The Moment

This is my entry in midmajority.com's "The Moment" writing contest. The challenge was to describe a moment that happened on a basketball court that affected your life. Mine has been selected as a finalist. Vote for "Lipscomb" here. Thanks.

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The most remarkable basketball-related Moment in my life was noteworthy only in how mundane it was.

The play itself was as nondescript as it gets. Jacob Arnett dribbles to the right wing and passes to a curling Josh Slater at the top of the arc. Slater fires, draining a 3-pointer with four seconds to go before halftime and cutting Mercer's lead over Lipscomb to 36-32. The shot accounted for three of Slater's twelve points that night, the assist one of Arnett's three.

And yes, I had to go back and look at the stat sheet on the Lipscomb website a few minutes ago to get all the details right.

For Erica, that extra step would not have been necessary. She just knows.

If you saw the game on pixelvision, you might have seen Erica. She is the little girl in the yellow sweatshirt and purple pants about 15 rows up from the Mercer bench. You might not have noticed her much, though, because for the first twenty minutes of the game she sat almost perfectly still.

That's right. She's seven years old, and she Did. Not. Move.

Typically, that kind of rapt attention is reserved for Star Wars and Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. And, apparently, Lipscomb basketball. Otherwise, she is your typical, active, loud little girl. She likes to run around, play with her sister, tell stories, and when she's not reading books generally make as much noise as she can for as long as she can.

It wasn't until later that I realized how big an impact that shot had on that little girl. You see, I was in Allen Arena to watch Lipscomb win a championship. Jacksonville had lost earlier that day, meaning Lipscomb would win the A-Sun regular-season title with a win. And at halftime, Lipscomb was down 4 to a Mercer squad missing its all-everything big man. If James Florence woke up in the second half, or if Adnan Hodzic didn't, the Bisons were in trouble.

I was worried about the outcome. Erica was enjoying The Moment.

But one random Thursday morning in late March, I walked into the kitchen and overheard Erica talking to her twin sister Katie around the breakfast table. “And then Jacob Arnett looked up and saw Josh Slater coming around and he passed it and Josh Slater shot it and it went in and Mercer was only ahead by 4!”

Since it was morning, I have no idea what the context of that sentence was. I did remember the game, since it was one of the two we got to attend last year. I remembered that Adnan went off in the second half (upon further review, 21 and 11 after Slater's shot). I remembered Lipscomb cutting down the nets after the game. I also remembered the conference tournament loss to Kennesaw State and the not getting invited to the NIT and the fact that Lipscomb only wins 27% of the time when both teams lead in the last 4 minutes.

But for a second there, in our kitchen, Erica and I had a Moment.

The fact that the Moment revolved around a basketball team that had ultimately disappointed me didn't matter. Because our Moment wasn't about me being a fan, but a Dad. Our Moment was a memory my little girl could carry with her a month later, and I was there when it happened, enjoying it right alongside her. Our Moment may look to outsiders like just another shot in just another game, but that's okay. What's important is not what makes up the Moment, but the fact that it is Ours.

The big life lesson? What my children need from me is not a storehouse of objects, a privileged position in the world, or a lifetime of ease, comfort, and safety. It's a Moment. Then another. Then another one after that.

And if basketball can help make that happen, then so much the better.

The Big Bang Myth

There's a lot to enjoy about the Big Bang Theory, and a lot to question about both its premise and its execution.

Yes, I'm talking about the TV show. I really hope you didn't click here in hopes of hearing a cogent discussion of cosmological theory. Seriously.

Anyway, when the TV show debuted on CBS three years ago, it was fun to watch. I could identify with the characters (a little too much, sometimes), relate to their situations, and even get a lot of the "inside jokes." I disagree with Sheldon's take on Babylon V, but Spock's Brain really is the measuring stick by which all other sci-fi terribleness is judged.

(For the uninitiated, "Spock's Brain" - "Star Trek 5" is the "less filling/tastes great" of Trekdom.)

But is The Big Bang Theory really about nerds? Or is about how the cool kids imagine nerds to be? Several incidents, especially in Season 3, lead me to believe it's the latter.

Nerd Myth #1 -- On the show, the four nerds are inseparable. They do everything together, because if they didn't have each other, they wouldn't have anybody, and that would just be bad.

