“…I firmly believe that any man’s finest hours – his greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear – is that moment when he has worked his heart out in good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” – Vince Lombardi
A visit to Lambeau Field probably is (and should be) on every sports fan’s bucket list. It was mine, but I am glad to report that it now has a checkmark next to it. No, I did not wear a cheese head. And no, I did not freeze my tundra off, thanks to unseasonable temps in the low 40s. But if I had, it still would have been worth every shiver.
Packer Nation is simply built different. When you insist on an outdoor stadium in Wisconsin for a sport that culminates in the winter, you’re telling the world that you are built different.
Vince Lombardi remains the spirit animal of the Green Bay Packers. The story goes that Vince Lombardi snuggled up to his wife in bed one chilly night and she exclaimed, “God, your feet are cold!” The legendary Green Bay Packer coach replied, “Honey, when we’re alone, you can call me Vince.” It’s a pretty terrible joke, but it does communicate Lombardi’s status in this neck of the woods.
Lombardi famously said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” And, “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.” But his expansive repertoire of famous quotes incorporates more positive themes and emphasizes words like commitment, discipline, drive, effort, hard work, passion, sacrifice, and toughness. You sense those values simply by joining the Packer fans in the stands, i.e., we can endure anything, even the bone-chilling cold.
My first Lambeau Field experience was even better because my oldest daughter, Erica, flew in for Thanksgiving and came along for the ride. I started an annual daddy-daughter birthday trip tradition with her when she was fourteen, and after many years of beautiful adventures, the tradition faded due to our miles apart, but wow this was a great way to bring it back.
When the crowd gathered around us on the metal bleachers, a group of older men sat directly next to me. My new neighbor discovered that it was my first time and promised a great experience. When I asked if he had season tickets, he said: “No, my buddies brought me here to celebrate my fiftieth birthday.”
Sheesh. I thought he was an old man. I responded, “I think I can still remember my fiftieth birthday.”
Later in the game, an increasingly inebriated young man sitting directly behind me described in great detail to a grandmother sitting beside him the formation of his friend group. He shared that many became friends during COVID when he decided to go around his neighborhood and meet everyone under age fifty. The grandmother responded, “What’s wrong with people over fifty?” I turned around for a high five.
Becoming one of the old people snuck up on me. In all candor, it sort of has the tendency to make you want to give up a little bit. But just as the depression starts to creep in, I hear Coach Lombardi screaming at me from the sidelines that “[w]inners never quit and quitters never win.”
So, I guess, here I am, still kicking, convinced that Coach was on to something when he said that my finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of everything that means the most to me, won’t arrive until I am spent on the battlefield, victorious, having given my entire heart for a good cause.
With thanks for a trip to Lambeau Field and to the ghost of Vince Lombardi, pardon me, but I have work to do.
For years I was told that I would not recognize Northwest Arkansas should I visit again, and that was the truth. Funny, you take a thirty-year trip away from a place and things tend to change a bit. I felt sort of lost all the time. Well, not all the time. Definitely not all the time.
My youngest had the idea to meet up in Fayetteville for a renewal of the old Southwest Conference football rivalry between the University of Arkansas, my college alma mater, and the University of Texas, her grad school alma mater, now conference foes again (but in the SEC). She and her boyfriend drove up from Austin, and I flew down from Wisconsin, and my heart is grateful for all the emotions and memories generated by the weekend together.
The actual football wasn’t the greatest, at least from my perspective, but the look on their faces the first time the entire stadium called the Hogs was worth the football. To be honest, it wasn’t the thumping I expected, so I was proud of that, and as I absorbed the loss I recalled that we beat Texas in Little Rock my senior year way back in 1992 just as we joined the SEC, so it isn’t like I have gone without.
It was an early game, so we got to wander through campus a little on a sunny Saturday afternoon afterward, and I enjoyed the three of us being together on a quest to track down my name engraved on a campus sidewalk as part of the beautiful Senior Walk tradition at the University of Arkansas. Seeing my name meant more to me than I expected. After thirty years, my name is still etched on a sidewalk for generations of college students and campus visitors as if to say: You should be aware that I was here.
Yes, I really was here. I once spent three formative years of my life here, and it was good to remember.
