Season of Life

A good friend from college, who is acquainted with the latest activities in my life, recommended that I read Season of Life, by Jeffrey Marx. It is a poignant account of former football star Joe Ehrmann, who was a captain of the Colts (in Baltimore, before they moved to Indianapolis). I won't spoil the story for you, but suffice it to say that Ehrmann started an urban ministry called The Door in downtown Baltimore in the late 1980s, and he and his family moved to a house in that area. He soon realized that much of what he encountered—drugs, crime, illiteracy, family disintegration—were merely "symptoms of the single biggest failure of our society. We simply don't do a good enough job of teaching boys to be men."

And with that, he started a program called Building Men for Others, which declared that a man should be defined by the following four traits:

1. He accepts responsibility.
2. He leads courageously.
3. He enacts justice on behalf of others.
4. He expects God's greater rewards.

Ehrmann became a coach at a high school, and he used the medium of football to teach these values. Whether his team won or lost, he taught his boys to always behave with integrity and honor, and to consistently be outwardly focused and empathetic toward others. The book was extraordinary, the kind I plan to read again. My thoughts on urban outreach mirror Ehrmann's, especially in regard to building substantial relationships, and I deeply appreciate his example and wisdom.