Hope and the News

Last Friday I walked in procession with 3,000 or so folks from 48 states gathered in DC to witness for peace. It was cold, snowy and windy as we walked three miles from the National Cathedral to the White House. As we walked we sang songs -- Amazing Grace, Down by the Riverside, O Beautiful for Spacious Skies.
I was with a friend who remembered verse two:
O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress
a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness
America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law.
I don't think they sing that verse in the White House these days, where they acknowledge no flaws yet flout many laws as it suits them.
As is so often that case, the paper of record hereabouts failed in its coverage of the event. Oh, sure, the Post got most of the facts right in its story. But facts are not the same thing as truth.
For the paper to have told the truth, it would have had to report that Jim Wallis spoke truth to power or that the faithful gave a rousing ovation to the offering call or that the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta is filled by a worthy successor to Dr. King, and continues to be a beacon of hope. Don't believe me; check the video of the service at the Cathedral's web site.
To get it right, at the very least, the Post would need to have published a photo like the one here, from the Cathedral's web site, rather than the scary looking tattooed man who made a striking photo, to be sure, of an easily dismissed peace movement.

Not Alone

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Here's another sign of the bending from recent days.
And here's a kids' anthem to go along with the notion:

Bending the Arc

In my tribe we got lots of different faces

In my tribe people come from different places

In my tribe we got lots of different races

In my tribe we’re bending the arc with love

In my tribe inspiration fills our lungs

In my tribe every banner will be hung

In my tribe we’re singing songs of every tongue

In my tribe we’re bending the arc with love

In my tribe young and old will join the band

In my tribe straight and gay walk hand in hand

In my tribe all the people share the land

In my tribe we’re bending the arc with love

In my tribe we got joy and pain and sorrow

In my tribe we see a vision for tomorrow

In my tribe we’ve got love enough to share and some to borrow

In my tribe we’re bending the arc with love

Scots

The Scots Confession, written in 1560 by John Knox and five other Scots reformers, is the oldest English language Reformation confession. Knox and his friends worked almost literally under the gun, as their work put words to a vision of ecclesiastic and political unity in a Scotland emerging from a long and bloody fight for independence from both the Roman Catholic French and the Protestant monarchy of England.
While the political intrigue of a Europe emerging from the Middle Ages into early modernity was shaped by the particular institutions and individuals of the time, the broad social, political, economic and intellectual tumult bears some striking parallels to our own age. New communications technologies (the printing press), rapidly expanding trade (flowing forth from Columbus' exploration of the New World), an emerging economic order of capitalism, and the first stirrings of democratic political yearnings (though still two centuries away from the American Revolution) marked the age much as the emergence of the internet, global trade, and post-colonial political yearnings continue to mark our age.
So, in the midst of that world-altering change what did the fathers of Presbyterianism choose to focus on? A church marked by right preaching of the word, right observation of the sacraments, and discipline in ecclesiastical order. Is it any wonder that we Presbyterians are "decent and in order in all things"?
The Scots Confession is a clarion call to commitment to the church (the Kirk, the word Knox chose as closest to the New Testament Greek kyriakon), and its passion is captured in what stand as, perhaps, is most well known words:
"The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the Word of God, in which God has revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, with which must be associated the Word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God's Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished. Then wherever these notes are seen and continue for any time, be the number complete or not, there, beyond any doubt, is the true Kirk of Christ, who, according to his promise, is in its midst. "
Against the tumult of the age, the Reformers called the faithful to live in fidelity to the true Kirk. In our age, the question is similar: what are the marks of the church today? What does it mean to be authentically the church of Jesus Christ in the post modern world? How do we confess our faith now? What can the Reformers teach us, who would be reformers still?

Lent

"The purpose of Lent is not only expiation, to satisfy the divine justice, but above all a preparation to rejoice in God's love. And this preparation consists in receiving the gift of God's mercy - a gift which we receive in so far as we open our hearts to it, casting out what cannot remain in the same room with mercy.

Now one of the things we must cast out first of all is fear. Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves. If we were terrified of God as an inexorable judge, we would not confidently await God's mercy, or approach God trustfully in prayer. Our peace, our joy in Lent are a guarantee of grace."

