March Sadness

O.K., I can write again.

I was taking a break from blogging because the Tigers were winning while I stayed silent. I was after all the good karma I could get, but, alas, no.

Those damn Bruins.

Just so that I'm clear - I'll take 33-4 every year and say "thank you very much."

It's not that the Tigers lost, but how they did.

The team that showed up in Oakland Saturday night was not the team I've watched play in the Forum all year.

Nerves?

Pushing too hard?

Choke?

Maybe yes to all of the above.

But UCLA did not beat us, not this time.

And so help me, if CBS showed Bill Walton one more time to talk about the '73 championship game(salt in the open wound of any lifelong Memphis State fan) I was going to puke.

These Tigers are as good as any version I've seen since the '84-85 team - and they received no respect from national media - and to lose they way they did, means they won't, either.

It's just a game, I know, and, I also know that God could care less about who wins them. But if you've ever had your "bright shining moment," and blew it - for whatever reason, you know what the boys are feeling.

But then there's this -

The team flew home Saturday night and arrived in Memphis at 3:00 a.m. There to greet them was about 150 cheering folks to give their love, thank them for their efforts, and to cheer them on for the future.

Would that the church be a whole lot more like that for each other when we fail to live up to who God has made us.

In a time when judgment is too easy and often the transference of our own unresolved stuff, what difference would encouragement and support make in the lives of the disappointed?

If we'd just do it.