Fear Or ...

           So I was driving down to my parents’ house in Cape May on Friday, and I had a lot on my mind. First of all, I kept hearing this one guy’s voice in my head. He’s from New York, like I am, but he’s running for president, and he had given a convention speech the night before, which I had heard in part. It kind of freaked me out, because there was so much darkness in his words. He was saying in his speech that “our very way of life” is threatened in America, and that the person he’s running against leaves a legacy of “death, destruction and weakness.” He said these are very difficult days in America, and that we need to take care of our country first. The thing that upset me the most was when he told America, “I am your voice.” I have never lived under a dictator, but when I study them, they usually say things like that, tapping into our fears and convincing us that they know what we need.

            I was wondering what drew people to this guy and his rhetoric of fear and passion. I was wondering if this was the message I’d keep hearing in the days and months ahead. I had music playing on my iPod, and was paying tribute to the late Prince by listening to his tunes. In between songs about little red Corvettes, raspberry berets and purple rain, I listened to the lyrics from the song 7, which is the closest Prince every got to predicting the future when he released it almost 25 years ago. “I saw an angel come down unto me,” he sang. “In her hand she holds the very key / Words of compassion, words of peace.” In his Book of Revelation-type lyrics, Prince sings of a world in which “the young” are “so educated they never grow old.” He even sings of “a voice of many colors” singing a song “that’s so bold.” Well, I thought, that’s a different person with different ideas than the one I’d heard the night before. But I kind of like this vision of a world where compassion and combined voices lead the way, better than I like the sound of footsteps approaching.

            I arrived in Cape May and went down to the beach the next day. Every day, there are teenagers on the beach who sell umbrellas and beach chairs, then pick them up at the end of the afternoon. I’d noticed that the chair seller on our stretch of the beach had a tattoo on his upper chest. I stopped him and asked what the tattoo said. He read it to me: “Fear is nothing more than a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consciousness.” I looked that up later, and saw that it comes from Robin Sharma, a Canadian writer. This young man, dragging umbrellas and chairs through the soft sand, seemed to have already arrived at a very different way of looking at fear than those words I heard on Thursday night. In fact, he’s so confident in these words that he wears them on his tanned torso.

            As I lay on the beach, I read a book by New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, titled Fire Shut Up in My Bones. In terms of coming-of-age memoirs, they don’t get much better. I read about Blow’s attempts to find inner peace after a childhood incident left him violated and afraid. Earlier in the week, the author’s most recent Times column had spoken of the recent violence against civilians and police with the words, “It’s not either/or, but both/and.” As someone who has lived through tragedy, Blow is well-suited to help guide our country out of the struggles we face. He chooses to do so through words of love.

            After arriving back from the beach, I gathered up my dog and took her for an early-evening walk. Around the corner, I saw several yellow and orange pieces of paper tied to a tree with pieces of string. As I walked closer, I saw a sign in front of the tree, identifying it as a “Poet-Tree,” and inviting passersby to take one. My dog and I stood in front of the tree for a while, reading poems, many of them about nature, lots of them by Robert Frost and Mary Oliver. I took a poem from Oliver titled Wild Geese, whose beautiful lines speak of shared pain, shared progress, and shared tomorrows. “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.”

            There are strong words of fear in America today. But wherever my wheels and feet seem to take me, I keep hearing reassuring words of grace. There’s a lot to talk about at those presidential conventions – our country has as much room for improvement as any. But we had a president once who said something about fear, something many have echoed in the 83 years since he said it. And it remains as true as the morning sun: The only thing we have to fear, my friends, is fear itself. The rest is today’s challenge, tomorrow’s triumph, and the music of life. 

Choosing Love

            This week, my wife and older daughter have been fixing up houses in eastern Tennessee with a group from our church. As part of the Appalachia Service Project, they’ve been working together to make the world just a little bit better, while also meeting people from a different part of our country. The church group consists of teens and adults – some of them black, some white, some gay, and some straight.

Yesterday morning, I helped my father deliver food to people in need in Cape May, NJ. As we walked through the small housing project that often gets lost in this vacation wonderland, we handed chicken, frozen vegetables and pasta to all kinds of grateful people – some of them black, some white, some older, and some quite young.

            In my high school, I’ve helped run a community service club for 10 years, and the teens who run this club choose our activities. Their favorite job is delivering meals to homeless and low-income individuals in Manhattan. When they do this, I stand to the side and watch our club members interact with the people in need who walk up to their table. Some of the needy are black, some are white, some are Latino, some are Asian. Some are gay, some are straight, and some are transgender. Our own club members also hail from a variety of races and ethnicities.

