“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…and that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
-Abraham Lincoln, November 18, 1863
“I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather the strength we show when and if we're ever given a second chance.”
-Ted Lasso, Season 3 Episode 11
“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
-John Wooden
March 31, 2024
Tonight I am pissed off. The slow burning anger pollutes my soul with malice and hatred. You have all felt like that, right? I mean that deep down hatred that can only be formed for a person who severely wronged you, or maybe even more devastatingly, hurt your child. It’s normal to conjure up visions of punishments and consequences for the tormentor or perpetrator, right? I mean I really want to see some pain!
This is not the first time my soul blazed with anger and pain. Last year I stepped-away from coaching after a 27 year career. For the last 23 years of that career, I served the same community. While stepping aside for multiple reasons, I must admit, part of my decision was due to pain produced by people that I trusted in that community that left me hurt and angry. Probably not as angry as I am tonight. But, nonetheless angry. I wrote a letter about my decision to step down and posted it on Facebook. I tried my best to be positive in my letter and to champion the good moments, and there were an abundance, of the past 23 years and tried to minimize the hurtful ones in my published thoughts. One of my all-time favorite kids who played on my first team wrote in the comments of that post, “I’m indebted to you for the things you taught me and the things you continue to teach me; especially grace. Even in the lows, you have grace.” That took me aback. It is one of the greatest compliments I have ever received but maybe one of the least deserving, at least at that moment. This former player did not know my heart, my pain, or my anger. At that moment, and tonight for that matter, I felt and feel very far removed from grace. Both tonight and last year I craved retribution not reformation. I desired retaliation not resurrection.
Ah, and there it is! That word, resurrection. How ironic that I arrive at the word resurrection on Easter. The universe has a way of bringing us back to the crux of the matter. At any rate, over the past several months while contemplating society, politics, coaching, and life in general I keep coming back to this eternal sequence that inhabits all corners of the universe: birth, life, death, and rebirth. This rhythm consistently plays-out in history, personal experiences, and nature. Trying to assuage my anger tonight the thought crossed my mind that grace is not the absence of anger, or even the desire to see someone punished, it is, rather, the ability to allow for a rebirth. Ultimately grace is the ability to step back and watch something die without throwing more dirt on the grave.
The fact that I am pissed off tonight does not mean I am not being graceful. In fact, this is the essence of grace, that you can display positive actions towards someone who doesn’t deserve it. Grace has very little to do with how I feel and everything to do with how I choose to act. By displaying grace, we choose to allow for the opportunity for hate and pain to die which opens the door for a potential rebirth of the better. In fact retaliatory and hateful actions and words breathe life back into the pain and hurt that needs to die. Our retaliatory actions often prolong the painful circumstances that could die if we let a friendship, a career, or a chapter in our life perish. If we can let these things die gracefully, it opens the door for a rebirth for both or perpetrators and, most importantly, ourselves. When I reflect on the times that I displayed my anger by trying to cause harm to someone who wronged me, or maybe even worse, played the victim so others will care about me more and despise the person who offended me, I kept alive a negative energy that needed to die.
As a coach and someone who cares deeply for society I have become addicted to the show Ted Lasso. It resonates with me because it constantly reframes the ideas of grace and positivity and those are the messages I desperately need. Despite the fact that the story is fictitious the marvelous writing and acting on the show drip with grace. The main character, Ted, an American football coach, ships off to England to become a futball (soccer to us American dummies) coach in order to try and repair a failing marriage. The show moves from healing relationship to healing relationship.
One of the best illustrations of this exists in the relationships between Ted and his assistant coaches. One of the first characters Ted encounters upon his arrival to England is Nate who, as one character put it, is a “wounded butterfly”. Nate, the team’s kit man, is a nerdy often ignored character until Ted comes along and acknowledges Nate’s worth. In many ways Ted saves Nate from his self-deprecating attitudes by empowering Nate by elevating him to the coaching staff, and supporting Nate by constantly reaffirming the tremendous qualities he possesses. But, As the show progresses we see Nate burn with jealousy and betray Ted in a very cruel and unwarranted way with both painful words and destructive actions. It is painful to watch. Many of us have been Ted and most of us, unfortunately, have been Nate as well.
But, Ted is a healer. That much is clear from the start. His interactions with people he knows and those that he doesn’t display an uncanny kindness and optimism. His sidekick, who Ted brings with him from the states, Coach Beard seems to be a man of few words and a more serious disposition. Throughout most of the show Beard serves as Ted’s protector and the person Ted relies on to sort out the details but it is evident that Beard has wounds and scars as well. In fact, near the end of the show it is revealed that Ted saved Beard from prison even after he had wronged Ted. Nonetheless, As Nate’s vengeful attitude and actions manifest, Beard harbors feelings of resentment and a desire for retribution on Nate. Much like me tonight, he hates to see a loved one wronged.