It was extra special to visit with Hillary, whose life has been drastically different than mine from the start, and especially to consider that in very real ways her life experience is a direct result of my decision to go to the University of Arkansas in the first place. I have not forgotten walking across campus in awe as a first-generation college student, falling in love with the realization that the world contains wonders I had never imagined. It was there specifically that my horizons expanded, as well as my willingness to set sail from safe harbor on multiple occasions afterward. My wanderlust, which has characterized and now characterizes her life, emanated from that first act of curiosity and courage. I guess it even led her to the sworn enemy territory of the University of Texas!
It would be nice to go back for another visit someday, but it might not happen, and that is okay. This was enough for me. Yes, this was special enough for me. There is no need to be greedy.
I confess a deep sadness following last week’s presidential election. It is a personal sadness, sure, but it is far more on behalf of those from historically-marginalized groups that feel especially vulnerable and afraid due to a resounding national stamp of approval for a candidate famous for hateful rhetoric offered in their specific direction. E.g., Stand back and stand by. Black jobs. Grab them by the ____. Too many direct quotes about specific women’s bodies to list. Mocking a reporter with arthrogryposis. Muslim bans. Shithole countries.
I felt especially sad for my two amazing daughters. Their professional lives and personal hearts are dedicated to teaching children who live in poverty in the urban core and who are now facing a promise of mass deportation that will rip immigrant families apart. It is hard to imagine a fear more fundamental than a powerful government separating you from your family. It was hard enough for me to communicate with my heartbroken daughters as they went to work the morning after the election and know that they love children by name who are facing those fundamental fears.
My sadness expands recognizing that my personal religion, Christianity, generally speaking, is openly and willingly associated with the national stamp of approval for the hateful rhetoric. Although I disagree with their conclusion, I can understand the thought processes of those who saw the election as a “lesser of two evils” vote, but there is never cause for celebration following a lesser-of-two-evils vote. And yet lots of Christians celebrated this one with euphoric joy; saw it as an answered prayer; used words like anointed. I unfortunately opened Facebook the day after the election.
I have been on a thirty-year journey with faith and politics, a journey that began in the early 1990s with me a young, questioning adult and the simultaneous rise of the Religious Right as a political movement. As Evangelical (for lack of a better term) churches gravitated toward the proselytization of a political strategy, I was saved from dismissing Christianity and moving on entirely, in part, by stumbling upon the writings of Will D. Campbell who demonstrated for me that there was a different way to be Christian, and I concluded that for me following Jesus meant that I must love everyone, regardless. Both sides. All humans. Even enemies. Learning to “live reconciled” became an important phrase to me, as did “indiscriminate love.”
But that really messed me up. Loving everyone is a recipe for loneliness in a culture insistent on choosing sides, winners and losers, us and them. On one hand, I could see the pain felt by those that experienced decades of cultural condescension and blindness to class inequality from the Political (and Religious) Left while on the other hand growing increasingly cognizant of the centuries of pain felt by those that experienced the terrible injustice and marginalization perpetuated by the Political (and Religious) Right. So, I eventually learned to bite my tongue a lot, choosing instead to plant seeds, attempting not to alienate either side in an attempt to love and maintain relationships with everyone. I chose to work within a lot, behind the scenes a lot. And I felt guilty a lot for not doing and/or saying more.
My interpretation of Christianity remains, but in time I sought a quiet freedom from a life where I am not allowed to be fully authentic, and I am grateful for the wonderful feeling of liberation that I now experience. But given my own emotional reaction this week, and given numerous private texts and conversations with friends from all over the country that we made on our long journey toward personal liberation, my personal freedom seems self-serving and wholly insufficient.
But what to do?
That question has dominated my thinking, and I am grateful for anything I have heard and read from Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom in the aftermath of the election (like the full Daily Show interview). Dr. Tressie has helped me tremendously (and I thank my friend, Chalak, for telling me about her in the first place). And I have also benefitted from articles written by both David Brooks and David French after the election, white men from conservative backgrounds who through their columns have assured me that my visceral reactions to the election aren’t simply because I drank Kool-Aid at the Liberal Vacation Bible School.
Collectively, they pulled no punches in saying that chaos is coming but emphasized that despair cannot be allowed to be the mood for long. Dr. Tressie advised, “Don’t cry too long over a sinking ship,” and the subject of David French’s email read, “We don’t have time to waste time in despair.”
French wrote, “There’s a temptation to retreat. If you have a stable job, a good family and good friends, you can check out of politics. After all, politics can be painful. It’s not just the pain of loss, but also the pain of engagement itself. MAGA is extraordinarily cruel to its political opponents. But despair is an elite luxury that vulnerable communities cannot afford. If Trump was telling the truth about his intentions — and there is no good reason to think he wasn’t — then he will attempt a campaign of retribution and mass deportation that will fracture families, create chaos in American communities and potentially even result in active-duty troops being deployed to our cities.”
