A lesson in thanksgiving

It’s not every day that you get to witness something historic.

Last evening I decided to tune in to ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball matchup between the Mets and the Yankees. The game was of personal interest to me because I have been following the Cy Young caliber performance of R. A. Dickey, the Mets’ now-vaunted knuckleballer (see our prior post on Dickey’s memoir, Wherever I Wind Up), but I had never seen him pitch live. As I picked up the game in the third inning, I witnessed history, or at least the end of something historic. Dickey, who had gone an amazing 44 2/3 innings without surrendering a single earned run, gave up four, including a three-run homer to Nick Swisher.

To say that I was disappointed would be a huge understatement. Frankly, I was infuriated.

You might find this a strong reaction even for an ex-rugby coach. But there’s a back story on this. For a long, long time I have struggled with the perception that God doesn’t want my favorite sports teams and players to win, at least when it counts. That I tuned in at the exact moment when R. A. Dickey was having an uncharacteristically bad inning in a big game on national television didn’t help this perception. I turned the game off after Dickey surrendered a fifth run in the fifth inning, and of course missed the subsequent Mets comeback, which was spoiled in the eighth inning by a Robinson Cano solo shot off of Miguel Batista.

Dickey’s own assessment of the situation was much more mature than mine: “I gave up one big swing. I didn’t have a great knuckeball (Sunday) night but I fought my butt off with it as hard as I could. (But) all good things come to an end or they wouldn’t end, right? So it’s time to begin another streak.”

Perhaps there is a cathartic element for me in writing this blog post; at least I can say that Dickey’s attitude is a lot closer to where I would like to be in the face of disappointment than I was in this instance. It’s not just because I admire R. A. Dickey. It’s because Dickey’s attitude is biblical.

As I continue to digest the ballgame last night, I find myself returning to the concept of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an act of worship (Romans 1:21) and it is supposed to characterize our attitude in prayer (e.g., Philippians 4:6; Colossians 4:2). Those who give thanks to God have a different prism through which they see life. Blessings are magnified and challenges appear in proper perspective. Those who give thanks appreciate the streak and the opportunity to begin another one.

On this Monday, I hope we will all seek to be thankful. It’s glorifying to God. It’s good for us. And it makes a few runs scored seem a little less painful.

—Beau Stanley

Embracing the present with a major-league knuckleballer

About a year and a half ago, I finally declared a professional baseball allegiance to the Cleveland Indians. Long story. I had my reasons and I’m sticking to my guns.

Today, though, I want to tell you about why the New York Mets are on my radar, and why I was glad to hear that R. A. Dickey, their 37-year-old knuckleballer, shut down the Pirates on Tuesday.

I have become acquainted with Dickey’s story through his recently released memoir, Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity, and the Perfect Knuckleball. Dickey’s book is courageous, compelling, and inspiring, and I hope many of you will read it. Rarely does a book present such a unique combination of colorful personality, literary skill (he was an English literature major at Tennessee), athletic action, and insightful faith, all on the canvas of an extremely challenging life journey.

One concept in the book is really sticking with me, and I thought it might be worthy of your consideration as well.

The most intense chapter that I have read so far in Wherever I Wind Up (I’m only about two-thirds of the way through the memoir) recounts Dickey’s ill-advised attempt to swim across the Missouri River, which became a significant turning point for him, both personally and athletically. I’ll not ruin the story for you by sharing all the details, but I will offer this fascinating quote, which appears right at the close of the chapter (p. 214).

When I was weeping underwater in the big brown currents of the longest river in North America, I was sure my time was over. God, it turned out, had other ideas, giving me a chance to see if a man who had spent a lifetime running away from the present could possibly find a way to embrace it.

I must confess that this statement puzzled me at first. Having read about his difficult history, I suppose I wondered why Dickey would say that he had been running away from the present, rather than from the past. He clarifies later by writing that he began to live and pitch, for the first time, “fully immersed in each moment,” no longer “living on the edge of a self-created abyss . . . clinging to every stump or branch I can find as the river of live flows by, because I’m terrified of where it’s going” (p. 225).

Men, this is a perfect example of how transformative it is when someone actually heeds the words of Jesus, who said, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34 ESV). How often has my casual familiarity with this simple statement eviscerated its incredible power? How often have I found myself unable to experience and enjoy the present—and thus run away from the present, as Dickey puts it—because I choose to ruminate on scars from the past and fears about the future? What would my life look like if I lived in full appreciation of my Father’s care for me?

Wherever I Wind Up is a gutsy book, and I’m thankful that R. A. Dickey wrote it. I’m thankful that God brought him up from the bottom and gave him a second chance on life. And I’m thankful, too, that the God who brought up R. A. Dickey from the bottom so thoroughly redeems the past and superintends the future that all of us can live in the present.

—Beau Stanley