- Thomas Merton, in "Seasons of Celebration"

Well, it's a good thing, too, because Lenten commitments are no easier to keep than New Year's resolutions. Thus, having promised myself that I would keep to the practice of this journal/blog daily during Lent I find the entrance to my own heart narrowed by the fear of not getting things done. So, under an increasing pile of "to-dos" the blogging slides by. But this day will get a double dose.

Nicene

The oldest of the Christian creeds, the Nicene, developed over the course of more than 100 years from its beginnings at the Council of Nicaea in 325 to its adoption as a definitive statement of Christian faith by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. It is the most widely ecumenical statement of faith in all of Christianity, being accepted by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and much of the Protestant world.
As with many of the creeds and confessions of the church, the Nicene arose from conflict. Constantine had unified an empire but not a church when he called together more than 300 bishops to meet in Nicaea and settle their theological differences.
The church was divided theologically over a fundamental question concerning the nature of God and the divinity of Christ. Current debate in the Presbyterian church over trinitarian language suggests that the debate remains unsettled some 1,700 years on. The prinicple divide in the fourth century concerned the "substance" of God, and reflected a growing fascination with Aristotle's philosophical language of sustance and word, or ousios and logos -- Greek ideas that far outstrip the English translations. The wording of the creed -- Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father -- reflects the controversy of the time, much of which centered on the positions of a priest named Arius -- for whom a heresy was named! My kind of guy.
The creed remains in use. I'm interested in what its language means to you. What is helpful? What creates stumbling blocks?

Enough

We're doing a Lenten series in our house called "Enough." A group of us is coming together once a week to talk about what it means to live with enough. This evening one of the things we did together was imagine a "perfect day." We went around the group sharing aspects of a perfect day. There were common themes: friends, family, creation, good food and naps. Good conversations and good work were common, as well. I noticed some things that no one included: watching TV, shopping, expensive spas. In fact, the perfect day was remarkably free of consumer culture. So: what's in your perfect day?

Ethics and Doctrines

Just as I am preparing to put up the next post on the confessions, I run across this quote:

"I once took a count of what sort of things Jesus thought important enough to confront people about in the gospel of Luke. Nine times Jesus confronted people for not showing love in their actions. Nine times he confronted folks for their greed and hoarding, which get in the way of single-minded service toward God and loving action toward the needy. Nine times Jesus confronted people for having divided loyalties, rather than serving God alone. Eight times he confronted people for showing by their actions that they did not recognize his authority. Eight times he confronted people who were seeking places of honor and reputation, and urged instead the way of servant-like humility.

"Seven times he emphasized that the crucial question is whether we actually do what he teaches, versus the hypocrisy of claiming to be on the side of righteousness while not doing God's will. Seven times he called people explicitly to repent, to take the log out of our own eye, to stop being self-righteously critical of others and insisting on our own way, and instead to be more humble and loving toward him and toward others.

"It is dramatically striking how Jesus' confrontations, and his pronouncing woe, all had to do with ethics. By contrast, he never confronted people about their doctrines. How far some of us have drifted from the way of Jesus!"- Glen H. Stassen, Incarnating Ethics

Discerning?

I’ve been doing a lot of work on discernment lately, right up to and including laying groundwork for creating a discernment center. Then I ran across an article suggesting that discernment is impossible. The author argued that knowing the mind of God is, in principle, not possible for human beings so, therefore, the whole enterprise of discernment is doomed to failure before it ever begins.

Is the great I Am, a God whose very name surrounds the Holy One in sacred mystery, essentially unknowable? Does the truth that Isaiah speaks, that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God’s ways (Is. 55:8), mean in principle that we cannot discern the will of God? Can we never know God’s ways, or God’s will for our way?

I believe we can. What’s more, I believe that our primary task is to seek this truth and pursue it with all the energy, imagination and passion we have to give it.

After all, the same Isaiah assures us that God does not speak in secret, in a land of darkness (Is. 45:19). And, while we may not be able to boast with certainty about God’s will with respect to every strategy we pursue, scripture is pretty clear about the directions we ought to follow.

