Cynical

“Perhaps I’ve grown a little cynical…”

Don’t lie to me. Don’t play games. Don’t call the ball out when I see clearly it landed between the lines. It only pisses me off. Or is that your aim? Is that your angle?

Have you ever talked to yourself in this manner while on the tennis court? Sure you have. Everyone tells themselves things to make them feel better. What better voice than our very own to provide an impromptu pep talk at the height of exasperation?

Nothing infuriates me more than a cheater. I can tolerate a lot, but I can never tolerate someone who constantly makes bad calls. In high school and college, you seldom have the luxury of a line judge. This means each player is responsible for keeping the game honorable, for making the just call no matter the score. I admit I’ve been tempted to call a ball out when I am down in a game. When I am losing a match, it’s so easy to slip on a call I know my opponent could not get a clear view of from across the court. What stops someone from lying? I guess it’s something called integrity, and I wish more people would apply this principle to all areas of their lives.

We talk to make ourselves forget too. I started practicing this act of forgetting when I was in the middle of a match where my opponent was clearly winning some heavily shady points. She was missing calls so much I was going to ask her if she wanted to break to put on a pair of glasses. Was she blind? I turned it around, mostly because I was furious with the how the match was shaping out. I turned around my thoughts to help me forget her poor attempt at lying by lying to myself. Maybe she was making the right calls and it was I who was to blame. I was the one hitting these lousily close-to-the-line calls anyway. Well, this ended up not working either. It only made me feel worse about my play and about my opponent. I was misattributing credit to someone who didn’t have the authenticity to make the right call, to play by the rules.

This incident reminds me of something else. I have continually blamed myself for people who bend the rules. I can’t tell why I do this, whether it is guilt, fear or embarrassment. It’s made me grow very cynical of people. I still have a great deal of trust for most people, but somewhere inside I’ve lost my full capacity to believe in other people. This makes me sad. Why do people tell you one thing and do another?  Is everyone really out for themselves? What happened to the spirit of brotherhood, teamwork and a collective group effort? Why do people cheat? What is to be attained by lying to someone?  It only hurts people. It hurts most when it comes from someone you trusted. So, please…don’t humor me and tell me lies. I’ll see right through it.

“And I’ll lie too and say I don’t mind”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-yLH5wcEoQ

Deal breakers

“And so she starts to wander…can you blame her?”

There are deal breakers even in the game of tennis. I can’t stand competing against two types of players: the opponent who completely smothers you and the one who looks competitive on the surface but actually completely stinks. The one who smothers and the one who stinks…

The best matches are those middle ground battles where the domination of shots is divided between two opponents. I mean, why do we bother competing in the first place if we don’t live to play these matches? I live to play these matches because they are the most fulfilling to me as a tennis player. They are heated enough to kick my endurance up a notch and cool enough where I can enjoy the moment at the height of competition. Anyone who knows me also knows I am willing to play tennis with just about anybody. Beginner, intermediate or advanced—I will share a court with any of you. However, when it comes to match play and keeping score, I want someone who can return my shots just as well as I can. I want an opponent who isn’t going to lie down when I crank a serve. My favorite type of player doesn’t feel burdened by me and they certainly don’t crush me so hard I can’t compete.

I’ve been thinking lately about what type of relationship I want to have and how in the past, I’ve been drawn to men who simply aren’t cutting it. You know the types I’m talking about. There’s the smothering fella who bows down to your every word, much like the opponent who takes over the match while you are left sweating it out and feeling breathless. Then there’s the guy who starts off so strong you think he may turn into a smothering fool but drops out after a few games and becomes as noncompetitive as a stinker in tennis. Where is the middle ground? Where is the man who takes charge and shows you a good match? I think I need to take my tennis opponent criteria to this area of my life. I need to take a departure from the norm. I need to be wiser about who I allow to ‘court’ me. It’s one thing if I know going into a match that my opponent is a total stinker, someone who can barely muster a point off me. I would rather play with that person any day than someone who comes into the match faking it, only to pull out when things get intense (or worse yet, fake an injury **it’s not you, it’s me, sound familiar?**). I guess what I’m saying is if you come to play, you better be prepared to compete. I mean what I say and say what I mean. Don’t waste my time. There’s nothing I can’t stand worse than that.

