Funny game, golf.
“Funny,” as in “confounding.”
Granted, it is actually amusing on occasion. Entertaining, even…uplifting, enjoyable (and other qualities that any sane person tends to associate with fun.)
More often (at least in my case), “perplexity” and its painful synonyms apply. Why, I typically wail, do I even attempt to play the sport … despite the likelihood of many, many failures during a given round?
Even more puzzling (given this long history of struggle): Why on earth would I agree to play two days in a row? On two courses that I know are far above my paygrade … and much more challenging than my most familiar track?
Well, perhaps Friday’s double-sawbuck can help to explain. That, and the George Washington which followed it on Saturday. In both cases, my modest winnings felt a bit like mercy. I hadn’t played particularly well on either day, but still wound up walking away with a bit of cash. It was a balm of sorts for having borne my “share of hardship” (as St. Paul might say) during the matches. Proof, as it were, that I have some recourse to “the strength that comes from God.”
Golf is funny that way. It often winds up pointing me toward spiritual truths, even (or perhaps especially) on those occasions when my shots stray well beyond the fairway. Golf teaches me (again and again) to be patient. When things don’t go my way, I am inclined to howl like Habakkuk:
How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you … but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?
Then along comes a barely-merited sawbuck, and I hear the Spirit whispering “…the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it.”
Golf has a way of reminding me of God’s providence, too – how often I benefit from good things I have not earned. I see in those instances that I am very much like the unprofitable servants we meet in this week’s gospel passage. And truly, therefore, my work is not done until I have given something back in service to the Kingdom. That’s my job – no more, no less – to “guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us,” as St. Paul teaches today.
So I guess that’s a big part of why I keep going back to golf: It has a funny way of showing me that I still have much to learn.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 