Lombardi on Love

Well, hey there. It has been a long time since I've written just for the sake of breaking the silence. Over the years I have been blessed to keep company with people who have, and think that I have, worthwhile things to say. These friends have spanned the years and have contributed to my life in ways that I could never communicate simply in a blog post. They are valuable to me. They are also often curious. They bring out the best and the worst in me. I love them. The same could be true of the younger generation that I teach. It is possible to love someone without liking them, lol. Or at least that is what Vince Lombardi told me in his SPEECH. I capitalize SPEECH for emphasis, clearly. He was a not particularly large Italian, West Point and Jesuit educated football coach that claimed "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." Not only is this a questionable use of a semi-colon... in my mind designed to link complex thoughts, not three and four word sentences... but it is also not Lombardi's original utterance. Regardless, it causes me to think about relationships on this cold, winter evening. How does one "win" in a relationship? A close friend of mine once claimed that the person whom is willing to walk away from the relationship holds the most power in the relationship. I find this to be incredibly insightful. I also find it to be incredibly sad. Lombardi said in his SPEECH that the true test of this century is "whether man mistakes the growth of wealth and power with growth of spirit and integrity." While I think it is true that a person whom does not care about you holds power over you if you care about them, their willingness to walk away from you does not belie spirit, or integrity. While it is true that relationships sustain us throughout our lives the way perhaps periodic rain sustains a plant, it is possible that those clouds whom shed their life giving presence morph, move on, or dissipate completely from our lives. We cannot expect them to stay forever and the only regular rain we might expect are simple, perhaps even uninspired, gestures that come naturally from love. I don't think it's possible to win in a relationship. I do think it's vital to stay hydrated though!

We are all plants seeking rain. We are all clouds capable of giving it.