Sunday Morning Meds--The Legs of a Man

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his delight in the legs of a man;. . .” Psalm 147:10

The athlete in me is well into the fourth quarter, time winding down, and the game has slowed dramatically. This morning, I’m typing in my athletic shorts, t-shirt, and gym shoes. When my desktop says 5:41, I’ll leave for the rec center, where the same folks show up, like me, early every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

I’ll lift weights, get on the steps, then row across a torturous imaginary river before heading home, soaked in sweat, the blessed livery of a workout vet. Tonight, if it’s nice, I’ll take a walk with my wife—almost three miles. Basically, that’s what’s left for an aging jock once named his high school’s “Athlete of the Year.” Years ago, I lost the gold cuff-links.

On Friday, I met a sweet kid, a senior in high school, who is interested in majoring in English when he gets to college next fall. My job was to sweet talk. Turns out his passion is basketball—that’s what he told me. English is okay for a major, but history or math would do the job too, he said. The kid wants to coach.

Could have been me forty years ago.

Great kid, sweet kid—I’d love to have him enroll, whether or not he ever pulls on a jersey. But his passion is basketball, he says, eyes ablaze.

He wants to play ball in college, but he knows making the team is no cakewalk. He says a hot shot from his small, Indiana high school came here a few years ago and didn’t make the team—so he’s says he’s prepared.

I told him I’ve seen guys hamstrung when suddenly they didn’t have to turn up for practice every afternoon of their lives, ex-jocks who said they felt as if bright lights had gone out without the rhythm of after-school practice. I went through that myself—delirium tantrums from no more heavy-laden gym bags. It’s identity loss for thousands, millions. Females too.

He said he knew all of that. He said he thought he was prepared. But good night!—does he want to play. Basketball, he told me, more than once, is his passion.

Verse ten of Psalm 147 is a gift for juiced-up jocks, a reminder to a million wannabee all-stars that there’s more to life than being mvp or even Charlie Hustle. I tried to tell him as much, but some lessons get learned only by way of experience.

This morning, when I left the gym, some lanky grade-school kid was shooting free throws. When he went after the ball, his long legs arched a bit like a pair of fine parenthesis, the sure sign of speed, athletic gifts. Couldn’t help but admire.

But God doesn’t care really. The psalmist says God takes no delight in the legs of man, whether or not they’re as sharply defined as a thoroughbred’s.

That’s good to hear, especially when mine are all but gone, my knees a foul nest of hooks. We’re not loved for the size of our engines or the thrust of our buggy springs We’re loved, even when we’ve no more horsepower than a old VW bus.

Met a kid last week who told me basketball was his passion. Someday, like all of us, this little verse will bring him comfort, as it does me, an old man who long ago lost his prized cufflinks. It’s good to be reminded—at 18 or 58—that really, God doesn’t much care about all of that. Some might, but he doesn’t.

Bless his holy name.