"Don't Help Him"

My husband has baseball in his blood.
He loves basketball and tennis and football.
But baseball is his true love.
He has played since childhood. Little league. High school. College.
Even some low level almost-semi-pro baseball during the summers of his late teen years and early twenties.
Shortstop. Third base. Second base.
Even now, after passing the half century mark (which I have also passed), he continues to play baseball.
I attended his team's game yesterday.

Late in the game, one of the players on Steve's team began to "talk smack" to and about the pitcher from the other team.

"The ump took pity on you and called that a strike."
"He's gonna pitch it high or higher."
"He can't throw a strike."
"Don't help him."

That last line caught my attention.
If the pitcher is pitching high or higher, don't swing at it.
Don't waste one of your strikes by swinging at a high pitch.
Make him throw strikes; don't swing at the bad pitches.
Don't help him.

When I jotted that line down in my journal there at the game, I wrote,
"Glad that's not a life motto. At least it's not mine...
or is it?
How often do I not help?
Turn away. Ignore. Taunt. Make excuses for not helping."

My mind quickly moved from congratulating myself for a higher way of thinking and living than that baseball player to recognizing how often I do think and live with that very thought in mind: "Don't help him."

Don't help the person whose politics I reject.
Don't help the person who was rude to me after class that Saturday evening.
Don't help the person who constantly interrupts me when I talk.
Don't help the person who belittles gay people, transgender people, poor people, people of color.
Don't help the person who thinks I shouldn't be in seminary because I am a woman.
Don't help the person who reads and understands the Bible differently than I do.
Don't help her.
Don't help him.
Don't help them - whoever I decide "they" are.

I'm gonna spend some time in these next few days and weeks pondering the people I have chosen not to help, chosen to ignore, chosen to taunt. Including people I claim to love. Including my family and friends. Including myself.


My husband's team lost the game yesterday, 17-15. Quite the high scoring affair.
That noisy player nearly came to blows with one of the pitchers from the opposing team.
I guess all of his comments from the dugout had accomplished exactly what he had hoped: he annoyed the players on the other team enough to draw angry and vengeful words from his opponents and the intervention of the umpires.
As the guy from the other shouted at and began to shove him, I wanted to scream,
"Don't help him."