7-5-2007


	LINKS DAILY DEVOTIONAL

KEEP IT LIGHT
"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" (Mark 8:35-36, NRSV)

Here are four pretty goods comments about the grip:

"The first thing that determines how well you're going to be able to play is the way in which you hold the club." (Tommy Armour, How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time)

"The big idea—the essential one—is to hold the club at address with easy security rather than grim, tightening intensity." (Tommy Armour, How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time)

"If a student comes to me as a once-a-week player who has been playing for years without improving, all I have to do is put his hands on the club in a good grip—and after the lesson I will never see him again. He will hit the ball so poorly that he will think I am the dumbest teacher in the country." (Harvey Penick, Little Red Book)

"As for grip pressure, keep it light. Arnold Palmer likes to grip the club tightly, but you're not Arnold Palmer." (Harvey Penick, Little Red Book)

Many who teach the golf grip talk about loosening it. So many hackers grip the club like they are trying to squeeze the crazy thing to death. Progress begins by letting go just a bit. I like Armour's phrase, "easy security." "Let go and hit it straight and far," could be another way to say it. Many are holding on so tightly that a proper swing cannot be developed.

In life too, many are holding on so tightly, a proper way of life cannot be developed. There is a word for all the things we hold tightly to: attachments.

I believe every person has a desire to know God. For many, that desire is held in slavery by the various things we are attached to—work, drugs, the past, sex, religion, money. Gerald May, in his book Addiction and Grace, states, "Attachment is the process that enslaves desire and creates the state of addiction."

This is why spiritual leaders in all faith traditions talk about detachment. Detachment, according to the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, "aims at correcting one's own anxious grasping in order to free oneself for committed relationship to God." Meister Eckhart said that detachment "enkindles the heart, awakens the spirit, stimulates our longings, and shows us where God is."

I have been attached to many things. In each case I needed grace to be freed. God wants us to be free, so there will be open, unhindered space for God's presence in our lives. Freedom always begins with grace.

John of the Cross said, "It is not the things of the world that either occupy the soul or cause it harm, since they enter it not, but rather the will and desire for them." This will and desire, this clinging and grasping, is attachment. (Gerald May)

God, Give us grace to be free from what we hold tightly to. Create a sacred space once again for You. Amen.

Brad Davis

July 5, 2007

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