Delusion is when you or your crew thinks you’re ready when you’re not. It’s when you think you’re better than you are and when you believe the strange inflated image you see in the mirror accurate. Delusion can be engineered both by our own thinking and by others. Here’s some questions to connect you to this post:

Have you ever…

• …bought a size smaller than you really wear knowing it won’t fit?
• …used your car to send a message about what kind of person you are?
• …(men) bought a bigger shoe size than you really wear?
• …told people about dating conquests that never happened or grossly inflated them?
• …played the victim when you were really the assailant?
• …made fun of overweight people when you yourself are either unhealthy and thin or overweight yourself?
• …attempted something because you’ve always wanted to do it but knowing you don’t possess the talent or skills?

Yo, if you don’t see delusion in this list, you’re deluded right now. Delusion is synonymous with deception or false pride. It’s a cruel weaponry and the very antithesis of truth. That’s why I’ve hated American Idol from the start. I hate seeing people embarrassed because they’ve managed to evade or ignore the truth that singing is not a strength. And every time I discuss this pet peeve of mine, people say, “Those foolish mortals probably ignored the friends telling them not to try it.” Maybe. All I know is that it’s the basic acceptance of truth that shapes and saves life. I was hit by a car in the crosswalk twice in 1990, burned my hand on the iron twice in the early 1980s and stapled my finger once. I’m a believer in walking bikes across the street now, recognizing when the iron is plugged in and respecting the ferocity of the Swingline.

“I have done that,” says my memory. “I cannot have done that” — says my pride, and remains adamant.  At last — memory yields.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

We produce mythological type images of a unsuspecting hero who defies the odds that daily trample us all underfoot. We love the story too. But there’s something wrong with loving the story of the underdog too much. Have you ever told anyone the unadulterated version of the darkest time in your life? If you have, you know that the listener has trouble with that part of the story. But I think we manage to bedazzle the path the underdog took and focus solely on the current position of a Jeremy Lin. Nevertheless, no matter how romanticized,  Lin’s road to the NBA has surely been grueling on some mental, emotional and physical levels. It had to be or else he wouldn’t be the first American-born Taiwanese-Chinese man to ever play in the league.

I wonder if people see themselves in the unsettling portions of the story not featured on radio clips and ESPN Top 10 Plays. I remember Mike Tyson’s story of being on the streets, orphaned at 16 and arrested 38 times by the time he was 13-years old. He was a magnet of illegality and brutality until his mentor Cus D’Amato got hold of him. And even when Tyson became the youngest heavy-weight boxing champion ever, he was haunted by a horrifying past that would eventually be his virtual undoing.

The point is, whenever you root for the underdog, if you see yourself in him, it should bring you to a place of reckoning. To be a “dark horse” is to step to the crossroads with strange confidence. The crossroads is in what you will choose to pursue, to attempt, to endeavor. So many times in life we find ourselves undrafted (unwanted), cut (disposed of), in jeopardy of being released (fired/laid off). This is usually the back story of a long shot. It is also why, the journey is more important than the destination. Underdogs attempt the incredible. Most of us don’t.

The dark horse must earn his/her title. If we won’t blaze a trail, we aren’t fit to be called underdogs. We have a way of admiring from a safe distance instead of choosing to replicate character. And we do this because it’s easier than becoming like the underdog in his/her submission to pain, rejection and potential demise. We have a euphemism for not risking failure and it’s called “realism.” We leave the significant acts of humanity to the caste of heroes and heroines while we sip diet coke. But who are the underdogs of history except Goliath’s David (a shepherd), Shirley Chisholm (a female immigrant with Carribean roots), Mohandas K. Gandhi (an East Indian), Martin Luther King Jr. (an unassuming pastor), etc. Were they realists? If we see ourselves in Jeremy Lin, it must mean we are willing to prepare for and attempt something big. Otherwise, we have nothing in common with him. Lin is just another guy who figures he’ll take as much as his God, his skills and his situation will afford him.

And so in reading with the kiddies, I naturally was led to think about how the unfamiliar scares people to death, literally throughout world history. When movements, particularly the nonviolent sort, are squelched, it is often at the hands of weapons and because of a latent fear. Someone or some entity is afraid of losing power, money, status, etc. but the consummate preventive solution is always manually silencing your opposition.

When all else fails, you shut people you don’t understand up with force…I guess. And so it resonated when I read a devotion prescribed to me by Prudence Dancy (Renewed Living Ministries), a friend whose very life revolves around spiritual formation. Her prescription started me off in I John 3:1 and the second half of that  verse says, “…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” And I thought, shoot…seems like people malign what they don’t fathom. It’s like the sixth grader who thinks math is dumb because he’s rockin’ a D-minus.

Tim Tebow (Denver Broncos) professes faith in Jesus Christ, clearly exposes a motive bigger than football for his lifestyle and people find him perplexing. And honestly, people just found him intriguing because when a rabbit foot is on a roll, people want to know where they can buy one. He was 6-1 as a starter and most recently had helped his team when a slew of games in unorthodox fashion. But he’s not that interesting at all, just unrecognizable because when people listen to him talk, it sounds like mumbo jumbo, gobbledygook nonsense. But truth be told, it’s not maniacal, especially if it drives a millionaire to espouse charity, compassion and mentoring. What’s weird about that? But it is uncommon and strange enough for a cynical world to cry foul when they see individuals willing to risk reputation and well-being for core belief.

I think the unfamiliar can be immediately polarizing like the issue of segregation pre-1964. But strangeness can also be faddish and cult-like as people lift their glasses while watching admirable people proclaim truths that should govern us all. But whether the culturally virtuous weirdos of past and present arouse violence or entertain, I realized that this tendency of people to make fun of morals and debunk spiritually driven people is based in fear.

