You’re in for a treat today.
Today we get to enjoy a short essay Bill wrote, one of his personal favorites. “Author Anne Lamott is one of our time’s best writing teachers,” Bill says, “brilliant at telling individual anecdotes and making you think you’ve read a cohesive life lesson. And you have.”
Bill has done just that in his story below—he has written an anecdote with a gift inside—a cohesive life lesson for you and for me and for all readers.
If you’ve read his memoir, you know one of his joys was coaching girls’ softball for 12 years. He says, “If I could make a living coaching rec-league girls softball, I would.”
So, settle in and enjoy this gentle man’s conversational, warm anecdote about his love of coaching and a life-changing 30 seconds at one of his favorite places, the local ballfield.
****
When little Marissa saw me at the ballpark one night several years ago, her face lit up with that big toothy smile of hers. She took off from 30 feet away for a full frontal, torpedo-action hug.
If she weighed more than a bag of feathers, I might have had to brace myself. Thankfully, she is a bag of feathers, because had I braced myself, or guarded myself—had I done anything other than take the full force of her enthusiasm—I would have missed out.
It wasn’t until the day after that I fully processed what this 30 seconds of life had meant to me. And now three years later, I’m beginning to doubt I'll ever forget it.
I saw lots of friendly faces and was on the receiving end of a handful of hugs and handshakes and “we-miss-you” sentiments. I had coached softball at this park for 12 years, and a couple of months earlier, I had finished my career in a less-than-ideal manner.
That didn't matter to 11-year-old Marissa, though. She greeted me like the Father greets me, like his prodigal son. She celebrated seeing me with a totally unexpected and wild abandon.
For all she knew, I had quit on her and her teammates in the middle of a difficult all-star summer season. I think she probably was old enough and savvy enough to know there was something more to it, but after talking to her mom that night, I also knew that her parents had shielded her from the specifics of what had been a particularly ugly case of ballpark politics, one in which I was not completely blameless.
Marissa would have been just if she’d looked at me and said, “Hey, where’d you go; where’ve you been?” She’d have had every right to withhold her love until I’d satisfied her sense of right and wrong and offered up an explanation. If that even occurred to her, she didn’t show it. She simply hugged me, smiled and asked me if I’d coach her again next summer.
Holy cow, God. Thank you for sending Marissa my way on this night.
I knew when I walked back into the ballpark where I’d coached some 25 teams over the years that I’d probably run into people that didn’t like me.
Most of those years, the fields had been my primary place of ministry as well as the primary place where I’d come under assault from the enemy of my soul. On a spiritual plane, I was convinced that something was at stake every time I walked onto those fields.
Battles for teenage girls’ hearts were raging, I’d reminded myself. True, but as importantly, a battle for my own heart was raging.
Spiritually speaking, I’d lost a lot of blood on that battlefield. I had taken direct hits, been blindsided and ambushed for the sake of the ministry, for the sake of girls’ wounded hearts, for the sake of Christ. I had been abandoned by many of my trusted allies. If I'm counting the cost, then that's the tally, pure and simple.
But along the way, I—this prodigal son who has seen the light but is still prone to wander—created some of the collateral damage of my own. When the assaults got intense, I spent too much time preparing my defense and lining up witnesses to testify on my behalf in the invisible, but real, court of public perception. I was self-protecting, making sure my account of how others had acted was discreetly spread throughout the park.
I am always at my worst when I’m in self-protection mode. Don’t get me wrong; I’m pretty adept at it. But wouldn’t I be better off fighting the fight, which in this case, and in most cases, means loving with more of my heart, and letting God take care of protecting me?
Instead, I do the things I don’t want to do and don’t do the things I want to do.
So, I walked back on the fields that night as a spectator and a visitor. I wasn't coaching a team and I knew my time doing that had reached its end. But no win in a softball game meant as much as the time when the Father, in the form of that 11-year-old freckled-face sack of feathers, met me with open arms, and said, “Welcome home.”
****
What a moving story—light-hearted yet multilayered and weighty.
Did you notice how Bill took time to reflect? Reflection is that all-important aspect of memoir.
Most of us need to work hard to reflect well because,
“The sad truth is that many authors
simply have never learned to reflect substantively on anything.’”
Bill made time to reflect, to look below the surface and discover the deeper, richer story. He then tells us how his pondering paid off—it changed his life. He realized he could have missed that special gift from God and Marissa. That, in turn, led to his thankfulness that he hadn’t overlooked it.
Look at how Bill writes tight. Each word counts. He gives us details, but not too many—just enough so we get the picture and grasp his message.
And rather than going down rabbit trails, he stays on track, giving us only enough background to provide clarity and perspective.
Note how skillfully he carries out the “Show, don’t tell” maxim: Instead of telling us Marissa was a skinny little girl, he shows us: He describes her so that we, the readers, conclude for ourselves that she’s a lightweight.
Bill doesn’t preach. Instead, his humility mentors us. He admits his own role in the discord, but he also rises above past controversies. He chooses to take the high road, a good lesson for all of us.
And note how, throughout, he tells the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). We don’t see a guy in a long robe living in the desert during Bible times. Rather, we see a prodigal son wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, or, since he lives in Georgia, probably wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And a baseball cap.
Through Bill’s story, we experience with him the joy of seeing God open His arms wide to all of us prodigals and hearing Him say, “Welcome home.”
Remember Bill’s praise of Anne Lamott: He said she is “brilliant at telling individual anecdotes and making you think you’ve read a cohesive life lesson.”
I’m sure you agree, Bill too, is brilliant at offering us a cohesive life lesson. He blessed us with a teaching moment all wrapped up in an enjoyable read.
What about you? Read beyond the lines: Think about your own prodigal son moment.
Can’t remember it?
Well, Bill almost overlooked his prodigal son moment. Maybe you failed to spot yours.
Spend time searching through your past for that event. Your search might take a long time, but the results will be worth your effort.
When you find your prodigal son moment, be like Bill: Package your life lesson within one of your memoir’s vignettes, all wrapped up in an enjoyable read.
Buy Bill's memoir on Amazon or through his website, www.william-sanders.com. Follow him on Facebook at William Sanders, Author.