What does the Lord require of us? Micah is pretty confident of his discernment of God’s will around that question: do justice, love kindly, walk humbly with our God.

Micah’s words form our listening tube for the work of discernment, our screen for sifting, our framework for understanding. In other words, do the work of discernment on the basis of doing justice, loving tenderly — as the Jerusalem Bible translates it — and walking humbly with God.

We know, from the witness of scripture and from the history of people of faith like Bonhoeffer and King, that God calls us to the work of justice. So, as we listen for God’s call and claim on the particulars of our own lives — where should I work, where should I spend my money, where should I spend my time — we listen with attention to issues of justice that are before us.

Walter Breuggemann says the Biblical definition of justice amounts to this: sorting out what belongs to whom, and returning it to them. With respect to the question of call, what’s at stake is simply this: our lives belong to God, just discernment is about returning those lives to God.

We Need This

The Christian Peace Witness is drawing closer. March 16. Please come if you can. The congress needs to hear from each of us ... from all of us. We need to hear from each other. We need to know that we are not alone. We need to light candles in the darkness and pray for peace. We need to hold hands and then let go to reach out further. We need peace.

Credo

As kids, many of us learned the Apostles’ Creed, the second confession in the Presbyterian Book of Confessions. Why begin with the second confession instead of the first? Well, because “many of us learned” it as kids, and relatively fewer of us learned the church’s earliest confession, the Nicene Creed. Start with what you know!

Or, if you can’t really manage that, start with the beginning: “I believe …”

What does it mean to us to say, “I believe …” and follow that with “God the Father Almighty” and “Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord … Virgin Mary … sitteth on the right hand … quick and the dead … Holy Ghost … holy catholic Church” and so on?

Is “confessing” our belief in these the same as saying “I believe Einstein was right about relativity” or “I believe the Braves will win the pennant” or “I believe the war in Iraq is wrong”? Those statements, whether you agree with them or not, stand open to the judgments of science and history, of knowledge and time, in ways that the Creeds do not, unless we imagine God in the role of ultimate lab technician or final historian.

Even if we imagine God in those roles we ought to acknowledge a couple of things:

First, those roles – scientist or historian – are thoroughly modern notions that would have been utterly foreign to the framers of the early creeds. Second, the creeds themselves never imagine God in such roles even if one accounts for the different cultural referents.

That raises a question: Does “God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” spend time judging whether or not our statements of “belief” about the divine godhead are any more accurate than my statement of “belief” – or, is it faith – that the Braves will ascend to their rightful place atop the National League East.

“Belief” – or, is it faith – that, perhaps, is the key question when pondering the creeds and confessions. What does it mean to say “I believe”?

If it means “I give my intellectual assent to this propositional statement,” then I will confess some significant difficulties with the Apostles Creed, and others that we’ll get to in the next few weeks. Confess, or, should I say scruple (and invite you to find the use of this au courant word in this none-too-trendy piece by Nathanial Hawthorne, whose use of the word a century and a half ago I find edifying. To get a handle on its contemporary use in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I recommend reading a post from former GA Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase.)

But I digress. These difficulties that I scruple would have to include, at least, these:

God the Father

only Son

Virgin Mary

ascended into heaven

These few scruples name in shorthand theological controversies concerning the masculine image of God, exclusive salvation in Jesus, the incarnation of the human being Jesus, and the meaning and “location” of salvation. Forests have been felled and libraries filled to give full expression to the various positions on those topics.

What I happen to believe or disbelieve – that is to say, what I think about any one of them doesn’t much matter here. Because the heart of the matter is not what I think, but rather what will matter enough to me to stake my life on.

The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart, here. The first word of the creed in Latin is credo. It is adequately translated as “I believe.” A deeper rendering might be “I give my heart to.” Marcus Borg explains the distinction, if not the Latin, well when he says, “when we say the creeds, we are saying, "I give my heart to God." Which God? The maker of Heaven and Earth. I give my heart to Jesus Christ. And who is that, the one whom we tell stories about as born of a virgin and suffered under Pontius Pilate and so forth? Credo means giving one's heart to God and entering into a relationship of personal allegiance, not to the statements, but to the one about whom these statements are made.”

