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April 10, 2022: Daring Greatly

 

With the heaviness of that Passion Reading, I want to direct your thoughts to something lighter . . . like the season opener for our MN Twins. Which reminds me of a homily that I tried to give a few years ago. When my nephew Guthrie, who has sung at our Fall Fest a few times, was three years old he could sing the entire song of TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME. So for a homily that I was giving at the College of St. Benedict’s. I wanted him to sing it for all the students. My whole homily was based on that song.

 

My sister and brother-in-law brought him early to rehearse. I had him stand on the top of one of the pews. He nailed it, perfectly done, cute . . . the whole thing. So at the homily, I go over to him, introduce him and announce that he’s going to sing TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME. And little Guthrie, speaks into the mic, “I wanna sing Rudolf.” I say, “No, let’s do it like we rehearsed.” “No, I wanna sing Rudolf.” “Guthrie you remember . . “ And I start singing it for him “Take me out . . “ “Rudolf!” You’re killing me. So I sing Take me out to the ball park. And tell everyone that maybe Guthrie will sing Rudolf after Mass.

 

You know, sometimes a good humiliation is good for you. Fr. Richard Rohr says, “We should strive for one good humiliation each day.” That is, to take us out of our egos and our perfection mood.

 

President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1910 said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood . . .  because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; . . . who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,

 

Daring Greatly, what a wonderful concept. It applies to what Jesus went through, but the problem with us hearing, in the passion reading, about how Jesus doubted in the garden, how he was abandoned by his disciples, denied by his close friend Peter, endured whipping and pain . . is that we think, “Oh he’s God, so it’s Ok.”   No, Jesus was God and fully human, which means he felt the physical and emotion pain of failing.

 

And like Jesus showed us, if we truly “live in the arena,” show up, take chances, choose courage over comfort . . . we WILL fail. It’s not “I’m willing to risk failure” no, it’s . . . if you are brave with your life, in what you need to do or say . . . you will face resistance, back-lash, humiliation and failure.

 

You see, it’s about being vulnerable. And vulnerability is not about winning or about losing. Research professor, author, and podcast host: Brene Brown said, "Vulnerability is the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome.”   And we just heard the heard story of Jesus NOT controlling the outcome, so why do you think you have to?

 

If you want to live deeply, you need to dare deeply. Being vulnerable is not weakness. Actually as Brene Brown says, “vulnerability is the most accurate way to measure courage.”

 

Perhaps this entire Holy Week can be your personal retreat to explore how you could be more vulnerable. Come to our liturgies or watch them on-line. If you cannot attend, then take some time during the week to be different, to slow down and become more mindful of how you can be vulnerable.

 

So perhaps this is your week to do the thing you have been hesitating. Or to say what needs to be said.

Perhaps this is your week to dare greatly.

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