Thinking of LeBron

HOW HAS LEBRON HELPED ME?


 I watched replays of the scene of LeBron James expressing his confidence in the eventual  victory of his team the Cleveland Cavaliers after they lost game 5 and needed to win games 6 and 7  to clinch  a national championship, their first since 1964. Hailed as the greatest player on the planet, he  repeated that phrase of self-empowerment and proclaimed his confidence in the outcome of the next game. He threw that  confidence in the teeth of defeat  and that refusal of the label "underdog" that the media and the Vegas odds makers  gave him.

 I must admit that I was moved  and I immediately felt a quickening of my own confidence.  If you are confident, LeBron, then I  too will keep confident as I approach  surgery in the next weeks. Now the dream of a national  championship in his first year back in Cleveland with a team  missing two All Star players is over.


 BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CONFIDENCE--MY OWN ESPECIALLY. LeBron's confidence had given me  confidence and calm as I went to meet my surgeon. An athlete whom I had never met had so impressed me  that I  followed his example  in my own little way.  His dedication to his sport, his devotion to his community  and his determination to win as a team not as an MVP--all are rare  wonderful traits.

I noticed  a certain regal demeanor about the  man they call KING JAMES most evident in the courtly  form of respect he paid to James Brown who was  watching the game. How often have we seen a player in his prime pay such homage  to an older retired  star of another sport.  
That was a moment of GRACE.