On Kevin Garnett

Kevin Garnett is a mysterious man—well, at least to our voyeuristic culture.

After he retires, you’re not going to see him end up as a broadcaster or analyst; he won’t be doing movies; he’s not going to coach.

No, he’ll, as he put it, disappear.

And I think that’s virtuous. Kevin Garnett is one of those people who does nothing but work on his game. He views it as a craft, an art. He’s not in the NBA for the accolades. On this he shares a similarity with Flannery O’Connor who, when asked why she wrote, said:  “Because I’m good at it.”

This is why I’d like to depart from this often-repeated aphorism:  “Athletes aren’t role-models.” Sure, some aren’t, but, then again, neither are some teachers or doctors or politicians. There are good and bad people in every profession. And I think athletes like Kevin Garnett are wonderful role-models.

Here’s why:  what they have to teach us transcends their sport.

Of course aspiring basketball players can look up to Garnett. They can spend hours on the courts attempting to mimic his moves. That’s fine.

But I think Garnett also reminds us that techne—the Greek word for craftsmanship—is important to human life. We live in a world of ease. It is flooded with devices that remove anything arduous. For instance:  We don’t know how to fix things anymore. When such devices break, we often toss them away or we’d just rather buy a new one.

We also don’t know how to build. We prefer to let robots take care of that for us.

Doing something and becoming good at it is often satisfying. Let’s take writing. It, like basketball, is a craft. It takes years of hard work to learn how to hear the musicality of a sentence, to know how to put together a story. And, even then, writers are often far from perfect.

Our culture prefers expediency, too. Kids often think that, a week after learning how to play basketball, they’re ready to play in the NBA. This should fade with maturity, but it hasn’t. Recently, Toucher and Rich, a Boston-based sports talk radio program, sponsored an event that invited anyone to challenge former Celtic Brian Scalabrine to a game of one-on-one. Sure, this was in jest. But there were people who actually believed they could beat someone who played in the NBA.

Those who understand that perfecting a craft takes time are wise. The act of doing and experiencing grants a profound intelligence—one that cannot be gained by sitting in a classroom. This is another reason one can admire Kevin Garnett. Education should be a holistic enterprise. It should instill in the student a sense of wonder. But it has become a treadmill:  you get the Bachelor’s and the Master’s and then you end up with the PhD. After that, you end up in the unemployment line or in a banal job that you can’t stand.  No one uses education to seek purpose, because that doesn’t offer benefits.

Garnett, who knew his purpose involved basketball and thus didn’t attend college, is described by teammates as one of the most brilliant people in the league. And you can see it in his interviews; you can read it in the newspapers. When he talks, you want to lean in and catch every word.

This was especially evident in his 2008 conversation with Bill Russell, a legendary player and a figure similar to Kevin Garnett. They talked about the game—what it means to win, tradition, duty, friendship, sacrifice, the art of basketball. As Stuart Scott rightly said, it should give the listener goose bumps. It was like witnessing a conversation between Plato and Aristotle.

So I think we all have a lot to learn from Kevin Garnett. He demonstrates to us what happens when someone pursues his purpose and works hard at it.

And I hope he continues with this approach. His so-called disappearance will be soon—this summer or the next or the one after that. Retirement, I’m sure, makes you restless. I’m wondering if he’ll move onto something else.

Maybe he’ll try writing.

Public.

We begin, it seems, full of life

and laughter

and great humanity.

But then,

slowly, our

imaginations are compressed

and flattened

and emptied

until we are suitable

for pushing papers

and scheduling meetings—

exploring the permanent things

be damned.

Some thoughts on writing.

A year or so ago I wrote that the writer asks the same question as the philosopher:  why?

I still believe that. But I'd like to add something to it:  it is the goal of the writer to explore the nature of what is. He must present fully all that is within the world and within our hearts. That way, the reader will encounter truth.

I would not have realized this, by the way, if it had not been my study of some of the work of William F. Lynch, S.J. He changed my approach to both literature and writing.

Some freewriting.

Night Breeze

The road and sky are dark as pitch and I am driving. It is about 4 a.m.—the birds are still silent, as are the houses and the trees. I hear nothing but the warmth of the summer night. It, in a way, makes a sound of its own.

I have my windows down.  The breeze trickles through and touches my face and eliminates—even if briefly—the stickiness of the humid air. I speed up a little bit—forty miles an hour in a zone marked twenty-five.

I don’t care, though. I don’t know where I’m going. Tonight I needed to drive somewhere, some time.

It is nights like this where the past ceases to be pure memory. It steps out of our minds and takes root in the dew-covered grasses.

I drive by darkened hills and basketball courts and ice cream stores and empty park benches. I pass empty schools and playgrounds, both diligently awaiting the local students.

I keep going—onward, onward.

And then I get an urge to stop.

It is the edge of the town. I remember I first came here the night before I was to move away. I grew up here. My memories stay locked in the fields and the stores, the houses and the people. I had to come to the edge—knowing that I would soon break through and enter into something without place. I would be a man without roots.

And I was frightened.

I remember looking at the sign:  “Williamsburg—Established 1810.” This was everything I knew. That comforted me.

Now I have returned. I guess I must have been driving longer than I thought. Still it is strange how we are sometimes compelled to return to such places. The world is full of compelling. I think of sea turtles always returning to the same island in order to lay eggs.

All of us need a home.

I turn off my car and I unbuckle my seatbelt and I step outside. The warm air is refreshing. Everything seems tinged with magic. It is as if a singular step would transport you into some fantastical world filled with strange creatures.

I look at the sign—just as I did years ago.

I smile as a night breeze blows.

Summertime Longing

Summertime Longing

By Jon Bishop

Outside the window of his first floor office Tom Zimmer sees a small group of kids playing on the grass. Their laughter trickles through the glass and into his ears, which pulls his lips into a smile. He stops his typing—the files and such can wait a few minutes. He hears one of them shout:  “Tag! All right, you’re it. You’re done.” Air conditioners fill the office with unnatural cool air; everything just beyond the window basks in the bright heat of the summer sun. He longs to be young again—out with them, playing on the grass and on the fields until a mother, somewhere, someplace, reminds everyone that it is time to eat.

He shuts his eyes.

He is outside with his friends, engaged in a game of hide-and-seek. He ducks beneath a bush and puts his hands over his head. Its leaves rustle and some of its fruit drop to the ground, sending small plumes of dirt into the air. A slight breeze carries them away.

This noise, though slight, gets him discovered.

“Found you, Tom. Now, it’s your turn.” His friend Billy had been “it.” Now he would move to the center of the field and close his eyes, count to ten. His other friends scatter as he begins reciting the numbers. 

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

“Tom!”

Pollen dances through the air as if it too participates in the games of the summertime. Birds in the distance seem to sing of mating and romance and of place. Dogs bark and insects chirp.

Eight, nine—

“Tom!”

He inhales, in preparation of seeking his hidden friends.

Ten—

“Tom!”

He starts and turns around and sees his coworker, Jim, standing outside his office door.

“Hey, a few of us are getting lunch. You want to come?”

He pauses.

“Uh, sure. Just let me get some cash. I’ll meet you in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good. We’ll be down in the lobby.”

Jim nods and walks away.

Tom reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out his wallet. Before he leaves he turns and again looks out the window and sees that all of the kids are no longer there. They never were.