The Tipping Point Bob's Backstop for March 21, 2004

(Why am I sharing this? I don't know. Maybe you have a journey of your own you want to think about a little. Or maybe you've been questioning your values, or how you spend your time. Although I wrote this more for myself, for my own clarity, it seems worthwhile to share it, regardless.)

Recently, I've been thinking a great deal about an old friend.

I was the newly hired youth director at a Baltimore area church when we first met, he an obviously bright, though somewhat distant, 16-year-old; me, a long-time volunteer youth worker now taking a plunge into the unknown murky waters of "professionalism". When the group went away on retreat to a center near Harper's Ferry after I had been on board a few weeks, no one wanted to ride with me in my car, as I only had room for one, and they (a) didn't know me very well, and (b) they would have to drive up without any friends to talk to, only an adult. A double whammy.

But he did. Volunteered, as a matter of fact. Once we were under way, however, I discovered that he had ulterior motives. It was his intention to get inside my head and heart and find what made me tick, to badger me into feeling guilt for being an adult in such a hostile and unjust world ( in which I had a significant part), or both. I recall a lot of our give-and-take over the next two hours. At one point,  I revealed ownership of two 29-game Orioles tickets. When he asked how much they cost, I replied honestly. He was quite scornful as he replied that so much money being spent on a game was indeed a waste, and that the money could be better spent elsewhere.

I acknowledged his point, and responded that I, too, had difficulty with the expenditure, myself, but that I found the experience of going to the ballpark soulful, paralleling my experience in going to church. He did not understand this at all, but we moved on to other topics. When the trip was over, I thought I had passed his test...not completely, certainly, but enough to engender some of his respect.

As the years passed, this became more and more important to me, because I discovered over time how few people managed to earn his respect. He was a man apart, an outcast in the very world into which he was born. Among other stories, I heard about him taking homeless people into downtown restaurants, not only buying them lunch, but also sitting with them, getting to know them, and letting them know that he cared about them as people, not just a statistic, or as a feel-good panacea for his own soul.

My communications with him grew less frequent over his high school years, however, because he seldom attended youth group. I understood why. He liked the other kids in the group, many of whom he had known since childhood...but he wasn't like them, nor did he approve of the lifestyles of many of them. I spent time with him at his job at Columbia Mall, as he was employed at a seldom-frequented Greek food stand that afforded him lots of time to talk to me. I don't know how he felt after those chats, but I always felt that I had been in the presence of someone special, giving, caring.

I lost track of him after my church job was eliminated by the hiring of a new associate pastor, and my subsequent move. He crossed my mind occasionally over the next eighteen months, but not enough for me to call his house after I found he had left the job at the Mall. In the maelstrom of everyday living, I allowed myself to make the assumption that he had moved on to bigger and better things.

One sunny day, my friend sat down in a clearing, poured a can of gasoline over himself, and lit a match.

I met his wonderful girlfriend at the memorial service, and spent time with his sister, his mother, and other friends. They were all of the same mind. My friend had simply found the world too difficult to live in; his heart was simply too big to take in all the injustices, the hatred, the tribalism, the bad karma...at his still-tender age of twenty-one, it had simply overwhelmed him, until he could no longer take it.

He's been on my mind a great deal lately, as I've been struggling with an issue that he brought up all those years ago.

As some of you know, I've been on a journey these past eighteen months. About eight years ago, I started writing occasional columns for the Orioles Hangout, which, back in those early internet days, didn't even have its own web address or a registered domain name. Somewhere in there, a long-dormant seed began to sprout, though I didn't really see it at the time. It took a new relationship to show me what was happening in my life if I'd only stop to look for a moment. She frequently informed me that I "should be writing." When I'd reply, "writing what?", though, she'd shrug her pretty shoulders and just say, "I don't know, but you ought to be."

I really thought she was nuts. But, when the Belfry was born out of our departure from the Hangout, something became quickly apparent...I could write more frequently, more impassioned, more candidly, than I had in the past. And I did. I'm not saying I wrote especially well, mind you, just soulfully.

Then a few years ago, I found myself reading On Writing by Stephen King, when I was taking a road trip to Dayton and Chicago for Kerry and Meg's wedding. I was riveted. It was as if he were speaking directly to me. I turned the pages as if they were on fire, and devoured the contents not once, but twice. The seed had now not only been planted, but had taken root. I had no idea where it was going to take me, nor did I have any expectations, but I was aware something was happening.

