Varsity

Varsity

One time,

You were in a canoe

With a friend and her dad,

And it was your turn to row,

So you crouch waddle rocked your way from your wet seat in the bottom of the canoe onto her bench in the bow and wielded that paddle in all your awkward 4th grade glory.

Apparently, there were eye-rolls behind you.

Apparently, you row like you speak:

Sporadically, frenetically, and never in a straight line.

And then it was her turn again,

So you crouch waddle rocked past each other again,

And you plunked your cut-off jeaned butt down in the puddle,

And her dad said, "Now we got our varsity back in!"

If there were a video clip of that moment available,

Its title would be "The Moment She Learns Her Real Name"

Because that was the day the word "Inferior" became sealed to your identity,

Closer than a shadow.

You'd felt that way before,

Inferred it from the eyes of others

And inflated it in your own mind,

But you'd never heard it voiced out loud by someone else.

And isn't that what makes things true?

In reality,

He didn't say you were less than.

He said she was better than.

But how was that any different?

You hadn't even known it was a competition.

You won competitions.

You got the best grades.

You got first chair in band.

You got solos in choir.

But in the most important competition,

The one that decides whether or not you are worth the skin you're walking around in,

You were Inferior.

They all got boobs.

They all got boyfriends.

They all somehow understood what was actually funny and garnered giggles every time they opened their mouths.

They all married tall, strong, confident men:

Definitely varsity.

They all got pregnant.

They all had varsity kids

Who got boobs

And got boyfriends

And somehow understood what was funny.

Meanwhile, you built your own family of kids who sometimes were varsity and sometimes sat in puddles.

And you loved your own man

And laughed at your own jokes.

Wasn't that winning, too?

In church,

There is a varsity.

It looks like tagging your favorite person in selfies.

It looks like shout-outs to the same people:

The best people,

The winners.

It looks like everyone looking like the brand of Jesus someone decided attracts the most people.

It looks like opening your mouth to make an observation only to be silenced by everyone else's answers.

It looks like a rat race to the prize of winning your kids' hearts for Jesus.

You didn't win those competitions.

You didn't win any of those races.

But why do you see it as a competition?

Aren't we all supposed to be racing for the prize of the Actual Jesus?

You have had moments of defined success in life,

But that feeling of less than is what defines you.

In fact,

You use it as your name.

It has taken you 40 years since that day in the canoe to realize

This is your biggest battle.

It has taken you 40 years to realize that maybe life itself can't be a competition

If we're not all playing the same game.

To the 4th grade girl in the canoe with your two pigtails, awkward elbows and knees, scrunched up butterfly nose, and too-big-teeth smile,

You were beautiful sitting in that puddle with your stork legs crossed Indian style and your soft straight brown pigtails bobbing on either side of your artless grin and your fingers five pale arrows just under the surface of the green water.

Maybe you weren't good at rowing,

Or maybe you were and it was just a dad encouraging his daughter who maybe was feeling inferior to you.

Go back to that moment and enjoy canoeing.

Dip your fingers into the river.

Watch your amphibian hand carve through the liquid jade.

Pick a water lily.

To the little girl inside the grandma squinting through your glasses at your laptop,

You are beautiful inside and outside of your softened frame, no makeup on the loosened lines of your face, writing out your pain and letting others glimpse some of your darkness.

Maybe you have too much darkness to be a Jesus follower,

Or maybe you don't and your words bring the Light of the World into someone else's darkness.

Sit in that moment and enjoy the light.

Reach into the Word.

Let the grains of Truth crystallize on the thread of a single thought.

Give them a shape.

Drop the competition

And fight this battle.

This is the battleground on which God will win

When he shouts with victory a single word:

Your real name.

And it is not "Inferior"

Because this was never a competition,

And there is no varsity.

–erinrmsocha 4-27-2020