Celebrating In Spirit With the Kansas City Royals

I’m taking a quick break from my series on “Guns, Violence and A Course in Miracles” for a couple of reasons. First, even though I came up with the title for that series, I cringe every time I see it. Words have power, and two of the words in that title carry a negative energy that just about knocks me over every time I see them. Of course, that’s really the point. As powerful as they are, they’re nothing in the face of Love.

But there’s another reason I’m taking a break, and it has to do with a Series of a different kind:

The Kansas City Royals won it last night.

They tied the World Series in the ninth inning and clinched it in the twelfth, fulfilling the dream they set out for themselves.

Their win delights me, but not because I’m a huge baseball fan. While my husband Bob and I try to take in at least one Iowa Cubs game each summer, I go mostly for the bratwurst.

And it’s not because I really like the Royals and their Midwestern ethic  (which I do) or because I believe God likes the Royals better than the Mets (which I definitely don’t).

No, I’m celebrating because it’s the first time in 30 years that the Royals have won the World Series. And they did it because they believed they could.

Great baseball minds could reel off all sorts of statistics about the number of runs they scored in late innings, or how many times they came from behind and won the day. Over and over, they were described as “relentless.”

Late in the game last night, when they were down by a run and most players would be sitting in the dugout spitting at the ground, the whole team stood cheering and waving at their teammates, supporting their guys at bat. As the commentator said, they looked for all the world like kids on a Little League team.

They were having fun. And they knew they would win.

Now, I wish I could say I remember the last time they won the World Series—in 1985—but I really don’t. In my defense, I was going through a divorce and thought I had cancer, so I was a little preoccupied.

The end of my marriage was the sit-on-the-edge-of-the-bathtub-and-weep kind of divorce that, at age 29, makes you think life as you know it is ending. Because it is.

The situation was compounded by the fact that my husband was seeing a woman who shared my first name and general appearance. In fact, after I’d moved out, an old friend who didn’t know my marriage was ending showed up at our house. When she saw the other woman from a distance, she thought it was me.

When I heard this, I’m pretty sure I sat on the side of the tub and wept some more. But somehow, I knew there was more life ahead. As bleak as it looked at the moment, some inner glimmer guided me to design a new life for myself and keep going, step by step.

But then there was this other problem: I had a swollen lymph node in my neck. A woman I worked with had gone through treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and she tried to reassure me. Still, I lay in bed at night thinking life really was over and asking to be okay with that.

No one was more surprised (or grateful) than I was when the surgeon biopsied the lymph node, found it was benign, took it out and sent me home.

My recovery from the surgery and the divorce took a great deal of believing in something. At that time, I’m not sure I would have named it as clearly as I do now. Faith in Spirit. Faith in my Higher Self.

But it brought up a question that I’ve encountered many, many times since…okay, almost daily, and I’m guessing you have too.

What’s the difference between surrendering and giving up?

Earlier this year, my spiritual guidance answered the question this way:

It’s important to know that there are two kinds of giving up.

One is giving up control, which is an act of the higher self—a statement of trust in a higher power. It is giving up trying so hard. Giving up the fight.

We’ll call that kind “surrender.”

The other is giving up hope, which is an act of the ego—a statement of fear that says, “I’m not good enough to deserve happiness.” This is when you use prayer not as a request, but as a lifeline. You use it even when you don’t believe it’s being heard.

The thing that characterized the Royals this year is that they never gave up hope. Even in the ninth inning—or the twelfth—they always believed they deserved to win.

Yet at the same time, I’m guessing they surrendered to some degree. They trusted in something beyond themselves, whether it was their team, their management, their dream, or their own personal power, reinforced by a higher one.

This is the balance we’re faced with every day—and not just when there’s a World Series or personal crisis at stake.

It’s a balance, a partnership, a co-creation. It’s one part packing your kids’ lunches and helping them review their spelling words, and one part dropping them off at school trusting the Universe to keep them safe.

Or, as a friend of mine is doing right now, it can mean resigning from a successful law career to become a yoga teacher and massage therapist. She’s taking all the steps to follow an inner calling—and trusting that she’s being led in the right direction.

Trust and action. Trust in action. A glimmer of light is always available to us, but we need to keep showing up to receive its gifts, even if we’re sitting on the edge of the tub with a pile of Kleenex at our feet—or swinging a bat to do what much of the world would consider impossible.

That’s why I’m celebrating the Royals win, because every time they stepped up to bat and tried again, they reminded me of a time in my own life when fortitude and trust went hand in hand.

I’m taking the lesson of their World Series win to heart for the next 30 years:

Always surrender.

And never give up.