March Madness continued

A few years ago, Kobe [Bryant, duh] fractured the fourth metacarpal bone in his right hand. He missed the first fifteen games of the season; he used the opportunity to learn to shoot jump shots with his left, which he has been known to do in games. While it was healing, the ring finger, the one adjacent to the break, spend a lot of time taped to his pinkie. In the end, Kobe discovered, his four fingers were no longer evenly spaced; now they were separated, two and two. As a result, his touch on the ball was different, his shooting percentage went down. Studying the film he noticed that his shots were rotating slightly to the right.

To correct the flaw, Kobe went to the gym over the summer and made one hundred thousand shots. that's one hundred thousand made, not taken. He doesn't practice taking shots, he explains. He practices making them. If you're clear on the difference between the two ideas, you can start drawing a bead on Kobe Bryant who may well be one of the most misunderstood figures in sports today.

Mike Sager, Esquire Magazine, 2007

March Madness

I would not sell my soul to be playing college ball somewhere in this country tonight, but I would give it long and serious consideration.

Pat Conroy, My Losing Season: A Memoir

 

 

 

 

Drown your shamrock

Once upon a time at a pub, Patrick ordered a whiskey, but was shocked and offended when the bartender’s pour did not fill his glass. He said the man had a devil in his cellar feeding on his dishonesty, so he’d best get his act together. The man immediately changed his ways. Like Scrooge on Christmas Day, he became the guy who filled everyone’s glass to the rim.

Today that story is remembered in the “Drowning of the Shamrock.” Each St. Patrick’s Day at the very end of the night, shamrocks are dunked into the last round of drinks (ideally whiskey) and a toast is offered to St. Patrick, in honor of his preferential option for the full pour.

        Jim McDermott, America, The Jesuit Review, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not just basketball

When you think you have done enough, do a little more,
because someone out there is working harder than you.

            Larry Bird, When the Game Was Ours

 

 

 

The ides of March

And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Emperor Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius [coin] and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose image is this, and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

                                12:14-17; Matthew 22:15-22; Luke 20:20-26


Diverse interpreters have speculated for ages about what it is that Jesus is saying belongs to God and should be given to God. Our spiritual virtues perhaps? Our immortal souls? Our tithes? Our life commitments? Our moral conscience? Our conformance to church law? Through history, “give to Caesar” has confused preachers and canon lawyers who apologized for Caesar’s needful claim on much of a Christian’s life.

But mystery writer [Dorothy] Sayers discovered that the dialog poses and solves a riddle. Jesus holds up the Roman coin, asking whose image it bears. Caesar’s image is how we recognize its owner, they reply. Then what belongs to God must have the same proof. What bears God’s image? You and I do: our whole human selves, as Genesis 2 declares. Then give your whole self to God, because you bear God’s image.

                Rick Fabian, Jesus and Paul Woven Together 

Poem: Domestic Bliss

A love affair is something to survive.
This is a relationship -
something to keep tidy.

So my love for you reveals itself
In my exceptionally thorough grocery lists
And I know how much you love me when
You scrub out the shower
Two weekends in a row.

I am a romantic janitor,
Performing constant maintenance
on my happiness.

Give me a kiss.
I just took out the trash
And swept the sidewalk.

                Patrick Califia 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience

Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting,
but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap
and stands confident in the storms of spring
without the fear that after them may come no summer.
It does come. But it comes only to the patient,
who are there as though eternity lay before them,
so unconcernedly still and wide.
I learn it daily, learn it with pain
to which I am grateful: patience is everything!

        Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet