Most of us would change some significant details of our life story if we had our druthers. Had God asked us ahead of time, we might have suggested any number of changes: different parents, different socio-economic situation, different ethnicity, different geographical location, different allergies. But God didn’t ask and here we are stuck with an inherited hand of cards.

What to do now? It seems to me that we have several options: complain, fold, or play the hand.

• Complain? Those who complain about their hand of cards have more than an attitude problem, they have a God problem. Nursing a grudge against the author is useless and quickly turns a character into the villain of his story.

• Fold? Those who fold are more than just quitters, they rob themselves of redemptive opportunities and a chance to live a glorious story. They also have a God problem. They lack the imagination to see possibility and, therefore, hope and that leaves them without the desire or the ability to make a move.

• Play Out The Hand? The only desirable action left for those with a bad hand is to play. We can play well or we can play poorly, of course, but the goal of life is to play it well. Robert Louis Stevenson said as much:

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”

Sometimes it helps those holding poor cards to see others who have played a bad hand well. We need inspiration and we need tips. One such inspiration for me is Booker. T. Washington.

Booker was born into slavery in 1856. Despite inheriting some rather daunting cards in life, Booker T. Washington knew that “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” So he took care of the little things, working hard even at menial jobs to obtain the respect of those who knew him. Before he died in 1915, he had become a prominent African-American teacher, orator, and presidential advisor.

Some of his life tips:

• “Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”

• “There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”

• “Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.”

• “Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.”

Booker did not have a God problem. He had a deep faith in God and had the imagination to see possibilities and hopes where others could see only defeat. Booker T. Washington did not become an inspiration overnight. He made small choices that lead him incrementally towards glory. His life was the accumulation of small glories and now he serves as an inspiration for us all. Likewise, we may not become an inspiration overnight, but we can make small choices that lead incrementally towards glory.

Holding poor cards? Take each moment one at a time and play your hand well. Who knows how it will all play out in the end? God does.

benpalpant.com – life re-imagined

In the 1956 World Series, Don Larsen laid an egg. His Yankees were leading the Brooklyn Dodgers by a score of 6-0 when he was called in to close out the game. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. But he lasted only two innings, walked four batters, and allowed four runs. Not exactly Hall of Fame stuff and the Yankees lost the game 13-8.

When Don Larsen arrived for Game Five, manager Casey Stengel gave him the ball as starting pitcher. You can imagine that Larsen was as surprised as the rest of the baseball world. And if it weren’t for Casey Stengel’s courage to offer Don Larson a chance at redemption, we would still have no post-season perfect games. But on October 8th, 1956, Don Larson faced 27 batters and kept every last one of them off of first base. His perfect game remains one of only 20 perfect games in baseball history and the only one in post-season.

And that’s one more reason to call October, “National Redemption Month.”

If the sport of baseball has reinforced any transcendent truth, it’s this: failure is not the final word.

We are surrounded by people who imagine the world is a place in which failure is the last word. They have grown so accustomed to failure that they expect it, even anticipate it. They wake up each morning hoping to avoid failure, but nagged by a heavy sense of dread. Failure takes many forms. Relationships fail. Businesses fail. We fail tests and quizzes. We fail to fight temptation. Failure. Failure. Failure.

But this is not the language of grace and this outlook is unfaithful to the redemptive work of Christ.

Ephesians 2:1-9 serves as a proof text: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy…made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved…For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

We fail.
But God!

And those two words serve as a motto of grace: “But God!”

Our lives would certainly be richer if we imagined our lives the way God does, as stories in which failure is not the final word. God is in the business of redeeming “the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). He is redeeming every corner of life and so his mercies are new every morning. And that’s just another way of saying, “Yesterday’s failures are not the end of the story.”

In many respects, my life story is a test case for this motto of grace. God has faithfully followed each of my failures, small or massive, with redemptive moments. It takes a small but important imaginative shift to recognize this fact of our existence: “Failure is not the final word.”

Remember Don Larsen. And never forget Casey Stengel, the manager who remembered that failure is not the final word and who made a perfect game possible.

Our failures are myriad. Our perfect games are rare. Praise God for second chances and God bless those who gave us those chances.

benpalpant.com – life re-imagined

On August 2, 2013 Vinnie Catricala struck out on one pitch. That’s right. One pitch.

In a minor league battle between Midland Rock Hounds and Corpus Christi Hooks, Nick Tropeano got the easiest strikeout of his life and Vinnie Catricala wrote himself into baseball lore. After the first pitch was called a strike, Vinnie disputed the call and decided to take his time getting back into the batter’s box. The umpire decided he was in violation of Rule 6.02 (c) which requires an umpire to call a strike if a batter refuses to get back into the batter’s box. Did Vinnie take his place in the batter’s box? No. He stayed out of the box and drew a third strike call.

One pitch.

One strike-out.

Instant Hall of Shame.

This isn’t how he dreamed it would be when he was a kid in the back yard. Little Vinnie dreamed of loaded bases, two outs, and a 3-2 pitch in Game 7 of the World Series. Big Vinnie, however, struck out on one pitch in a forgettable minor league game. All his years of training, diet, sacrifice, and dedication had no impact in his claim to victory.

Vinnie provides us a few key life lessons applicable to just about everything:

Lesson 1: keep swinging.

No one really knows what pitch God will throw next. It might be a high heater or curve ball. It might be in on the hands and jamb us a bit or it might be the dreaded spit ball. Whatever it is, we’ll have no shot at it if we don’t stand in there and take it.

Lesson 2: complainers are losers.

Many of us moan and groan about the last pitch and miss the opportunity to hit the next one. You can’t stand outside the batter’s box and whine about your circumstances, the bad calls, the prevailing winds, or the sun in your eyes. Get in the box and swing. Complaining once makes it easier to complain the next time and before we know it, we’ve got ourselves a nice little rut–a habit not easily kicked. Vinnie struck out because he complained.

Lesson 3: big moments are the product of accumulated little moments.

We dream of making it big as a writer, actor, business man, husband, father, pastor, etc, and we even train for the big moment. But for many of us that big moment will never come because we never stayed in the batter’s box. You can’t hit a grand slam in Game 7 of the World Series unless you stay in the batter’s box during T-ball, Little League, High School, College, and even during those forgettable minor league games. We can’t expect the big moments to come if we’re not putting our training to use and faithfully dealing with each pitch thrown at us.

Vinnie made National news, but not in the way he’d always hoped. Don’t be a Vinnie. Stay in the box. Keep swinging.

Watch Vinnie Screw Up Here

benpalpant.com – life re-imagined