Bowling Alley Lessons in Humility

The only sporting trophy I ever won was in bowling.  Yes, bowling.  It’s not, perhaps, what you might think.

Lady ministers bowling:  Erin, me, Melissa & Deb with
her Holy-Spirit Pentecost bowling shirt on.

 I am not a good bowler.  In fact, I may be the worst bowler you have ever or are every likely to meet.

Here’s what happened:

My then-husband was in a bowling league and I went with him just to hang out on Friday nights.  Turned out one of the teams was short a player and somehow I ended up (virtually never having bowled) on their team.

They were pretty good.  I was not.  That was okay, they assured me.  My handicap would offset my lack of skill.  What I later figured out is that my handicap was only worthwhile if I actually improved, which I did not.  Truth is I got worse, which seemed an impossibility.

But it was fun and my team mates were good sports.

At the end of the season came the League banquet, which is where I won my only ever sporting trophies: one as a team member – the League gave us all golf trophies, believing we had misunderstood the point of bowling and its scoring (think about it – it’s pretty funny).

And I personally received the award for “Miss Congeniality” for being a good sport.  What I pointed out to my fellow bowlers at the time I still believe to be true: it wasn’t so much that I was a good sport (although I was) but that whenever anyone in the League was feeling bad about their own performance, they would simply come stand with me for a few minutes and ask me how I was doing.  No matter how bad their night was, mine was worse and they felt better for it.  Which was fine with me.

Bowling remains my favorite sport because the folks I’ve bowled with have always been patient and kind and their laughter when I threw the ball backwards behind me was tinged with gentleness and good humor.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my bowling experience was teaching me about humility and its true nature.

hu·mil·i·ty  - noun:  a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.  Google

Contrary to what the dictionarists would hold, humility, at least in its godly sense, is not about abasement or lowliness in a negative sense.  Rather, godly humility is simply about understanding my right relationship to God and to the rest of the world.

When it comes to bowling, the truth is that I will never be very good.  And that’s perfectly okay.  I can still have fun and be a part of the group.  I can still be welcomed even as the weakest member of the team.  I can still have a place, even if it’s mostly as a place filler.

So here are my own 8 lessons in godly humility learned in a bowling alley in Parkersburg, West Virginia many years ago:

1. Humility is cheerful.

2. Humility is not bothered by its own lack.

3. Humility rejoices in the well-doing and well-being of others.

4. Humility offers itself for comparison and does not suffer for it.

5. Humility is not jealous – what would be the point of that?

6. Humility is fine with being the worst on the team, being simply grateful to be a part of the team.

7. Humility displays its golf trophies proudly.

8. Humility shares the joke, even when it’s on her.

Somehow I had been led to believe that humility is a hang-dog kind of thing.  Oh, how wrong was I.  For humility is simply holding value in the smallest of things and rejoicing in the great gift of being allowed to show up.

That’s what I think today, anyhow.  And you know, I could be wrong about that.  But that would be okay too.

The Joy of Driving

I was always the last or near to last kid to be picked when it came to sports – even by my own family, even by my own dad.  I just wasn’t that good at any of it.  Now if there had been a team for best Nancy Drew mystery readers, I would have been in the running.  But baseball?  Forget it!

In college, I dropped the swimming class in favor of archery to fulfill the physical education requirement at my college.  I wasn’t great at archery either, but it was much easier for me to participate in a sport that required that I stand still.

Any personal sense of competency that I have ever had has more to do with the mind than the body.  And most of my memories about physical endeavors, highly embarrassing and painful at the time, are, in hindsight, filled with humor. . .like the time I took a baseball to the stomach when my dad was pitching to me because I froze when the ball came at me (now you know why my dad didn’t pick me to be on his team after that – he really felt bad about the bruise) . . . or the time I knocked myself unconscious by trying to imitate a sledding trick of racing towards a parked car only to veer sharply left at the last minute to get past the teasing boys blocking our way – yep, I froze again and ran right into the bumper of the car . . . or the time as a young adult that I got on skis in the slightly slanted driveway of a friend and was so terrified of the incline that I cried and sat down in the snow . . . or the time my cousins and I (well me, really) broke my Aunt Bonnie’s window pitching ball in the house when I missed the ball that sailed past my ducking frame and shattered the glass . . .

I could go on, but what would be the point?  There’s only so much of these laughing memories one woman can take, after all.

Thus it was with perhaps understandable, if inappropriate, pride that I received the left-handed compliment of a local police officer giving me my third speeding ticket from his own hand.

It was Easter Sunday.  And folks around these parts will know how silly it was for me to be speeding . . . right past his house.  My only defense is that my mind was elsewhere (hardly any comfort to my fellow motorists, I know).

Pulling me over at the top of Jack Mountain and going through our by-now usual ritual – “Beth,” he sighs.  “I know,”I respond.  “Didn’t you see me?” he asks.  “No.”  But it’s Easter and so there’s a new wrinkle: “I can’t believe you’re making me do this!  It’s Easter Sunday and you’re a preacher!”  “I know,” I sigh.  “Don’t feel bad.  It’s not your fault.  It’s mine.”  (Who knew pastoral duties extended to comforting the police officer who feels bad for having to give you a ticket?)

After all the ritual of paper exchange and ticket writing and explaining is completed comes the real surprise for me: “Have you had any driving training?”  “Not other than driver’s ed when I was a kid,” I respond.  “Well, I will say this: you take those curves like a pro.”

Like I said before, the pride I feel is inappropriate to the situation.  But it is real.

James-Bond blue BMW Z3 drop top -
the object of my affection

I love to drive a car, especially in the mountains.  And I drive too fast.  Before I left my previous life to go to seminary, I leased a sports car.  It’s the only physical thing that I have ever loved.  And I did love that car.

Sitting atop Jack Mountain on Easter Sunday with my ticket in hand, I pondered this thing about me and was pleased.  When it comes to driving, I am competent, able, deft.

I don’t know why this gives me such pleasure.  Maybe it’s simply the little girl inside who was never picked first for the team knowing that she’s good at something.