Elevating Your Game

Starting this week there will be 64 and by the following weekend there will only be 2. I am referring to the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, fondly called March Madness. For those who love the sport this is its highlight.  The elimination process yields our national collegiate basketball champion.

One team of players will taste the ultimate victory. Sixty three will suffer defeat. If we take a moment to reflect on this it is easy to see that the one team that wins cannot exist without the other teams. They are all intertwined in the event—the winner needs their opponents.

Madness of competition can lead us to not seeing the wholeness of our existence.  Every team that loses allows the other team that wins to play its best.

Thankfully, most of life is not a tournament, though for some us we make life to be just that—an elimination of losers and an elevation of winners.

Last August I chose to undergo hip replacement surgery.  The debate inside of me went on for a long time whether to replace my hip necessitated by increasing degeneration and pain due to arthritis. I finally opted to go for it, wanting to return to normal activity—which included playing basketball.  This past Sunday I finally went out to test the hip and my ‘opponent’ was my son Ben. I was more than a bit nervous.  Would the repair to my hip allow me to move the way I could before the arthritis? I am thrilled to report that the hip felt fine (the rest of the body was not as cooperative) and the rhythm that is basketball flowed through me once again.

If this was a tournament I would have been eliminated.

What a thrill to be back on the court.

What a thrill to play with my son, who I taught how to play basketball, who now moves quicker and with more power and finesse than his Dad.

I look forward to “losing” to him and his younger brother for many years to come.

It will be my pleasure to “lose” to my daughters as well.

David Sanders

 

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

Sunlight Sea

All Endings are Also Beginnings

by Melanie Gruenwald A Primer on Holding Opposites   Today we concluded our Kabbalah of Mitch Albom class with a teaching he shares in both The Five People You’ll Meet in Heaven and The Next

Photo of man standing by broken glass and yahrzeit candles Kristallnacht (Created by starrai)

Clear as Kristallnacht

by Dr. David Sanders The world I knew, the one I counted on, turned upside down in the aftermath of the genocidal attack on Jews who were residents or just visiting near the Israel-Gaza border

sunset with adam and eve in israel order of the world starr.ai

This is the Order of the World

The Sages taught: On the day that Adam the first man was created, when the sun set upon him he said: Woe is me, as because I sinned, the world is becoming dark around me,

Israeli soldier on a kibbutz, created by starryai.com

October Lamentation

by Dr. David Sanders For these things do I weep, My eyes, my eyes, flow with tears Far from me is any comforter Who might revive my spirit My children are forlorn, For the foe

are you paying attn

Pay Attention!

by Melanie Gruenwald This semester, I am teaching the Base Awareness and Kabbalah of Mitch Albom classes for Kabbalah Experience. I always love to see how classes overlap. (Paying attention to what’s showing up definitely