WELL-GROUNDED

Lightning Rods, Summerfield, NC

I’ve developed a Saturday morning ritual in the past few years of slipping through a Starbucks drive-through for a scone and a tall mocha and then casually enjoying the treat while aimlessly cruising the back road ridges of the local countryside. I always have an eye out for anything interesting that is worthy of writing a “look at that” haiku or blog posting and a photograph. Hence the name selected for my Observations blog. I don’t necessarily focus on any one thing like cooking which would probably draw many times the page views I currently enjoy, but that’s not my thing. I write this blog for the joy of creating and sharing.

My rambling journey last week took me past a country barn that I had chanced upon earlier in the year. On this day the weathered old hay barn was stacked to the brim with round bales of newly mowed pasture grasses. There was an observed symbiotic relationship between the aging barn that was protecting the hay from the elements and the large round bales that were helping to support the barn.

Once I had downloaded the images from the road trip and ran them through my rather simplistic editing program, I noticed the three lightning rods protruding above the ridge row of the barn’s roofline. A more refined cropping of the image revealed that these lightning rods were connected to a wire that ran down the right front side through small white porcelain connectors and into the ground. A direct lightning strike here would undoubtedly result in an immediate spontaneous fire that would light up the whole countryside in an instant if it passed through the structure!

A lightning strike over this barn will be directed from the high rods to the large expanse of conducting earth below. This barn is well-grounded! So are folks that are observed to be sensible and down-to-earth with their feet firmly on the ground. The analogy I recently read about in an article on the young golfing phenom Jordan Spieth couldn’t have been more apparent. Jordan is well-grounded in his reliance and faith in God and understands that much is expected of those who have been given much. He’s stated that his younger sister Ellie who has a form of autism keeps him grounded when he sees the struggles that she and her friends go through every day to do simple tasks that most of us take for granted. He still drives the same Yukon that he had in school and trusts his dad to help with the right investments. Investments like the new Jordan Spieth Family Foundation to encourage and support underprivileged kids, military families, and children with special needs.

People with a special charisma that attracts others to them can be referred to as lightning rods. They have a special energy that can become contagious. We seem to be drawn to them like lightning bugs to a flame. That fire can be destructive if the individual isn’t well-grounded. But we’ve all observed how this energy can also be used as a conduit for all manner of goodwill in this broken world when someone grounds themselves in a firm trust and faith in our Creator.

SPORTS STARS & FANS

Sports Stars, Internet

The sports pages have been singing the praises of Jordan Spieth since he won this year’s Masters Golf Tournament. I hardly knew the young man until then, but I’m now much better acquainted with him. And there’s a lot to like. The phrase we’ve been hearing all week is that the young 21 year old is “wise beyond his years”. His family was gathered around the 18th green for his final winning putt. But his father reminded Jordan to lap the green and thank the fans who were applauding him. Everyone close to Jordan was there except his 14 year old sister whose neurological condition places her on the autism spectrum. He’s repeatedly stated that she’s the one special person in his life that keeps him grounded and he’s in constant awe of how she and her friends embrace life. She’s always expecting him to win and is so vocal on the course that she unfortunately wasn’t present last Sunday. But she’s obviously Jordan’s constant reminder that he’s playing a sporting game while she’s dealing with the tougher realities of life. The folks at Under Amour are still smiling, as they recently renegotiated his contract with them to a new ten year deal. The wire-to-wire four days in Augusta is estimated to be worth about $34 million in free advertising for starters. He really doesn’t seem to have any “kinks in the amour” either--with the possible exception of yelling at his golf ball like a craps player yells at the dice.

And then this morning I turned to the sports section of USA Today and quickly saw the pathetic headlines that read “Ego, Excess Bring Hernandez Ruin”. The follow up headline on page two read “Hernandez story a cautionary tale”. Aaron Hernandez had signed a $40 million contract before his 24th birthday. He was a super star throughout his football career. He threw it all away as a convicted murderer. The "unconditional adulation of us sports fans, the absolution of his handlers and the delusion of celebrity" led to his spiraling fall from grace. Surprisingly, Aaron was raised in a loving and stable environment. But he seemed to start going off the rails at 16 when his father died as he started his ascension in football. As life evolved, his Florida State Gators won a national championship and his New England Patriots reached the Super Bowl in 2011.

Both of these young men were born with a very special gift to excel at the top of their chosen sport. In Aaron’s case, the article concluded that “It’s an important reminder for every athlete. But it’s even more important for the coaches, agents, hangers-on and, yes, even fans who feed these athletes’ egos, enabling their boorish behavior. They might not have pulled the trigger, but they all had a hand in making Hernandez believe he could”.

Isn’t it ironic that we humanoids always seem so surprised when sports figures that we’ve elevated to god-like idols turn out to be flawed human beings? Since these gifted athletes are likely not well grounded, I suspect that they’re probably more surprised than we are at the time. I’m convinced that Jordan is standing on solid ground. I kinda thought that about a tiger I first met in 1997 when I got his rookie autograph in Florida. But then his father died too and the rest is history. We fans should do our best to keep any sport and its stars in the same perspective as this new young Phenom for the sake of us all.