My television tastes are highly boring. Not extensive. Nor is my movie knowledge, really, or music knowledge for that matter.
Anyway.
I've been watching some portion of this tv series where boxing aspirers are vying for a chance to legitimately contend for a world boxing title.
There's a predictable format to the show. They show the pre-fight interviews and prep. The fight itself. They show the losing boxer walking solo heading back to his locker room. Then they show both the winning and losing boxers in their respective locker rooms.
The last two times I've watched this show, it has stirred me to tears.
Not upon the announcement of the winner of the fight.
Not during the post-fight locker room clips.
What has stirred me is watching the losing boxer walking away right after the match, alone in defeat.
3 comments:
That's really compelling. I can't imagine feeling that level of failure. I don't ever try to do anything I'm not exceptionally good at...Which means I haven't tried to do very much. I am petrified of that. That is why I don't take writing and painting very seriously at all. I have to go to a college nearby fora portfolio review and i really want to pick a different major so I don't have to feel that way. So, yeah I can see what you are saying. i think life teaches us to avoid tha feeling at all costs, doesn't it?
I used to be good at life, as defined societally and also by the Body.
In all the ways I used to be successful and "blessed", so to speak, they ALL have come crumbling down in a stenchy, mangled heap all around me in less than two years.
Many people think being "crucified with Christ" means giving up their regular pew seat to a visitor, without grumbling to the visitor about it.
Many people think being "dead to the world" means giving up one Coke or one Starbuck's to put extra money in the offering plate...once, or maybe even on occasion.
I realize different people have different crosses to bear.
I simply get frustrated at the Pacifier (as in goo-goo, gah-gah) Christianity being lived by so many.
I've drafted a couple of entries along that line: Pacifier Christianity, the Clean Restroom Society, etc...
Maybe I'll finish those thoughts out.
I started to reply to your thoughts and didn't finish that. Apologies from a dumbass who tends to drift...
I've been in a profession that is built around failure for sixteen years now. I'm used to failure, rejection professionally.
What stings, and why I think that show moves me to tears, is the failures in life where I used to do well.
It shattered me at first. And, honestly, I still have repercussions every day, as I continue to live each day broken...and clinging by a fingernail.
And it's not that I'm simply numb now (or at least that isn't all it).
Somehow, and this wasn't by my doing AT ALL, enough grace limped my way to help some scales fall from my eyes.
As a result, I've been able to embrace something bigger than me, my life, my circumstances going on.
It doesn't lessen the sting very much. I think that's evident by what I put on this idiotic, mad blog.
Yet beyond the salt and blood in my eyes, there is something bigger.
I don't like it. But I'm resigned to it. And it is the only thing that has any semblance of hope in it, even though circumstantially it is beyond living hell to live. And has been for some time. And will be for at least a season.
A friend and I last night were chatting about hope.
Funny, we started talking about hope, and it didn't take long for the pain alongside the hope to spill, take over and start making things ugly.
And like the true friend he is, he let the venom spew a little, then he said "okay, back to hope".
We talked about resignation and hope.
I think they are brothers, not polar opposites.
Because the same Dude I'm resigned to in embracing this thing bigger than myself, which stings the living eff out of me right now, is the same and only source of hope I have right now, too.
Weird how it works that way, but it's what my experiences are.
As to how that all ties to failure, boy my random thoughts don't flow very well.
You bring up a very good point: the truth of human nature being self-protection. Our eyes blinking at an object coming our direction is a self-preserving natural reaction.
Not only are our bodies naturally self-preserving and self-protecting, our hearts are to.
And that's what makes the Way so contrary.
The Way is about self-abandonment, not self-preservation.
It's about letting go, not acquiring.
It's about divesting, not obtaining.
And that's why it steams me so much to see the Body obsessed with 'blessing'.
Blessing is about increase, and prosperity, and abundance.
This is what is "innocently" sold as the Way all across this land, with the Body nodding their heads instead of raising their eyebrows about it.
I'm okay with failure professionally. Dealing with it personally sucks donkey nuts.
The pain has been, and is, searing. Like placing my chest and my brain on a red-hot stove. There's really nothing left to speak of.
I feel like a shell so often.
Really. There are entire spans of time, weeks, seasons which are a blur, in which I simply exist, not live.
And the only hope I have in all this is that I have a Father who speaks to me.
He tells me just enough. Just enough to keep me curious and wondering. And hopeful.
I fail, and when I don't it seems like I'm right at the brink of it.
Yeah, this is a wilderness.
One that I wish people would quit trying to pray me out of.
One that I wish people would quit saying only exists in my mind or in how I perceive it.
Fuck them. (Said with the love of Jesus, of course...)
if they had ears to hear, Jesus would be telling them to either back off or come mourn with me. Knowing Him, it could well be either.
But they can't hear Him.
Their ears and minds are brainwashed that He wants to "lift me up out of my circumstances".
No, He doesn't.
This is my cross for a season. And as much as it hurts, I'm okay with it. Resigned and hopeful simultaneously. That makes no sense.
And then when God, not me or anyone else, says "okay" then a new season will come. (Psalms 14:8)
I really try and stay away from a "hide in the bushes and watch" attitude among what is going on. But it's true.
There's something up the Maestro's sleeve. Microsnippets have been foretold. There's going to be some stunning stuff. And more good out of all this.
There is good even now. Things that wilt to tears a spit-in-the-eye Follower.
How do I drift like this....?
Let the fool stop.
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