Truth -- Real nerds don't travel in packs. In the wild, groups of nerds are about as common as multiple-birth pregnancies. Twins are uncommon but not rare. Triplets take you aback for a second. Quadruplets get mentioned on the news. And if you have five or more, somebody is going to make an amusement park out of your house.

Corollary truth -- Most nerds are happier alone or maybe with one other friend. "Not having anybody" isn't a calamity to be avoided, but for many nerds a welcome respite from the chaos.

Nerd Myth #2 -- Nerds in Big Bang land handle the end of relationships relatively well. "Serial monogamy" is the norm, while the occasional one-night stand isn't out of the question.

Truth -- Really? Nerds NEVER instigate the end of a relationship. They do end, of course, but usually it's because the other person chooses to end it. And when the relationship does end, nerds tend to go into a depressive funk of self-loathing that would make a Scottish Presbyterian want to bake them a pie or something.

Corollary Truth -- Most nerds would rather have a relationship with the opposite sex than even Luke Skywalker's Lightsaber. Or the Ring of Power. Or Data's head. In other words, rare, precious, and NOT disposable.

Nerd Myth #3 -- The more we get to know the Big Bang nerds, the better we like them.

Truth -- Getting to know a nerd is like peeling an onion. You might enjoy the smell at first, but eventually he's going to inadvertently shoot acid into your eye. Even then, you might decide that the relationship might be worth the effort, but either way it's safe to assume that you're going to end up crying.

In short, Will Rogers never met a real nerd.

Corollary truth -- Nerds are fiercely loyal (see Myth #2), so when they do make you cry they'll have no idea what's wrong. They'll simply assume they have done something terrible and shrink back into their lair, and unless you go in after them you're unlikely to ever see them again. If a real nerd really likes you, he'd rather live without you than hurt you again.

Yes, I know it's just a TV show. And no, I don't suppose it's fair to expect somebody who spent his whole career on the popular side of his social world to really understand what it's like over here. I just hope that folks watching the TV show understand that the characters are nothing like anything you'd see in the real world.

These nerds are smart, beautiful, and completely imaginary.

You Are Not A Nerd

You are not a nerd.

No, you're not.

Seriously.

Quit pretending. And quit living in that fantasy world where high school was just so hard and you just couldn't fit in and you tried so hard to be accepted. Compared to actual dorks, you were the prom queen. I'm looking at you, former cheerleader/athlete/oboe player/class president who, now that the Geek Chic era has dawned, can only talk to your friends about those three Friday nights in four years you spent alone. I've seen the yearbooks. I've seen your name and face on every other page. And what's more, I remember everything you did to be accepted.

And you know what? It worked. While the real nerds watched in envious awe, you ran in any social circle you chose. People came to you, because being close to you made them cool. You were accepted then, and you are accepted now. Even today, when the only socially acceptable memories are complaining about how nobody ever liked you, the reality is you are now, and have always been, cool.

And that's fine, if that's what you want. Be cool. Be popular. Have lots of friends. Be who you are.

Just don't call yourself a nerd, a geek, a dork, or any of the other pejoratives you used to heap onto the heads of those of us who earned the names and the accompanying wedgies and swirlies. Because if you've never seen the inside of a locker with the door closed, you are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be, a nerd.

Quit trying to pretend to be one of us.

I don't really expect you to understand, nor even much care, but before the days of Facebook and the Big Bang Theory and the red carpet at ComiCon, being a geek came at a price. True nerd-dom is formed at an early age, and is not so much chosen as it is imposed. There were dues to be paid, hardships to be endured, and if you were one of the lucky dorks who had a friend or two to suffer with you, those friendships last to this day.

But just so you know, there is a difference. Real nerds can tell. We know the difference between those of you who had an actual date to your senior prom and those of us who had to build our prom date out of parts from Radio Shack. We can tell if you played on your high school baseball team or simply sat on the end of the bench keeping stats and stealing the other team's signs. We can see it if you watched Molly Ringwald movies and dressed like Debbie Gibson and listened to New Kids on the Block and did all those individualistic rebellious things that every other kid your age was doing.

We know, because deep down inside we wanted to be you. But for whatever reason – call it social ineptitude or dignity or whatever you want – we just couldn't manage it. And for that failure, we were made to pay.

