Making Maps

Soccer is war; the field is Normandy, fresh for the storming.  I was a soldier there, storming the ramparts and bringing victory to the allies.  As a twelve year old, I had seen my share of combat; every other Saturday new villains appeared and the fighting began all over again.  Further, I had done drills to sharpen my skill in our weapons of choice; a foot and a ball.  Things were riding on our battles.  Heavy things.  Important things.

Pictured above: Jimmy;
Age 11; Midfielder.

That's what we believed anyway.  Soccer is something we, as twelve year olds, needed to understand.  Battle was how we were told to understand it.  Combat.  Serious stuff.  

Stuff is serious in battle because there are grave repercussions for losing.  In a war, everything is on the line because we understand war as a fight for your life.  When soccer is a war; soccer is a fight for your life, which makes things difficult when soccer isn't your life.  So, seeing as how I made a pretty terrible soldier, I quit.

If you need to get somewhere, you look at a map because you trust that piece of paper you're holding to be a pretty accurate representation of that somewhere you're going.  But anyone who used Mapquest before five years ago can tell you that not all maps are created equally.  Some maps are more accurate than others...for some people.

Poems are famous for using maps and getting the girl.  I speak for all men when I tell you that we sometimes have trouble expressing our feelings.  So we use a map to get the girl.  

"I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea, 

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships; 

But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me 

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips."

The best maps we use are the maps that best explain the world.  Some people think soccer is best explained as a war and some people think the girl they're smitten with is the loveliest thing God has shown them.  Even if you disagree, the world is a complex place.  What kind of meaning will you make?

Professionally Speaking

I like to dance but I am strictly recreational.  However, I do consider myself to be professionally recreational, which just means I have confidence in my inability to do the true art form of dance any justice.  It was only just a while ago that I decided to go professionally recreational.  But the important thing was that it was a choice.

One of my only moves:
"the elbow drop."

A professional is someone who does something for gain and when I dance I gain something.  In the past, I always wanted to sustain when I danced.  I wanted to sustain my image, my pride, my dignity.  But to be a professional, you have to give something up.  In order for life to come, it must first be given up.  That's a hard teaching but anything worthy is hard.

Only a professional dancer can profess dance because that person is giving something up to gain.  The difference between a professional and an amateur is that a professional makes his trades his life for his work while an amateur works his life for a trade.  Professionals are different because they chose to go on when what they do doesn't make sense anymore.

If you're ready to gain life then you're ready to give it up.  If you profess something, what is it that you're giving up to get it?