            The events of this past week in America have been so troubling that it’s difficult to think about it all without feeling afraid for our nation. I’m not a TV guy, so I don’t watch the wall-to-wall coverage that our cable news stations offer. I prefer to read the news. This morning, I came across an opinion article in The New York Times, written by Charles M. Blow, whose meditations on race in America are well worth reading. In his piece, Blow writes about the necessity of choosing love in times of violence. He writes that when we say this, some are likely to accuse us of “meeting hard power with soft,” and of choosing a weaker route.

            But, Blow writes, “That is simply an illusion fostered by those of little faith.” Anger is so easy to access and use recklessly, he writes. “The higher calling — the harder trial — is the belief in the ultimate moral justice and the inevitable victory of righteousness over wrong … When we all can see clearly that the ultimate goal is harmony and not hate, rectification and not retribution, we have a chance to see our way forward.”

            There are so many ways we can address the current racial crisis in America. Perhaps the most important first step is to listen, learn and engage in productive dialogue. A former colleague of mine posted on Facebook yesterday that he had recently taught Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, the National Book Award winner that explains with clarity and historical depth why an African-American individual might doubt that true change will come in American race relations. In my own world, my co-teacher and I showed our high school seniors Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing this past year, and Steve James’ documentary The Interrupters last year. None of our students had seen either film before, and they all had lots to say, think and write about after seeing these important films.

            We all can do more to engage our minds in thinking deeply about race in America. We can pay closer attention to the words of our current president, who has spoken about matters of race in complex and important ways. We can hold discussion groups where we listen and share our experiences. We can think, and wonder, and imagine what it would take to reach a place of equality, understanding and peace.

            Most of all, we can follow the lead of those who have shown us how to do this hard work. More than a year ago, a young white man brought racial violence to a level of cruelty similar to that of this past week. The man visited a church Bible study in Charleston, S.C., then proceeded to kill nine African-American men and women during the Bible study. Two days later, that church modeled forgiveness in a way that might at first seem impossible. “You took something very precious away from me,” the daughter of one of the victims told the shooter during a bond hearing in which he appeared via video link in court. “I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”

            These words are at the heart of what Charles Blow is talking about, and at the heart of what we sorely need. Bullets cannot move mountains. But faith and fellowship can. Racial anger is real, and it’s grounded in facts. It needs to be heard, and discussed, and addressed with changes in laws and attitudes. The work we do together in areas of race is everyone’s business. It is not something that affects only some. The responsibility is on all of us.

            But we know it can be done because it is being done – by my wife, daughter and their friends in Tennessee this week. By my dad and his friends at the housing project in Cape May. By those service club teens at my school. And in thousands upon thousands of other places, where we choose love over hate, and where we work to build bridges.

Nearly 20 years ago, my wife and I brought a group of teenagers to a national youth gathering for the Lutheran church in New Orleans. Every night, tens of thousands of teens would walk to the Superdome and sing songs together. The emcee of the event was a young woman in her early 40s, a pastor from New Jersey. She was dynamic and inspiring. After the gathering, I wrote to her and she wrote back. She gave me ideas on how to make a difference in the world.

Today, that woman is the pastor of our church. She’s in her 60s now, and my wife and I view the words and themes in her sermons as a map toward the ways in which we can help make positive change. Oh, and she happens to be African-American.

As my pastor makes her way back from Tennessee with the church group this weekend, I know her heart is heavy from the violence and unrest in America. But I also know she will choose the route taken by Charles Blow and Barack Obama and my teacher friend and my service club kids and, of course, the parishioners in Charleston. She will choose love. And she will preach love. And we will hear her, and give it a try. 

Backbone Man (One Sixty-Two: Day 105)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred-Five: Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays

Got ‘bone?

The words were printed on a black T-shirt, one that hung in a gazebo behind the West Cape May Municipal Complex. Inside the gazebo stood a group of middle-aged men with guitars and drums, and they were playing a set of bluesy rock songs for dozens of adults and kids sitting and eating on blankets in the field around the gazebo. The men call their group Bluebone, and over the years they’ve developed quite a following in this part of the Jersey Shore. They’ve grown popular enough to warrant more than the usual CD sales at gigs: The band has its own Web site, its own slogan (“Burnin’ Blues & Smokin’ Boogie”) and, of course, its own T-shirt design (with apologies to the California Milk Processor Board).

When I saw and heard Bluebone play on a recent night, it was at the delightful West Cape May Farmers Market, one of the hidden gems of the Jersey Shore summer season. For $7, I had a dinner of crab cake and freshly picked cherry tomatoes. If I’d wanted, I could have added such delights as peach cider, barbecued chicken and fresh jam to my grocery list. The sun was out, the breeze was delightful, and the music was, well, bluesy.

