The Unseen Here and
Now . . .
Stuart
Revercomb
Stuart
Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four
children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be
a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.
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"Thursday's Fare"
February 28, 2002
Skating On Grace
Watch out my children, the world is an infinitely beautiful and terrible place - full of wonder and grace and unimaginable possibilities that make the heart flutter and the spirit fly. And yet cold and hard and full of sin's dark brooding - where lives and innocence are slaughtered in the cruel and vicious act. But in the end there is...
But in the end...
The morning paper did what it so often does - wrenching me from one extreme to the other as I scanned the headlines before me. On one side of the page was the glorious picture of Sarah Hughes waving to the crowd on her way to the Gold Medal podium. On the other was the debilitating account of the death of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal Reporter kidnaped in Pakistan. It was a carnival ride of emotion - on the one hand the intoxicating joy of a young girls unexpected triumph, but on the other the grisly horror of a senseless and brutal murder.
Life made anything but sense.
My wife and I stayed up late to watch the women's figure skating finals. We had packed the four children off to bed, already an hour past their bedtime, with the promise that we would videotape the remaining skaters which were the favorites in the competition. Among them were Michele Kwan, Sarah Hughes, Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya. Son George wasn't too concerned about the tape - "it wasn't like this was Monday Night Football or anything." But the girls were hooked in big time, and they reluctantly made their way up the steps only after repeated promises that they could watch it first thing in the morning.
Sarah Hughes had become my favorite. What a remarkable story she is. The fourth of six children from a blue collar family, Sarah used to wrangle with her siblings for ice time on the homemade "half hockey rink" her father had put together in their backyard. In lieu of private lessons and tutors and all the other "necessities" so many others use to reach the pinnacle of this sport, 16 year old Sarah still attends her local High School and travels almost 2 hours by car every afternoon to practise on an ice rink in Hackensack, NJ. She has been doing her homework in the backseat since the 6th grade. She is unassuming and friendly and full of an innocent joy that is as genuine as it is captivating. You get the feeling that Sarah Hughes is exactly who she was meant to be.
But Hughes had finished 4th in the "Short Program", which meant the odds of her medaling were slim. Favorite Michele Kwan was at the top of the leader board and the whole world seemed to be pulling for her, including my wife. But I had my heart set on Hughes. "Why aren't you pulling for Michele Kwan?", she asked before the final program.
The answer for me was easy. Over the last 6 months Kwan had dumped both her choreographer and coach and had decided to go it alone. While this is certainly an athletes prerogative, I couldn't help but think that these individuals had been "pursuing a dream as well." Kwan seemed cold in letting them go with the simple reason that, "I need to make decisions on my own now...." Additionally she had responded to all of the pre-Olympic press coverage she had received with the modesty of Genghis Kwan - excuse me, Khan - by standing in silent agreement whenever the announcers or interviewers heaped praise upon her. It appeared that Michelle was starting to believe everything that was being said about her - not a good idea when you have a competition with the world's best skaters ahead of you.
On the one hand there was Hughes - full of youthful optimism and sweet humility and a desire to win a medal for her family, friends and country, and on the other there was Kwan who seemed to be wrestling with a demon that she felt was keeping her away from HER medal. One was now seen as having no hope for the Gold, while the other had all but hoisted it upon her neck. One was daring and creative and willing to lay it all on the line - not skating so much for the results as for the performance itself. The other was simply skating not to lose.
The rest, as they say, is history. Her early 4th place standing allowed Hughes to come out free from her own expectations and anyone else's, and skate the performance of her life. (All 16 years of it.) She was loose and smooth and trusting, and with her "self" out of the way, there was room for the Spirit to work, creating an extraordinarily magical moment - filled with mystery and wonder and something of the divine.
Sarah Hughes wasn't skating on ice. She was skating on Grace.
We watched the tape of the finals with the girls the next morning. They too were caught up in the magic and joy of the moment as Hughes' dream unfolded like the quintessential fairytale found in all young girls hearts. Watching their expressions of awe and joy added to the sense of wonderment we already felt. Sometimes things are almost too perfect.
And as I found out a couple of minutes later when the newspaper banged its way to a landing against our front door, sometimes they're just too sad.
The article on Daniel Pearl sent me reeling. He was 40 years old. His wife was 7 months pregnant with their first child. He had been a damn good reporter, and by all accounts a fine and loving and giving man. His throat had been slit while someone stood before him with a video camera in hand. What sort of heart could film such a thing? The cold blooded killing of even your worst enemy? Much less an innocent that had been taken under the pretext of a journalistic interview.
The soul collapses weary and silent under the burden of such news.
What are we to make of a world where such extremes of beauty and pain go hand in hand in the course of our everyday lives? What are we to tell our children? What are we to tell each other? When faced with such headlines it's hard not to linger on the tragic - to dwell among the horrific words and images they conjure until we have been beaten down to a lesser existence than we would be living otherwise.
But if we can find the strength to believe that our creator has it all well in hand, in even the worst and most difficult of situations - if we can find the courage to trust him with the "results" that our "performances" might be all they have been created to be - then the quick and fleeting moment that is our life, can be transformed into something "magical" as well - full of mystery and wonder and something of the divine...
Get yourself out of the way and trust him completely.
It's the only way to skate on Grace.