“For the day that something really special might come…”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr2pOenWbQs

 

God's Sense of Humor

“I’m tossing up punch lines that were never there”

I can’t help but think how our God has a nifty sense of humor. He instructs us by giving us tests, and then tests us in order to provide a lesson. On one hand, He promises us that if we trust Him with our lives, we will be fulfilled. On the other hand, He fulfills us so much so that we have to be knocked back down to Earth in order to understand. He aligns our steps so we do not fall, but then pushes us down when we think we’ve been going down the right path. God creates us in a way that makes us unique individually but our differences are often the cause of much pain and trouble. These mixed messages from the creator are a great source of humor for me. It makes me continually question why I keep trying to out-humor Him. God must get a kick out of us always thinking we know punch line when the joke is on us the entire time. He must find it funny that some of us even pray for our favorite sports teams, thinking that our good faith will sway them to victory.

This brings me to a quick side note about Tim Tebow and the power of God’s influence on sports.  Tebow is undoubtedly a faithful person, great role model and talented athlete. He is outspokenly accepting of his role on the New York Jets as a bench warming fullback thrower (my own term for his role). To me, Tebow is almost the joke of the New York Jets. Why does Tebow, a playoff caliber quarterback, ride the bench for Gang Green? Is Tebow really getting God’s Word out through his actions on the field? If we think of God’s sense of humor, perhaps through Tebow, He is teaching all of us a lesson. Tebow is called upon to produce in random situations. He’s placed in positions where the demands are high and the outcomes are uncertain. He’s constantly in the spotlight, yet must always prove himself to the New York fans. I think, if nothing else, God’s teaching us that even Godly men can’t influence every outcome but must endure them anyway. What if the tables were turned and it was Mark Sanchez on the sidelines playing second fiddle to starting quarterback, Tebow? Would God fuel Sanchez’s anger into action? Would Sanchez be able to accept such a role or would he fade into self-defeat? It’s funny, and usually timely, how God uses different approaches with each of us. Actually, it’s perfect.

Let me go back to God and His testing us in order to teach us a lesson. I used to think many of the lessons God taught me would be lost had they been under different circumstances or if my personality was different. I did not, for example, expect to learn much when God pulled me aside and exerted loud utterances of wrongdoing. My personality and makeup are not such where I take criticism well. To my surprise though, in recent years that approach has prompted me to listen and to learn a lot about my life.  Anger-inspired action, humorously, has and does work for me. This is God’s sense of humor working in my life. He’s taking what I think doesn’t work for me and turning it into something productive. The joke is on me.

So when we place our trust in Him, I think what we’re really doing is offering Him the opportunity to once again dazzle us with humor.  If we thank Him for fulfilling our needs, He produces a riddle to keep us on our toes. Until we solve that riddle, we are left feeling humbled. This is part of His plan for us. When we step out on the path of His design, we are not expecting to laugh in unforeseen places along the way.  However, He delivers a laugh every time. The joy rarely arrives in sequence, but it does come. That’s the way God works. He is the greatest comedian. God’s perfect sense of humor is efficiently untimely. It somehow soothes things at the most inopportune times. We must take a step back and laugh at ourselves every now and then. God’s humor isn’t the dry, witty or slapstick type we all know. His is the welcoming kind that doesn’t necessarily provoke immediate laughter. It’s the kind we need most when we think we know the punch line, when we are certain of the bite. His humor is always within reach if we’d only accept and let Him flourish in the amusement.

“I’m looking for answers from the great beyond”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZC4TCjjfCs&feature=fvwrel