Lost in Disc Golf Land: my fight with the golf disc eating tree

As many of you are reading this right now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “wasn’t there something important this weekend that I was supposed to do?” The answer to that question is yes, there is something important you were supposed to do. You were supposed to wish my wife a happy birthday. On Saturday (October 25) she turned ?? years old. So if you see her around feel free to wish her a happy belated birthday. Now on to other news. On Wednesday of this past week I took a trip to the Tri-Cities with a couple of the youth group to play some disc golf. If you are not familiar with disc golf it is similar to Frisbee golf, except it is played with a golf disc, not a Frisbee. You throw the disc from the tee pad and attempt to get it into a basket in as few throws as possible. If all this sounds terribly confusing go check out the disc golf course at Rotary Park up on Western and that will clarify things for you a bit. Anyway, we went down to Kennewick to conquer their course and all in all I must admit that things went rather well. I personally made the two worst throws of the days, and they were even my first two throws. On one I thought I had lost my disc to the Columbia (the river, not the sporting goods outfitter), and on the second I managed to get my disc stuck high up in a tree surrounded by a thicket on extremely prickly bushes. I finally prevailed, but it definitely wasn’t the start I was hoping for. I think one of the reasons I enjoy disc golf so much is because it is so similar to the spiritual life. When I am disc golfing with friends, even though we are all headed towards the same goal, we are very rarely in exactly the same spot. Sometimes on our journey towards heaven we might get lost or land out of bounds. We need friends to come along and help us find our way (or our disc). Sometimes I think I just made a perfect throw and the wind will unexpectedly gust and I will land even farther away from the basket then when I started. The key is that you just have to keep playing. If you quit every time a throw didn’t go exactly where you wanted it you would never finish a game. It is the same with our spiritual life. Our goal is heaven. Sometimes we may get blown off course by the wind, but Christ always guides us back on the right path. The key is not quitting. Disc golf, like the spiritual life, is more fun with friends. A good friend will call you on to greater holiness when things get difficult, and maybe even help you climb a tree to get your disc down.