Tag: hope

Perhaps This Time, or Next Time, or Soon

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2021Leave a comment

Dear Will:

This is a story about soccer (football without hands). But note: This is not a football story.

I first heard about the Brentford Bees at a business dinner in 2003. It was the same night in which I met Monty, a master raconteur who spent the evening entertaining us with stories about his sad-sack, lower division English football team. He recounted tale after tale about how his Bees sustained long periods of incompetence with occasional flashes of pretty-goodness—just enough success to create twinges of hope in the hearts of loyal fans, followed by the inevitable, almost unthinkable pratfall that would remind everyone of the true essence of Brentford. I was not much of a soccer fan at the time, but I found the Bees’ ineptitude irresistible. That very night I decided that Brentford would be my team.

Over the next several years, Monty had to teach me about promotion and relegation, why at the end of every season we seemed to sell off our best players and start over, how it was that we played in League Two which is actually the fourth division of English Football. (You understood that right: My Bees weren’t second-rate; they were fourth-rate.) I learned that Brentford supporters even have a saying—“It’s Brentford, innit?”—a shared bit of understanding that eventually, no matter how much you love them, the Bees will break your heart.

Allow me to illustrate: In the final seconds of the final game of 2013 (against Doncaster Rovers), the Bees had a chance to win the game and the league by converting a last-minute penalty kick. Alas, the ball hit the crossbar and bounced away, and in the scramble that followed Doncaster took the ball to the other end and scored as time expired. Thus the Bees turned near-certain victory into heartbreaking defeat—precisely the sort of thing you should expect if you are going to root for Brentford.

Fast forward to 2019/20. With the help of new ownership and better coaching, the Bees had climbed all the way into the second division (known as the Championship in order to maximize confusion). A victory in either of their last two games would have meant automatic promotion to the Premier League, considered the greatest league in all of football. (By now you should know where this is going.) Of course (of course!), the Bees lost both games and the playoff that followed—their ninth playoff failure in as many tries. Then, within weeks, we sold off our two best players, because, well, it’s Brentford, innit?

Given that fire sale, the 2020/21 season promised more of the same disappointment. A shorter off-season and a condensed schedule resulted in numerous injuries, forcing Brentford to scrap their way through the season with makeshift lineups. In spite of all of that, somehow the Bees pieced together two long unbeaten streaks, even rising briefly to the top of the league table. A late-season dip left us in third place, facing yet another playoff to try to secure promotion to the Premier League. Facing a two-goal deficit in the semi-finals, the Bees mounted an unimaginable comeback, scoring the winning goal with just minutes to play. The following week, Brentford did what their unwavering fans could only have dreamed of, beating Swansea 2-0 in the playoff final to earn their first-ever place in the Premiership. Fans wept openly, not quite believing what had happened to their beloved Bees. After decades of suffering, their faith in the team had finally been rewarded.

But like I said, this is not a football story.

The way I see it, we’re not so different from the Brentford Bees, you and I. We too are full of aspirations and good intentions, but too often our execution falls short. We try (for the most part), but on too many occasions we fail to perform at our best. Carelessness, bad habits, self-destructive behavior—they all get in the way. Repeatedly. As a result, we disappoint those we care about the most. Sometimes we even break their hearts. And yet through all of this fall-shortedness, those who love us never quite give up hope. They may not always like us, but having seen us (on occasion) at our best, they know what’s possible and cling to the notion that our Best Self could become our True Self—if only. Perhaps this time, or next time, or soon, at any rate, we will put it all together, rise above our weaknesses and become who we were meant to be.

This story about football is for all of us who break promises we cannot seem to keep, no matter how hard we try. And it’s also for all of those who believe in us in spite of all the disappointment, who hang with us through failure after failure, who continue to hope against all reason that eventually we will get it right. It’s about the kind of love and commitment that does not waver even though we do. Above all, it’s a reminder that, no matter on which side of disappointment you may find yourself, you should never give up hope that someday your day will come.

PW

Photo: Getty Images

The Grace of Rain

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20192 Comments

Praying for Rain

Dear Will:

“I woke this morning to the sound of rain.”

That’s how this letter was supposed to begin. The forecast was unambiguous. But when I opened my eyes and listened, I heard no rain. As usual. It seems there is NEVER any rain around here. Just ten days ago we hit 95 degrees, which is what passes for autumn here in Southern California. Our hills go from brown to browner, awaiting the seemingly inevitable wildfires that will finally turn them black. So when the forecast mentions even the possibility of rain, we do our best to hide our skepticism, watching the horizon, hoping, praying for just a little moisture, just this once.

