Tragic hero of the here and now

I’ve been dwelling on the idea of failure so much lately, I’ve thought about taking my name off this blog and just calling it #FAIL. While failure has been a thing I’ve been coming back to time and again this past week, I know I can’t obsess over it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about failure, it’s that living in one’s own mind is the greatest failure of all.

Steven Pressfield calls this the Resistance, an invisible force that stands in the way of turning the inner creative energy of your mind into something tangible and real. It’s the Resistance that tells us we need to be inspired in order to start something. It’s the Resistance that tells us to fear the outcome of what we create.

It’s the Resistance that puts us in danger of becoming a true failure.

F. Scott Fitzgerald created the character Gatsby to show us that money and wealth does not protect us from becoming a failure in the love department. Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman characterized the failure of a destined common man obsessed with greatness. Both are the tragic heroes of their generation and are still relevant today.

If I had to add one more tragic hero to the list, it would be the person who succumbed to the Resistance and refused to fail. It’s the person who never acts on behalf of himself or others to achieve the incredible potential that he has. It’s the person who stays confined in his own mind, fearing that an obstacle in his path means the end of his road. It’s the person who has great intentions but never does anything to make them happen.

That’s the greatest failure I can imagine and the greatest tragedy that’s being written every day.

Agassi, Baldwin and why failure is an option

Over the last few days, I’ve been pushing my way through Andre Agassi’s new autobiography, Open. Unlike many Gen X-ers, I was too young to follow Agassi’s rise to tennis stardom, particularly the mullet, denim and “Image is Everything” era in the early 90’s. Most of what I know about Agassi comes from watching his later years, so I am appreciating the context I’m being given up to that point.

I get a lot out of autobiographies, which is why I love reading them. The thing I get most out of a good one is that failure is a required part of success. I am certain I’ve never read (or seen, for that matter) the story of someone who rose to success without a whole heck of a lot of missteps along the way. And if I have, I certainly don’t remember it because it was probably a sleeper of a tale.

The story of Agassi is no different. The book is a little more than 300 pages and took me more than half of them to get to his first gland slam victory, Wimbledon 1992. It’s not until page 200 that he even gets ranked Number One in the world. Up until then as a trial of losses, mistakes, obstacles, near-retirements, injuries and just plain bad luck.

Not what I expected from one of history’s best.

In fact, I am taken aback by the amount of losing that is covered in the book. Several times, I’ve found myself checking how many pages I have left and wondering if he has enough space to cover the incredible amount of success he has in his career. I’m still not sure he does.

Failure plays an integral role in Agassi’s story. He retells so much detail of so many losses that it’s almost uncomfortable, but at the same time it’s a very revealing look at the secret for success. It’s the same thing that has made Penelope Trunk write about what makes an expert and why Alec Baldwin has been a hot topic for Men’s Journal and Wired Magazine in the last couple of months.

The willingness to fail is not just part of the path to succeeding, it’s required.

Which gets me thinking. What am I willing to fail at time and again in order to achieve it? What am I passionate about that would drive me from point A to Z if it meant making 24 annoying stops along the way? What drives me?

Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything. Besides family and marriage, I have not engaged myself in anything that even remotely challenges me. Looking at my easy job, easy home and easy daily routine, I can honestly say I’m not driven; I’m coasting.

Having an easy life has never felt so wrong.

In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day

I recently finished a book that was lent to me by a friend about to enter law school. Once upon a time, I thought I would be doing the same as her, but wound up adjusting my goals after nearly freaking out and a sub-par score on the LSAT.

The book, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, reads a lot shorter than its title, but is packed with a ton of encouragement and motivation that I could have used shortly after receiving my LSAT score.

Author Mark Batterson, who pastors National Community Church in Washington, D.C., covers a lot of ground in his book but the ultimate messages breaks down to this: What if the life you really want, and the future God wants for you, is hiding right now in your biggest problem, your worst failure, your greatest fear?

