Hope Springs Eternal, Even When Our Brackets Break

Yesterday was the first day of Spring and for many parts of the country it was a day filled more with hope than the actual experience of Spring.  As I witnessed two people playing golf yesterday on a course still partially covered in snow I thought of the famous words of an English poet, Alexander Pope, which were penned in 1733, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Pope goes on to express so well the hope for the warmer weather that is sure to come for these golfers and others who are patiently waiting, “The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home, rests and expatiates in a life to come.” We can also see hope springing eternal in the world of college basketball this week as this week also marked the beginning of the NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament.  This annual “March Madness” experience is one where sixty-eight college basketball teams are chosen to compete over a three week period of time to see which team can win six consecutive games to emerge as the national champion for the year.  Hope springs eternal for each of the sixty-eight teams, as well as for the millions of fans who have made their predictions of which teams will win each of the sixty-seven games being played over the next three weeks.  Millions of fans in pools with family, friends, and office workers around the country have “filled out their brackets,” meaning they have predicted who they are hoping will win each of the upcoming games.

The odds of filling out a perfect bracket, one in which a person accurately predicts the winner of all 67 games are, 9.2 quintillion to one.  To give you an idea of how big that number is, think 9.2 billion multiplied by one billion .  Talk about hope springing eternal!  Anyone who participates in this annual rite of prognostication, as I always do, knows the sorrow that quickly comes to pass when one's bracket is broken when unexpected outcomes and upsets come to pass.  These unexpected outcomes are officially known as “bracket busters” and if one has too many of these too soon in the tournament then it quickly becomes clear that one's hope will have to spring eternal for better luck in picking the winners of next year's tournament.

Sports mirrors life in so many ways.  In this case, the sheer improbability of predicting a perfect tournament bracket mirrors the sheer improbability of any of us predicting how our lives will unfold.  We regularly enter into new relationships, new jobs, and new adventures of all sorts based on how we think things will unfold.  We make our best predictions, fill out our brackets, and then hope for the best.  Inevitably, though, our brackets--our hopes--will get broken and we will have to pick up the pieces and try again. Sixty-seven of the sixty-eight teams in this year's college basketball tournament will go home having lost their last game of the season.  Does that fact prevent any of them from showing up and playing with all their hearts?  Of course not, because the combination of their love of the game and the fact that hope springs eternal means that they will give it their all, no matter what the outcome may be.  Their efforts inspire me to live my life the same way.  I simply need to keep showing up every day because I love life itself, and because I have great hope that even though my bracket will surely get broken at times, in the end it is the playing of the game, the living and loving of life itself, that is its own reward.

Mud Season

I attended a wonderful training workshop this past week that focused on helping people and organizations move through times of transition and change.  Dr. Kay Collier McLaughlin, a psychotherapist, author, and leadership/organizational consultant, was our presenter and drew heavily on her many years of experience in both fields.  What struck me most about this excellent presentation was her observation that the biggest mistake people and organizations make when working through significant change is that they don't make enough room to honor the emotions of loss, sadness, grief, and fear that almost always accompany change.  Someone in our group observed that we don't like to make room for these kinds of emotions because they can be so “messy” and for the most part we don't like things that are messy or unpleasant. Here in the Midwest we know something about messy this time of year.  As the long winter begins to lose its grip and the mounds of snow begin to melt, our roads, sidewalks, trails, and yards become quite messy and even ugly.  In fact, I have heard it said here in the Midwest, as well as many other places in the country, that there are actually five seasons each year if you add the “mud season” that exists between winter and spring.

Part of what creates the massive amount of mud and messiness this time of year is the fact that after a long, cold winter the depth of the ground freeze is quite significant.  During the mud season, while the warming temperatures thaw the surface of the ground, the deeper ground remains frozen and thus the melting water at the surface is unable to percolate down into the soil.  Until the deeper ground thaws the water stays on the surface creating increasingly deeper levels of mud and mess.   Many dirt roads and walking trails actually become impassable during this time of year until the deeper thaw finally occurs, allowing the water to seep down into the soil and then to flow on into the greater watershed.

The mud season, itself a time of transition between winter and spring, strikes me as a powerful metaphor for describing what it feels like when we are going through times of transition in our lives, whether as individuals, families, or organizations.  Times of transition are almost always at least a little messy, and the path forward can sometimes become muddy and hard to travel.  If there is significant grief or loss involved in our transition, the initial thawing can feel particularly muddy and difficult.

