Tennis Court Soundtrack
That is why I was happy to pack my tennis racket when my friend and I went to a summer camp together. He was an avid player, and I was happy to give him whatever competition I could muster.
When we headed out to play, however, we were dismayed to discover that the courts were in disrepair. Massive cracks cris-crossed the playing area. Faded lines defined the boundaries. Worst of all, there were no nets.
That’s okay, we decided. We’ll just hit the ball back and forth. It will still be fun.
Wrong. After fifteen minutes of futility, we gave up and found something else to do.
I have often thought about this incident. Why did the game feel so futile? Was it that we could not bear to play without winning? It is a fair question. I have been accused of being overly competitive more than once in my life.
But it was more than that. A primary skill in tennis is the ability to navigate the ball over the net and into a defined boundary on the opposite side. Without nets and clear boundaries, the game had no point. It became an endless and meaningless circle of volley and return.
This is precisely the problem with the common worldview that permeates our culture. We assume that the world is ours to shape. There are no rules but the ones we make up. There is no point but that which we invent. Life is a spinning wheel. We are caught it in an endless circle of cause and effect, volley and return.
Privacy and tolerance have, predictably, become our supreme values. You play by your set of rules; I’ll play by mine. You stay out of my game; I’ll stay out of yours. There is no overarching objective to our existence. There is no intrinsic meaning to our connectedness to one another. We are merely molecules bumping into one another meandering down an endless maze to oblivion, or nirvana, or whatever.
If so, count me out. I want to believe that my life has meaning, and that there is a reason why I am here. I want to think that relationships matter, that love is real, and that suffering has significance. Don’t tell me that life is an endless circle with no rhyme or reason; make it a beautiful story, a tragic comedy, a divine drama, complete with beginning, middle and end.
Is that too much to ask? No, it isn’t. Not if you embrace the simple story found in the Bible and, better yet, rooted in human history. For Christianity is not merely a set of ideals and ethics. It is grounded in human history. A baby was born: we believe the baby was divine. A man was killed: we believe he rose again.
If it is true, then all of life – the good, the bad and the ugly – has meaning. If it is true, the rules are not ours to invent, the boundaries our not ours to create. If it is true, every life, every relationship has intrinsic value. If it is true, love and laughter, sorrow and pain, beauty and joy are worth cherishing.
If it is not true, well, whatever….