This is a snippet from an interview I did on Relevant Radio's Morning Air Show with Sean Herriott. He was a great host–super nice guy–and as you will hear, we had a great time talking about faith, the church and young people. We discuss  my blog post Youth Are NOT the Future of the Church, and other misleading messages we send to young people. This is an edited clip-shortened (my first audio editing job–pardon the occasional skip) for time purposes (10min). Click below and it will bring you to an online audio player.

Youth Today

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John Wooden is perhaps the most storied basketball coach
in the history of the game.   Wooden is one of those rare people who transcended his
championship record, his sport and his post basketball business success as an author,
speaker and consultant.   

Today, at 99 years old he still exudes a
combination of qualities often thought to be incompatible in someone with his level of success. He is confident and
authentically humble. He tolerated high public exposure and scrutiny while maintaining impeccable civility, and proved 'real’ men could be deeply spiritual–to name but a few. With barrels of ink having been spilled disseminating life lessons from this man its hard to believe there's anything new to be revealed about him.

Yet in an October 2000 issue of Sports’ Illustrated, columnist Rick
Reiley, offered a new glimpse into Wooden’s already studied life. He writes,

On Tuesday the best man I know will do what he always does
on the 21st of the month. He’ll sit down and pen a love letter to his best
girl. He’ll say how much he misses her and loves her and can’t wait to see her
again. Then he’ll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into
his bedroom. He’ll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her pillow,
untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the ribbon again.

The stack will be 180 letters high then, because Tuesday
is 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years, died. In her
memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top
of the sheets, never between, with just the old bedspread they shared to keep
him warm.
(Read Reiley's full column here).

Recently, Reilley produced a phenomenal, brief documentary about Wooden's devotion as a husband and as God's son. Below are my three takeaways from this inspirational man. Treat yourself and watch this!

This inspires me to
reflect on three things:

• I have a
  limited amount of time in this life. I don't want to wait until
  later in life to honor Mindi and my boys with "love" letters (or other expressions of affection)–Being a writer, words are easy for me, but without a doubt, Mindi and Max have touch as their dominant love language. Loving them means spending quality time, holding them everyday. Today, I can
  recommit
  myself to loving and serving my wife and family. I too often forget this
  during
  times of stress, worry and arguing–most of which won't matter 5 years
  from now, much less 40. 

• True freedom, in the words of
  Dr. Gerald May comes "not from being able to do what I want, but by
  being free to do what I most deeply want." Ironically, my sacred bond to
  one woman offers me each day the freedom to do what I most deeply want.
  This is only possible with grace.

• There is
  rejuvenating power in reminiscing. The first summer Mindi and I were
  married (both being teachers) we threw a tent, an atlas and an ice
  chest
  in the backseat of our '97 Civic and hit the
  road for seven weeks with no predetermined destination. It was a blast. 
  Remembering that summer never gets old. Recalling meaningful or happy
  events in life actually pulls the emotions we experienced in that event
  into the present. I've seen in my own marriage and in others how this
  one simple practice of reminiscing can soften the hardest of hearts.
  

 An opportunity to go
a little deeper:

"The Lord of Our Rings" A Marriage
Enrichment workshop with Dan Jurek on May 8th at Holy Cross Catholic
Church. For more information about the seminar or to sign up click here. Below is a video
documentary about Wooden's devotion and thoughts on making a lasting,
loving marriage followed by three of my "takeaways" from this story.

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