Using the unlikely 2 Samuel 23:20 passage as a source of inspiration, Batterson goes on to describe the day Benaiah found himself encountered with a lion on a pit snowy day. Aside from this circumstance, Batterson describes Benaiah as any other man: a typical soldier of typical height and typical strength. When faced with a 500-pound full-grown lion, Benaiah had every right to do what any of us would have done, which is run like mad.

Instead, he jumped into the pit and grabbed opportunity by the mane.

The Scripture does little to describe what happened that day, so Batterson tries to fill in the blanks, illustrating a dramatic scene of where a man takes on nature by wrestling a beast that appears to have every advantage over him.

Benaiah’s victory over the lion helps him go on to be the personal bodyguard for the king and later play a significant role as a military leader. Bottom line: if Benaiah had calculated his odds, given in to his fears, played it safe, or become worried about looking foolish on that snowy day, he never would have turned into the man he was destined to be.

Personally, my dream of going back to school has been staring me in the face like a lion for several years now. I had always wondered if I was being foolish for even thinking I have the brains and wit to go back into academia. After reading Batterson’s book, I’m fairly certainly graduate school is the dream that God has placed on my heart and an entrance exam is the lion he wants me to face in order to get there.

Sound odd, doubtful, risky or foolish? Of course it does. But then again, it sounds no more insane than throwing yourself into a pit with a lion on a snowy day.

And the greatest regrets in life will be the lions we didn’t chase.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell and Don Golden was the type of book that I started, put down and didn’t come back to for over a month. It wasn’t until a recent trip that I decided to pick it back up and I’m glad I did.

The title is a bit misleading but that’s typical of Bell who also wrote Sex God, a wonderful narrative on physical love in the Bible. I was expecting a manifesto on the hypocrisy of today’s believers, but instead was greeted by an historical account of God’s redemptive efforts from Exodus to the present and what they mean for us as believers in today’s world.

Starting with the enslavement and liberation of Israelites in Egypt, Bell and Golden build a case that exile is not just about a location; it’s about the state of your soul:

At the height of their power, Israel misconstrued God’s blessing as favoritism and entitlement. They became indifferent to God and their priestly calling to bring liberation to others.

There’s a word for this. A word for what happens when you still have the power and the wealth and the influence, and yet in osme profound way you’ve blown it because you’ve forgotten why you were given it in the first place.

They continue by reinforcing the idea that God has been looking for a body throughout history so that justice can given to everyone. He looked for the body in Moses, Solomon and David. Through Moses, God even proclaimed his desire that his people will become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

But we’ve failed.

The beauty of this book comes in the second and third chapters, where the authors begin to set the stage for Jesus. Citing Solomon’s sinful abuse of power, they begin to ask: What if God was able to take on a body that did not rely on military strength to secure power or money to buy the influence and resources to maintain a certain level of power? What if God took on a body that stood for peace, justice, grace and mercy?

In other words: What if David had another son?

Bell and Golden paint a vivid picture of Jesus as the new Passover, comparing the blood of slain lambs on the doorposts of Israelites to Jesus’ last supper with the disciples. I’m sure it’s a parallel that’s been written before, but calling Jesus the new Passover was incredibly refreshing for me in light of celebrating Easter this past weekend. If not for the reminder of new life in him, then for the historical connection that God gave his firstborn son just as he took the firstborn of each Egyptian the night of Passover.

But with that new life comes great responsiblity and this is where Bell and Golden shine in their condemnation of America’s great wealth and the relatively little we do in giving God the body he is seeking to spread justice, righteousness and peace. The most eye-opening statistic they shared is that America is the biggest international spender in defense, accounting for 48% in global military spending—more than than the next 45 countries combined in 2008.

Yeah, that makes us an empire.

An empre like Egypt. An empire like Jerusalem.

And we have a greater responsiblity to humanity than protecting our own wealthy interests. In a world where more than half of the world lives on less than two dollars a day, it’s neccesary be the kingdom of priests that God desires us to be.

To be a leader that is more like David than Solomon.

To be like David’s other son.

To be like Jesus.