Loving enemies, forgiving, ridding your thought life of adultery and poisonous anger are the types of things our society says are ridiculous. Because what would life be like without our self-medicating? We legislate our arrogance, our right to comfort, our right to remain silent on controversial issues, etc. We’re afraid of making people mad at us or jeopardizing illusory ease we conjure up for family. But the strangers of history probably weren’t trying to create a pantheon of Hall-of-Fame martyrs. God makes no sense to most people but neither does a V-8 engine for most of us. I get it now. “…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” If you’re going to stand for more than situational ethics like the heroes and heroines of history, you’ll have to be outfitted with the grim truth that you will not be understood. Why should you be? The guy who invented truth didn’t make it to his 34th birthday.

So it stands to reason that you need only to fail to fulfill expectations to become “that guy.” People are loyal to ideas (usually their own), money (usually due to an obsession with comfort) and idols (usually the thing they’ve come to value/worship the most). Consequently, if you’re going to be adored in this world, you’d better align your activity with one of the previously mentioned big three. Ideas, money and idols get projected via a pretty blatant exchange. We transact  loyalty for loyalty all the time.

But me? I learned a long time ago that if you’re not loyal to those big three people think you either don’t live in the real world or that you are selfish. I’ve been labeled everything from selfish to crazy to ungodly. But I, like you, have determined that loyalty belongs in one place – unchanging principles. It’s an easy saying up front but hard on the back end. Because it means if your brother robs a bank, you admit he deserves prison even if his motives were noble. It means that when your daughter is being menaced “by dem mean gurls at skool” you don’t march down and start swingin’ fists at little kids. The truth is that the world works on this grand scheme of loyalty networking. But if you’re brave enough, character driven enough and can handle losing the approval of many, you’ll actually only be disloyal to evil. And that can’t be so bad can it?

And this is not to say that having certain behaviors be deemed unacceptable is a bad thing. All it takes is a loving parent to tell you how they feel about absolutes when it comes to protecting the innocent. And by-and-large the world frowns upon marital infidelity. And it’s also generally uncool to wantonly abuse animals right? Right. But when a pariah is formed, the world breathes a sigh of relief because it suddenly, and momentarily, can stay feelings of ultimate failure. There’s a lot to be said for being bad but not the worst culprit of evil. After all, you might think an illicit thought but at least you didn’t “sext” message women to whom you weren’t married.

But ahh the pride before the fall. The pariah can create a diversion from oneself as superstar sins drift beyond personal feasibility. In simple speak, focusing on the Mount Rushmore of ethical infidels makes us think our “poop don’t stank.” And I’m not talking about the pundits. I’m talking about a world of regular folk who drive themselves to work and make less than $100,000 a year. These people look down their noses at the people who fall from grace and say, “I’ve never and I’d never…” Trouble is, “We’ve always and We’d definitely…”

We do not believe in redemption though we love redemption stories. We are not a rehabilitative culture because some of our funniest jesting involves references to Robert Downey Jr.’s Betty Ford Clinic fame. Ricky Gervais had me roaring with that one. But seriously, when the big guns go down, the guys who are worth billions, we are mortified and appalled. We wonder, ironically, how the humans we turn into idols fail us. Why do they behave so strangely? Better question is, “Why do you not behave as they do?” What will stave off your barbarism? It’s a vital question because if not answered, you will become the poster child for hypocrisy. Neglect the source of your ethics and morals and you will vacillate between nobility and treachery. You will not throw stones from a glass home but rather from the living room of one through your own windows. The pariahs of sport are signposts but we treat them like exceptions. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a log in your eye and your son or daughter’s eye too. But it’s cool. Logging is dangerous work but there’s an unseen reconciler who specializes in it.

I went to a UCLA Football game tonight at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. For the record, the Bruins bested the Arizona State Sun Devils 29-28 in a game for the annals. But the subplot is clearly the irony of life defined by sports/entertainment/sexualized subculture. People find their identity in the aforementioned things and therein lies the irony. Because dude, beer can’t give you life. Neither can the chick in Row 50 Seat F with all that make-up on. There’s junior highers flirting with high schoolers and rival college students presenting the keg-life as legendary to young onlookers.

There’s always the risk of sounding like a human diatribe whenever you bring attention to the irony of life but it’s worth the rant. The point is not that Bacon wrapped hot dogs are sinful or that I paid $8 for a carne asada burrito. It’s not even that so much is being sold at a college football game. The irony is in the fact that football is a gift as is a beautiful stadium nestled against foothills while the canopy of the cosmos canvases human activity like exquisite decor. The irony is that we seek life in “artificially flavored” segments as if the natural divine ingredients of our Saturday afternoon are not enough to satisfy. Irony has become virtually unrecognizable because we’ve acquired quite the taste for worshiping human creations. There is time yet, however, to move back into a mode of valuing experiences, good conversations and a perfect spiral that hits a wide-out in stride for a 76-yard touchdown. Realized irony in our human ranks could be one of our Lord’s greatest revelations.

Put two teams, two sets of super human athletes across from one another in combat. All things can be equal but the science of an oblong ball’s bounce, the pain threshold of each human on that field and the subjectivity of officiating come together to produce what we know as college game day. So the only constant is preparation and a will to give all on every down, so-to-speak. Because we all know that you will not always win. It’s as grim a truth as exists. Your Denoument is literally everything.

It’s not a choice to resolve. It’s a mandate. You have to decide who you will be, how you will work, why you will fight in this life. You have to respond to both wins and losses. But mostly you have to respond to varying degrees of loss. You have to adjust, regroup, retool, relearn and reapply. The plot structure of your saga is loaded and can lure you into its complexity. Don’t bite. Run hard, hit hard, mourn your losses but you dang well better resolve to battle the pressure and refine yourself. Championship play is always an admirable objective.