Starthrower

I did it again. I allowed myself to be slow in making this entry on the computer. I was having some blue days and did not effectively fight them off. I am not at all pleased with my compliance to depression and I am now answering the bell for the round that I was supposed to answer earlier this week. The double D's of depression and despair almost registered a TKO but I have finally answered the bell. I will make a more concentrated effort to not have that happen so easily again. No flow results in "no go." Now on to something else.

Some years ago Anita and I had the good fortune to have a scuba diving trip to the Caymen Islands. The water was so clear that you could see very clearly. Beautiful and colorful fish, coral reefs, a few sharks, and even the elusive manta rays flying in formation down below us in the Caymen trench. There were five of them gliding along like gray ghosts and I was and am glad that I got to see them gliding by. I was the only one, other than Anita, that saw them. Seeing them glide by in their gray shroud of mystery had a way of speaking to values and ideas that went beyond a mere scuba dive. It is almost as if they were transmitting a life lesson as they glided mysteriously and magically along I automatically wished that I could move along my life's path as easily and gracefully as they seemed to handle their environment. When there is a storm out at sea the Caymen beaches can become littered with a variety of sea animals. They get tossed up on the beach by wave action or the incoming tide. Mostly starfish and living shells are the unlucky ones getting thrown up on the beach.

They become trapped in the debris and sand, awaiting their fate. Once they get tossed up on the beach it is impossible for them to work their way back to the sea. The tide and the waves repeatedly throw them back upon the shore. Trapped in the debris and sand they await their fate. As they wait, the Starthrower comes. This man was walking along the beach with his head down, inspecting the beach as he went along. Then he would bend down, grasp something and with a firm but strong whip of his wrist, sail something back across the breaking waves into the sea. With a Frisbee like motion the object would go sailing over the waves breaking on the shore. He walked a little farther down the beach, paused and bent down. And there beneath him was a starfish with its arms thrusting out stiffly to hold itself away from the smothering sand. With that firm yet gentle motion he picked up the star and deftly spun it out, back into the sea. He watched and said, “That one may live if the offshore pull of the current is strong enough.” This man was not a collector in the sense that he was gathering specimens for his coffee table or his book shelf. He only collected the living taking them from the wreckage on the shore. He was a Starthrower.

Jesus was the Starthrower. He kept throwing people back into life hoping that the deep pull of God, the true force in life would capture their attention, interest, even their faith. But people are not always easily attracted to Starthrowers. Far too often we prefer another way of living. Yet into our house of death and despair comes Jesus, the Starthrower. Jesus, the Starthrower, confronts us in our lives of despair and death by flinging us back into life, flinging us just like a Frisbee back into life. And his words of life sound to us, even today. He tells us that he knows it is a shattering experience to challenge death in whatever form it uses to confront and defeat us. He tells us not to give in or give up for the Starthrower has the final word. But there are many who would laugh at such a claim. They would likely laugh and joke at such goings on and quickly retire to the bar or the tattoo parlor.

We don’t have to look very hard to see what the fate of some of the Starthrowers has been in our world. Not that long ago Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, made a secret midnight trip to Israel. He did not ask for permission to come; he just showed up on the border and asked to meet with the Prime Minister of Israel. He had come to the conclusion that the endless fighting between the two countries had to stop before it destroyed both countries. But there was a radical religious and political element that decided that this Starthrower had to be stopped. So they did to him what has so often been done to Starthrowers; they murdered him thinking that his starthrowing could be stopped.

And just a few years ago the Prime Minister of Israel realized that the continuous killing between Israel and Palestine had to stop. So this Starthrower moved to address a real killing problem. But an ultra orthodox Jew decided that his starthrowing had to be stopped, so he was murdered so that his enlightened movement toward life could be stopped and the culture of killing could continue. The Starthrower had to be killed before he got the killing stopped. In our history a Starthrower showed up in the South and began calling attention to a cancer that was eating this nation up and moving it toward a bitter struggle that just might contain the seeds of a nation’s demise.

Martin Luther King helped us to take a look at what this cancer was causing. But this Starthrower was too dangerous and his message and his person had to be stopped. So the KKK sent a killer to kill the messenger and his message. So another Starthrower was lost.
Prejudice, pride and political power fill the news as they are used to quiet the message of Starthrowers. There are those who would fling us away from death and back into the depths of life, but they are still ridiculed, scorned, demeaned, attacked. Starthrowers often have so much difficulty being heard. From scorn to wonder; from whining to amazement; from crudeness to grace; from lies to candor; from fear to faith.

Jesus the Starthrower came into our living to fling us back into life. The reason we can stand and have a chance at love, at hope, at love, at wonder, at the possibilities of fresh starts and new beginnings is because Jesus, the Starthrower, has come. What we must do now is find out where we go from here. The obvious conclusion is that you and I are to be Starthrowers in our own living and loving. In a world that teeters on the brink, the need for Starthrowers is desperately needed. Every one of us, regardless of what may be happening in our lives, must be a Starthrower.

This week you will encounter someone who really needs a Starthrower. Since we all seem to live lives of quiet desperation; a quiet desperation of despair, of cancer, of blindness, of wounds that will not heal, we have need of a Starthrower. I find that I need one more often than I am sometimes willing to admit. A Starthrower who will help me live my life of quiet desperation. Loneliness, discouragement, despair, dishonest carpetbaggers masquerading as concerned statesmen. What are we to do here and now? You and I will turn around, bend down, and take hold of that situation and with all our energy fling it out into God’s ocean, into the depths of God’s life-giving source. It is what we are called to be, Starthrowers.

Know that Starthrowing can be discouraging at times. Or there is a freedom at the heat of creation that allows each of us to move either to life or death. There will be times when your effort at starthrowing may not succeed. We all can make bad choices and if we continue to choose death, the Starthrower will respect our poor choice even though it will break a heart. But we keep on throwing, we continue to be Starthrowers. We do it not because we know we will be successful, but because we know that starthrowing is at the heart of real living and loving.

And there is no doubt that you will find a beach of stars needing to be given a new fling at life. You and I will find situations every day that need our efforts as Starthrowers. So we return to the beaches of life to join forces with the Starthrower. To join forces with the one who hurled the first Starthrower into the vastness of our universe. God sent us his Starthrower, Christ, to help us. I understand that he wants to throw me back into the sea of God’s love and grace. So call me another Starthrower. Don’t be a tourist on the beach of this age. Be a Starthrower; join forces with life; join forces with the ultimate thrower of stars.