WE CAN LEARN FROM WHAT WE DO

I write, I golf, I garden, and I boat.  Okay, that last verb didn’t quite work, even though it’s parallel, but you get the drift.  Consider for a moment the verbs that define you…your dedicated efforts, endeavors that pull you deeply into “them” and challenge you immensely.

Have you got one or two?  Good.  Keep them in your head.

I just finished reading GOLFING WITH GOD: A NOVEL ABOUT HEAVEN AND EARTH, by Roland Merullo.   I’m not sure I would have read the book if it hadn’t been my friend’s pick for book club.  Even when she told me the book was a quirky approach to spirituality, I viewed the first few pages skeptically.  Still, I love to golf, so the teacher/golfer main character and the faint hope that I might learn something to improve my game, moved me to read on.

A side-note about a fellow author (from his Amazon bio) “Roland Merullo’s best-selling novel, Breakfast with Buddha, recently went into its 11th printing. Like Golfing with God before it, and American Savior after it, Breakfast with Buddha treats questions of philosophy/spirituality from a multi-denominational viewpoint and with a healthy dose of humor.” http://www.amazon.com/Roland-Merullo/...

Turns out the book is a funny and instructive allegory about one multiply reincarnated human’s journey toward being a better person, and, you guessed it, becoming a better golfer.  In a good portion of the novel, God is an attractive woman with a case of the short-game (chipping and putting) yips, that our main character, Hank, is supposed to eradicate.  Typical of allegories, this isn’t about golf, it’s about character improvement.  Hank says: “When your soul is riddled with quirks and urges, old failures and fresh embarrassments, you need help.”  Turns out he not only learns how to be better person by instructing God, but he also sees how golf is a tool and a template for working out his internal issues.

Now it’s time for you to trot out the endeavors you chose, above.  Hank would say that if you pay attention to the elements of that endeavor (mountain-climbing, say), they will help you learn how to become the kind of person you want to be.  Is he (Merullo and Frank) right?  Take my writing.  Does the act of writing as well as the characters and stories I choose, teach me something about my own struggles and serve as a tool for managing them?

What do you think?  Cool or crazy idea?  My tentative take: I’m moved to think more about the concepts, because my golf game has improved since I read the book!