Whatever kind of mud season we may be experiencing, the way through is the same.  Be patient. Put you boots on and your head up. Be careful to watch where you are walking, so that you avoid any potential danger. Walk with someone else so you can help each other when the mud is deep and you are in danger of getting stuck. Be patient, knowing that in time the ground will eventually thaw and the mess and the mud will gradually pass.  The path may not ever be the same, but a new path forward is certain to emerge.

Letting Go for Lent

I don't know how many times I said to myself when our children were growing up, "I wish I could freeze this moment, or this stage of life, and just hold on to it for a little longer." This desire is not exclusive to parenting. Any time we are in the middle of a wonderful experience whether it be a meal with friends, a special trip, a retreat, or a beautiful experience in nature it is natural to want to freeze time and hold on to the experience as it it too precious to let it go. We have all learned by now that it is, of course, impossible to hold on to people, time, or experiences, and yet, the longing remains. Letting go, emotionally and spiritually, is hard work, and yet we have plenty of opportunities to practice as we seek to let go of the past and to not become overly attached to the present. If we need a reminder of how futile it is to hold on and freeze time, all we need do is simply look in the mirror, or look at a photograph of ourselves from a few years ago. It is impossible not to notice that we have changed. This week, for those who observed the celebration of Ash Wednesday, there was an additional reminder of the transitory nature of this life we live together. On Ash Wednesday, a sign of the cross is made with ashes on each person's forehead, accompanied by these words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Thus we are reminded that our physical lives are temporary and all the opportunities we currently have to practice letting go are but a prelude to the ultimate act of letting go, of that time when one day our physical bodies will indeed return to dust.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Christian celebration of Lent, a season of 40 days that concludes with the celebration of Easter. There is a long tradition of people giving something up for Lent. More recently there has been a focus on 'taking something on' for Lent, such as taking on some kind of practice that will strengthen one's spiritual, emotional, or physical well-being. If you are a person who observes Lent and finds that giving something up or taking something on works well for you, then you have probably already made a decision to do one of these things. I would be delighted to hear from as to what you are either giving up or taking on this year as I am always curious to learn about the creative ways that people find to observe Lent.

Now if you are looking for another way to observe Lent besides giving something up or taking something on, I highly recommend a third approach, and that is to focus on the discipline of "letting go for Lent." Letting go for Lent can take many forms. It can mean letting go of a need to control a situation or a person and instead being open to and being curious about other ways of doing things. Letting go for Lent can also mean letting go of our need to be right, which might include letting go of resentment or long held grudges.

Letting go for Lent can also mean letting go of both the busyness and hurriedness that can gradually control our lives, slowly crowding out any time to re-create and renew ourselves. Letting go for Lent can also mean letting go of possessions which can clutter our lives.

Finally, letting go for Lent can mean fully embracing the passing of time in our lives, letting go of the desire to freeze a period of time or hold on to what was or is. As wonderful as the past may have been, the ability to let it go frees us to open our hearts and souls to the wonder of this present moment in our lives, even on the occasion when it might not be what we expected or wanted. Learning to live fully into the present moment means to affirm the fact that there is much to be grateful for in every moment, in every stage of life.

The title of our Living Compass daily meditation booklet for Lent is "Renew a Right Spirit Within Me" because that is the goal of any Lenten practice. So whether you choose to give something up, take something on, or practice letting go for Lent, may these next 40 days be a time of renewal for you.

Everything Is A Present

Alice Sommer Herz won my heart a little over five years ago when she was 105 years old.    Someone sent me a short video interview of Alice and I remember being moved to tears by her exceptional story and spirit.  Alice died this week at the age of 110.  At the time of her death she was the oldest living Holocaust survivor, which is remarkable in and of itself.  She is, however, best remembered for her contagious, positive spirit, which is all the more noteworthy once one comes to learn her story. Alice survived the Holocaust at the Theresienstadt concentration camp, located in what is now the Czech Republic.  Tens of thousands of Jews died there, some killed outright and others dying from malnutrition and disease.  More than 150,000 people, including countless children, were held her for months or years before being sent to their deaths.  Alice and her young son were spared simply because she was a concert pianist.  The Nazi's used her, and other Jewish artists, to perform as part of a propaganda campaign to try and fool the world in to thinking that they were treating the Jews with respect.  Her mother and husband were not so fortunate and both died at the hands of the Nazis.

In her own words, Alice described life at the Theresienstadt concentration camp:

“We had to play because the Red Cross came three times a year. The Germans wanted to show its representatives that the situation of the Jews in Theresienstadt was good. Whenever I knew that I had a concert, I was happy. Music is magic. We performed in the council hall before an audience of 150 old, hopeless, sick and hungry people. They lived for the music. It was like food to them. If they hadn't come [to hear us], they would have died long before. As we would have.”