Richard Rodriguez, in his Hunger of Memory, includes a central section called “Credo,” in which he describes the Latino immigrant Roman Catholic culture of his childhood. He describes there not a set of beliefs written down in church doctrine, but rather an entire web of community that marked the very timing of one’s life: “the Church rocked through time – a cradle, an ark – to rhythms of sorrow and joy, marking the passage of man.” Credo was not words or arguments but the narrative of life itself.

When I consider the creeds and confessions this way – as stories about the God to whom I give my heart – I can recite them faithfully and with integrity. No matter what historic circumstances, what theological or political battles were being waged in the words, I can claim these words – or be claimed by them.

Indeed, the very fact that different historic circumstances will occasion different confessions, reminds me that it is a matter of heart, first and foremost. So I can join my heart to the place the writers of the Apostles’ Creed aimed for in these ancient words and set aside for another time the intellectual arguments over their claims to a lesser truth.

How do you respond to these words? Or picture (which turned up from an image search of credo.)

buzz ... zzz

Some lucky reader yesterday became the 5,000th viewer of this blog. I'd give out prizes if I could. But since that's not gonna happen, here's a little present for you all: it's Yonkle, the Cowboy Jew! Actually, it's a poster for Yonkle, on display at the Ellis Island museum. Sorry the photo is lousy, but, what could be better, I wonder, than Yonkle, for telling the story of America? If Yonkle were around today, you can bet he'd have a You-Tube video floating around!

I Don't Care

Ok, enough with Anna Nicole Smith already. I really, really, really, really, really don't care. I just want to turn on a John McCutcheon CD and forget the news of the day, which seems to be 24/7 about this dead woman's body or baby or whatever. So, here's the song we should be listening to just now; it would be sooo easy to add 10 years of new material:

I Don't Care
Words & Music by John McCutcheon

Where did it come from, this love of the lurid?
When did reality just get too tame
From the Washington Post to the Weekly World News
It seems nobody has any shame
But when gossip abounds I have recently found
A remedy when I despair
To this junk that I see I respond with ennui
And say I really don't care

I don't care
I don't care

Who shot JR? Is Patty Hearst lying?
I don't care
Liz Taylor is marrying, Elvis is dying
I don't care

I don't care
I don't care
Let the rich and the glamorous ruin their lives
Going through fortunes and treatments and wives
And poor Donald Trump, he just barely survives
But I don't care

Rosanne & Tom, they'll not be a pair again
Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan
Does Michael Jordan gamble on golf?
Why does Hillary Clinton tick Rush Limbaugh off?

I don't care
I don't care
Though the National Enquirer says that it's so
For their lies and distortions they're paying good dough
But there are some things enquiring minds don't need to know
I don't care

Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie
They me that Oprah can wear a size 3
There's a piece of John Bobbitt right here on display
And there's OJ on twenty four hours a day

I don't care
I don't care
Though your troubles are mounting and you work like a drone
It's more fun to watch than to live on your own
Do you think Princess Di made those calls on her phone?

I don't care
I don't care
I really, really, really, really, really don't care
It's the same old sad story the whole world around
We build up our heroes wherever they're found
Then spend the rest of their lives tearing them down
I don't care

©1995 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)

Searching for Mr. Wright?

My sister points out that I've made the N.Y. Times, albeit with my name (de blog) mispelled. Well, if they're searching for a candidate, perhaps I should be, too. So, what to look for? Molly Ivins' "good head of hair and a good line of talk"? When I google image searched "Mr. Right" this picture turned up. Perhaps a certain competence might be important. So many candidates ... and so much time before the election. How to choose ... how to choose? Suggestions for Mr. Right? Or, Mr. Wright?
Of course, the search for a candidate raises all kinds of questions for the so-called Christian Right, beginning with tax exemption! I'm still not sure how Jerry Falwell managed to hold on to any tax exemptions after declaring that anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian had to vote for George Bush.
On the other hand, that also raises for me the question of when it might become a "status confessionis" to oppose a candidate. That phrase come into renewed currency during the struggle against apartheid when the World Alliance of Reformed Churches declared that apartheid was a sin and that support for it was heresy. (I highly recommend the Kairos document.) In more narrowly construed politics, for instance, could one confess Jesus Christ and not oppose Hitler? In recent American elections, could one confess Jesus Christ and not oppose David Duke? At what point along that spectrum is the current Administration? Does illegal, immoral war determine one's response? Does the loss of civil liberties?
What is Christian Wright to do? What is the right Christian response to the politics of the day? Just asking -- no endorsement is expressed or implied!

