大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Julia Loveless

Good morning.

We find ourselves almost at the end of another Olympics. Each time the games come around I find myself struck by the same whacky thought. What if, instead of elite athletes training for the event, each country had to pick their competitors from within their Nation via random conscription. Just imagine it. Getting a letter sometime in May saying that you had been randomly selected to represent your country in Volleyball.

You would have some three months to do what little training you could and then be thrown into the fire - hoping against hope that Norway hadn鈥檛, by some fluke, picked their country鈥檚 top volleyball player for the event. It鈥檚 a silly thought, but each time it occurs to me I am all the more humbled by the actual participants of the games. It reminds me of that famous Roosevelt quote - 鈥渋t鈥檚 not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly - who, at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.鈥�

God, catch me when I am tempted to be a useless voice of criticism to those around me. Teach me humility and give me the courage show up and enter my own arena.

Amen.