I wanted to take this time to talk about momentum. I’ll be short, but knowing me I may follow up with something more verbose.
https://zchg.org/hott/late%20episodes/499%20-%207-Dec-94%20-%20Kansas%20City%20Resolution.mp3
TRANSCRIPT of same: https://zchg.org/hott/transcripts/499%2520-%2520Kansas%2520City%2520Resolution.txt
Momentum.
In sport, as in war, attitude is everything. Even a world-class team can fall behind on the scoreboard, time-to-time. It might not even be the fault of the team, not really, as a world-class team fighting against another world-class team will fall in and out due to plain and simple scoreboard drift.
What matters the most is what a championship team does with that scoreboard drift.
A winning team doesn’t lose spirit until the buzzer. Anything less than the champion’s heart gives up a bit early, even if it’s ten seconds before the buzzer. Even if you’re down by 100. A champion’s heart doesn’t care what’s on the scoreboard, a champion’s heart has the experience, resolve, and mastery to understand that it’s not over until the last champion’s heart gives out. Not the first champion, the LAST champion’s heart.
And should even one champion decide it’s not time to call it in, the world is the oyster of that LAST champion. Period. The end. Believe it, I’ve seen it.
If even one person on an inferior team quits, the rest of the team folds up like a house of cards. Sure as shit.
But a championship team understands that the content of character of each individual serving the team outweighs even the seemingly strongest heart giving out.
For in war, even seemingly strongest hearts may give out. They might not see something the rest of the team sees, or they may just have caught a moment of weakness. Or they might not be the real heart of the team.
This is the opportunity for the real iron will to begin. This is the opportunity for the real champion’s heart to begin taking what belongs.
When I was playing water polo with my best friend Nick against the superior Denver team, our little motley crew known as CSU was going to lose. That’s what everyone thought.
And that was precisely the opportunity my friend Nick took. And I really mean stole from the clutches of sure victory.
The clock had one second left. We were down by one. The other team’s goalie began to look towards the refreshments and was probably starting to think about the celebratory spirits.
And my friend Nick just didn’t want to quit. Not that day. Not that day.
From our own net, one who believed he could do it passes him one sliver of a doubt’s chance. Without time for hesitation, he lobs it all. Into the air it soars. Higher and farther than I knew a water polo ball could be thrown with any kind of accuracy. He lobs that cannonball with all the spirit of his ancestors as though the gates of hades itself had fortified for it and even still would find itself smashed wide open by shear destiny.
And the goalie catches it coming out of the corner of his eyes, beginning to turn. But it’s too late.
Nick landed one. Right there in the uprights of the net. As pure as diamonds, he was, his best toss he could never have ordinarily mustered beside his usual self.
He bulldozed that thing so hard it could have easily missed and bent the frame had he started any closer but the furthest away.
Not this day, he said to himself. Not this day.
The goalie tried as he might was already defeated by his own momentum. He couldn’t turn around in time. He wasn’t playing like a champion.
But Nick was.
Nick bought us the overtime conversion. Not when everyone thought he could, but when everyone, and I mean everyone but Nick and that friend of a champion who passed him the ball thought he couldn’t.
And he did. And so, he did.
When you’re considering losing heart, don’t. When it’s time to quit, keep going. You might be the one factor that nobody else factored in when it’s time to convert.
Champion.
But you know what else? It wasn’t the team what gave him that ball. All the rest had permitted themselves to slide out from perceived momentum.
It was one other man.
There were two champions on that day. And if either hadn’t been there, right time, right place, things could have turned out a lot differently.
Two champion’s hearts were there that day to wipe clean and even the score. The rest is history for all eternity to reflect.
4 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
https://forum.zchg.org/t/when-whistleblowers-must-go-public/765/4
GOD WINS!
How LONG has the fox guarded the hen house, and why does she appear to cannibalize her own hens?
What does EX POST FACTO mean to you, cherished reader?
"You used to be able to go have a pizza at a local mom and pop. You used to be able to play flashlight tag in the dark with good neighborhood friends. There was once a time when nobody could fathom the darkness of night we have now. There was once a time when light made the most sense. Remember those times now, and “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Protect one another. "
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
-Declaration of Independence, 1776
