My Beloved

Have you ever noticed those moments in your life when there is more to learn than you realize. Last night was one of those moments. I am currently attending Gonzaga for my Master's in Organizational Leadership and unless you live in the remote outskirts of Saskatoon Canada and don't read the newspaper, you've probably heard about my beloved Zags. They are the little guy representing the West Coast in the March Madness tourney. Adam Morrison is up for player of the year honors and is the leading scorer in the nation.

Several pundits picked the Zags to win the Oakland bracket and I agreed with them. I honestly thought it was possible. They were well coached, had a well rounded team, and could score on anyone. They were a great team.

So if you watched it last night, you saw that they lost literally in the last seconds of the game to UCLA. It was like someone pulling the rug out from under you. They had been leading by as much as 17 points during the game and by 10 points with four minutes left. It was agonizing to watch.

So where does the learning come from? Well, I had the pleasure of living at USC during college. It was an awesome experience, so I consider myself a fan of USC as well. If you remember, USC had the team of the century this year in football. The run up to the Rose Bowl was the most anticipated game in the last 50 years of college football. And if you remember the game, you'll remember that USC was winning the game. All they had to do was stop Texas from scoring on one last play. Several times they could have stopped Vince Young and didn't. Texas won.

On both occasions I was standing for most of the game. I can't sit for moments like these. They are too much fun and I like to scream, punch, kick, and just be an everloving fan during the event. My wife laughs at me because its like I'm at the game.

As I'm watching the Zags play, with minutes left and UCLA making a run, I had one of those feelings in the pit of my stomach that I was watching the USC game all over again. And with nine seconds left UCLA steals the ball and scores. I remembered the exact same feeling watching my team go down in flames. Adam Morrison fell to his knees and cried. Defeat was at hand.

As I stood there with the game over, I couldn't help but realize that I had experienced the same thing over again. It was the moment in my life when I was on the losing end of the game. My beloved had lost and I was left to deal with the emotions and judgments that come with losing. I don't like losing but I couldn't help but be immediately aware of something really important. Losing did not define me.

I don't know why I thought this. Maybe because I felt like I had experienced this before. My beloved team had lost and I couldn't help but feel for Morrison and Batista and all the guys. I kept thinking about all the things in life that can define who we think we are and this could be one of them. The look on Morrison's face was pure agony and despair.

I was also aware of how many times I had let losing or failure define who I was. I think the thing that caught my attention was that I was aware that I was still who I was, a whole person.

Love has a way of doing that to you. It reminds you that life's experiences don't define you. Who I am as a child of God does. It's funny that my realization of this came during a basketball game. It seems so trivial. But if you're like me, really wanting to make life whole, these moments are not trivial. They are the experiences that make my journey so rich.

So here's to making good out of bad. Maybe Morrison will come back for his senior year and we'll go all the way. Go Zags.