Father Tim Lemlin
Everyone assumed that he had accidentally fallen. When the skier was interviewed, however, the reporters discovered that he had chosen to fall rather than finish the jump. He explained to the reporters that the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp, he realized that if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground, beyond the safe sloping landing area, which could have been fatal.
Jesus says in today's gospel reading from John, "… unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." It often happens in life that unexpected and unwanted death occurs.
Defeat and death come our way in many shapes and sizes. We dream of a college education but financial concerns, a family crisis, giving birth, or the death of a parent compel us to enter the workforce before we finish high school. A promotion is within our grasp, then the business is sold, another employee accuses us of stealing or sexual harassment, or our health fails us. We see the potential in another, a son, daughter, student, husband, wife, or friend, and no matter how hard we try we can't help the other to see what we see. We long for a loving relationship with a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or a daughter or son and animosity, hurt and rancor is all we find.
The movie, Mr. Holland's Opus, is about the difficulties a man experiences as he struggles with adapting to the life he has, instead of the one he wants. Holland dreams of being a composer but a baby comes along and expenses, too. So he finds a job teaching music, but in his spare time he composes music.
It appears that his responsibilities as a teacher, throughout the story, force him to make a choice between the students and his dream symphony. The students seem to keep winning over the symphony. Gradually, we begin to see that his life is still that of a composer. This realization dawns as the composer who teaches slowly dies and the teacher who composes comes to life.
The "much fruit" he bears becomes clear in the finale. After many long years of touching young lives with his gifts, his "opus" is not the music marked on a sheet of paper, but a brilliant symphony composed of the individual lives that he has encouraged and nurtured through his teaching.
The process of transformation from who we want to be (or believe that we are) to whom God has created us to be is usually long and painful. God uses every life experience, especially the painful ones, to sculpt and mold us, not into puppets or statues, but into people who are fully alive and free.
Yet, we resist. We don't believe in One who is beyond us, who loves us unconditionally. Our experience with imperfect people, and the hurt that we have received, teaches us that we have to create and protect ourselves. I must, if it is ever going to happen, make myself into someone. I must defeat the fear that hounds me either by making a name for myself, or by finding a means of continual escape into the unreal. (Usually, it ends up being a combination of both.) Dying and defeat, in any form, are not options. Therefore, I must never be wrong, and you must always be wrong. History teaches us that those whom we recognize as being the most evil are also the people who are most sure of themselves and their actions.
God, however, never gives up. The person that God creates continually finds ways to transform us. We most often don't realize that we are changing, that our true self is emerging. Then, one day, we are surprised to find that we are free to admit a fault or failing, we aren't as afraid to be rejected or abandoned, or we can't hold onto a grudge. Then our belief in the One who is beyond us becomes more than an intellectual exercise; it becomes real for us. Then our eyes are opened and we can see, maybe for the first time, that all the "[agonies] of defeat" were actually our true self choosing momentary deaths to bring us to eternal life.
