The Rise and Fall of Ol' Trusty

It had to have been 2002. I was living in the Gomer Jones Dormitory on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. In the athletic dorm lounge, the mini-student union of our little four-building complex, I played my first game of ping pong. The kind people in the athletic department had graciously supplied us with paddles - awful plastic paddles that reversed the purpose of a paddle - rather than sending the ball in the opposite direction, it absorbed the velocity and deadened it, dropping the ball immediately to the ground. They were smattered with green felt, a thin, fuzzy layer of cloth that not only didn't help, it made things worse. Those were the worst paddles ever.

And I was terrible. But day after day we would play. In between study breaks. After lunch. Right before your next class. Late at night. The paddle that once was so awkward in my hands was now perfectly conforming to it, resting in my palm as if it it were made to be there. Serves would be returned without the ball being lauched across the room in the other direction. Points were being made. Games were being won.

I don't know where Ol' Trusty was during all of this but we eventually met. Ol' Trusty was the coveted wooden paddle of the assortment of plastic, felt ones. Trusty was plain, brown, and simple - a meager wooden paddle with a sheet of sand paper glued on each side. It's handle was broken in that the added grips had been removed. All that remained was a flat, wide popsicle stick that fanned out into an actual paddle. But yet it was coveted because it was one of the rare wooden paddles among the pantheon of plastic options. I played with Trusty so much that I began to worry that perhaps while I was away, someone else would play with it and snap it in two in a raged response to losing (this was a legitimate fear for it had happened with many-a-paddle). So I did what I had to do. I took Trusty in to be my own. I adopted him. I took a sharpie pen to each side of the sand paper. One side read: Ol'. The other: Trusty. It was that day that the marriage was forged. The slogan would become, "In Trusty I trust."

I never played with anything else. We were known around the campus to always be together. People would say, "There goes Trusty and Matt." He would attend my classes with me. He would rest on the table while I was at the library preparing for a test. And then there was that legendary night where Charles and Jason and I stayed up well into the evening playing. The legend has it that Trusty and I could not be beaten. Charles and Jason would trade spots, back and forth, losing and sitting out and waiting their turn again, but it was no use. Game after game Trusty racked up the victories. It was a night like no other. I think we must have won 50 straight.

After I graduated college, Trusty came with me. I couldn't part with him. He rested in a small crevice in the trunk of my car for months. He moved with me from Oklahoma to Texas to Louisiana. He was called upon maybe twice in Baton Rouge to play, but for the most part he was content to sit peacefully in my trunk. Waiting. Waiting for his time to shine again.

And from Louisiana, Trusty joined me to Tennessee and then North Carolina. On my first day of school at the seminary, I was informed by the other students that ping pong was huge here. Students played nonstop. There was a room dedicated to the olde past time and it was filled during every class break. During my first class last week, I unsheathed Ol' Trusty from the trunk of my car and let him shine once again in the splendid glory that was his.

Only he did not shine as brightly as I once remembered him to shine. Technology must had gone and advanced since my days at Oklahoma, for the students here sneered at my simple wooden paddle - they all sported new, inline foam paddles, sleak and polished with the perfect amount of soft foam on each side to add just the right amount of spin and thrust. I soon learned that Trusty could not compete at this level. Defeat after defeat piled up as the week unfolded. At first I thought that it was my inability to play at this new level. I optimistically hoped that I would catch up with time and secure my first victory. But my fear was that the fault didn't lie with me...but with Trusty.

Fellow seminary student Dave Kulp let me know with no hesitation that Trusty would not be able to perform at the Seminary level. We were in the pros now. And game after game, Kulp pounded Trusty into embarrassment, thus fulfilling the ominous prophecy against it. Trusty would not be able to compete at this level.

And so in an act propelled by shame and sadness, the divorce was secured, and I set down Trusty and picked up the new, inline, glistening foam paddle. The other students diabolically smiled, as if I had been won over to the darkside. And no doubt I had. I had sold my soul to victory and left my dear friend behind. Trusty will be forever etched into my memory as a dear friend, a true companion, and one that would not give up a fight. But Trusty was indeed old (hence, Ol') and his capacities were discovered to be limited. And so this blog entry is for you, Ol' Trusty. It was good while it lasted, but I must move on. Adulterous traitor I may be, but victorious I will remain.

Ol' Trusty, may you forever rest in peace.

Jones House: Mander

My dear friend Steve is not normal. But who is, really?

My Reconciliation with Clive Staples

For years I rolled my eyes at C.S. Lewis. Inundated with Lewis quotes from books and sermons, I wrote him off as a syrupy, smooth, simple author whom syrupy, smooth, simple Christians appreciated. I associated him with rudimentary training manuals for Christian volunteer leaders who wanted to work with youth groups. The title of his great opus - Mere Christianity - can't help but give you that impression. He doesn't discuss anything deep, he only deals with mere Christianity - the bare basics, the simple and obvious, the trite and cliche. In my pretentiousness, I preferred to read those authors dealing with something beyond mere Christianity - those who used big theological words that ended in "ism" and "ification" and who quoted German theological journals in the footnotes. Lewis was cotton candy. They were the hard stuff.

And so when I got the syllabus for my first seminary class and noticed that two Lewis books were required, I was disappointed. And after reading them, I realize how greatly mistaken I have been for all of these years. Lewis is anything but cotton candy.

He is as gritty as it gets. He is just simply...cool. He writes about alcohol and cigars and sex. He makes no room for sympathy with those he disagrees with, in fact, he tears them to pieces with little remorse. His humor and wit is woven into his clear-headed arguments. He is miles deeper and much more profound and right than I ever gave him credit for. He understands reality and all of its strangeness, beauty, sickness and potential - and describes it all with fresh insight and imagination.

I have made my peace with Jack. And it is great to have found such a good friend in him. I now look forward to getting to know him better over the years over cups of coffee, pints of beer, and other pleasantries that he can enjoy with me.