So, the other day I was listening to This American Life episode 378 called This I Used to Believe and in Act Two of the show they told this story about a woman who had lost her best friend to cancer. This is the synopsis:
"This past Christmas a story swept the internet about a football coach at a Christian high school in Texas who inspired his team’s fans to root for the opposition: a team from the local juvenile correctional facility. Among the thousands of emails that the coach received in response to his actions, one stood out to him. Trisha Sebastian mentioned her loss of faith, and coach Hogan got a message from God that he was meant to bring her back."
It was SO sad. I cannot even begin to describe how frustrating it was to hear Ira Glass have something more appropriate to say to the girl about the death of her friend than the Christian coach. It is sad how often Christians are not good at listening before they start giving "apologies" to people who don't necessarily need or want them.
P.S. I would love to work here. And THIS is SO romantic. Oh my. He's taking one picture of Nadine every day, for a year.
3 comments:
Hannah: Thanks for listening to the story and thanks for your kind words. I also wanted to say thanks for thinking my city (NYC) is so awesome because it is, and "Orange Sky" gets a lot of playtime in my iPod. If anything, I'm glad your talking of my piece on TAL was sandwiched in-between two other things I think was cool. Isn't that serendipitous? Yours, Trisha
I agree with you and wrote something similar my blog. The question I have is that about the stance the coach had. He was ready to defend God, when he just need to be with Trisha. I wonder if he would have allowed her the space to be angry with God, (not popular with evangelicals but very biblical would she have been more open to God? I think to often we use Apologetics when we would be better off with compassion.
ya... we suck sometimes at listening. Apparently we enjoy the sound of our voices a little to much. Thanks for having a heart.
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