God's Politics

Jim Wallis and the Daily Kos are having a tiff.

It seems that some on the progressive secular front don't see what the church might have to offer, while, as always, many in the church don't want to be "engaged in politics."

One of the great gifts the progressive church could offer to the wider church and culture is some clarity on this relationship between church and politics, especially in this time of deep divisions in our nation’s political life. Perhaps we have something of value to offer in response to the questions that must press in on us given the church’s troubled history of disastrous romances with political power.

These pressing questions seem quite obvious: should the church be involved in politics at all and, if so, how? But in fact, the obvious questions call forth nothing short of rethinking both the church and politics.

We could simply turn away from the political arena altogether. There are some, particularly in more conservative evangelical congregations, who believe the church should focus exclusively on questions of salvation, and they define salvation in purely spiritual, largely individualistic terms.

Against that spirit, we have the image Karl Barth famously articulated of the faithful pastor being one who held the Bible in one hand and the morning paper in the other.

But even if we remain informed and faithful citizens – guided by a Biblical tradition as we respond to the news of the day – we could limit our scope of work to worship, weddings, funerals, Bible study, blanket drives for the homeless, food drives for the poor and clothing drives for the destitute. These are surely important parts of who we are as church, and some feel that such work marks the extent of our calling as church.

Against that vision of church, I would ask, if we are to care for families in their times of joy and of mourning, should we not also care for their situations in the broader community? And if we are to care for the homeless, should we not also care for the medical and economic and social conditions that lead to homelessness? If we care enough to feed the hungry, do we not care enough to work for an end to hunger? If we are called to care for the destitute of the city, are we not also called to care for the ordering of the city itself when that ordering leaves so many struggling on the city’s margins? If we are to be minister of reconciliation, should we not also be engaged in resolving conflicts, including international ones, in a manner consistent with the call of disciples of the prince of peace?

Obviously, if we do such work we will be deeply engaged in politics, and, within the current American political spectrum, we will be engaged in progressive politics.

Although one might declare a scruple ...

Every officer in the Presbyterian church – elders, deacons, ministers of word and sacrament – must answer “yes” to a long list of ordination questions, including this one: “Will you fulfill your office in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?”
So, setting aside for now the monumental question of just what obedience to Jesus means, and likewise leaving aside the question of scriptural authority, what does it mean to be “guided by our confessions”?
What are these documents – some of which go back more than 1,500 years? What meaning do these premodern texts and the Reformation era and 20th-century ones, as well, have for a postmodern age? How ought we to read them? What about the stuff we really don’t like? Or with which we fundamentally disagree? Where did they come from? Who wrote them? Why?
Off and on during this season of Lent, I, and others, will post some reflections on the creeds and confession of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) here, and invite your response. Oh, and what other questions should we pose to these documents?

Pulling the Plug

A friend sent me an e-mail today about a demonstration at an "ex-gay ministries" conference in San Francisco. It was a thoughtful piece of reporting that focused mostly on the perspectives of seminary students at the Bay Area theological schools consortium who led the demonstration. They spoke of the pain that such "reparative" therapies cause and of the conviction that God made us all -- straight and gay. I was with them all the way ... until the last paragraph:

"Unfortunately, the lie has been that people need to change their sexual orientation and taht's just not true," said Caruana, the pastor of Freedom in Christ. "God created us gay. God loves us. God sent his son to save us. All he cares about is our salvation in Jesus Christ and not what orientation we are sexually."

The baby of inclusivity drowns in the bath water of orthodoxy. We need to pull the plug altogether, drain the tub and scrub away the ring of Constantinian theology. Begin with the masculine image of God and tear down the patriarchy step by necessary step straight through wretched atonement theologies and other-worldly salvation and Christian imperialism.

