On Covering Fish Ball Deaton's Ears

I know, I know. Bowling balls don’t have ears. Nor are they alive. Nor do they have feelings.

But a few months ago as I stood on the lane approach at AMF Park Lanes, I found myself in a slight panic to cover Fish Ball Deaton’s ears. I didn’t want him to hear what the man beside me was saying to his ball. I didn’t want Fish to think that he, too, was a *$# #$%# #^&%$^@ piece of worthless #^&%$^ @#$% simply because he missed the desired pins. So I stood there and cleaned off excess icky lane oil and whispered, “Don’t listen to him, Fish. You’re a good ball—even when you don’t go where I want you to go. I want you to go down the middle now, but if you don’t, I’ll still love you. I won’t say horrible things to you.”

Such is the experience when we bowl Stinkin’ Jim.

I know, I know. It’s not nice to call people names. But it’s how we identify the people we bowl with—Big Cindy, Softball Boy, Rubberband Man, Stinkin’ Jim—they’re nicknames—terms of endearment, I suppose—and they mostly come from how people bowl. But not Stinkin’ Jim.

Stinkin’ Jim’s language is so bad that, well, it stinks. Jim curses in ways that I never knew possible. Jim curses when he’s mad. Jim curses when he’s glad. Jim curses when he’s done poorly. Jim curses when he’s done well. On Season Opening Night, Jim wore curse words and crude symbols on his clothing and named his team B.A.M.F. We don’t know for sure, but we’re pretty sure that those letters are short for words that rhyme with Tad Bass Other Trucker.

So bowling with Jim means trying to cover Fish Ball Deaton’s ears (not to mention the ears of the real, live children who often accompany parents and grandparents for the night). Bowling with Jim means being prepared to hear language not ordinarily heard and seeing a league shirt with a half naked, beer-drinking woman on the front. Bowling with Jim isn’t the most fun night of the season…but bowling with Jim reminds me that there is a hurting world beyond the walls in which I live and work and that that hurting world needs the transforming light and love and peace and hope and joy and freedom of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know much about Stinkin’ Jim. But I know that he has a job that requires him to travel. And from the half naked, beer-drinking woman on his bowling shirt, along with the language and behavior that I’ve observed at the bowling alley, I can assume that he visits “Gentlemen’s Clubs,” treats women (and maybe even humanity in general) with disrespect, and likely uses pornography to help him feel connected to someone or something larger than himself.

I don’t know. I could be very wrong. And I realize that I just made some huge assumptions about Stinkin’ Jim. But regardless of whether I am right or wrong about Jim, there is a hurting world beyond the walls in which I live and work and that hurting world needs the transforming light and love and peace and hope and joy and freedom of Jesus Christ…just as I daily need the transforming light and love and peace and hope and joy and freedom—and forgiveness—of Jesus Christ.

I usually wear the same shirt to bowl each week—an Appalachian State University shirt that one of my friends gave me. But tonight I’ve planned to wear a shirt that says, “Live Love,” on the back and I’m curious to see if its presence will have an effect on Jim’s language. I usually don’t wear blatantly Christian shirts. I usually don’t try to scream my faith through my clothes or my words but through my actions. Yet last night as I was laying out my clothes for the day, I felt compelled to find a shirt that clearly communicated what I believe…

I didn’t want to communicate judgment for terrible language or half-naked, beer drinking women, but I wanted to communicate love. For as strange as it sounds, I hurt for Stinkin’ Jim and for the emptiness that I see in his eyes and I love Stinkin’ Jim with the love of a God who created us all and wants to redeem us through the transforming light and love and peace and hope and joy and freedom of Jesus Christ.

We live in a hurting, broken world. Life has chewed us up and spit us out and we’re doing the best we can to survive. I believe that. And I believe that Stinkin’ Jim’s frustrations with life come out on his bowling ball and that makes me sad…but it also makes for an interesting challenge of covering Fish Ball Deaton’s ears…while living love.