The Most Important Least Important Things

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Jurgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool Football Club in England, said last year that [sports are] “the most important of the least important things.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about that statement these days. I doubt I’m the only one who finds himself just bone weary of the constant culture war arguments to which all things are currently reduced by the algorithms and editors that we allow to control us these days. The sense that EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT AND AN OUTRAGE AND YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO IT AND MUST HAVE THE (CORRECT) OPINION ABOUT IT AND IF YOU DO NOT YOU ARE THE PROBLEM just wears a man down. It was there in the early Obama years, but I felt it increase during the second Obama administration (no doubt rising in direct proportion to the spread of the smartphone) until it reached a rolling boil during the Trump administration until (and I wouldn’t have believed it possible) it has become like a pressure cooker during this pandemic.

As I’ve been preaching recently, however, I’m out. I’ve over it. I’m taking back my attention and my heart and my focus from the howling voices that demand I respond to them. It’s not that the issues we’re fighting about don’t matter, it’s that I no longer want to cede my attention to the control of the howling voices. I want to decide when to react, when to be outraged, when to be obsessed.

And so I’ve been thinking recently about where I direct my attention on my own terms.

I’ve been thinking, therefore, about “the most important least important things”.

 
 

Thank God for the NBA

I think our obsession with sports can be unhealthy and idolatrous, and yet these days I’ve come to really appreciate the arguments and petty obsessions that are part of being a sports fan.

I’ll go further:

Thank you God for the NBA!

 
 

Yes, sports won’t stop the plague, they won’t cure cancer, they won’t get the right person elected, they won’t fix our city streets.

But you know what they do accomplish? They offer us a safe place to be obsessive, a safe place to have heated arguments when nothing is at stake, a place to channel the passion and intensity that come along with human nature.

 
 

Stephen A. Cuts My Hair

The place where I go for a haircut has sports channels blaring all day long, and most of that time they aren’t showing live sports, but rather what “30 Rock” called “sports shouting” shows—the ones where they just yell and argue (look up Stephen A. Smith on YouTube for a million examples). All those shows used to annoy me.

 
 
 

(See 30 Rock’s version of “Sports Shouting” 3:23-3:31 in the above clip. Such a funny sitcom—I miss it.)

 
 

Nowadays, I Much Prefer “Sports Shouting” and “Cookiejar Enthusiast”, Thank You Very Much

Nowadays, however, I think I’m grateful for the pointless arguments and petty obsessions that make up shows like “Sports Shouting”. Long may they continue. In fact, I think one of the purposes of civilization is to permit men and women to devote their energies to “unimportant” things like sports and all the other most important least important things we care about, like dog shows and garage bands and dollhouse-collecting and bridge tournaments and arguments over which scope on which hunting rifle firing which type of ammunition would be best to take down an elk at 400 yards in high elevation.

I’ve called the examples above “unimportant”, but that’s not really accurate, is it? Those examples are not unimportant because they are things that we care about and for which we use our God-given creativities. Yes, the examples above might not all be life-and-death and they may not speak to the immigration crisis at the border or how to pass the infrastructure bill or how to cure cancer, but I actually think the point of life is to not have to constantly think about the point of life.

It seems to me that one of the characteristics of a healthy, prosperous civilization is that men and women have the energy to direct at “unimportant” things, rather than worrying about how to make it through the next winter. In light of starvation, a sonnet seems frivolous, but I’m wondering if frivolity—in the highest sense—is one of the purposes of Creation.

 
 

After all, Jesus told us to consider the lilies, and what could be less relevant to our current crises than that?

 
 
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Some Of My Most Important Least Important Things

Above is a screenshot of the front-page of today’s Sports section from The Dallas Morning News, which I look at most days. (I’m old-fashioned and get both the paper delivered and use the e-paper app, which I love.) I like reading about the Cowboys, I like talking to other people about the Cowboys, and I like listening to local talk radio talk about the Cowboys. None of it matters, but I like thinking about it:

  • How did everyone else miss on Dak when he came out of Mississippi State?

  • How did Jerry get two great quarterbacks in a row that no one else thought were good enough?

  • Is Zeke finally going to justify his huge contract this year? Etc.

 
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I also like reading about and watching English soccer, which my brother and I started following on a low budget highlight show on a local sports channel in about 1993. We’d come home from school and tape it on our VCR. I’ve been an inconsistent fan at times in these last nearly 30 years (thirty years (!)—time moves so quickly), but I’ve been much more attentive these last several years, particularly because of the availability of NBC’s Saturday morning Premier League coverage. I like listening to podcasts—especially Men in Blazers—and following the soap opera of the season.

  • Can Pep succeed without a true “number 9”?

  • Does Ole have what it takes?

  • Does the return of Ronaldo actually make Man United a worse team? Etc.

