My oldest loves soccer. He is blessed with the skills necessary to be who many would consider the most talented on the team, and sometimes the field. This year, he is playing in a new league with older guys and players from around the area who are involved in select teams. He has a coach who loves to build young boys into young men (in some ways, he reminds me of Perry Jones).
Watching him run down the ball, make incredible passes, take shots on goal and out sprint his opponents makes me proud to say I’m my kids dad. The fact that their season is thus far unblemished makes for long rides home in the car and negates some of the joy Aidan has for the great plays or the goals he scored. The season is, you see, unblemished with any wins.
I realize that no words I can share will take the sting out of defeat. I think back to my own, not so illustrious single-season career in high school wrestling. I wish I could have had a better than .500 average win-loss ratio. But each one of those losses (15, if I remember correctly) made the wins possible. It made them sweeter. It made them feel...earned. Winning is over-rated. I’ve learned my best stuff through defeat.
The Rev. Dan Smith, a 90 year-old plus southern preacher and delta blues musician, sang this on his last recording back in the 1990’s:
Take every knock as a boost
Make every stumbling block a stepping stone
Lift up your head and hold your own
Just keep going on
Without loss, we cannot see grace.
~KL
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