So we learned early on that for us, caring what other people think was a one-way ticket head first into the nearest garbage can. Indifference, then, became a survival trait. If every emotional investment in the feelings of others produced pain for us, we simply quit. We learned how to not care what you think of our clothes, our music, our movies. We point at you and laugh as you desperately try to make a name for yourself on Survivor or American Idol or – toll the bell – Jersey Shore. We realize that “normal” in America is broke, stupid, and starved for emotional validation, and we smile, because in our nerdy pursuits of satisfying, meaningful work, genuine comradeship forged in shared hardship, and inner-directed self-esteem, we have everything you want – money, power, intelligence, and friendships that endure.

And right now, we're just loving the fact that suddenly you want to be one of us.

So go on pretending, if you like. If imagining a life you never actually lived is what you need to do to make yourself believe you “fit in,” I don't suppose I can stop you. So go ahead. Buy that Stormtrooper costume or those Vulcan ears. Watch that Babylon V boxed set, or Season 3 of Stargate Atlantis. Just know that the world you're trying to “fit in” with is one where you're the alien.

You don't belong here.

And when the time comes for you to move on to the Next Big Thing and leave us to our fantasy worlds and crossword puzzles and fake Hobbit feet, we won't miss you. We don't need the glare of the camera and the corporate sponsorship and the TV ratings and the societal acceptance to do what we do. We didn't need it before, and when the time comes we and our real friends will go right back into our basements and garages and never give you a second thought.

Because we're nerds. And you're not.

Why Prison Ministry?

The safest place in the world is behind the walls of a prison.

My first visit to a jail came when I was 20 years old. I really had no business even being there. My head an Ewok-and-a-half off the ground, my body a little on the large side for a jockey, and my personality as dorky as the day is long back before the Geek Chic era, all rational sense told me I was in the wrong place. After all, what could a law-abiding, baseball-card-collecting, crossword-puzzle-creating college nerd have in common with people who spent their days and nights behind bars? What would we talk about? “Hey, did you get 38 down in yesterdays LA Times? And how about the bet the guy made in Final Jeopardy last night? What was he thinking?”

But when I walked into CCA-Nashville that Sunday night back in 1994, I wasn't following my intellect or even my conscience. I didn't feel particularly duty-bound to visit people in prison (after all, Matthew 25 is a menu, not a checklist, right?). I had nothing in particular to say; to that point my life story was anything but remarkable and my oratorical talent was, shall we say, raw.

That Sunday night I was following my heart, which at the time was securely in the possession of the 21-year-old blond sitting next to me. She had been involved in jail and prison ministry for several years and wanted me to try it once.

The things we guys will do for a girl.

Anyway, when the guard opened the outside door it was time to go back and see the guys. The girl wouldn't be with me, as it turns out; this facility had separate services for men and women at the same time, so Laura went back into the women's pods and I went with Harold, Harold, and Harold – their real names, by the way – to the chapel. The Harolds were going about the business of setting up a jail service, distributing song books, showing the communion trays to the guards, sorting through prayer request cards and correspondence courses, waiting for the guys to come in.

I, meanwhile, was trying to disappear.

Since the door to the chapel was at the back of the room, I took a seat on the front row next to the wall. One of the first inmates through the door was, physically speaking, everything I wasn't. Standing 6-foot-6 and probably weighing in the neighborhood of 400 pounds, he was the picture of everything I had imagined a prison inmate to be. Which is to say, big. Scary big.

I started to get out of my seat to join the handshake line when he spotted me. I put on my “Try to look friendly even though deep down I think I'm probably going to die” face and shook his hand. Excitedly, he shook my hand and took a seat on the front row. He seemed genuinely excited to be there, and especially happy that I was there too.

Uh oh.

After the handshakes, I reclaimed my seat and resumed my futile efforts to dissolve into the wall. I too was sitting on the front row, next to this behemoth of a man whose name I still can't recall sixteen years later as I write this. Sensing my unease, my new seatmate decided to try to help.

“This is your first jail service, isn't it?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You nervous?”

“Yeah,” I squeaked, wondering if the giveaway was the clammy skin, the shallow breathing, the paleness of my face, or the thin line of sweat forming on my forehead.

“Well don't worry about it,” he told me. “If anybody wants to get to you, they have to get through me.”

