0
0
How to be your best when you know they’ve been their worst
Kill Him!
When I was a boy, the most brutal schoolyard game we played was “Kill the man with the ball.” A bunch of us, sometimes as many as 12 or 15, would gather on the practice field where one of us would throw the ball up in the air, and whoever grabbed it had to run for his life because everyone else would try to tackle him.
It was a fun game if you were like me, quick as a jackrabbit with cat-like reflexes. But eventually, even the nimblest missteps, trips up, or runs out of gas and gets clobbered.
And then…they dogpiled.
Dogpiling was the easiest thing in the world to do.
It took panache and daring to field the ball, skill, cunning, and quickness to elude the tacklers, and quickness, toughness, and unrelenting determination to make the tackle, but anyone could dogpile.
So everyone did.
I couldn’t help but feel the weight of that playground dogpile while I watched the kiss cam reveal the worst moment of two people’s lives. Maybe it wasn’t their worst moment, but it showed them—to everyone, friend and foe, ally and enemy, and Internet strangers, all ready to pile on.
Then, last night, my wife and I watched Ted Lasso, Season Three, episode 11. Yeah, we are latecomers to the Lasso fan club, but I am the banner-waver now! Few shows these days leave me wanting more or feeling better than Lasso. I love that cast, the stories, the humor, but mostly, I love Ted Lasso.
Lasso Him Instead.
And I love what he did when he caught a man who had wronged him—caught the dirty bastard in the very act, on camera! Had him dead to rights.
Lasso could have leaked the footage. He could have used it to destroy the man’s reputation, career, and life.
He could have.
Instead, well, see for yourself. Watch these short clips. You will not be sorry. I promise.
As a man who has needed second chances and second chances on those second chances, I am glad for the Ted Lassos of the world—the ones willing to resist the temptation to get even, to virtue signal, to…
Dogpile.
It takes incredible strength to offer grace because it so often requires absorbing the impact and bearing the weight of the wrongdoing to save someone else from self-destruction.
Joseph and The Brothers Grim
His brothers sold him as a slave because they were sick of his favorite son designation and goody two-shoes persona. Years later, when Joseph had risen from Egyptian slave to, essentially, Prime Minister of Egypt, and the region was trapped in a devastating seven-year drought, Joseph’s brothers, unaware of his story or what became of him, went to Egypt to borrow enough grain to get through the drought.
They encountered Joseph. He recognized them immediately. They did not recognize him. So, he put them through their paces to see if they had changed for the better or not. They had.
He revealed himself, and they feared for their lives.
Surely, the retribution they had long dreaded was upon them. But Joseph kissed them and welcomed them to Egypt, where he would become the savior of the family.
What “they” did vs what God meant
Joseph said to them, “You meant it for evil; God meant it for good.”
That couple caught on the kiss cam and then publicly flayed were as guilty as sin—and caught in the act. (I wrote about this recently here.)
We’re all as guilty as sin, if not caught in the act.
Kill the man with the ball! Dogpile!
Or, consider, instead, the Ted Lasso way…
I hope either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moment, but rather by the strength we show when or if we are given a second chance.
