Many people will approach today with superstition and fear. Many more will look upon it with interest. But for a vast majority, Friday the 13th will come and go just like any other day. I approach today from a different perspective – a perspective I share with only a handful of you.

My father (known as “Pops” as my older brother and sister began bringing children into the world) was handicapped…but he never let it stand in the way of anything and he’d never allow any of us to use it as an excuse for him either. He had suffered from some sort of mild physical defect at birth that, to my recollection, was exacerbated by a bout with polio in his early years. This left him with a weak right side of his body…a shorter leg and arm that didn’t quite function the same as the left side. Trust me when I say, dad knew how to turn his weaknesses into strengths.

As a young boy, I was quite enamored with my two older models…a college-football playing brother who drove a hot-rod Chevelle and a future brother-in-law that got me involved in the sense of Texas Aggie pride from an early age. I wanted to be like both of them…a football stud…and an Aggie. While the former never materialized, the latter did.

The time spent throwing the ball with Dad in the front yard is one of those fun times I’ll always remember from my childhood. Whether it was baseball or football, or later basketball, dad would sit in his lawn chair out there for hours and work with me. Throwing pass after pass, I developed a pretty soft touch for receiving the football. While my physique would keep me on the front line to block, as opposed to being a flanked receiver, the fact that I was dependable as a target gave me a lot of opportunities for some fun plays during live action.

He always said one thing to me that stuck out…”If you can touch it, you can catch it.”

I remember watching college and pro football games on TV (with Dad) and applying that simple grade to so many receivers. It was as if some of these guys needed a net to catch balls sometimes – it’d make you wonder how they made it as receivers. Then there were the guys who just had the softest touch and could catch balls they weren’t supposed to…those were the ones to emulate.

If I could touch it, I could catch it…that’s all I ever needed to remember.

***

The rock band, U2, has performed “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” over a thousand times in live performances. The song, released shortly before my high school graduation in May of 1987, would become one of the most recognizable of U2’s great history of songs. Originally released on the “Joshua Tree” album, U2 would commission a live performance a few months later with the gospel choir from Greater Calvary Baptist Church in Harlem – a performance held at Madison Square Garden. This live recording was then re-released on U2’s next album “Rattle and Hum”. A link to a YouTube video from this slightly revised version of the song is included below.

I set the stage for the song to continue with my thoughts on Pops. Since his passing, there’s not a day that has passed where I haven’t thought of him. We spend our childhood years trying to prove to our parents that we’re worthy of their love and admiration. I can’t really speak for my brother or sister, but I know that they had probably worked through a lot more of that than I had. I had just turned 19 and really was just coming into manhood when Dad passed. To this day, I count myself very fortunate to have had the leadership of both my brother and brother-in-law, and some great men in the church of my youth, to help me along on that path. As good a substitute as they were, they still weren’t dad.

The song’s opening stanzas say, “I have climbed the highest mountains…I have run through the fields…only to be with you. I have run, I have crawled…I have scaled these city walls…only to be with you.” I’ve spent so much of my life subconsciously trying to prove something to a father who passed away long ago. Many will read that and look me squarely in the eye and tell me I need to head back to counseling. I’m not ashamed or afraid to look them back in the eye and let them know where I’m coming from.

I spent much of the time defeated. Self-motivation had often escaped my grasp. Quite honestly, I was an underachiever. I wasted significant brainpower in my youth…knowing so much more than I applied in school. I tell the story that my schools didn’t really teach me how to study. Truth be told, had I cracked my books a little more in my youth, I could’ve prepared myself. My grades were always “good enough” to get by. But every report card came with a motivation from my father (not always positive motivation, by the way…haha) to do better – he knew I was far better than my grades reflected, even at times when I made honor roll.

At his passing, I lost much of the motivation – but few would try challenging that because they knew I’d lost Pops…and they knew what a positive relationship we had.

In the years to come, I would learn that my motivation would have to come from within. And through the past 24 years, I’ve had varying success with motivating myself. I have come to find that my spiritual faith is a great motivator in so many areas of life.

The rewritten version of the song contains a couple of solos by members of the accompanying choir saying, “He will lift you higher and higher. He will pick you up when you fall. He’ll be your shelter from the storm.”

It’s all right there, friends. If you need motivation – He’ll lift you higher and higher…just ask.

If you fall, He’ll pick you up…whether you ask or not.

If you need shelter from the storms in life…His doors are always open.

As I’ve experienced personally in the past few years, it’s a conscious decision to no longer allow “just good enough” melt away all my self-motivation. I can’t really call it “self-motivation” though. My motivation comes from the best thing I saw from my dad – his unshakeable faith that somehow or another, God would provide and things would be “alright”.

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for – but I’m looking for it. The difference now is pretty simple, I found a faith that lights my path on the search…and I try to stay really in line with seeking first the Kingdom of God – and allow all other pursuits to fall in line with that. It’s taken 24 years to figure this much out for me, but as you’ll read in one of my recent posts, according to my son I’m not even “halfway to dead yet” (smile).

It’s never too late to learn some of life’s most valuable lessons. It’s never too late to begin enjoying the most of every day. And it’s never too late to align what it is you’re looking for with a higher purpose. As the song says, “I believe in the Kingdom come…then all the colours will bleed into one, bleed into one…well, yes, I’m still running.”

If you can touch it, you can catch it.

I miss you, Pops. I love you more than I ever got to say. Thanks for being a great dad, a great teacher, and a great man. I’ll never stop thinking about you…and that’s fine by me. And thanks for teaching me that simple message…

Running with the Kingdom in mind,

Tim

 

“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” as performed by U2 and the Greater Calvary Baptist Church choir “New Voices of Freedom” at Madison Square Garden…September, 1987. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idE6gh0qhrU)