About fifteen months ago, another piece of the puzzle fell into place when I was allowed to share life experiences and memories with an old friend some thirty years removed, and an aunt with whom I had once been close, but time, distance and events had placed a wedge between us. I was touched by stories, by shared memories, by passion, by joys, by loss, by tragedy, by mutual struggle with familiar demons...and I was moved to put pencil to paper.

What began as a therapeutic exercise became more, as the pages began piling up, one upon another. Soon, this was more than a memoir, even more than a short story. It was taking on a life of its own, and I decided to nurture it, see where it would take me.

So why am I telling you all this? Because, over the past six months, I've become truly torn. At times, I've felt the old admonition from my young friend, feeling I've been wasting my time at the Belfry. You see, I only have a limited amount of time to write, for both the Belfry and the work in progress (I am uncomfortable referring to it as a "novel" in public; that, to me, gives the impression that having it published is my goal, when, in actuality, my goal is to finish it, and share it. Beyond that, I have no goals.) Over the past few months, I've grown jealous of the couple of hours I spend on the Belfry every day, thinking how much faster I could get my other work done, how much better it could be if I had more time, how I wouldn't have to stay up until two a.m. writing the work or updating the page...and the thought of shutdown has crossed my mind. Which is strange, in a way, because the Orioles are finally doing some things right. But, that, of course, wasn't the point.

But then, I think of what the ballpark, and the game played within, means to me, as well as the friendships, both small and large, forged within these electronic pages. The memory of hunching over the radio with my frat brothers listening to a Richmond Braves - Columbus Clippers showdown with such concentration that it might have been the first reports of the moon landing; the first view of a professional outfield, impossibly green, impossibly vast; the red dirt of a small town Southern Virginia basepath; a sandlot game temporarily halted by a wind gust blowing the infield into everyone's eyes; balls wound in friction tape and cracked bats held together with judiciously placed nails; Hotbox, Five Hundred, Kentucky Derby, and Roll-a-bat games in the backyard or alley when there weren't enough kids to scrape together a game; calling a better "out" when they would stroke the ball into a right field absent of a fielder when playing "short".

Then, older, attending games and experiencing the feel of being part of a healthy mob, a collective, part of a pulse, a heartbeat; becoming part of a huge struggle, where people were winning, losing, alternating triumph and humiliation, sometimes not only in the same game, but the same inning, or even the same at-bat. Little by little, as I remember, I am renewed, revived, re-energized. Baseball, and sharing the ups and downs of the game, helps me to regain myself, can help all of us to regain ourselves. We're a crowd animal by nature, gregarious, communicative, but our insular culture and technologies (of which the Belfry is both a plus and a minus, as we have discussed before), the age in which we live, and all the fear that now too often fills our days, have put almost everyone into little boxes, each of us all alone. But baseball, if we love it, is part of giving us back our place in the crowd. It restores us.

Baseball, like life, throbs with hope, or it wouldn't exist. And it is full of me... who I have been, who I am, who I will be in the days to come.

Rather than telling me to forget baseball, to forgo my expenditures (though I finally did drop those tickets), to stop piddling around with a web page, I think my old friend was actually telling me something else...to live as if I were dying. The truth is, we're all terminal on this bus. To live as if I am dying gives me the chance to experience some real presence, as when we were children, living life in such big round measures, summers stretching before us endlessly, infinite. I can just read Stephen King, noodle on the web page, go to the shore, take a walk...all of those will fill me with ideas, thoughts, visions, memories, if I am a willing vessel. If today were my last day on earth, I might want to write some of the "novel," sure, but there are other options that would be just as pressing, just as part of the process.

My friend and I shared some interest in Zen. At the time that I was taking over the youth position, I was just getting into it, so he and I and several of the other boys spent time talking about it, trying to understand what some of the precepts really meant as something other than throwaway lines for Kung Fu, how the teachings paralleled many of those of Jesus. Two of the tenants have grown to mean a great deal to me during my ongoing spiritual journey..."In thinking, keep to the simple," and "In life, be always present." Christ said the same things, using different approaches...so does my writing speak to me...and baseball.

I want to be present in all those aspects of my life...family, friends, living in the world while not living of it, writing, and baseball.

My recent doubts about the value of how I spend this part of my time have been valuable, because it made me stop, and think awhile. Of my friends, my values, what nourishes me...and especially of my young friend.

The journey will continue, as will the Belfry, because the Belfry is part of my journey, not to be jettisoned, but to take its rightful place in moderation.

Isn't it a great day to play two?