Act One - The Gymnasium
Act One- The Scenes that shaped me
The Gymnasium
I was born a Hoosier, the daughter of a Hoosier Basketball Coach that told his 6th grade team not to let the opposing team cross the half court line for the second half of the game, and they didn’t. My Dad drove us through horrid snow storms on back country roads to get us to the game on Friday nights.
Walking into an empty gymnasium sends a thrill to my soul to this day.
I was 12 when Coach Beatty recruited me for the 6th grade girls basketball team, I was the starting center at 5’ 2”. I loved playing ball, but the next year I discovered something that I loved more, cheering for it.
The Hysteria part of being a Hoosier was fueled by the unlikely hope of the outliers. Every year, every school of every size had the very same chance to make it to the State Finals. Anderson, Indiana had three High Schools and they were arch rivals. I cheered for the Highland Scots and our Sectional tournament was held in a Gymnasium called the Wigwam that held over 6000 hysterical hoosiers.
You can’t understand until you have been there. It was ‘other’. It was more than team Spirit, it was a united fury and passion that I have never experienced again. That Gym was a place of people showing on the outside what they loved on the inside, it was a place of battle and victory, it was a place for shouting your throat raw and stomping and clapping till your hands hurt. We cried and celebrated when our team won, and we cried in anguish when they lost. It was beautiful. I am better for it.
When I was 19 years old I walked into Gymnasiums all over the country, but for a different reason. I walked in this time to communicate an unpopular message, abstinence from drugs and underage drinking. The kids there didn’t show on the outside what they loved on the inside, but you could feel the tension in the air by their withholding. We set up our sound system on the center of the Gym floor and faced a sea of 1000 teenager faces. We were there to call them to boundaries that they were determined to challenge, we were offered up as the mandatory lamb to the slaughter. We knew it, even Principals would voice their despair to me, ‘this will never change.’
But I knew something else too, this Hoosier cheerleader had also discovered a power that even overwhelmed the fury and passion of the sold out crowd in the Wigwam in Anderson, Indiana. At Sunday School I learned about Daniel in the Lions Den, Meshach and friends in the fiery furnace, David and Goliath, Gideon’s Trumpet and Vase, Jehoshaphat’s prayer- so our team would huddle close on the Gym floor and ask God to shut the mouths of the Lions, quench the fury of the flames, slay the giant, and overthrow the intimidating darkness threatening these students. Faith, the faith that drives the underdog to take one more shot.
Then we would begin our 40 minute assembly with the hope of that faith. Here is the amazing truth- God showed up. I started to expect him. It didn’t matter how ‘out of control’ the crowd was when we started- God would win them to such silence and stillness that I could speak the truth without resistance. It didn’t matter if we were in the most challenging schools in the district, private schools, or small rural schools- God showed up as we spoke to the students. One Boston school particularly stands out to me, the Principal said to me, “Everyone in this room is either using or selling drugs, yesterday one of their friends was shot. We brought them to this room so you could talk to them.” I had a split second with that Principal before he opened the door and led us in- I said, “Sir, may I share about my faith?” He said yes, it was like that last second shot that rips the net as the buzzer goes off to end the game. Forty minutes later the kids in that room were in a circle holding hands and crying. God won.
These Gymnasiums pressed me into the shape of hope, the hope of the outliers, the unlikely, the unpopulars, the nearly beatens. Despair is a formidable opponent, but I have learned Despair is also a liar. Jesus Resurrection says ‘everything can change.’
The fury of this hope causes me to stand out. My passion isn’t hidden. I will shout what I love till my throat is raw, and stomp my feet on the face of despair and clap my hands in praise till they hurt. I won’t give up. I tattooed that promise onto my wrist after a wrestling match with despair in my 40’s..
Despair told me, ‘this will never change’. I believed it for a little while and I started losing. Jesus found me in that season and challenged me not to let despair cross the half court line in the last half of my life. And I haven’t.