As day began to dawn, I lay in bed, pondering our plight. We generally consider ourselves lucky to live in this desert paradise, where sunshine is the norm. Last Saturday I was hiking in the local hills and it was glorious: just-the-right-kind-of-warm, clear (!) blue skies, a gentle breeze. Elsewhere in the country they talk about bomb cyclones and the polar vortex, so we get no sympathy when we worry about another day of too much sun. Last night it dipped into the 40s here, which (I know) sounds pretty dreamy if you live in, say, Billings, Montana, where it’s not expected to get above 27 today. But it says here that the average November temperature in my town is 74 degrees. So yeah, we’ve got it pretty rough.

People are not likely to be any more sympathetic in Seattle, where they get fewer sunny days than wet days in a typical year. That’s 155 days of annual precipitation for them and around 34 for us, but I’m pretty sure you have to count foggy mornings in June to get to our total to 34. Earlier this year (March 5, to be exact), California was declared drought-free for the first time since December, 2011. That’s 376 weeks of drought—a stretch of truly biblical proportions. So perhaps you’ll understand why we constantly yearn for moisture without actually expecting it to come.

I acknowledge that in these matters we are the product of our own choices: the decision to live in a naturally arid environment, the preference for modern conveniences that contribute to a warming climate, the refusal to make meaningful compromises that might mitigate the consequences of our self-indulgence. It makes me wonder: How can I expect God to step in if I am not myself prepared to step up? Then again, how often do we truly deserve the blessings that He grants us anyway? Hasn’t he told us that hope is one of the three great virtues? Hasn’t he always invited us to trust in Him and in “good things to come”? Isn’t the whole idea of grace that He blesses us in spite of our manifest unworthiness?

And so, with “hope smiling brightly before us,” we pray for things beyond our merit, relying on a loving Father to hear our cries and reward our hope in spite of it all. To help us find a job when we screwed up the last one. To heal us of self-inflicted afflictions. To mend that which we have broken. To send the rain we need but perhaps do not deserve.

As I think about it, I woke this morning only to the promise of rain. And that promise was just enough to light within me a glimmer of hope that it might be so. I finish this short note to you listening to the fulfillment of that promise: pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat. The rain we long for, the rain we need. One more thing to give thanks for today when we say grace.

PW

An Allegory for Easter

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2018Leave a comment

boots

Dear Will:

Last Saturday morning I headed out to Weir Canyon for an easy morning hike. It had rained the night before, so I knew there was the possibility (or probability?) that the trail would be closed. But I was in the mood for a hike, so I did as I pleased and hoped for the best. When I pulled up, I was delighted to see that the trail was indeed open and that there was only one other car already parked at the trailhead on Hidden Canyon Road.

I chose the clockwise route this time, which features a short incline right out of the gate. The ground was still wet, but it was firm as I had hoped, so it seemed that everything was coming together according to plan. For about 30 feet, that is. I saw a couple of muddy skid marks where someone ahead of me had slipped. And then a couple more. Before long I was making skid marks of my own as the grippy tread of my Terrex hikers filled with mud and transformed into slippy tread instead. I quickly realized the futility of what I had undertaken and turned back to the car, practically skating down the slope on shoes now rendered twice as heavy (and nearly twice as wide) by the accumulating sludge. It was then that I spied and understood the trailside rock where others had smeared great glops of earthen goo in a quest to rescue their muddy soles.

Once on flatter, firmer ground, I did a bit of that smearing myself—on rocks, on the curb beside my car. I was forced to take the shoes off and bang them together as you might have done, flinging clumps of sticky clay in all directions and sending shocks up through my arms and shoulders. Ultimately I was transformed into tantrum-throwing percussionist, slamming down one shoe and then the other on the asphalt in a jarring and mostly successful effort to clear the Vibram crags in my heavy-laden trail shoes.

It was, perhaps, the dumbest of hikes. If I’m honest, I had made this same, post-rain mistake on this same trail once before, but in spite of knowing better I had insisted on trying to make things work my way anyway. But once I came to my senses, I made my way back home, parked my car, and headed out on the familiar streets of my neighborhood. The view was less dramatic and the experience less glamorous, but the roads were clear and the sun was out and it was lovely. The rains had turned the skies into the kind of blue we rarely see in car-crazy California—a blue that was intensified by random, puffy clouds that hung like cotton balls above the glistening trees. Had I chosen this route from the get-go, I would certainly have covered more ground—while increasing my pleasure and reducing the hardship—but because of my ill-conceived foray into the muck, I appreciated the clear, unobstructed path all the more.

Perhaps you’ve done this same thing yourself—chosen an enticing path even though, down in your heart, you knew better. Perhaps in consequence you too have found yourself stumbling along, slowed by the muck that you have accumulated along the way. And perhaps you’ve felt a similar desire to be rid of the mess and to find a clearer, more established path.

Perhaps you have also thought, as I do at this time of year: Thank God for the message of hope that Easter brings. Thank God for a Savior who has made it possible for even the grimiest among us to turn ourselves around and clear our muddy souls. And thank God for the clearer path that the Gospel of Jesus Christ illuminates for all of us. It truly is the better way. Way better.

PW

Photo: John Barwood Photography