The Heart of a Champion
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the Second Congregational Meeting House on Nantucket Island
Sunday June 2nd, 2002
READING: from Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior, by Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
“...When I learned to shift my focus -- two steps forward, one step back -- from winning and losing to my love of the game, the sting of defeat began to diminish. Once, after a game in Denver, my sister-in-law dropped by the locker room and told me that she’d broken into tears watching me coach. ‘I started crying,” she said, ‘because I realized that this is exactly what you were meant to do. You’re so comfortable out there. It just seems so right....’ ”
***
As those of you who know me can probably guess, my attention has pretty much been fixated on one thing this past week. And I’m feeling so shameless in my enthusiasm I’m not even going to bother to apologize any more. Here in the East it is all wrapped up; next Wednesday the New Jersey Nets will be in California to play for the first-ever NBA Championship in the history of that franchise, but tonight in Sacramento, 7 pm Eastern Time, it’s the Lakers and the Kings in Game Seven -- 48 minutes (maybe a little bit more) for all the marbles in the West, and the right to teach those neophytes from the Garden State what Championship Basketball is really all about. And I have to confess, even though I’ve been a Lakers fan since I was a little boy -- back in the days of Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlin, and Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West -- tonight I’m kinda pulling for the Kings to win on their home court. But mostly I’m just looking forward to watching a good game, and may the best team win. The outcome is actually far less important to me than the process.
This is not, by the way, another basketball sermon. My love of basketball is obviously an important part of my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to inflict my fanaticism on all of you Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. I do want to tell you another story though, about how my love of basketball nearly kept me from graduating from Harvard. Twenty-one years ago, I was in my final semester of Divinity School, with only a handful of requirements left to fulfill before earning my degree. But back in those days, CBS didn’t broadcast the preliminary rounds of the NBA play-offs live; instead they showed them at midnight on a tape-delay, which meant that most nights I was up until three o’clock watching those games, which made it awfully hard to drag myself out of bed and into class later that same morning.
That was the year that the Boston Celtics were making their run to the 1981 Championship... their first in the era of Larry Bird, who is only two months younger than I am, and who had just come into the league the year before. And I remember one night watching Bird play, and thinking to myself: “why is this guy playing so hard?” And not just Bird, but all these guys -- they’re all already millionaires, they can pretty much buy whatever they want, plus they’re doing something they really love, something that I would have given just about anything to be able to do half as well myself, and yet there they were getting knocked down trying to drive to the basket, diving on the floor for loose balls, risking painful, career-ending injuries while running up and down the court to the point of exhaustion, and for what? For a ring -- a championship ring -- a gaudy piece of jewelry that symbolizes to the world that for one brief, fleeting moment in time, they were the very best in the world at what they do, which is throwing an inflated leather ball through an horizontal iron hoop located ten feet off the ground.
So I thought about that for a little bit, and the next morning when I woke up I walked down to the Coop in Harvard Square and put down a deposit on a ring of my own -- this Harvard Signet (which frankly, I don’t wear very much any more -- I’ve gained a little weight since I was in seminary, and I’m always kinda afraid that once I put it on I’ll never get it off again). But I wanted something tangible to motivate me to work as hard at the things that I did best as Larry Bird worked “playing” basketball. And I started going to class again (although I have to admit, I did NOT stop watching the basketball games), and I turned in all of my final assignments, and at about the same time that “Larry Legend” was winning the first of his three NBA championships, I put on this robe, and this hood, and this ring for the first time, and was formally welcomed into “the company of educated men and women.”
I really love my job, and I always try to make it look as easy as I can, which is, quite frankly, not always as easy as it looks. There’s a certain grace that comes from the appearance (the illusion, actually) that difficult things “just come naturally” -- that you are so good at what you do, so in tune with the rhythm of your work, that it all becomes effortless: a kind of graceful, joyous, spontaneous dance, a blessing, a gift of divine, providential inspiration. Because if you really, truly love what you do, how can you possibly call it work? Work is supposed to be difficult, and unpleasant. But if we are truly good at what we do, our work should seem like childsplay; if we truly have a job we love, a “fairy tale” job that we look forward to going to every single day, and which we can’t believe that someone is actually willing to pay us to do, shouldn’t excellence just somehow be part of the package?