So, while sad and tempted to quit caring, even that, as depressing as it sounds, is “an elite [and selfish] luxury.” Here are my commitments instead:
#1: See. I choose not to give up on my faith commitment to see all people—i.e., to love neighbors, regardless of anything. David Brooks published an important book last year titled, “How to Know a Person,” and his post-election column explained something Will Campbell helped me see long ago, i.e., a “redistribution of respect” that led to a “vast segregation system” between the Political Left and those that now comprise the base of the MAGA movement. Brooks’s post-election column titled, “Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?,” reminds me that condescension creates problems and does not cure them, and I won’t abandon my desire to see all people as human beings equally worthy of sincere love and respect.
#2: Speak. This, I confess, feels like my greatest challenge. One change I must adopt moving forward is a willingness to speak up more, even though that will risk alienation from and dismissal by people that I love on every side. It is tempting to bite my tongue, especially when I want to remain in relationship with everyone, but I think David French is right when he says we are compelled to “speak the truth.” He explained it this way: “Telling the truth means combating deception and misinformation, but it also means publicly defending the dignity and humanity of the people and communities who are the object of Trump’s wrath. It means resisting malice when we encounter it in our churches and communities.” Remaining silent might appear to preserve relationships, but it forecloses all prospects for true justice and real harmony. This blog post is an initial and meager attempt to speak up more.
#3: Act. Finally, as hard as the first two are to do, they are insufficient without action. David French wrote that we must “protect the vulnerable,” but I like how Dr. Tressie said it best: “Don’t cry too long over a sinking ship. Build dinghies.” To continue the nautical metaphor, the Brooks column concluded this way: “[W]e are entering a period of white water. Trump is a sower of chaos, not fascism. Over the next few years, a plague of disorder will descend upon America, and maybe the world, shaking everything loose. If you hate polarization, just wait until we experience global disorder. But in chaos there’s opportunity for a new society and a new response to the Trumpian political, economic and psychological assault. These are the times that try people’s souls, and we’ll see what we are made of.”
I want my soul to pass this test, so with thanks to Dr. Tressie and the two Davids, and after much reflection, I have concluded that it takes all three: See. Speak. Act. Looking backward in despair, looking inward in contemplation, and now looking forward with resolve, that is what I commit to do.
As my limited gambling history demonstrates, my best guesses are nowhere close to reliable. But on the eve of what promises to be an historic presidential election, I have what I can only describe as a sense of foreboding. Things could get ugly, as if the campaign wasn’t ugly enough.
If the election is as close as it appears, we may not know the outcome anytime soon, but that doesn’t prevent a little personal nostalgia. I recall a sense of foreboding the day before an unprecedented hurricane crashed through my community, and on that occasion I sent a mass email to let everyone know our plans in case things went badly. Apples and oranges, I know, but a similar feeling resurfaces today, as silly as that sounds.
I anticipate significant acts of violence should Donald Trump “not” be elected president again. I hope that such violence does not occur, but, you know, history. And I anticipate a very different but even greater set of dire consequences if he wins. That’s because, among other things, many of his former military commanders have spoken in no uncertain terms.
So again, pardon the PTSD, but I feel this strange desire to board up some windows and prepare for dangerous winds and waves.
While I have leaned Left for many years now, my concern regards Donald Trump the candidate and not the Political Right. I used to say that the winner of the presidential election didn’t matter nearly as much as we are expected to believe because winners tended to “govern toward the middle” in our clunky two-party system, but I don’t say that this time.
And my thoughts are further complicated because I understand a portion of the Trump appeal to those who for decades of their lives felt the sting of disdain from various types of “elite.” I don’t want to dismiss painful emotions and experiences.
But that we have come to the absurdity of yet another Donald Trump candidacy mostly makes me sad. As just one dramatic example, while Sean “Diddy” Combs understandably sits in prison as evidence of sexual assault mounts against him, Donald Trump expects to be the next president of the United States despite, well, everything. And if I had to bet a nickel, I’d bet that he wins.
I attended a panel discussion recently on the impending election, and one of the panelists said that the outcome of the election will say more about the American people than about the campaigns themselves. That seems about right, and I think that may do more to describe my sense of foreboding than anything else.
Vote bravely and wisely, everyone, and then batten down the hatches.
Starting to Look Up 