Beard pleads with Ted to address the situation. But rather than strike back, Ted gracefully steps aside and lets Nate’s betrayal die on its own. In fact, Ted refuses to do anything hurtful to Nate or even mutter ill-will against him. Rather than engaging Nate, Ted lets him walk away. Nate’s newly chosen path leads him to very dark places destroying whatever spirit was inside him. Fortunately, Nate will experience a rebirth as the flimsy things that he tried to build come crumbling down around him. But Ted goes a step further in his grace giving. Rather than being the healer and Nate’s restorer, Ted encourages Beard to forgive Nate, invite him back to the coaching staff, and be the nursemaid to Nate’s rebirth. Ted’s grace allowed a double rebirth. For in that moment Beard, who also had a tainted past and a vengeful spirit, experienced a rebirth himself. Ted’s graceful actions of stepping aside, surrendering his own feelings for retribution or the credit for saving Nate, allowed for this redemptive work to happen. In many ways Ted’s actions lead to the rebirth of Nate, Beard, and Ted.
I love the imagery of rebirth. Immersed at an early age as a preacher’s kid, the idea of baptism dominated my religious thinking. The path of redemption flowed through the ceremony of baptism in our denomination. Honestly, as a kid, I only thought of it as my get out of jail (a.k.a. Hell) free card. I really didn’t un-package the imagery of baptism until much later in life while studying American history for my Master’s degree. Ironically, a secular figure, Abraham Lincoln, from our history challenged me to delve deeper into the symbolic meaning of baptism during my studies. Lincoln, with no recorded baptism, challenged me to dig deeper into this meaning of many different issues including my religious beliefs concerning baptism, redemption, and salvation. It is probably fitting that a man who openly scoffed at religion and possibly even the existence of God igniting the spark to dig deep for new meaning. Like Lincoln, I was on a spiritual journey not a religious one when I encountered him and his words. While my spiritual sojourn matured as I sought higher education, Lincoln’s did while holding the highest office in the land. Several factors probably contributed to Lincoln’s spiritual maturation. One, he found it useful to use the language of Christianity for audiences of protestants. He always held reverence for the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible and this was his chance to display his expertise of both and use them effectively. But, more importantly, he suffered tragedies both personal and professional. Through the loss of children and the heartbreak of watching the nation he led be ripped apart by war he sought higher meaning. It was this higher meaning he intended to explain to the nation when he was invited to dedicate the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania honoring the dead Union soldiers who died during this cataclysmic battle. He would employ the metaphor of baptism to begin to explain the transcendences of the war to the grieving nation.
On that somber day in November Lincoln delivered what many historians would consider the greatest piece of American rhetoric ever delivered by an American president. He began with the birth of our nation; “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Born out of a desire for liberty and a dream of equality, our nation took its first breath. In other words, birth.
Then Lincoln moved to the failing life of the nation due to its choices to perpetuate and aid the evil institution of slavery; “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” The choices the nation made concerning slavery from 1776 up until 1861 plunged the nation into war. And now, according to Lincoln, the nation was dying a slow death by its own hand. He fleshes this out more succinctly in his second inaugural address when he calls slavery an American sin and explains that “ if God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the [slave]'s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword” who are we to question God’s punishment? In other words, life and death.
But, ultimately, Lincoln was an optimist. He believed that the nation was capable of living up to the founding idea of equality. But, it would take, as he put it at Gettysburg, “a new birth of freedom” in the coming decades. In other words, rebirth.
Lincoln understood that the nation must die to the sin of slavery and that a national resurrection would reshape American society and move it closer to the moral good of equality. Unfortunately for the nation the punishment of war was grim. Nearly 2% of all Americans lost their lives in that contest. But compared to the lives and material lost by slaves because of the American sin of slavery, this paled in comparison. So the nation had to pay the price of justice if it wanted the rebirth Lincoln envisioned. Tragically Lincoln’s lot was merely to superintend the death of the old slave-riddled country. And, unfortunately for Lincoln and the nation he would never see the rebirth due to an assassin’s bullet.
But Lincoln’s death illustrates another important point about grace. By extending grace we may never see the fruit. Legendary Coach John Wooden, as much a sage as a a coach, once said, “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” By offering grace to those who offend us or our loved ones we allow space for them to experience death and rebirth and that ultimately is growth. But like Lincoln, we might not be around to see the newly formed person and reap the rewards of that rebirth. We must be okay with that and embrace the words of coach Wooden and expect no repayment. As hard as it is for me, a failed human being, to extend grace to those who hurt me and my loved ones, I must do it. I must do it because it leads to the death of the hatred and vengeful attitudes in myself and a rebirth of something new, loving, and more virtuous.
I believe in virtue. I believe that our lives and society must rediscover virtuous living in order to develop cooperation and compassion. Let me suggest that grace is one of those virtues we must find again. Grace is not natural. We must choose it. We must learn to control our desire for retribution and decide to be graceful and let what needs to die, die. Rebirth cannot happen until there is death. My anger tonight is a righteous anger. But, even in righteous anger, grace is required. Even when we must speak truth to power or even to a friend who has wronged us grace is required. Because, in the end, don’t we all need grace? Don’t we all need something to die? Don’t we all need a rebirth? It is in these moments that I hope that I can live up to the sentiments that my former player said about me, “Even in the lows, you have grace.”