But it really is a fairy tale, isn’t it? -- this “illusion of effortlessness.” And it doesn’t really matter how much we may love our vocation, or how gifted or talented we may be, to truly excel at what we do, to be so good at our job that someone will actually pay us to “play” -- to play the piano, to play professional basketball -- generally demands an unbelievable amount of hard work. And to be “the very best” -- the best in the world, or even just the best that we are capable of becoming, requires even more. “Happily Ever After” generally doesn’t happen until after the hero has swam the moat, climbed the castle wall, slain the dragon, and broken the enchantment. Not even the Princess has it as easy as you might think; every bed of roses also has its thorns.
The word Champion means “warrior” -- and not just any kind of warrior either, but a “markedly superior” warrior, the winner of the tournament...and one who does battle to defend another person’s rights or honor as well. One “champions” a cause by taking on the problems of another person as if they were one’s own, by defending the weak against those who would take advantage of their weakness, by fighting on behalf of those who are incapable of defending themselves. Champions are courageous -- which is to say, they have “heart.” And this “heartiness,” this courage, not only makes them brave, it also makes them compassionate. Compassion -- which is, literally, the ability to “suffer together” -- is the reality at the center of the heart of a true champion. It is the quality which gives them their superiority, and thus makes them worthy of honor and admiration.
Of course, warriors must also possess a certain “killer instinct,” an ability to “execute,” to put their opponents away in crunch time, and this is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect about the experience of becoming a champion. Poise, an ability to perform gracefully under pressure, is actually a combination of three distinct qualities. The first of these is an ability to match the intensity of a situation. The more difficult and challenging a situation becomes, the more essential it becomes for a champion to rise to the level of that challenge -- to become that much more energetic, that much more focused, that much more emotional, that much more intense.
And yet, at the same time, it becomes equally important for champions to minimize both the number and the magnitude of their mistakes. Intensity often generates mistakes, but the attempt to avoid mistakes by limiting ones intensity is often the biggest mistake of all. Champions discover how to increase their intensity and still minimize their mistakes, and this quality is truly the mark of a Champion. Their opponents may occasionally defeat them, but they never defeat themselves, nor do they ever shy away from the pressure, no matter how intense it may become. This experience comes from training, and practice, and discipline...but above all else, it generates itself. It is often only by having faced the challenge before that one develops the ability to face it successfully again.
Let me try to put it another way. All competitive activities, from an aerial dogfight to a game of chess, basically involve the same four steps. The competitor must accurately observe what is going on around them, they must recognize and understand the significance of what they see, they must decide what they are going to do, and then they must act on that decision. Observe, Recognize, Decide, Act. To decide and then act without really understanding what is going on will usually get you into trouble, but to wait to act until your understanding is perfect can also be dangerous, because while you are trying to figure out what to do, your opponent is getting ready to do something to you. All four steps are essential, but they are also time-sensitive; and if you can accurately cycle through all four of them more quickly than your opponent, you will eventually end up ahead of them (or, in the case of air-to-air combat, behind them -- on their “six”). The confidence to trust your instincts: to know without thinking what you see, what it means, what to do and when to do it, is something that only comes from having done it before. And this is the quality of experience that separates the Champions from the also-rans.
The process of truly becoming a champion is about much, much more than merely winning or losing. Championships are not so much about victory as they are about sacrifice: what are you willing to give up, in order to achieve the thing that truly matters most? The first and most important victory is not over your opponent, but rather over yourself. Your competitor is merely someone who challenges you to become better than you already are. They aren’t necessarily your enemy, although they sometimes might be -- but that’s an entirely different matter altogether. Just because someone is competing against you, trying to achieve the same goal that you are, doesn’t make them evil. A potential champion’s worst enemy is always their own self -- their own limitations and shortcomings, their own selfishness. Because the real goal of a true champion is excellence for its own sake. And victory -- a championship -- is merely a symbol of the real achievement.
I love to watch basketball because it’s such a simple game. The rules are clear, the goal is obvious, there are lots of subtle nuances, but they are easy to understand if you are willing to look closely, pay attention, and learn from your experience. And the whole thing is over with in just a few hours. Real life is much more complicated, and therefore much more interesting as well. What will you choose to become the champion of? How hard are you willing to work to achieve that goal, and what are you willing to sacrifice in order to become “the best in the world” at whatever it is that you have chosen for yourself? How will you overcome your fear of failure, or your fear of success; how will you know, in your heart of hearts, when you have finally won your hard-fought victory over your own potential shortcomings? And what will you do, when that moment finally comes, to celebrate your victory, and reward yourself, in a meaningful way, for your well-deserved accomplishment?