Republican Jesus

A couple of years back, I gave up conservative bashing for Lent. It was way more difficult than giving up chocolate, and I'm not going to try it again this time, as the image here surely indicates. I was searching for images of Jesus, when I encountered Republican Jesus. He's my new hero! It seems like the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls are a bit shaky. I think they should just nominate this guy to replace Bush in 08.

I Love this Game ... sometimes

In case there was any doubt about the singular importance of standing always in the public square squarely for the full equality of GLBT folks, then look no further than the crazy wide world of sports for confirmation. This time, NBA style. Here's an interesting commentary.

Won't You Please Come to DC?

In case you've missed it, please check this link on the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq at the National Cathedral next month. Hope to see you there. Peace.

Why I'll Watch

In case you missed it, there’s a little football game being played this weekend. Last month, when the Network of Spiritual Progressives met on a Sunday evening, we were scheduling for the coming months, and I noted that the date under consideration at the moment would fall on the highest holy day of the American calendar: Super Bowl Sunday.

While my comment was met with some derision by a few of the stalwart progressives, you’ll notice that the February meeting of the Northern Virginia NSP is, in fact, on Feb. 11.. Personally, I’ve never been one of those progressives with a knee-jerk dismissal of sports; probably because I love to play, and only recently gave up my life-long dream of playing professional basketball.

Hey! What was it that Carl Sandburg said? “Nothing happens unless first we dream.”

On the other hand, dreaming won’t make you 6’5” when DNA offers only 5’11 ¾.”

Of course I can recite a sound, progressive critique of the horribly skewed values that lead cities and states to spend hundreds of millions on playgrounds for the rich while neglecting public schools and health care and public safety. And I can join the chorus of complaints about paying worn-out relief pitchers $5 million while paying teachers and firefighters and police officers one percent of that amount. And I can rail against the media frenzy that so easily lets us entertain ourselves to death while an unjust war rages in our name.

All those critiques of misplaced values and misspent money are spot on; but still, I watch the games, and play them myself whenever I get a chance, because I see something when I watch great athletes perform.

I see human beings fully alive, and, as Augustine said, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” (Check out the "Human Being ..." pictured above.)

I see human beings fully alive, seizing a moment in time to use their singular gifts and become – for a brief moment – precisely what they are called to be as athletes.

Most of us, of course, will never experience such moments when our bodies behave precisely as our minds imagine and desire. Indeed, few of us experience many moments when we feel that we are using our own gifts to become precisely what we are called to be – not as athletes, surely, but as human beings.

So, I’ll watch the game this weekend with only a smidge of liberal guilt, which I’ll set aside as I witness a small group of men try to live into their own particular calling for the one sphere of their lives lived on the field of play.

I’ll watch with jealousy – not of their skill, nor of their stardom, nor of their salaries. Rather, I’ll watch with jealousy because these guys seem to know, with great clarity, precisely what it is that they are called to do with their gifts.

Granted, if we use Frederick Buechner’s provocative definition of call – that place where your deep joy meets the world’s deep need – one can quickly question what need in the world athletes meet? Most of the answers that one could offer – beauty, excellence, play itself – are gratuitous; on the other hand, most every human culture has celebrated athletic achievement in some fashion.

That our culture and economy have created a place of incredible financial reward for certain highly marketable athletic gifts no doubt helps athletes in some sports reach clarity of purpose. I imagine multi-million dollar contracts have a way of focusing one’s attention! Still, I’m willing to bet that most of the truly gifted athletes we watch play for insane amounts of money would be playing games for nothing if the money were not there.

That’s certainly one way of measuring the deep joy dimension of call: what would you do with your time if money were no object? When Michael Jordan signed his first huge contract, he had a so-called “love of the game” provision included that allowed him to play pick-up basketball games at any time, even though that posed a considerable financial risk to his team if he were injured.

In the end, the way we spend our time is the way we spend our lives. How, then, do we measure it, and dole it out, and decide how to spend what we have been given – life itself, and our several seasons in which to live it?