The father and his little girl of maybe five years sat together on the chairlift. He had his protective arm around her in her pink ski suit with braided hair dangling from her helmet. He scooted her to the edge of the chair, and they lifted their ski tips in preparation for exiting the lift. The father gently ushered his daughter onto the slick decline to send them away from the chairs coming up fast behind them. The little girl’s skis crossed, and she tumbled face first into the middle of the exit ramp.
Being on the chair behind her, I was able to swerve left on my snowboard to avoid her. I looked back, expecting to see my beefy eleven year old son entangled with the little girl. Instead, I saw her getting up with the help of her father and my son lying on the ground behind them. The operator stopped the lift to give everyone a chance to clear the area and to avoid a bigger pile-up.
The little girl skied away with her father. My son pushed himself off the snow, skated to me and said, “Sometimes you just have to fall.” He continued, “If I hadn’t purposely fallen, I would’ve run over that little girl. So I fell.” He reasoned he might not have had enough room to get around her, and there probably wasn’t time or room to fling his board to a full heel or toe stop, so he quickly chose to fall to protect the little girl.
I was proud of my son’s split-second judgment. In this zeitgeist of so-called “strongmen” and being first, my son’s knee-jerk reaction was to place himself second and to humble himself for the welfare of another. While obviously not on the same level of sacrifice, this is the spirit of a hero like John McCain, who, despite having been given the chance by his captors to leave, chose to remain a prisoner of war and endured unimaginable torture for the sake of the unity and the morale of other service members giving their all.
Taking the fall for others embodies kenosis. Kenosis stems from a Greek word meaning to “empty out” and is central to Christian theology. Scholars debate the exact application of kenosis. Was kenosis best exemplified when God humbly emptied himself into the human form of Jesus? Or maybe how Jesus lived his life and his teachings provided the best examples of kenosis. Then again, no image of kenosis could be more graphic and powerful than Jesus emptying himself as he hung nailed to a cross, and a lance pierced his outstretched body, all for our sake.
I’ll leave the slicing and dicing of the exactitudes of kenosis to the scholars. I am satisfied with the general theme of kenosis being that of humbly giving of ourselves for the benefit of others. Kenosis is a good concept to keep in our minds and hearts regardless of what our faith traditions are or wherever we find ourselves, even on a snowboard.
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Get Your Kenosis On! This week seek opportunities to empty just a little bit of yourself for the sake of others. You don’t need to be a hero or a God; just be inspired by their examples. Start small. Hold a door, say thank you, donate, tip well, give a compliment or waive someone into your traffic lane, for example. Keep a journal of your selfless acts. At the end of the week reflect on how your actions made you feel, and consider how they affected others.
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present.
Related Links:
How John McCain’s Years as a Vietnam POW Shaped His Life, by Lily Rothman for Time Magazine
Faith of My Fathers, A Family Memoir, by John McCain with Mark Salter
Kingdom and Kenosis: The Mind of Christ in Paul’s Ethics, by Hak Jun Lee, Fuller Theological Seminary
Kenosis on Wikipedia
Snowboarders & Skiers for Christ. Why not?
Arizona Snowbowl, Flagstaff, Arizona: my favorite place to snowboard in Arizona.
Beaver Creek, Colorado: my favorite U.S. winter resort.
Garmisch-Classic Ski Area: site of my best ski lesson. My instructor was Manfred Muller, mountain guide for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. I knew him as Uncle Manny.
Gargellen, Austria and Katschberg, Austria: where I learned to ski as a pee-wee.