My mom, who is a big fan of Bluebone, was digging the tunes, which featured a mix of covers and originals. But while my mom might splurge for the new Bluebone CD, Devil Keep Chewin’, I doubt that she will choose to walk around the Victorian-Era homes of Cape May wearing a “got ‘bone?” shirt. If she lived in Seaside Heights, maybe. But not here.

Aside from all the R-rated connotations this phrase brings to mind, there are other connections to be made here – other variations on what this pointed question could mean. There’s backbone, for instance. With every group of people who work together, there needs to be someone with the steady skills and intestinal fortitude to lead the way toward success. Many musical groups – Bluebone included – have a member who takes the lead in writing lyrics and singing vocals. At most of our workplaces, we can name individuals who keep the ship sailing by constantly delivering help and guidance when it’s needed.

On the diamond, every baseball team has a player or two who serves as the club’s backbone. The last-place Kansas City Royals look to pitchers Zack Greinke and Joakim Soria as backbones, as these two men show their teammates that you don’t have to be on an elite team to perform at an elite level. At the other extreme, the first-place Tampa Bay Rays have a backbone of their own. He’s a third-year player who mans third base better than anyone in the American League while also driving in runs, hitting for power, and stealing bases. He is Evan Longoria, and this season fans voted for him over Alex Rodriguez to start at his position in the All-Star Game. Longoria has quickly become one of the most productive players in the game, and he is the backbone behind the ballclub that is tied with the Yankees for the best record in baseball.

Despite the similarity of his name to that of model and Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, the Longoria of baseball is much more grit than glitter. From the moment he arrived in the Show, Longoria has been one of those guys who just knows what it takes to win. It’s no coincidence that the Rays went from last-place castoff to playoff squad in Longoria’s first season as a big-leaguer. This season, the Rays are well on their way to a second postseason visit in three years, while their third baseman is well on his way to a top-10 finish in the league Most Valuable Player voting.

Many baseball players have nicknames; Longoria’s is “Longo.” It seems we cannot avoid the sexual connotations today. So let’s just come out and say it – Longo has got ‘bone. And that, my friends, seems to have made all the difference in Tampa Bay.

Soda Bottles, Ankle Sprains & Pie (One Sixty-Two: Day 104)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred-Four: Chris Coghlan, Florida Marlins

It was a beautiful beach day, but not for me. Not when you’ve got to accompany your wife to the urgent-care center.

Now I understand your instinct here: How in the world can I complain about losing a few hours in the sun when my wife is in need of medical attention? I get that. What you don’t know, however, is the reason for this visit. It has something to do with a bicycle and some empty 2-liter bottles. And it doesn’t get any better from there.

While escorting our kids to a wonderful session at Cape May’s nature center, Amy made a couple of interesting choices: One, she rode her bicycle while wearing Tevas; and two, she rode with a bag full of empty soda bottles. The nature center had asked parents to bring in the bottles for some sort of project, and Amy dutifully obliged. However, while crossing the street with the plastic bag on her handlebars, a bottle started to slip out. She reached for the bag, lost her balance, and caught her foot in the back wheel.

So that led us to a bloody foot, a hobbling wife, and an urgent-care center. After X-rays, the kind doctor explained that Amy’s bloody ankle was sprained, not broken, and a smiling nurse administered a tetanus shot to cover the cuts from Amy’s metal spokes.

I’m grateful that my wife is fine, of course. But as you might have figured out, I’m a bit annoyed by the reason for the injury. In this way, I’m not unlike Florida Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez, who lost one of his key players last week in an equally bizarre injury. Left fielder Chris Coghlan, who was last season’s National League Rookie of the Year, was celebrating teammate Wes Helms’s game-winning hit on July 25 by giving Helms a pie to the face. While carrying out this increasingly popular baseball ritual, Coghlan managed to tear the meniscus in his left knee. He’s hoping to play again this year, but surgery will be required even if he can play again this summer.

Coghlan is by no means the first baseball player to sustain a strange injury, as there have been a couple of doozies this year alone. Los Angeles Angels first baseman Kendry Morales was lost for the season after breaking his leg while jumping on home plate after a game-winning home run. San Diego Padres pitcher Mat Latos landed on the disabled list after straining an oblique while sneezing.

