THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSIVE PRESENCE [Sat, 10-24-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSIVE PRESENCE      [Sat, 10-24-20]

I was recently reminded of my high school basketball coach, Alva Cato. He was also my algebra teacher and our class sponsor, along with Miss Grace Robb. I was class president for three years, so I got to work with Mr. Cato, and got to know him. That was a valuable part of my high school experience.

Mr. Cato was a patient and encouraging man. Not long before he died, Mike Dickey, my best friend in our class, told me of how he had struggled so much with algebra when we were freshmen. One day, Mr. Cato was looking over his shoulder as he was trying to do the algebra assignment and said, “Mike, you can get this. Take it slow. Be patient with yourself. You can get this.” Mike said, “That made all the difference. Math became my best subject.” Mike remembered that for 65 years.

There was a limit to Mr. Cato’s patience, though, when it came to basketball.

Don Falls was the tallest boy in school, maybe in all of Gibson County, six feet four inches. In those days, that was gigantic. But at 6 feet, one inch, I was the second-tallest guy on the team, so it was my job to guard Don in practice. It was not a desirable assignment. Don wasn’t just taller, he also outweighed me by at least 50 lbs. Even worse, for me, he wasn’t just bigger than everyone else, he was skilled, especially offensively.

Mr. Cato made me stop guarding Don, though, because I kept getting in his way. It was defense simply by presence.

I was skinny and slow and couldn’t jump. I couldn’t reach high enough to block Don’s shot. But I could anticipate. Whatever move Don made, wherever he went, I was already there. 

One day, Mr. Cato grabbed me by the arm and said, “John, we’re never going to get any practice done this way. You go guard somebody else.”

Mine was not a defense of skill or size, but simply of presence. I got in the way.

We speak often in the church about “a ministry of presence.” Especially in times of sorrow and loss. There isn’t much we can say to a person who is in anguish, but we can just be there with and for them. Stories are often told of a little child who goes and sits on the lap of a sorrowing person and just weeps with them. That’s a ministry of presence.

That ministry of presence can be a defensive presence, just getting in the way of folks who want to be offensive. People in the winter of their years aren’t very fast or strong, but we’ve been around long enough to anticipate where the offenders are trying to go. We can get in the way, not just physically, but also spiritually. And by voting.

Take your love to where it can get in the way.

John Robert McFarland

Indiana people might know more about Mr. Cato’s son, Gene, and his great-grandson, Michael Lewis. Gene became the commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Assn. and presided over the demise of Indiana’s famous and iconic one-class basketball tournament, thus assuring his place in hell. Michael Lewis played for Bob Knight at IU. I was at IU basketball practice one day with Bishop Leroy Hodapp, whom Knight referred to as his pastor--trying for a ministry of non-presence, hoping not to be noticed by the irascible coach, since said coach would often take out his ire on spectators if things weren’t doing well on the floor-- when Michael messed up a play because he had been poked in the eye. Knight ranted at him. Michael explained the eye poke. Coach Knight retorted that Michael always played like he was blind anyway.