Perspective
NCAA Hoops, a foggy sunrise, and The Sermon on the Mount
This is one of my favorite times of the year as a sports fan. I honestly don’t watch a lot of college basketball during the regular season but I love love love the NCAA tournaments. One of the harsh realities, though, of the tournaments is that only one of the 68 teams in each ends their season with a win. The other 67 teams end their seasons with losses, sometimes in heartbreaking fashion. The same goes for the fanbases of each team.
This year I was lucky enough to be able to go to the first two Colorado men’s basketball games in the tournament - the first in Dayton last Wednesday night and the second on Friday afternoon in Indianapolis. Both games were close to where I live and both were won by Colorado (woot!). The second game was one of the best basketball games I have ever seen in person and it ended with a last second bucket by Colorado to win the game 102-100 (here’s the video in case you didn’t see it). Colorado’s third game, however, ended in a four point loss to Marquette on Sunday afternoon. I was disappointed but not devastated.
So here’s where perspective comes into this. I had no illusions that Colorado was going to have a chance at winning the national title. But, for me, them winning two games and nearly winning the third was great. Even more importantly, it was amazing to go to the first game with one of my kids and then the second with one of my college roommates who I hadn’t seen for years.
But for the fans of some other teams, the perspective was different. Kentucky fans thought their team had a chance for a deep run into the tournament if not having a chance to win the title. Serving as a pastor in Kentucky, I’ve heard from more than a few folks who are none too happy about their team’s first round defeat. I’m not dissing those fans but the perspective is very different when you’re a fan of a team like Colorado who hasn’t reached the round of sixteen since the 1960s versus when you’re a fan of a team like Kentucky that has won multiple titles and expects to be a top ten team every year. For me, I was grateful for the thrill of going to the game with one of my kids, reconnecting with a dear friend, and seeing two really amazing games in person.
Perspective is important.
I experienced this in another way a few mornings ago on my usual morning walk/hike with Scout. We were hiking a back unpaved trail at a local park around sunrise and were on the same path that we’ve walked probably hundreds of times.
But something was different that morning. As you can see in the above photo, the area to the right has been mowed down. As far back as I can remember on this trail, I had never seen it mowed down as it is now. I saw a pond and a small ridge that were both hidden by the shoulder-high brush that used to cover the field. I also realized that I had an opportunity for a photo of that big tree in the photo above that I had never had before. I have many photos of that single large tree but they’ve always been from the same places along the trail. So Scout and I wandered out along that small ridge and I saw that tree in a way I’ve never seen it before.
It was only about 50 yards out into the field and it was a beautiful and brilliant new perspective. It is the same tree I’ve seen hundreds of other times, but seen in a new way.
I shared about perspective a few Sundays ago in our worship service and that reflection has really stayed with me (sermon here if you want to take it in) in the days since.
One of the things I love about the teachings of Jesus is how he guides, encourages, and pushes people to see things from different perspectives. Like the tree in the photo above and like the different ways to view games in the NCAA tournament, Jesus shows time and again that new perspectives are essential. One of the best examples of this is in the Sermon on the Mount when he goes through a series of “you have heard it was said, but I tell you” about different teachings that would have been very familiar to his hearers. Jesus is saying, “you’ve understood this law from this point of view but now let’s turn it and see it from this angle.”
This is so essential in our world right now. So essential. Right now, algorithms are skewing what we see online based on what we have responded to positively before. This is not only on social media platforms but on other websites as well. This also happens with news media, what we get in the mail, and the list goes on. We can be passive and simply just keep receiving what feeds our same perspectives or we can stretch ourselves to explore others. That stretching might not dramatically change how we see the world, but we encounter and receive the stories and experiences of others that help us understand others more deeply.
It might only be walking a few feet off the path you are familiar with or it may be walking out a long ways into a newly mown field. Both are new perspectives. But take a cue from the wisdom of Jesus and take a few new perspective steps today. You might just end up experiencing something you never have before.
A Little Self-Promotion
If you live in the Cincinnati area, I invite you to come to Wyoming Baptist Church (170 Burns Ave, Wyoming, OH 45215) some evening this week for their Stations of the Cross art exhibit. Several congregations here are sponsoring local artists to share their own way of reflecting on the traditional Stations of the Cross. A bunch of my cross photographs (and one really cool one from a friend) make up the station where Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus’ cross. The experience is open from 6-8pm each night this week.
GPLJ,
Ed
PS - A few other photos to mess with the algorithms from Scout and my walk this morning...