Clint Barmes knows all about this kind of thing. As a utility infielder for the Colorado Rockies, Barmes has managed to play a key supporting role in the Rockies’ success over the past several years. But in the spring of 2005, Barmes was putting up numbers that exceed anything he’s done since. Some were wondering if he was the next great hitter to come out of Colorado. And then, one spring day, Barmes fell while carrying a package of deer meat he’d received from a teammate. The result: a broken collarbone. After recovering, Barmes returned to the Rockies, but his breakout season was interrupted forever. While carefully handling meat of all kinds these past five years, Barmes has remained a key contributor in Denver.

So this is a man who knows that pies in the face can lead to knee injuries, and that soda bottles can lead to ankle sprains. And if Barmes knew Amy’s husband, he'd remind the man that despite his occasionally cute way with words, the husband has surely experienced an embarrassing injury of some sort; we all do. And he’d be correct. I should know as well as anyone what these kinds of injuries are all about. There was, after all, the finger spliced open with a pocket knife while trying to scrape bark off a tree. There was the hand cut open while trying to catch a glass I’d knocked off a counter. There was the face full of dirt collected after tripping over first base in an attempt to leg out a single (I was out, of course). We can go on - for a disturbingly long time, I might add.

So Amy, I hope you’ll ride safely next time. Maybe you can even try a helmet when you’re on the bike. But I will do whatever chores you need while you recover. And I’ll stop complaining about the lost sun rays. Because I’ve been there and done that, far more often than you have. We all, at some point, get a pie in the face.

Flying the Flag (One Sixty-Two: Day 75)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Seventy-Five: Matt Wieters, Baltimore Orioles

When you walk around a Jersey Shore town, every once in awhile you’ll pass a house with the Maryland state flag hanging outside. It’s not a long drive from Maryland to Southern Jersey, especially if you take the ferry from Lewes, Del., to Cape May. Whenever I pass such a house, I am reminded of just how gorgeous that flag is.

There’s no state flag like it, both visually and historically. The flag is broken up into quadrants, yet only two images are drawn on the flag – each of them on diagonally opposing quadrants. One image depicts a red and white cross, while the other depicts a yellow and black diamond pattern. When viewed altogether, the dueling images make for a striking flag display. Historically, the images mean a lot to Maryland, as this is the only state flag whose design is based on heraldic emblems. The two images depict the coats of arms of the Calvert and Crossland families, founders of the Maryland colony back in the 17th century.

They take their images seriously in Maryland, from the state flag to the muscle-bound turtle on University of Maryland Terrapins T-shirts, to the slick, elongated bird on Baltimore Ravens helmets. In terms of sports, though, no Maryland image is as impressive and iconic as the simple, yet elegant bird on Baltimore Orioles hats and T-shirts. It’s a detailed Oriole of black and orange, and he calls to mind both the natural environment of the region as well as the proud history of a baseball franchise.

It’s one thing to look good, of course, and yet another thing to execute. While every Baltimore Oriole looks sharp in white, orange and black, not many Orioles have appeared all that capable on the field in the past decade and a half. This year’s Orioles, owners of the worst record in baseball, are on their way to a franchise-record 13th straight season with a losing record. This from a franchise that once ran off a string of 18 consecutive winning seasons, from 1968-1985. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, no American League team was as consistent as Baltimore. Manager Earl Weaver fielded a team of great pitchers and solid hitters, and Orioles fans respected and admired their clubs. World Series were won here, and Hall of Fame players were honored to suit up for the Birds.

After the 1992 opening of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, one of the great ballparks in Major League Baseball history, the Orioles went on another winning streak, fielding competitive teams for a half-dozen years in the ‘90s and making the playoffs twice. But after a surprising playoff loss to the Cleveland Indians in 1997, the Orioles have come up empty year after year ever since.

This year’s team has a lot of exciting young players, none more highly touted than catcher Matt Wieters. And yet, the Orioles are 25-57, a whopping 26 games out of first place. Wieters is hitting just .239, and the team as a whole is hitting just slightly better than that. The Baltimore manager has already been changed, giving the O’s their sixth manager since this lengthy losing streak began. By comparison, the Atlanta Braves – the Southeast’s other big-league team – have had just one manager over the past 20 years. With Bobby Cox’s consistent leadership, the Braves have produced a losing record just twice in the past two decades.

So when will the losing stop in Baltimore? When will the fans be given reason to return to Camden Yards? Word is that Baltimore is talking with Buck Showalter, the ESPN analyst and former manager who has helped turn around the fortunes of all three teams he’s led. Perhaps Showalter will have the winning touch here as well.

Until then, the Maryland flag will keep on waving outside those Jersey Shore vacation homes. They do sell Orioles flags, and they can be flown outside your house, too. It’s just that winning makes every flag a bit prettier, and a bit more desirable. Until the losing stops, Marylanders will stick with their coats of arms.