TRUE CONFESSION OF A PINBALL WIZARD

          I was reminded recently of something that happened when I was about 12 or so. My parents took me to an amusement park somewhere in Pennsylvania that had an arcade (long before even a faint idea of video games).  I wandered in with my pennies, nickels, and dimes to play my heart out with all the available lo-tech, mechanical, coin-swallowing games that promised the lucky winner pocketknives, compasses, harmonicas, x-ray glasses, etc. plus the ones that would tell my fortune or to just win against some fictitious bad guy behind glass.

          There were pinball machines everywhere of every adventure theme you can imagine. I was never any good at those. The only knack I had was to put the machine in “tilt” faster than anybody I knew—if that was to be regarded as a skill, which, of course, it was not. So I made my way around the entertainment wonderland of games and gimmicks, and happened upon a guy at a pinball machine playing like gangbusters. He said to me, “Hey, kid! You want to play this?”

          I was a little bit intimidated by that thought, and I said, “I’m not very good at pinball.” He said, “You will be at this one.” Then he showed me that he had racked up about 21 or so free games on it, and he was tired of playing. Then he said that the machine just keeps giving free games whether or not you score or win—it was stuck in some kind of mechanical mode and you couldn’t lose.

          So I took over the helm, and he disappeared somewhere in the crowd. In the meantime, as I was playing, along came a couple other kids who stood there watching me, not knowing anything about what was going on. They were amazed at my talent. They called over a couple of other kids. “Hey, look how many games, this kid has won!” A crowd started to gather around me, and the pinball machine just kept on a-giving. I forget how many games I ended up with, but it was enough to make people think I was the real thing—an amazing pinball wizard!

          I forget exactly what happened next other than me offering to let somebody else take over because I also got tired of it. I remember that I walked away and never told anybody the truth about it—I was too caught up with my moment of glory. I knew that they would eventually find out for themselves, and my reputation would be tarnished after I was gone; but somehow it seemed worth it, however briefly it lasted. “The wizard has left the building” and indeed I did.

          The memory of that day came surging back as I stood in a room full of pinball machines at the Golden Nugget Flea Market. There was a part of me that wanted to put a quarter in and see if age had improved my skill, but none of them were plugged in anyway, plus another part of me said let the glory of your pinball wizardry moment stand.

          I don’t know what the moral of the story is—maybe there isn’t any—it’s just a story. But at the risk of making too much of it, I will say that it occurs to me that though my “amazing’ moment was short-lived and admittedly contrived, there are people who are genuinely amazing, and what they are and what they do is far more impressive than any pinball wizard’s pseudo accomplishment. I’m thinking of people who are calm and peaceful in the midst of chaos; I’m thinking of people who are nice in spite of any meanness they incur in the world; I’m thinking of people who are generous even though they themselves are far from rich (generosity takes many forms, by the way); I’m thinking of people whose smiles and ways have healing power to bring the presence of joy and love wherever they go and wherever they are.

          Just a thought.

TRYING TOO HARD

            

There are some things that I miss about being the pastor of a church, but not everything. It’s nice to sit in a pew next to my wife and not be responsible for how a Sunday worship service turns out. All I have to do is relax and let myself be absorbed in the spirituality of communing with God in a time apart from the world with all its current madness. And the church we are presently attending provides just what both of us are looking for—thoughtful music, prayers, and sermons that invite your participation.

          They asked me to preach one Sunday this past summer, but I don’t think I did a very good job of it. It had been a little over a year since I stood in the pulpit and delivered the Word, as it were, and I felt a bit awkward in doing so. My thoughts were meandering and sometimes trivial, even though I had spent a great deal of time preparing. Perhaps I tried too hard to be clever or to at least be creative in my approach. I don’t know for sure, but I do know that it was far from what I had hoped it would be. Some people—I think politely—said that they appreciated what I had to say.

          I’ve never been a scholarly preacher. It’s not who I am. I’m more of a storyteller than an intellectually fine-tuned presenter of truth. Whenever I’ve tried to be otherwise, I’ve usually come off either terribly dry and boring or pretentious at best. When I was in seminary, I once asked one of my preaching professors how to develop a preaching style, and he said, “You already have one—you’re a storyteller—go with it.” So I pretty much stuck with it throughout my career, with a few exceptions here and there just for the sake of changing it up (which is not always a good reason).    

          The reason I’m bringing all this up is because a realization has set in that I wanted to share with any of you who may experience from time to time, key moments in life that you were hoping would be both rewarding and uplifting, but turned out to be, if not disastrous, nonetheless disappointing. I believe I am right in saying that almost all of us do have them once in a while. In time we get over them. We come to the place where we realize it was not as a big a deal as we have made it out to be. However we still may wonder what happened when our intentions were so earnest and pure.

          I believe in many cases we are guilty of trying too hard to be “perfect.” Perfection is not always a healthy goal. To be good or to be better at something is one thing, but to think we have to be flawless is quite another. The pressure and stress related to that saps the joy out of what we are wanting to do.

          We were in New Orleans last week visiting our daughter. We went to one of our favorite places down there—Preservation Jazz Hall. It is truly one of life’s greatest musical experiences as far as we are concerned. The musicians are incredible! Their music flows out of them with such ease and joy. As a group, they are able to feel one another’s musical spirit to such a degree that each performance is a magnificent blending of their hearts and souls. That may seem like an exaggeration, but it’s what we have truly felt whenever we have gone there.

          Now what does that have to do with what I’ve been talking about? I believe that one reason their music flows so beautifully is because it is effortlessly performed. Their egos aren’t in the way because they are completely relaxed and aren’t self-conscious about how perfectly they’re doing it. i.e.-they’re not trying too hard.

          Granted, they are masterful musicians, extremely talented, and know what they’re about. Yet, that’s only true, I believe, because they lose themselves in the joy of their music and not in the effort of trying to perform it perfectly—even though it is perfect to my ears.

          Just a thought, but what if we could each regard life with the same ease and flow? What if we trusted in who we are and allowed ourselves to relax and live without being self-conscious of what we need to try to be other than what we are? I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but I just share this with you as a possible way of increasing our joy in life, free from the tension of trying too hard.

Preservation Jazz Hall Trumpeter