at the Second Congregational Meeting House on Nantucket Island
Sunday June 2nd, 2002
READING: from Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior, by Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
“...When I learned to shift my focus -- two steps forward, one step back -- from winning and losing to my love of the game, the sting of defeat began to diminish. Once, after a game in Denver, my sister-in-law dropped by the locker room and told me that she’d broken into tears watching me coach. ‘I started crying,” she said, ‘because I realized that this is exactly what you were meant to do. You’re so comfortable out there. It just seems so right....’ ”
***
As those of you who know me can probably guess, my attention has pretty much been fixated on one thing this past week. And I’m feeling so shameless in my enthusiasm I’m not even going to bother to apologize any more. Here in the East it is all wrapped up; next Wednesday the New Jersey Nets will be in California to play for the first-ever NBA Championship in the history of that franchise, but tonight in Sacramento, 7 pm Eastern Time, it’s the Lakers and the Kings in Game Seven -- 48 minutes (maybe a little bit more) for all the marbles in the West, and the right to teach those neophytes from the Garden State what Championship Basketball is really all about. And I have to confess, even though I’ve been a Lakers fan since I was a little boy -- back in the days of Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlin, and Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West -- tonight I’m kinda pulling for the Kings to win on their home court. But mostly I’m just looking forward to watching a good game, and may the best team win. The outcome is actually far less important to me than the process.
This is not, by the way, another basketball sermon. My love of basketball is obviously an important part of my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to inflict my fanaticism on all of you Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. I do want to tell you another story though, about how my love of basketball nearly kept me from graduating from Harvard. Twenty-one years ago, I was in my final semester of Divinity School, with only a handful of requirements left to fulfill before earning my degree. But back in those days, CBS didn’t broadcast the preliminary rounds of the NBA play-offs live; instead they showed them at midnight on a tape-delay, which meant that most nights I was up until three o’clock watching those games, which made it awfully hard to drag myself out of bed and into class later that same morning.
That was the year that the Boston Celtics were making their run to the 1981 Championship... their first in the era of Larry Bird, who is only two months younger than I am, and who had just come into the league the year before. And I remember one night watching Bird play, and thinking to myself: “why is this guy playing so hard?” And not just Bird, but all these guys -- they’re all already millionaires, they can pretty much buy whatever they want, plus they’re doing something they really love, something that I would have given just about anything to be able to do half as well myself, and yet there they were getting knocked down trying to drive to the basket, diving on the floor for loose balls, risking painful, career-ending injuries while running up and down the court to the point of exhaustion, and for what? For a ring -- a championship ring -- a gaudy piece of jewelry that symbolizes to the world that for one brief, fleeting moment in time, they were the very best in the world at what they do, which is throwing an inflated leather ball through an horizontal iron hoop located ten feet off the ground.
So I thought about that for a little bit, and the next morning when I woke up I walked down to the Coop in Harvard Square and put down a deposit on a ring of my own -- this Harvard Signet (which frankly, I don’t wear very much any more -- I’ve gained a little weight since I was in seminary, and I’m always kinda afraid that once I put it on I’ll never get it off again). But I wanted something tangible to motivate me to work as hard at the things that I did best as Larry Bird worked “playing” basketball. And I started going to class again (although I have to admit, I did NOT stop watching the basketball games), and I turned in all of my final assignments, and at about the same time that “Larry Legend” was winning the first of his three NBA championships, I put on this robe, and this hood, and this ring for the first time, and was formally welcomed into “the company of educated men and women.”
I really love my job, and I always try to make it look as easy as I can, which is, quite frankly, not always as easy as it looks. There’s a certain grace that comes from the appearance (the illusion, actually) that difficult things “just come naturally” -- that you are so good at what you do, so in tune with the rhythm of your work, that it all becomes effortless: a kind of graceful, joyous, spontaneous dance, a blessing, a gift of divine, providential inspiration. Because if you really, truly love what you do, how can you possibly call it work? Work is supposed to be difficult, and unpleasant. But if we are truly good at what we do, our work should seem like childsplay; if we truly have a job we love, a “fairy tale” job that we look forward to going to every single day, and which we can’t believe that someone is actually willing to pay us to do, shouldn’t excellence just somehow be part of the package?
