My football reunion will happen in about seven weeks. I suspect that many of my teammates are like me, trying to lose a few pounds so not to look as out of shape as we really are. I suspect many of us will fail in our endeavors. We can’t turn back the hands of time are repair the wounds of bygone years of physical abuse.
As I see the list of my teammates, I recall how each brought different skills and abilities to the practice field and to games. Some had the “gifts of Gods” in their ability to throw, catch, or run “like the wind.” Some were gifted with amazing strength. Some overcame physical limitations with mental agility and toughness. Some developed very unique skills like the ability to deep snap a football through a tire on a consistent basis at fifteen yards, or to kick a ball through a goalpost at fifty. Some brought little natural skill but were “pluggers”—a high compliment in my book. They all combined, whether they played a down or not, and when the stars aligned one year we become a “team” a very “good team” because they all sacrificed as individuals for the whole.
Life has a lot of similarities. We may not have the mental power of a Stephen Hawking or the athletic skill of a Tiger Woods or Serena Williams but we all can bring something to the whole. No less important to the whole is the loving, sympathetic glance; the kind, encouraging word; the ready errand for another; and the work of our hands even as they get older and less agile. Opportunities arise, and in fact come for more often than for the mental or physical power we envy. At every stage of our life we can contribute to the “whole” and offer willingly “that which we have.”
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