 
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And though I don’t actually care about the NBA much at all, I’m still grateful for it (even when I find its deliberate embrace of woke politics grating). Sometimes it’s just good for us to care about tall men putting a round ball in a metal ring.

 
 

When Most Important and Most Important Least Important Collide

Yesterday, my most important and some of my most important least important loves came together in a lovely way. We went as a family to the last Rangers game of the season—our first time to the new ballpark in Arlington.

 
 

A very generous family in church gave us amazing seats—3 rows behind home plate—it was a beautiful Texas Indian summer afternoon under a blue sky, the roof was open—it is a marvel to behold it slide open along its massive rails— and the entire afternoon was a delight.

The Rangers lost 6-0 despite my daughter’s applause for “our team”, and since it’s been a miserable losing season for Texas, nothing hung on the outcome.

Or maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it.

See, I got to sit with my family and focus on something together in the brief time we have before my children are grown and gone, in the brief time before all of this is gone, me included. Maybe the most important least important things are God’s way of pointing us to what’s actually important. See, I’ve come to believe that this may be the purpose behind God’s gift to us of the most important least important things:

They give us an excuse to just sit and be and love.

 
 
“Consider the lilies....”
— Jesus of Nazareth
 
 

So, what are some of your most important least important things?

 

Update: Norm Macdonald, My Brother, and My Broken Face

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I previously told you a story about what happened when my middle brother and I were watching a Norm Macdonald weekend update episode in November 1997. My dad and my 7 (!) year-old youngest brother walked in the room just as Norm was making a wildly transgressive joke about Mary Kay Letourneau, the kind of joke Norm Macdonald specialized in and that made you squirm.

 

An Update From The Brother in Question:

Well, my brother (now a grown man and father of 4 little kids) just texted me to say he didn’t remember the incident at all—he said he was probably just saying something he knew would get a rise out of his older brothers. It makes me laugh now, but at the time I was MORTIFIED when it happened—right in front of my dad!—and am so glad to hear we didn’t mess up the little fella too much (at least that time). I guess the lesson is to be careful about what media the little ones in your house have access to! As my mom likes to say, “Little pitchers have big ears.”

 

Broken Face Story

Some of you have asked about the mention in the postscript about me breaking my face. (Others of you have heard the story previously.)

Here’s what happened:

The week after the incident above, I was playing soccer with a travel team when a boy from the other team came up behind me while I was on the ground and punched me with his full weight behind his fist—he hit me under my right eye socket. I didn’t see what happened but thought that someone had kicked me in the head. It really hurt. (I didn’t do anything to provoke it; it was an ill-tempered game and I just happened to be in the middle of it.)


So, my nose was broken and bleeding and I had a superficial cut under my eye, but it didn’t seem that serious. My mom was there and said, “We need to stitch that up.” So, I went to the hospital, but when there, they found my entire eye orbital was crushed like an eggshell, and I had to have immediate surgery. I woke up next day with a titanium mesh plate under the skin on the right side of my face.


After the surgery, I looked like a zombie—my face was green with bruises and my eye was swollen shut for the next week. Everyone at church and all the girls at school gave me lots of attention!

If you’ve ever thought about me, “No one looks that good naturally”, you are right—I had a lot of work done 24 years ago.

In the dental X-ray above you can see part of the 3D titanium mesh insert that’s holding up my eye.

You never know what the future holds, right?

These Past 10 Years

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Ten years ago today, December 31, 2009, I was in a snowstorm in Boston, Massachusetts. In the picture above, taken on that afternoon—New Year’s Eve 2009—you can see me and my wife, along with my parents and my youngest brother, posing outside of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which was offering free admission for the holiday.

I stumbled across that picture today as I was reflecting on this past decade, and I’ve been struck this evening with the memories of all that has happened since.

These past ten years have been something, let me tell you.

I officially started work as the pastor for Munger Place Church on January 1, 2010, so I’ve been the Munger pastor for exactly 10 years, or 3,652 days. Munger didn’t exist as a church when I punched in that first day of 2010 (we launched worship in October of that year), and as excited as I was for the opportunity to help bring life back into our old building and into our neighborhood and launch a new church, I can honestly say that what has happened at and through Munger over the past decade far exceeds anything I could have imagined 10 years ago.

One of my strongest desires was to be the pastor of a church that people wanted to attend; one of my greatest blessings these days is to know that in those of us who call ourselves Mungarians, that desire has been realized: we love coming together as a church on Sundays (and other special days).

The video taken below is from this past Christmas Eve 2019. We opened our doors for our services 30 minutes before the services were to begin; when we did so, there were crowds of people already lining up to enter church. Here’s the video of the doors opening at 4:30 PM for our 5:00 PM service. How great is that?!

Folks waiting to enter the church when the doors open 30 minutes beforehand. Munger Place Church. Christmas Eve 2019.