But it really is a fairy tale, isn’t it? -- this “illusion of effortlessness.” And it doesn’t really matter how much we may love our vocation, or how gifted or talented we may be, to truly excel at what we do, to be so good at our job that someone will actually pay us to “play” -- to play the piano, to play professional basketball -- generally demands an unbelievable amount of hard work. And to be “the very best” -- the best in the world, or even just the best that we are capable of becoming, requires even more. “Happily Ever After” generally doesn’t happen until after the hero has swam the moat, climbed the castle wall, slain the dragon, and broken the enchantment. Not even the Princess has it as easy as you might think; every bed of roses also has its thorns.
The word Champion means “warrior” -- and not just any kind of warrior either, but a “markedly superior” warrior, the winner of the tournament...and one who does battle to defend another person’s rights or honor as well. One “champions” a cause by taking on the problems of another person as if they were one’s own, by defending the weak against those who would take advantage of their weakness, by fighting on behalf of those who are incapable of defending themselves. Champions are courageous -- which is to say, they have “heart.” And this “heartiness,” this courage, not only makes them brave, it also makes them compassionate. Compassion -- which is, literally, the ability to “suffer together” -- is the reality at the center of the heart of a true champion. It is the quality which gives them their superiority, and thus makes them worthy of honor and admiration.
Of course, warriors must also possess a certain “killer instinct,” an ability to “execute,” to put their opponents away in crunch time, and this is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect about the experience of becoming a champion. Poise, an ability to perform gracefully under pressure, is actually a combination of three distinct qualities. The first of these is an ability to match the intensity of a situation. The more difficult and challenging a situation becomes, the more essential it becomes for a champion to rise to the level of that challenge -- to become that much more energetic, that much more focused, that much more emotional, that much more intense.
And yet, at the same time, it becomes equally important for champions to minimize both the number and the magnitude of their mistakes. Intensity often generates mistakes, but the attempt to avoid mistakes by limiting ones intensity is often the biggest mistake of all. Champions discover how to increase their intensity and still minimize their mistakes, and this quality is truly the mark of a Champion. Their opponents may occasionally defeat them, but they never defeat themselves, nor do they ever shy away from the pressure, no matter how intense it may become. This experience comes from training, and practice, and discipline...but above all else, it generates itself. It is often only by having faced the challenge before that one develops the ability to face it successfully again.
Let me try to put it another way. All competitive activities, from an aerial dogfight to a game of chess, basically involve the same four steps. The competitor must accurately observe what is going on around them, they must recognize and understand the significance of what they see, they must decide what they are going to do, and then they must act on that decision. Observe, Recognize, Decide, Act. To decide and then act without really understanding what is going on will usually get you into trouble, but to wait to act until your understanding is perfect can also be dangerous, because while you are trying to figure out what to do, your opponent is getting ready to do something to you. All four steps are essential, but they are also time-sensitive; and if you can accurately cycle through all four of them more quickly than your opponent, you will eventually end up ahead of them (or, in the case of air-to-air combat, behind them -- on their “six”). The confidence to trust your instincts: to know without thinking what you see, what it means, what to do and when to do it, is something that only comes from having done it before. And this is the quality of experience that separates the Champions from the also-rans.
The process of truly becoming a champion is about much, much more than merely winning or losing. Championships are not so much about victory as they are about sacrifice: what are you willing to give up, in order to achieve the thing that truly matters most? The first and most important victory is not over your opponent, but rather over yourself. Your competitor is merely someone who challenges you to become better than you already are. They aren’t necessarily your enemy, although they sometimes might be -- but that’s an entirely different matter altogether. Just because someone is competing against you, trying to achieve the same goal that you are, doesn’t make them evil. A potential champion’s worst enemy is always their own self -- their own limitations and shortcomings, their own selfishness. Because the real goal of a true champion is excellence for its own sake. And victory -- a championship -- is merely a symbol of the real achievement.
I love to watch basketball because it’s such a simple game. The rules are clear, the goal is obvious, there are lots of subtle nuances, but they are easy to understand if you are willing to look closely, pay attention, and learn from your experience. And the whole thing is over with in just a few hours. Real life is much more complicated, and therefore much more interesting as well. What will you choose to become the champion of? How hard are you willing to work to achieve that goal, and what are you willing to sacrifice in order to become “the best in the world” at whatever it is that you have chosen for yourself? How will you overcome your fear of failure, or your fear of success; how will you know, in your heart of hearts, when you have finally won your hard-fought victory over your own potential shortcomings? And what will you do, when that moment finally comes, to celebrate your victory, and reward yourself, in a meaningful way, for your well-deserved accomplishment?
posted by The Eclectic Cleric at 2:06 PM
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