On the Comeback Trail (I), or, "Rocky, stay down!"

    After getting beat up, it really is easier just to stay down, isn't it?  Consider the title to this post: it has been a long, grueling match between the Champ and his upstart challenger.  The Champ has gained the upper hand, proving why he is the champ, boxing Rocky to the mat... one eye swollen shut, blood all over the place, a broken nose and probably a broken rib or two.  When Rocky hit the mat in the 14th round, all Mickey could say was, "Down! Down!  Stay down!"  The fight was over... there was nothing more to prove; Rocky did his best against all odds, and it was time to admit defeat and walk away.  Anything more and he'd get "permanent damaged".  A coach has a responsibility to his boxer, that if he is not able to take care of himself, the coach may need to 'throw in the towel' to tell the referee to mercifully end the fight before his boxer is killed.

   We all get knocked to the ground at one point or another in our lives, and it hurts... bad.  Marriages end.  Classes are failed.  Businesses fold.  Children disappoint.  We find that we are not as fit or able to do what we set out to do and we fall to the ground before achieving our goals and dreams.  Standing up again and taking another punch may land you in the hospital... or the funeral home.

   But Rocky stood up, and survived into and through Round 15... and he ended up losing the match anyway by a narrow split decision.  Was it worth it?  I suppose so.  He gained a rematch with Apollo in Rocky 2, and he had his pride.  ("AD-RI-AN!")  Was it worth the risk?  That's a harder question to answer, but all the classic sports movies (Rocky, Hoosiers, Bad News Bears, Rudy, Remember the Titans, Raging Bull, Cool Runnings, Over the Top (another Sly classic), Major League, The Blind Side, A League of their Own, Seabiscuit, Race for your Life Charlie Brown, and even Hunger Games) are not about folding when the going gets tough... of course, some of these sports movies also show that getting back up doesn't guarantee success either!

   There is something important about learning how to get up after being knocked down, in order to finish the fight.  If one is lucky enough, the fight can be completed.  If not, then the focus must be in training for the chance of a rematch on another day.  The skill here, I suppose, is being able to discern the difference between a mortal and non-mortal wound, or having a coach/mentor/counsellor that can throw in the towel for you when you can't tell the difference any more.

   In Rocky Balboa, the (sixth and hopefully) last installment of the franchise, we hear Rocky gather up a lifetime of experience to tell his son:

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you, no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.
  

The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows because it is a mean and nasty place.  Getting up is hard, because there is risk-- being hit again, failing again, and falling again.  But what happens when you give up?  Discouragement, failure, and darkness wins.  We close the door to success altogether when giving up.  What would never have happened if these people gave up?

• Abraham Lincoln lost his Illinois Senate bid in 1858.  In 1860, he was elected President of the United States.
• Harland ('Colonel') Sanders went bankrupt at age 65 when the Interstate bypassed his cafe where he served chicken.  Living out of his car, he began franchising his chicken restaurant concept, enlisting almost 200 franchisees and 400 locations in five years.  He sold the franchising business 10 years after his restaurant failed, retiring a multi-millionaire.
• Henry Ford's Detroit Automobile Company failed in 1899, before designing the inexpensive, reliable Model T in 1908 and launching Ford Motor Co.
• Walt Disney went $4M in debt in the early 30's, losing the rights to his main character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.  In 1938, he risked his last dime on producing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," bankrolling the Walt Disney Studios we know today.
• Steve Jobs was forced resign ('fired') from Apple in 1985 by the "Pepsi Challenge" wiz-kid, John Scully, who became CEO and lead Apple to a 10x gain from 1985 to 1993.  After founding NeXT computers and building up Pixar, Jobs sold NeXT to Apple for $427M and returned as CEO to a decimated, dying Apple in 1998, starting the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad revolution that turned Apple into the largest publicly-traded company in the world.  See my previous post for the video and the money quote for this point.
• Fr. Francis Solanus Casey was a Capuchin friar in Detroit who was a poor student--actually a terrible student--in the seminary.  When he graduated, he was not deemed fit to preach or hear confessions, so he was restricted from performing these ministries after ordination--ministries most priests see as 'essential' to their priestly spirituality and identity.  Dedicated to a life of prayer with his brothers, he was assigned a rather lowly job in the house... not teaching or study, not a profession or trade... he was the porter, the only job he was 'qualified' to do.  As porter, he would answer the door, and in particular, he would receive requests from the public for the brothers' prayer and charity.  He received nearly 6000 such intentions in the 28 years of his service.  But from these 6000 requests, nearly 700 miracles have been reported: cures from cancer, leukemia, TB, blindness, arthritis... his intercession is even credited with saving Chevrolet from bankruptcy in 1925 at the request of a down-on-his-luck auto worker.  Fr. Casey has been declared venerable, and the cause for his canonization is in progress.  Pretty good for a lowly door man, eh?
• Frank Abagnale was caught up in petty crimes as a teenager, graduating to forgery and counterfeiting across the US and Europe, before finally being caught, extradited, convicted, and imprisoned.  After four years on a twelve year sentence in federal prison, he was consulted by the FBI on active forgery and counterfeiting cases and gained parole.  Altogether, he would continue to work for the FBI for more than 30 years, advising and even teaching at the FBI academy.  His life story would become the subject of the 2002 movie directed by Stephen Speilberg, Catch Me if You Can.

Each of these entrepreneurs had plenty of reason to give up in their moments of loss and rejection and desolation, but they didn't.  They made the most of their challenges and indignities; they learned from their hard times and rose to greater success in subsequent enterprises.
   But there's an even greater spiritual truth concealed in making the effort to rise again from our falls.  Consider the Stations of the Cross and our Lord's three falls.  It was not beneath our Lord's dignity to stumble and fall under the weight of his sufferings.  He was being driven to his death, but did not give up his spirit until he had completed the full measure of his sacrifice, declaring only after all had been fulfilled that "it is finished".
   Why does God allow good people to suffer?  There isn't an easy answer to this, but we have one big clue:  "God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not die, but have eternal life"  (John 3: 16).  God's all-powerful love, demonstrated in the sufferings and death of his Son shows God's absolute solidary with all who suffer.  Can we do no less than bear our pains well, drinking the fearful cup that Christ drank, (Matthew 20:22), that we might be prepared to taste in his glory?  Suffering is not without redemption in the Christian economy of salvation.  We suffer that we may make up for that which was lacking in the cross of Christ (Colossians 1:24) and so share in its glory.  It is not that Christ's sufferings were insufficient for salvation, but rather that our personal salvation comes through the merits of not only his cross, but also the way that we accept the crosses handed to us in order to follow him.
   Rocky had every reason to stay down.  Christ had every reason to stay down.  Rocky lost the bout, Christ suffered death, but these losses, these sufferings, these humiliations paved the way for new glory.