About a hundred years ago, when I was a mere 13 year old lad,
I had a friend named Charles Ray who had a part-time job cleaning Christenberry
Junior High School during the summer months.
Charles was pretty cool about letting me and some friends come in and
shoot hoops in the gym while he was working.
He wouldn’t let us get on the gym floor with shoes, but we were allowed
to play in our socks or bare feet. On one
of the trips through the side door of the boys locker room I spotted
a pair of used, black canvas, Converse All-Star, Chuck Taylor signature tennis
shoes in a pile of left over stuff that he had cleaned out of the lockers. There were all kinds of
sweaty, nasty, stinky things in the pile, mostly stuff I wouldn’t have touched
no matter what, but those black Chuck Taylors I grabbed up immediately and
looked them over. They were at least two
sizes too small for me, but when Charles said I could have them if I wanted, I
didn’t hesitate for a second.
Up until that point in my life the only tennis shoes I had
ever owned either came from Kmart or from the Dollar Store, the kind other kids
called “buds”, or “buddies.” I never understood why they were called
that, but trust me I heard it a lot throughout my school days. So to me, this pair of nearly worn out, way too
small, black Converse were a big step up from the “buddies” I had been
sporting around in for years. I gladly
squeezed my feet into them every day for what seemed like forever. I remember heading back to school in the fall
and being scared to death that some kid was going to come up and demand his old
shoes back or would threaten to punch my lights out. I just knew it was going to happen, and there
would be a huge crowd of kids around when it did. I would forever be known as the “buddies”
guy that got caught stealing a used pair of real tennis shoes and had to walk
home from school barefooted. I made up,
and rehearsed several versions of truths and fiction as to how I came about
wearing somebody’s missing shoes, just in case.
Fortunately for me, the boy must have moved up to high school the
next year or his family moved away over the summer, or something because I was never confronted
with that scenario. Whew……thank you Jesus!
I wore those shoes until they literally fell apart, and when
I say; “literally fell apart” there’s not an ounce of exaggeration in it. I remember using several rolls of black
electrical tape over the next year trying to hold the soles and the canvas
together. I can recall even today the
distinctive squeaking sound the tape and separated parts of the shoes made when
I walked the hallowed hallways of CJHS.
I did everything I could to keep the noise down, so as to prevent other
kids and teachers from looking down at my shoes. Eventually, when the tape would wear out it
looked like the back of my shoes had a big mouth flapping open then closed as I
walked. I was laughed at over and over
for those shoes as time went on, but despite the ridicule it was still more
acceptable to me than hearing all the cracks about wearing “buds.” Now that I look back at the situation, it’s
so sad I thought that way.
So what dredged all that up from such a distant past?
I started a walking routine this week to help with my weight
loss efforts, but before I could get started I had to buy a pair of shoes
suitable for walking. I ended up buying
a pair of black Nikes for less than fifty bucks. They were the cheapest pair available at the
only sporting goods store in Oneonta. Apparently black tennis shoes aren’t a big
seller for the summer months, so they reduce the price so old farts like me would
be enticed into buying them. Truthfully,
I’ve liked black tennis shoes since I saw Larry Bird wear them back in the day. Somehow they made him look really slow, right
up to the time he would blow by the defenders and stuffed it in their
face. Then, I guess he no longer
appeared so slow to them. It was the
shoes that fooled them!
No self-respecting kid today would ever dream of
wearing a pair of worn out, torn up, too
small, black Chuck Taylors, much less ever imagine that somehow they could make
them feel better about themselves - but back in 1971 they did exactly that for
me. I suspect nowadays if a pair of
tennis shoes cost less than $160 they’re probably the ones the kids consider to
be whatever the term for “buddies” is today.
My son fell in love with Air Jordan tennis shoes when they first
came out, but I never could afford to buy them for him. Well, actually the real truth is, I never
could convince myself spending that much on a pair of tennis shoes he would out
grow in a year made any sense. I think his
grandparents bought him a pair once, and then his next pair came after
he began working a part time job while in high school. Do you remember all the commercials in the
90’s where Spike Lee, dressed up as a four-eyed nerd, kept telling us
why Michael Jordan had such mad basketball skills; “It’s got to be the shoes”? Looking back on that time now, my son was a
much happier kid wearing those shoes versus the off brands I always bought
him. If I could do things over again, I think
I would keep him in the nicest pair of Air Jordan’s I could afford every year. More importantly, I would lead him to
Christ, instead of away from Him.
I suspect we all have things in our lives that somehow increases our self-esteem. Whether it’s
our car, our house, our job, our standing in the community, our country club membership, our church, our clothing, the “likes” we get on Facebook, or just possibly it’s the shoes… Some things
never seem to radically change across the spans of time. In every culture throughout history, mankind
has looked toward something outside ourselves to make up for what we believe is
missing, shoes or otherwise.
I was recently thinking about my old friend Paul from Tarsus,
and how by today’s standards some people believe the Apostle had very low
self-esteem. I personally always
thought the opposite was true, yet when you read his words you can kind of see
both points of view: For instance in Romans
7:18 he writes - I know that in me
(which is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing. In Ephesians 3:8 he goes on to say - I, who am less than the least of
all saints, yet graced that I be allowed to preach to the Gentiles the great
riches found only in Christ; and then again in 1Corinthians 15:9 he writes - For I am the least of the apostles,
not deserving to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Here’s the one I like best though; 1Timothy 1:15 - For here is a trustworthy saying,
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Other times he was very self-critical of his ability to
preach and to get his message across in person.
He apologized for what appeared to be his trembling and stammering in
front of a congregation. He also seemed
to readily accept and maybe even embraced the notion that somehow he was
deserving of his imprisonments. Low
self-esteem, possibly? That may explain
why he wrote so boldly to the churches when he was away from them. He may have seen it easier to sell
the notion of authority in his message through writings rather than deliver it
in person where he would possibly face direct challenges from the hearers.
Yet, in 2nd Corinthians 3:4-5 he writes “And such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from
ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” And
in Philippians 4:13 he wrote; “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Then in Acts 20:24 he sets it all straight by
making this point: “But I don't place any value on my own life. I want to finish the race
I'm running. I want to carry out the mission I received from the Lord Jesus-the
mission of testifying to the Good News of God's kindness.”
For me, here is the defining scripture about Paul’s
recognition of who he was, and what true value his life had. Philippians 3:8 - Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else,
counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.
I totally agree with Paul’s teachings; when we try to find
self-worth, (or self-esteem as some might call it), in anything other than our
service to our Maker, whether it be in a worn out pair of Chuck Taylors, or a
slick looking Mercedes Benz convertible (which I would love to own) it’s all
very superficial, or garbage as he plainly states. It may fool others, and may even fool ourselves
for a short time, but in the end it won’t last long and we’ll begin to look
elsewhere for what we believe is missing in our lives. My advice to you, and to myself is this; when
we get to a point in our lives we’re searching for our own self-worth, we need only
to run to Jesus as hard and as fast as our taped up shoes will carry us.
As Peter so eloquently put it in response to Jesus’ question;
”Master, where would we go, only you have words that give life!” We must come to the same understanding – we
are nothing without Christ. The gospel
of Jesus isn’t about getting a pair of free tennis shoes (or anything
else man-made) to make us feel better about ourselves – NO,
it offers us Him, and through Him we can have LIFE, true life.
Who knows, there may even be people in Heaven wearing
“buddies” and if there are, I’m pretty sure no one is making fun of them. doug
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