Topic: Dailies

This Dog Won’t Hunt Either

by

Leo Crocker Rogers

I was sitting on the bench when another skater, a large man, came alongside. He said without introduction, "I just took it and took two others with me. I was not good. I tried to avoid the incident but I was in over my head. I thought I had the skills to maneuver through the pending collision. When I tried, I failed miserably."

We sat for a while. He was discouraged and felt like talking. "I learn well. With confidence, I reach beyond my learning, and it is exhilarating. And then something happens, and I have not the ability to recover. I go down, and as if that is not bad enough, I take others with me. It is not good. I am hurt. I am humbled. Sometimes, I am ashamed. So, at the bottom of my doings, I ask for help, and help is given. I start with the basics and discipline, and in time, I am doing reasonably well again, and my confidence returns. I stay with my winning ways for a short while, and then I begin to reach beyond my abilities of control and something happens, and I am on the deck again. I cannot believe it. I am hurt again. This time I am exceedingly humbled and doubt my ability to learn. The pain is greater this time so it takes longer to recover, but I stay with it, and my confidence returns. Again, to the task I go, and with pride and ego, I go over my head once more. It is sad. I am decked. I am hurt. I deck others. I am ashamed, so ashamed. So you can see why I am sitting here."

I say to him, "Let’s go. Let’s try again, and let us be humble as we go. Let us once again reach the level of our abilities, and then let us hold our ground for a while. Let us not reach beyond level flight. Experience will be ours but not by our ego."

We returned to the floor together. Wiser, we hope.

And so, perhaps in social, and self-life ways, as in athletic ways, it also goes. We learn, and we are good. Then we reach beyond our skill set, either with more of the same (over commitment) or more demanding ways (not knowing what we are getting into), and we are decked, overwhelmed. We are hurt, and there is collateral damage as well. We are humbled. We ask for help and help is given. It is not long before we are on top and we once again reach beyond with too much or too many things in our lives, and guess what? We are leveled again. So we take a time out. We go off by ourselves and pout, or pray, or simply recover as the embarrassment drains away. Then off we go to reach again beyond, not learning to master level flight before we reach too far.

For those of us who keep hitting the deck because of our ego, our pride, our lack of sincere discipline to learn level flight before we fire our after burners, such that we not only hurt ourselves but others too, it is said of us in the quiet of night on the hot sun-baked sands of the Arizona desert or in the mosquito lands of West Virginia, "That dog won’t hunt either."

But we can learn. There is a formula.

"Small steps, Ellie, small steps." (From the movie "Contact".)

"For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:" Isa 28:10

Humility is an acquired skill.