You can’t see it in the Boston NYE picture at the top of this post, but my wife was 4 months pregnant with our son on New Year’s Eve 2010, so I’ve officially been a father for the past 10 years, as well as being a pastor, though both son and church were embryonic when 2010 began!

I’m at home with my little family this New Year’s Eve, and though I always knew I wanted to be a father—I wanted a whole gang of kids— I can honestly say that being together with my family is the source of my greatest joy and that marriage and fatherhood and family have far exceeded what I could have imagined 10 years ago.

One blessing I didn’t imagine was the blessing that comes from being the father to a daughter. I came from a family of boys and I first became a father to a boy, so princess dresses and pink stuffed animals were not things I had personal experience with before my daughter was born. Having a little girl—and a very girly little girl, at that—in the house is a source of constant delight and amusement for me. I love being the father to a daughter!

I don’t think I would have believed, if you had told me 10 years ago, how blessed my life has been and how many beautiful people and experiences would be a part of my life, 12/31/2009 to 12/31/2019. These past 10 years have really been something.

Of course, these past 10 years have not been without pain and difficulty, too.

Being involved in any kind of start-up venture is stressful, and being part of a new church start is no exception. I’ve aged a lot in the past 10 years, and no doubt some of my grey hairs (I have some on my temples these days!) are due to my work at Munger.

And being a pastor is not an easy job. My job is worlds easier than many of my pastoral colleagues in my city and around the world—I have nothing to complain of—but even at a cushy gig like Munger there are the difficulties that come from leading and loving people. This past year, e.g., has been by far the hardest I’ve had in ministry. As a pastor, I’ve pressed my forehead into the living room carpet in anxious and desperate prayer, had relationships severed, faced serious opposition, and tasted despair for the first time in my life.

I have learned lots about love and grace this past year and this past decade, and even now I can say I’m grateful, though the learning has come with a cost. (As does anything worth having.)

But, as is always the case in life, the most difficult and painful times have come in my personal life. About a year after the birth of our son, my wife was struck with constant and inexplicable vertigo. For several months in early 2011 my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came to live with us to help care for Elaine. Over the course of several years of medical explorations, we finally ended up at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. After that, my wife had a serious of inexplicable miscarriages. When she finally did become pregnant with the baby who would turn out to be our little princess, she had a series of catastrophic events happen afterwards.

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I will never forget being up all night in the waiting room, kept company by some men from our small group, and wondering how I was going to wake up our son and tell him his mother died. Through the grace of God, that didn’t have to happen, but I don’t think I’ll ever think of the birth of my daughter without a sick feeling in my gut.

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We won’t ever have any more natural children: that door is now shut forever. If I could wave a magic wand and change anything from the last decade, that’s what I would change. But I can’t, and so we won’t.

Which is not to say that I’m unwilling to accept that things might be exactly as God needs them to be. And also not to say that I am not joyfully grateful for the life and family God has given me.

As I’ve written before, I think the difficulties we’ve had together has made me more grateful of my wife and family than I would otherwise have been.

The 2 Words of Advice I Would Give The Me of 10 Years Ago

I don’t want to know the future—I think I would be too terrified of the difficult times and too likely to mess up the good times. The future needs to be sealed away until its proper time.

So, I would not want to go back to New Year’s Eve 2009 and tell myself in that Boston snowstorm all that was going to happen. But, there are 2 words of advice that I would like to have given to my 2009 self, and 2 words about which I’m reminding myself tonight.

Pray. It is only prayer than can prepare us to face the hard times. I wish I had prayed more and prayed more deliberately and habitually this past decade. God gives peace and poise through prayer; prayer is preparation.

Because life is hard, I would like to have told myself to pray.

Praise. I wish I had rejoiced and praised more this past decade. Every breath is a gift from God, and every day I get to see is a blessing. Praise is the only appropriate response to all that we’ve been given.

Because life is sweet, I would like to have told myself to praise.

I couldn’t have imagined in that Boston snowstorm all that God would give me these past 10 years, and I can never be grateful enough for all my blessings.

I don’t know what the next 10 years will hold, but I strongly suspect that on New Year’s Eve 2029 (if God allows me to see it), that I’ll be saying the same thing:

Thank you!

My Uncle, 50 Years After Vietnam

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The Thanksgiving after my grandmother died, I remember we went back to my grandparents’ house and were visiting as a family around the dining room table. For some reason, I asked my uncle if he ever thought about Vietnam. His answer: every single day. That answer surprised me, because like most veterans, my uncle never really talked about his experiences over there.

It’s been 50 years since my uncle came home, and this past Monday (Veterans Day) his local newspaper did a short piece on him. My cousin sent it to me yesterday. I’ve attached screenshots of the the article below.

God bless you, Uncle Robert.