This is what I just wrote for my personal blog (lovewithacapitall.com). I’m posting it here, for you, a little because baseball has taken so much of my time. But mostly because you care for me so much and so well, and I think you’d like to know what happened…

With this blank screen in front of me, I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it. Or even if I should, Our words should be used to build, and that is usually what I try to do in this space, but sometimes the point is in our bad behavior, hidden in our our most regrettable moments. And writing anything is about honesty, especially in a non-fiction blog situation. If we feel like the writer is curating an image, what on earth is the point? Anybody can wear a mask and lie. The only way to find connection is through a mutual authenticity, and sometimes that is ugly on the outside.

Last night the baseball season ended. The first day, I sat the boys down and said something like, teenage boys are awful a lot of the time. But that’s only because they usually deal in Lord of the Flies type social dynamics. They’re mean, sarcastic, cutting. They mock and tease, try to shrink others to make themselves appear taller. This is ridiculous and rooted, as everyone knows, in fear and a raging insecurity. They wear masks to try to hide the overwhelming inadequacy in their hearts. 

Of course, this is not just teenage boys. It’s just as much women at your office or men at the grocery store. We act out of our perceived lack, and that makes us nasty and awfully dangerous.

So I tell them we will not do that here, we will operate from a different reality. You don’t have to be insecure here, you don’t have to be afraid. We’ll stand up straight, support and love each other. And that’s largely what happened. Errors and mistakes were easily forgotten, lots and lots of encouragement was poured out like water, and we won everything there was to win.

A side note: It’s not often enough that the best people are the best performers. The kindest, gentlest, most caring people don’t always win. When they do, as was the case this season, it must be acknowledged and savored. As written in the masterpiece Horton Hatches The Egg, “and it should be, it should be, it should be like that!”

Last night was the league celebration, where they got the trophies they had earned through hard work and commitment – to themselves, their gifts, the game, and each other. The second place team in the year end tournament was also there to collect theirs, as well. 

Then the coach was invited to give the medals to the players, and he (clad in sunglasses and a skull t-shirt instead of a team/sponsor/uniform shirt), wearing an uninterested disguise, walked to the front, using foul language and disrespect as weapons.

Another side note: I don’t mind foul language, not much is offensive to me, but there is a time and a place. A youth sports event, in front of the league administration, players and parents, is not the place (whether they’ve all ‘heard it before’ or not.)

He handed his medals to the players without regard for them and their work. Then as we got ours, he made a derisive comment and they all refused to acknowledge any of us, as we collected tournament and league championships, and our players received their all-tournament & MVP awards. 

It was so so sad. It might have been something, anything else if the behavior wasn’t so hollow and obvious. My heart broke out loud, I wanted to cry and give him a hug.

My question was, why? Why would anyone want to discount or diminish an achievement, any achievement, of another? But I already know. The desperate quest for proving your worth, and the accompanying terror of not knowing if you’ll ever find it, is very powerful and has crushed far more than just him.

I don’t know if my team made the connection. When we were alone, I reiterated the importance of living free of the inadequacy/insecurity that weighs down so many of our moments – I wonder if they recognized that they were given a perfect illustration of the result of a lifetime under the vicious boot of unworthiness, like the ghost of Christmas future.

As for the boys I coached, I told them they were beautiful, that I was so proud of them (championship or not), and that they were loved. I told them every minute we spent together was an honor for which I could never adequately express. Then we said goodbye for the last time this season.

As for that guy, I wish he hadn’t embarrassed himself so thoroughly. But more, I wish and pray that he finds some sort of peace in who he is and feels the familiar arms of a loving God around him, whispering in his ear that he is, and has always been, loved.

And as for me, (to again borrow from Horton and his egg), they sent me home happy, one hundred percent.