September 2007

One of the most challenging things to do in baseball is hit a curve ball. Especially the nasty ones. When I played ball in high school, we used to practice with whiffle balls to try and get used to the spin and trajectory of the pitch. But nothing compared to the real thing.

In the heat of the battle, the eyes of the spectators are on you. If a strong, tall lefty unleashes a big bender, your mind suddenly goes into decision-by-committee mode. Your upper body lunges forward, eager to pounce on the offering that is slower than a fastball. Your knees buckle, as if to say, “Mayday! Mayday! It’s coming right for us!” Meanwhile, your feet turn into cement blocks, paralyzed by indecision.

Best case scenario, you take a pretty good cut at the ball, maybe even put it into play. Worst case scenario, you look like a drunk gardener with spaghetti arms trying to whack a wasp with a rake.

When you travel the country speaking to audiences about using strategies from childhood to bring about less stress, you put yourself in a challenging position. Sure, you have lots of people looking at you, admiring your wit and insights. But on the other hand, you have lots of people looking at you. You’d better be walking the talk.

I heard Dr. Sue Morter say that you never have to worry about walking the talk if you just talk the walk. I like that.

Crafting speeches, writing books, and espousing theories is like using whiffle balls to practice hitting a curve ball. It’s a good start, but it’s what happens during the game that counts.

And no matter what field you’re in, the game of life throws you a lot of curve balls.

So it really comes at no surprise that as Kim and I find ourselves smack dab in the middle of “crazy time” (a 27-day, 11 speaking gig, 5-state stretch in which we’re home for less than 4 days, with a wedding thrown in to boot), a few curve balls would come our way. Stress is coming in spades, and how we handle it is the real test.

I should’ve known we’d be in trouble when Kim mentioned on Sunday night that she needed everything to go perfectly this week for everything to get done. We woke up the next morning to discover that our car had been the victim of a hit-and-run, to the tune of $2,500 in damage.

Hello, curve ball.

Well, we were not exactly thrilled about this turn of events, but then again, you can’t hope to have any credibility talking about handling stress if you melt down when the going gets tough. So we vented, took a deep breath, and moved forward. We thanked God no one was hurt. We laughed about the irony in timing between Kim’s comment and the incident. We’ve managed to figure out what to do about transportation in a week that involves two road trips, while still attempting to purge as much as our to-do lists as possible. But we’re not driving ourselves to the bone. We had a nice dinner at Chili’s Monday night to support a good cause and we took time out to watch the season premieres of Heroes and CSI: Miami, two of our favorite shows. On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to visit my grandma in the nursing home and have a nice dinner with my parents.

We’re trying to keep laughing, not take ourselves too seriously, exhibit a childlike faith that everything will work out in the end, and keep in mind that in less than a month, we’ll probably forget this week ever happened. And my childlike curiosity is eager to find out what good will come out of this annoying situation. Interestingly enough, Kim had a nice conversation with the person from Enterprise Rent-A-Car who picked her up. They got talking about their jobs. Long story short, the woman happened to be the manager, was enamored to hear about Adultitis and how we help companies individuals deal with stress, and there may be an opportunity to do some work for Enterprise in the future.

If you ask me, an opportunity like that certainly is worth a $250 deductible and a temporary inconvenience. You can’t control what happens to you, but you can always control how you react. Being negative and focusing on the problem can sometimes cause you to miss an opportunity. Sometimes you just need to slow down and step back to see the bigger picture.

Life will throw you curve balls, and no matter who you are, people are watching, be it your kids, employees, or biggest fans. I guess the lesson is that if you keep a childlike spirit about you, you’ll have a better chance of not looking like a drunk gardener with spaghetti arms.

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I’m not sure it’s possible to explain the Grand Canyon experience in words. Or pictures. Or anything else, for that matter. Talk about an escape from adulthood and all its worries and stresses!

The ride north from Phoenix was a treat in and of itself. We took the “scenic” route through Prescott, Jerome, and Sedona. In the desert, the cacti looked like prickly green fingers pointing to the bright blue sky. As our elevation increased, the rock formations reminded me of old men with wrinkled faces and sunburned cheeks, looking over the pine trees standing at full attention like a million green soldiers. And Sedona’s horizon was set ablaze by its famous fiery red rocks.

But all of that was just an appetizer for the spectacle that was to come. I have never had such little use for a camera in my life. Oh sure, I took a zillion photos, but every glance at the viewfinder after each shot left me terribly disappointed.

It was fascinating to see everyone else furiously trying to record the experience, too. It made me smile at our humanness. So tremendously overwhelmed at the site before us, we struggled to let our cameras capture what words could not. But it was all in vain; capturing the beauty, the breadth, the brilliance of the Grand Canyon with a camera is like trying to recite the alphabet with only two letters. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it’s about nine hundred, ninety-nine thousand short.

We were lucky to have many highlights in our short stay. Among them being the chance to see the sunset and the sunrise over a natural wonder that may be known for its sculpted rock formations, but trust me, the light is the real superstar. And as the sun was setting, a light rain fell in the canyon, revealing one of the most brilliant rainbows I have ever seen.

We had a chance to watch an IMAX movie about the Grand Canyon — the most watched IMAX movie of all time — and during it, the narrator pondered the canyon’s mysterious origins. “Did it come from the hand God, or was it a work of nature?” he asked, curiously. Those sorts of questions always make me laugh. As if it’s an either/or proposition. Who do they think created nature?

A night earlier, after I had finished giving the keynote presentation at the Catholic Cemetery Convention (one of my most interesting gigs, to be sure) Kim and I took the opportunity to do some stargazing. The Marriott offered the complimentary experience, hosted by a real-life astrologist with a pretty nice telescope. We got to see the moon up close and personal, and Jupiter and a few of its moons, too.

Between the the stars and the Canyon, I don’t believe I have ever felt so small, or so sure of the existence of God. Sometimes I wonder why He bothers at all with the human race, but then again His ways are not my ways; His overwhelming creation testifies to that.

Experiences like standing on the top of the mountain, sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or gazing into the starry depths of the universe really bring me back to childhood. It was that time when everything was new, and big, and awesome. Curiosity was limitless; you could never know enough. As we get older, we often take on this cocky, unimpressionable, I’ve-seen-everything attitude.

Nature — God’s nature — has the ability to knock us off our pedestal to remind us that we are not as big as we think we are, but also to assure us that there is an order to everything. And that even in the desert, there is life, and there is hope.

Technorati Tags: Arizona, Grand Canyon, faith, nature, God, creation

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