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PASTOR'S MESSAGE
"DEALING WITH ADVERSITY":
Howard Thurman's book, Disciplines of the Spirit,
contains an illustration that I can identify with. Mr. Thurman
told of the time when as a young boy he had gotten the chance to play
softball with the big boys for the first time. "Though I was
frightened," he said, "and I could hardly manage the bat, when I turned
away after three strikes, there was so much more to me than there had
been before." Sometimes the outcome of something is not as
important as what you learned in the effort that was made.
His name was Gary. He was big. He was
seventeen. He was mean, and he drove a car while the rest of us
walked or rode our bikes. I remember Gary because every warm
morning on my way to school as a seventh grader I had to pass by the
split rail fence near the sidewalk juest before you reached school
property. The tough upper classmen would sit on that fence and as
you walked by they would shake you down. Every morning they would blow
cigarette smoke in your face, or just basically let you know who was
boss. The thing you learned early was to show no fear and to keep
your mouth shut. They never really hurt anybody, but fear was
their game. Gary was one of the leaders, and his reputation was
that he stuffed seventh graders into their lockers for kicks and that
he liked to break fingers and arms. It was tough being twelve
years old when Gary was around.
In those days in the winter we played hockey on
Sunset Pond in North Chagrin Reservation of the Metro Parks. Some
of us owned skates. We had several real hockey pucks, but we made
our sticks out of old pieces of wooden flooring that we screwed, nailed
and glued together. As I remember it there were two teams.
There was the team named the Mill Ridge Maulers and us, the other
team, the Metro Park Drive Rangers. As I remember, it was a pride
thing. The guys used the hockey games in the park as a way to
brag a little and to claim a little piece of glory in a world made up
of bigger, older and tougher kids. Seventh grade was the bottom
rung of the pecking order and were the bait not the trophy fish.
The winter of 1959 and 60 was good and cold.
Sunset Pond froze early and stayed frozen into mid March. The
hockey games in the park were hotly contested, and more often than not,
we, the Rangers had managed to hand the Maulers their lunch, that is,
until the day that Gary became an official member of the Mauler's team.
He declared himself the goallie and designed himself a new goal
that was exactly as wide as the snow shovel he used as his goalie
stick. Since it was impossible to score, the Mauler's record
began to improve. After a couple of scoreless nights and
subsequent losses, we, the Rangers, decided on a bold move.
What we decided on was kind of like a flying wedge
in football. After the initial faceoff of Gary's third game in
goal, the Ranger six, including our goalie charged toward the Mauler
goal without the puck, but with fire in our eyes. As a mighty
wedge we hit Gary high. We hit him low, and we knocked him hard
onto the ice. Thank goodness the snow was deep and we could run
even with our skates on. Once we knocked him down, we never
looked back. It was one quarter mile from Sunset Pond to Metro
Park Drive, and we got there in record time. Doors were locked
and drapes were drawn. Gary never came by.
The following morning was cold and crisp. I
was shocked to see one solitary figure sitting on the fence just before
the sidewalk reached the school drive. I felt the fear well up
within me. There was no place to run and no place to hide.
I kept walking when suddenly the figure sitting on the fence
leaped onto the sidewalk in front of me. Before I could react, he
had grabbed me by the shoulders and stopped me dead in my tracks.
I prepared to meet my Maker when Gary said, "Hey Punk, I enjoyed
that hockey game last night," and then he let go of me and laughed. I
still remember to this day the sound of his voice as he continued,
"That hockey is a rough game."
I kept walking and never looked back, but there was
now something different about me. I felt good. I was
powerful and I would never again be the same. Almost thirty years
ago Herb Brooks and the U.S. Olympic Hockey team beat the Russians in
perhaps the greatest sports event in Olympic history. It was
David beating Goliath. It was the little guy topping the big guy.
In his pregame talk Herb Brooks delivered this short and powerful
message. "Gentlemen," he said, "You were born to play this game."
Each of us was born to overcome adversity, and with God's help
the Giants of this world can still be whittled down to our size.
Rev. Dave
Trinity United Methodist Church 9900 Madison Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44102
(216) 961-4445 Phone E-mail: trinityumc44102@yahoo.com
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Trinity United Methodist