To have survived life in a concentration camp, to have suffered the deaths of her loved ones and countless other friends, and live to be 110 would be a fantastic enough story.  But it's not just that she survived all these tragedies that makes Alice so memorable and admirable.  The fact that her spirit found a way to thrive even after having experienced what would understandably leave many people angry, bitter, and hopeless makes her life uniquely inspiring.

Alice's story is best told by Alice herself.  Trying to capture her spirit with this written text is like, to use an analogy she would have appreciated, trying to capture the essence of Bach concerto with words.  Her story, like the music she played, is a gift for the soul.  And so I share this video of Alice with you, and pray that her spirit may be as much a gift for your soul as it has been for mine and to all who knew her.

Rest in peace sweet Alice.  Thank you embodying the resiliency of the human spirit and for showing us that, in your own words, that, “"Life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and music are beautiful. Everything is a present."

You can watch the video of Alice here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5VTkQKgxkY 

A Speed Skater Village

My wife and I are runners and during this very cold and icy winter in our hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we have had to go inside on many occasions to run. On those days we are always grateful that our city hosts one of the largest indoor running tracks in the country at the Pettit National Ice Center. The running track is so large that each mile is only three and a half laps (a high school track, for comparison, is four laps to a mile). We know the track well, having run many, many laps there this past weekend and over the past two months as we continue to train for a marathon in April. This amazing indoor facility which hosts this large running track was not built for runners, but rather for Olympic speed skaters. The facility houses one of four Olympic 400 meter ice ovals in the United States and two ice hockey rinks, all of which the running track encircles. Prior to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 the Pettit National Ice Center was the official training center for Olympic skaters. Bonnie Blair, Eric Heiden, and Dan Jansen all trained here. Shani Davis, a member of the current US Olympic team, lives in the Chicago area and trains both in Milwaukee and Salt Lake City today. It is an exciting place to be on any day as there are regularly world class athletes training or competing.

As we were completing our training run last weekend we were fortunate to witness the beginning of a special speed skating competition that was taking place on the Olympic oval. It just so happened that high school age speed skaters from all around the United States were in town for the 2014 US Junior Olympics Long Track Championships. This competition, while not the Winter Olympics in Soshi, was a prelude to that level of competition. We were told by the coaches and officials that several of the young men and women competing in this event would most likely be skating in the next winter Olympics in four years.

Inspired to be so close to forty amazing skaters, we stayed for over an hour to watch them compete. We were able to stand so close to the ice that we could actually feel the drafts they created as they sped by us, one pair at a time. As inspired as we were by the athletes, we were equally inspired by the one hundred or so spectators and coaches that were present to cheer on the skaters. The spectators were mostly the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters of the skaters. We talked to several spectators from at least ten different states who had all taken time off of work and school, traveled countless miles, and undoubtedly spent lots of money to be at this event, all to support these young people.

We spoke with many of the parents and coaches and heard stories about the early mornings, late nights, and many weekends that they had each dedicated over the years to traveling and cheering on their favorite skater. The sacrifices they were each making, including flying to Milwaukee for this competition, were real and so was the joy on their faces as they cheered and yelled encouragement from the stands at the top of their lungs.

There are only four Olympic length ice ovals in the United States and so traveling great distances as a speed skater or a supporter of speed skaters is a given for this sport. To help us understand the commitment of these fans to their athletes imagine if the young person in your life was a soccer, baseball, or basketball player and there were only four fields or courts in the entire United States on which to compete. If that were the case, you might very well be doing the same thing.

As I watched the Olympics in Sochi this past week, especially the speed skaters, I kept thinking back to last weekend. I found myself not just watching the skaters, but the fans in the stands who were there to cheer for them. I thought of all the hours that the athletes had put in on the ice, as well as how much the skaters' coaches and families had sacrificed to support them in getting to this pinnacle of their sport.

It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. My wife and I witnessed last week that it clearly takes a village to raise a speed skater, as well. I am sure the same is true for bobsledders, ski jumpers, hockey players, and snowboarders, too. I am also sure that it is true for any endeavor that any person chooses to pursue, sports related or otherwise, one person cannot do it alone. Sometimes we are the one pursuing a goal or overcoming a challenge, and sometimes we play the part of the village, supporting and cheering on someone we care about as he or she chases a goal or works to overcome a challenge.

There are at least two "take aways" in all of this for me. First, when you are working hard to pursue an important goal or are facing a tough challenge, be sure to surround yourself with a village of support. It will feel better on both the good days and the bad. Second, when you know someone who is pursuing an important goal or a touch challenge, be part of their village and cheer for them "at the top of your lungs."