Bumpers



A few months ago, the Men of Christ Church organized a bowling event at Bowlero on Snowden River. I'm not the bowling kind of person, but I’d say that every time I have had the opportunity to go bowling, it's been a fun event. The beauty that I have experienced with bowling is that one throws the ball and doesn’t know how the ball is going to go. There’s this salient and humbling feeling that one doesn’t have any control over the ball once it is thrown down the lane. 

Because of the desire to win, the expectation has always been that the ball will hit all the pins or, at least, a good number of them. But the moment the ball begins to roll, reality sets in. One comes to realize that one is in no way, shape, or form going to meet one's own expectations. 

At this bowling event, we had two youngsters with us. But the strange thing that happened was that there was a request for bumpers (remember, I am not the bowling type). I didn’t know what it was, and so I was a little lost until the bumpers popped up by the lanes. Someone explained to me that because the lanes are too wide, they have the bumpers to make the lanes a little narrower for the children. "Interesting," I said to myself. 

I have been thinking a lot about those bumpers, and I invite you to think with me a little more deeply about them. The fact of the matter is that we have smaller balls for kids, and some adults use them too. So, why do we have smaller balls for kids, and why do kids also need narrow lanes?

I checked with AI for an answer. And AI says we have the bumpers to make the game more engaging and fun for kids, since they prevent any bowling balls from going into the gutters. 

If the point of the bumper is to prevent the balls from rolling down the gutters and to make the game more fun for the kids, then there’s something about the bumper that demands our attention and reflection. 

The bumper may be for the kids, but there’s more to the bumper than you and I have thought about. Here are a couple of thoughts about the bumper.

First - each of us, young or old, is like a kid at a bowling arena who needs a bumper in order to make the game fun and engaging. Each of us is inherently a child, and for that reason, we need bumpers in our lives to help us make the right decisions. Young or old, we all need people in our lives who will keep us on track and ensure that we continue to stay on the straight and narrow path. 

One of our parishioners, Dee Bauer, is a very fun lady who tries to say hello to me after worship on Sundays. Whenever she shakes my hand, she will say to me, ‘Are you behaving?’ to which I respond, ‘I’m trying to stay on the straight and narrow path.’ And then she will say to me, ‘That’s not what I heard!’ As playful as this may sound, it feels humbling to hear someone ask if I am behaving. 

The point is, none of us is perfect, and for that reason, we are constantly being invited to make judgment calls between the broad path that leads to eternal damnation and the narrow path that leads to eternal life. Listen to what Marcus Cicero once said: ‘The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.’

The bumpers, in my opinion, are the folks who, imbued with wisdom, experience, and faith, help us along the way, so we are always picking the good over the evil, despite how difficult picking the good may be or how inviting picking the evil may be.

It isn’t the case that these bumpers - the wise and faithful folks who may be mentors, teachers, parents, friends, priests, and ordinary strangers - are perfect people. Not at all. They are as imperfect as we are. But they play these roles in our lives because through their life’s experience, they are grounded in wisdom and faith practices, such that part of their unique character is to guide others through life’s path. They, too, have made mistakes before, have learned from those mistakes, and therefore can guide children like you and me. 

Second - there is no control. As I stated earlier, once you let go of the ball, whether there are bumpers or not, or whether you are a kid or an adult, you lose total control of any opportunity to change or direct the course of the ball. There’s absolutely nothing that one can do to change the trajectory or orientation of the ball. The ball becomes totally independent.

Our question is, like the ball, do we become totally independent? The fact is, we are independent actors in the sense that God doesn’t control what we do. We have free will, so we can use it any way we choose. Remember - part of being human is being able to choose. 

Like the totally independent ball, which can run off to either side of the gutter, hit either side of the bumper, or hit one, two, three, or all pins, we too are certainly free to act. But unlike the ball, we have to face the reality that freedom without any limits is no freedom at all. There are constraints to our freedoms. Listen to what God told Adam in the Garden of Eden: ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” That, in itself, was a restraint on Adam’s freedom to eat.

Sometimes, the restraints on our freedoms are the bumpers that prevent us from falling into gutters and direct us with love towards the goal of hitting a pin.

Would we hit all the pins? No. Are we supposed to hit all the pins? No. Bumpers help us not to fall into the gutter so we can hit a pin. 

Life’s truth is this: we don’t have to hit all the pins, but with the gift of a bumper, we can at least hit one pin, and that should be more than enough. To me, the satisfaction of knowing that I have a bumper —and, because of that, I can at least hit one ball —makes all the difference, makes life engaging, rewarding, and purposeful. 

Next time you go out to bowl, don’t hesitate to ask for a bumper. You don't have to be a kid to need one.

Manny+