Midlife Meditation

Is all-star college football player Michael Sam gay by choice, or by birth? Slate writer Will Saletan makes the convincing argument that, considering all the difficult choices Sam had to make to become the athlete he is, being gay is hardly something he would've picked; and by extension, coming out is certainly something he could have elected not to do. This point has been in my arsenal since at least 1992, when my opinions about gay rights were first confronted by a well-meaning homophobe. The impetus for this conversation was the 1992 General Conference of the United Methodist Church, which was making national headlines for its quadrennial struggle over whether to relax its rules against  ordaining gay pastors. In that conference, as at every time the battle has been joined, the church came down conservative, tightening rather than relaxing restrictions. Even so, the very fact that Methodists were having this debate, that it wasn't a simple given that homosexuality alw...

Three umpires met for a drink. The first was a rookie, the second was in the middle of his career, and the third had been calling games for forty years. They chewed the fat for awhile, telling stories about their favorite moments behind the plate. After awhile the topic shifted to calling balls and strikes. The first umpire, confident in the accuracy of his eye, said, "There's balls and there's strikes, and I call them like they is." The second umpire, knowing from experience that his perception was occasionally off, said, "You're partly right, there's balls and there's strikes, but I call 'em like I see 'em." The third umpire chuckled, sipped his whiskey, and said, "You're both wrong. There's balls and there's strikes, but they ain't nothin' until I call 'em." I first heard this story 25 years ago, as part of a lecture series at the University of Manchester by Schubert M. Ogden. The title of ...