I Dislike Golf, or Golf May Be On To Something

An article by Matt    No Comments

I am not a golf person.  I figure that I have enough of a struggle with cursing in frustration that the last thing I ought to be doing is playing golf.  I also tend to have trouble with sports that require a degree of finesse, or touch.  I was a lineman on the high school football team, while at the Air Force Academy I played rugby and was the goon on our squadron’s team handball team.  Around the house I am good at breaking things and lifting heavy objects.  If something requiring fine motor skills needs doing, you better not be looking my way.  These are not, to my knowledge, the attributes of a golfer.

Imagine my surprise when last week a golf story caught my eye.  The Washington Post ran a story in the Lifestyle section last week (not a typical section of the paper that I would read, but Ted Leonsis pointed it out) that spoke about one of the more interesting policies at the U.S. Open: electronic devices are not allowed at the tournament.

In my mind the golf crowd strikes me as a type that is very much addicted to their Blackberries and smart phones.  I can only imagine the sense of dread that came with handing over their phones, and with it their access to Facebook, Twitter, BBM, texts, internet, camera, and, oh yeah, phone calls.  The imagery used by Dan Zak in the first paragraph is all too telling:

Plush fairways crest and roll. Men swing at dimpled orbs. Spectating chorales surround immaculate greens and release Handel-esque harmonies of sighs and cheers. The scene is pastoral, precise, graceful. But every few minutes, a spectator will reflexively grope his buttocks, looking for a portal away from the golf, wanting to touch a BlackBerry that isn’t there.

I could spend the next few paragraphs railing against how awful it is that golf nuts are “groping their buttocks” out of sheer addiction to connectedness… but I need to confess my own addiction first (but I keep my phone in my front pants pocket, so I don’t grope my buttocks… I could be looking for spare change).

We I spend so much time working to be connected and wired in that it is very easy for me to get distracted from being connected to the one with whom we are created to be wired in to.

What would it look like for you to completely unplug for a day?
How long would it take for you to get over the jitters that come from being disconnected?
How long before your withdrawal would end and you would truly be able to engage with our creator?

I pray that this week we might all take the time we need to connect with He who created us without the distraction of our connectedness.

What boundaries have YOU set in place in order to prioritize undistracted time with our God?