on self-compassion, inner critics, and becoming the beloved | 3

I heard an interview with a struggling baseball player the other day.  The radio personality interviewing him said, "It must be tough right now."  The player said, "It's always tough.  We work in a profession where succeeding 3 out of every 10 times is success.  We've got to learn to deal with frequent failure."The player was cut from his team a week later.Former Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent once said, "Baseball teaches us... how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often -- those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players. I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth."It's the strange paradox of Christianity that we, at times, take ourselves so terribly seriously while believing ourselves to be so terribly sinful.  To be sure, we ought strive like athletes reaching toward the goal, as St. Paul often says.  Yet, we'll often stumble and fall.  John Calvin, who took life and theology very seriously, reminds us this is so, saying that each of us strive to "the measure of his puny capacity," not despairing at "the slightness of our success."Why are we Christians so obsessed with our successes?  It's as if it's all up to us, despite the fact that our theology tells us it isn't so. Again, there's no shame in trying.  However, sometimes we've got to get over ourselves before our trying and striving become redemptive and helpful.  Sometimes, our striving gets in the way of our own 'salvation', as the poet Mary Oliver writes.  We hear the many needy voices around us, and feel the world's redemption is dependent on us.  "Mend our lives," the voices around us cry.  The world shouts to us with its needs.  But sometimes we're not healthy enough to help.  Sometimes, our helping is more a reflection of our deep distraction from God rather than our deep consecration in Him.And, if we're fortunate, we awake to this reality when we're younger rather than older, when the damage we've done is less than it could have been, and when we realize that our successes are not so much a product of our expertise as much as God's providence in using our "puny capacities," as Calvin said, for something we couldn't imagine.  And then, a poet like Mary Oliver bowls us over with her extraordinary truth, a truth gleaned from her observation of the theater of God's glory and his people's stumblings, as she writesOne day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save. Mary Oliver, The JourneyAnd, we realize that we're the ones drowning.  Enamored with our supposed successes, we've been the one in a slump, swinging and missing over and again in the game that really counts.  Perhaps, we've been selling posters and signing autographs.  But, we've used this as a distraction, too afraid to look at our own-the-field failures.In this game, though, God doesn't cut players.  It's the only game in town where this is so.  You've been listening to other voices which are not your own, and he knows it.  And so he invites you to listen to the voice that you recognize as your own, the voice that will keep you company as you strive deeper and deeper into the world.  There is not retreat for the stumbling Christian.  Only redemption.  And so, he says walk on.  Play on.And perhaps, in time, you'll recognize that the "voice you recognize as your own" is, indeed, his voice, which speaks when you are most authentically you, his beloved child.