He can leap tall buildings in a single bound…

I love the Royals. Yes, I know. It’s been a long line of losing since our World Series win in 1985, but baseball is still fun and it’s getting to be fun again in KC. We may be a small market team with a rough road to climb in the toughest division in baseball, but we’ll be fun to watch. And I’m getting pumped for baseball season. It usually starts this time of year when the weather gets warmer and the shorts come out, but a highlight from last night’s Royals/Dodgers pre-season game got my Spring senses tingling.

If you haven’t seen it yet, below is a video clip from last night’s game against the Dodgers when Joey Gathright hit a little dribbler down the first base line. Improvising as Dodgers’ starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda ran toward him to get the ball and tag him, Joey leaped OVER the 6′1″ pitcher to avoid the tag. Pretty awesome to watch…and, more importantly, he was safe at first.

But that’s not the first time Joey’s shown his athletic leaping ability…The video below was shot with some high school buddies back in 2002. Simply put, Joey’s pretty fun to watch both on AND off the field.

On baseball caps and sweet spots…

The sweet spot. It’s a baseball term that refers to a place on a baseball bat that is essentially the perfect location for the bat to meet the ball, the force of the turning bat plowing through the pitched ball perfectly connecting for what it was created to do…smack a baseball for a beautiful, angelic double in the gap or a soaring three-run home run.

This morning, I couldn’t help but start thinking about my sweet spot. In my line of work, I wear many different hats. Some fit better than others and some just seem forced and uncomfortable. Some, at times, just feel goofy to be wearing, some make me feel young - like my dad should be wearing the hat and not me, and with some I wonder if it is as apparent to others (as it is to me) that the hat I’m wearing is completely and utterly ill-fitting, uncomfortable, unbecoming, and simply, wrong.

I have this ratty, old, discolored, sweat-stained Boston Red Sox cap I wear that I just love. It is what it is…old and comfortable, dirty and perfect, scrubby and beautiful. I guess if I were to tell you why I wear it, it would be because it fits just right.

And so it is that I sit at my sweet spot and recognize there are some places that just feel better than others, some swings that connect more sweetly than others, some baseball caps that fit just right. I cannot tell you how right it is for me to be at a piano. Maybe you think, “Well…duh.” But throughout my life I’ve had to face the reality of the tension between my created, creative sweet spot (music, artistry) and what I’ve been sold as irresponsible, unrealistic and not at all utilitarian (how will you support your family?). Yet, here it is, the sweet spot. The place where I feel made more complete in my individual design, what I consider the personal attribute of Imago Dei that allows me to experience in a very small way the sense of completeness and fullness of God.

What about you? Do you have a place like that - a place where something you do or somewhere you go makes you feel complete? What is your sweet spot?