Now I've never been one to pick up on the finer points of human psychology, or to possess any real instincts that would help me understand why people do what they do and under what circumstances they might find themselves wearing an orange jumpsuit in a medium-security incarceration facility. But I did have at least a rudimentary knowledge of physics. And since I had serious doubts that my Toyota Corolla would be able to “get through” this guy, I figured that anybody else who wanted to make trouble for me faced long odds indeed.

My mind at ease, and my body's flight response dimmed from “incandescent terror” to “not quite comfortable but probably not going to die in the next few minutes,” I took in the rest of the service. I helped pass the Lord's Supper trays. There were six responses to the sermon, including one request for baptism (I found out later that these are fairly typical response numbers for a room with 35 men.). As the Harolds packed up our supplies and the last of the inmates left the chapel, my new really large friend said, “I hope we see you again.”

“I hope so, too,” I replied.

At the time, I had no idea why I said that, but reflecting on the conversation later I realized that the sense of comfort and safety I felt as I was leaving CCA-Nashville didn't really have much to do with merely surviving the night. Facing a ministry career that would probably be defined by what I could or could not do, in prison work I had found a way to share the grace of God with people who needed it just by showing up. The fact that I was willing to be there, that I cared enough to take time for them, that I was willing to set aside my prejudices and fears long enough to be a presence in their lives – that by itself was genuine ministry. I didn't have to prove I belonged. It didn't matter what level of talent or skill or personal charisma I brought with me into the facility. What mattered was that I was there.

That night, I felt like I belonged in jail.

In the last sixteen years, I have bounced in and out of pulpits all over the country. I have gone to grad school, spent a year working with the homeless, displayed my talents (or usually the lack thereof) before audiences large and small. I have had the privilege of being midwife to roughly 300 new births into Christ, most of them in correctional facilities. I even got to spend a year helping one of the Harolds (along with his wife Helen and Federal Prison Outreach Ministry director Ron Goodman) run their Madison prison ministry office.

But everywhere I've gone, I've tried – with varying degrees of success – to be involved in ministry to the incarcerated. I don't go back over and over again because the work is easy; I've learned that there are times when jail work is genuinely difficult. Nor have I ever felt particularly duty-bound; there are souls to be saved everywhere you go, not just behind bars. I keep going into jails and prisons because people need to experience God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness. They need love to be based not on what is in their past or what they might have to offer in the future, but on our shared humanity and potential eternity of fellowship in heaven. Most of all, they need to know that no matter their surroundings, real security – real safety – is available in Jesus.

And so do I.

P. S. – About the girl. She'd have me tell you she's not blond anymore. This week we celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary with a trip to the National Jail & Prison Ministry Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama. And yes, when the Star Wars exhibit at the Space and Rocket Center opens later this summer, we'll be back. Still dorky after all these years.

My Bracket Guess, 2010

Because I can, that's why.

Also to have a time-stamped record of what I thought and when.

Here goes:

1 Kansas
16 Winthrop/UAPB (Notorious PIG)
8 Marquette
9 Richmond
4 BYU
13 Sam Houston State
5 Butler
12 Wake Forest
2 Villanova
15 Morgan State
7 Clemson
10 UTEP
3 Wisconsin
14 Oakland
6 Vanderbilt
11 Minnesota

1 Duke
16 Robert Morris
8 St. Mary's
9 Washington
4 Texas A&M
13 New Mexico State
5 New Mexico
12 Notre Dame
2 Ohio State
15 UCSB
7 Northern Iowa
10 Utah State
3 Georgetown
14 Montana
6 Texas
11 Siena

1 Syracuse
16 Lehigh
8 Missouri
9 Georgia Tech
4 Purdue
13 Murray State
5 Tennessee
12 UNLV
2 Kansas State
15 North Texas
7 California
10 Gonzaga
3 Maryland
14 Ohio
6 Xavier
11 Louisville

1 Kentucky
16 ETSU
8 Oklahoma State
9 San Diego State
4 Temple
13 Wofford
5 Pittsburgh
12 Virginia Tech
2 West Virginia
15 Vermont
7 Florida State
10 Old Dominion
3 Baylor
14 Houston
6 Michigan State
11 Cornell

There. Feel free to laugh at me in an hour and a half or so.