Responsibility

She had missed the cut off man: a major mistake in baseball.  If the ball is hit to your field, get the ball and fire it back in to the shortstop or second baseman to stop the runner.  In this case, poor play had cost a run.  The “she” is a character in the great baseball movie A League of Their Own; it is the story of women baseball players who took the place of American men who had gone off to fight in World War II.  Tom Hanks plays the coach.  He runs out of the dugout screaming at his player who messed up a fundamental baseball play.  After the tirade, Hanks turns back to the bench just as his right-fielder bursts into tears behind him.  He is dumbfounded by this response.  With disbelieving sarcasm, he asks, “Are you crying?!”  She whimpers in the affirmative.  Incredulous, he half yells, half whines one of the most famous lines in movie history, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

We live in a culture that likes to cry.  We cry because we think someone has hurt our feelings.  We cry because someone has used the wrong word to describe us.  We cry because someone should have taken responsibility for their wrongdoing.  In fact, we cry because someone should be blamed for blaming me for something I should be blamed for!  A famous Frank and Ernest cartoon makes the point exactly.  Sitting in a psychiatrist’s office Frank exclaims, “What?!  Take personal responsibility?!  Isn’t there something wrong with that?!”

Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi holocaust at Auschwitz, wrote a book that every person on the planet should read, early and often: Man’s Search for Meaning. Even in the worst of circumstances, Frankl wrote, what matters is our response.  [Quote] “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.  They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”[1] [End Quote]  Viktor Frankl, survivor of the holocaust, reduces the acceptance of personal responsibility to its core: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.

Frankl’s view gives pause about crying in baseball, or crying for petty reasons.  I gave a brief speech before an audience of freshmen matriculating to Crossroads Bible College this fall where I concluded, “There is no crying in academics!”  My concern as dean is that each person assumes accountability for their studies.  I gave students only two rules.  Rule number one: Take personal responsibility for your academic work.  Rule number two: If any questions arise, see rule number one.  For Moody Radio, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.

Mark Eckel, like everyone, has a hard time with responsibility himself.  Mark teaches at Crossroads Bible College.  To be aired on Moody Radio, Fall, 2010.

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[1] Viktor E. Frankl. 2006. Man’s Search for Meaning. (Reprint, Beacon Press):65-66.