, I talk about helping kids gain a WORKING KNOWLEDGE of the balance between spirited competition, and honorable cooperation, and those two together are what makes America the envy of the world. In other parts of the world...they still kill you if they win, or even if you beat them.

If it isn't painful to loose, then what is it worth to expend the effort to win?

Oh well, that is my sermon early on a Sunday morning.

Best regards
Kenneth Bean