Over a dozen years ago, I was asked by a friend to be a speaker at a 5th grade farewell ceremony when their original speaker canceled at the last minute. Being a High School football coach who did character training sessions, she felt I could come up with something on short notice. It obviously went well as I was invited back 10 years straight to deliver the exact same speech. Fortunately for me, each year there was a new audience of 11-year-olds. I only stopped giving the talk as a result of moving 4 hours away.

My speech was about the nursery rhyme Row, Row, Row Your Boat and how it is life’s instructional manual. Apply its insightful messages and we can be successful in life. ‘Your boat’ being a metaphor for ‘your life.’ It is certainly a simple message for the young students, but it has enough ‘meat’ to it that the teachers (who did hear it every year) and the parents also enjoy it. In addition to the 5th grade farewell, I have given this talk to High School and College football teams, businesses, and in many social gatherings with audiences as few as 1 and as many as a 100. I will dig into the Nursery Rhyme, line by line.

This is Yoda‘s memorable line from the second Start Wars movie, “Empire Strikes Back.” There is so much more to the line than its catchy symbolism. It has deep philosophical meaning. When someone says, "I'll try..." it gives the person an out. Trying lets failure be an acceptable option. To prevent ourselves from being exposed to the stigma of failure, we use words like “well I tried.” I think that society likes to use the word “try” as it means to not acknowledge the lack of accomplishing something. But in reality, we make too big of a deal of not doing something and we call it failure. The point is, there isn’t always a problem with lack of accomplishment.

One of my first lessons around “trying” was a sales job I had early in my career. We had Monday morning team meetings with a roundtable discussion on our activities and every week one guy kept telling our boss all the appointments and sales he was trying to make.  The boss finally snapped one Monday and said, “I don’t pay you to try, I pay you to sell.”

I use this similar adage with my high school football players; when they tell me they tried to make that tackle they missed, my response was” I play kids who make the tackle as opposed to those who try to make it.”

Why do we fear failure? There really is no failure, one either succeeds or learns. There is the Chinese proverb - fall down seven times, get up eight. The reality of ‘do not’ from Yoda isn’t a negative, just a fact. If you keep trying to sell but don’t; maybe it’s time to take a sales training course or even find another career choice. If you try to tackle but can’t, maybe it is time to stay after practice and relearn technique or become an offensive player that doesn’t have to tackle.

It is not politically correct to allow failure or even discomfort to ever develop. We’ve gotten soft – parents, schools, society. Our Nation uses Government Bailouts (GM, Housing market) and other overreaching actions to ‘lift everyone up’. We give everyone a trophy just to try. I would argue that as we have become softer, more people get bitter than get better. We hesitate to allow suffering; overlooking that suffering is often how one learns to be a success. We are failing in developing mindsets to overcome the problems. Success by failure is not an oxymoron. As parents, my wife and I never wanted our daughters to fail, but we did look forward to their failures. Sometimes what we learn in failure is the best education we can get. When you make a mistake or fail, you're forced to look back and find out exactly where you went wrong and formulate a new plan for your next attempt. Football teams spend on average 3x the amount of time looking at game films of losses as opposed to wins as there are more coaching moments.

History is littered with examples of success from failure. Failure isn’t the opposite of success—it’s part of the process. Every setback is a lesson. Every misstep is a chance to adjust. The ones who go the distance are the ones who don’t let failure define them. So, if you’re struggling, doubting, or feeling like you’ve fallen short, remember this: Failure is not fatal. Keep going. Failure isn’t a verdict; it’s data. Use it. 

I have the pleasure of doing and hosting podcasts for my church highlighting our various ministries. During the most recent podcast with our Haitian Ministry, I touched on the phrase “standing in the gap.” It was front of mind as in one of my blogs I reference Jackson Browne’s song, “Standing in the Breach,” that uses the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a rallying cry of the need to “bend our backs and hearts together standing in the breach.”

Most if not all our church ministries “Stand in the Gap or the Breach” with their mission. They are fulfilling an unmet need. A gap in society related to poverty, homelessness, education, and even fellowship. "Standing in the breach" means taking action to protect or defend those who are vulnerable or in need, often when others are unwilling or unable to do so.

It means protecting those who are unable to protect themselves. It means working towards positive change wherever and whenever positive change is needed. It even means interceding on behalf of others, often through prayer or other acts of faith, service, advocacy, and moral guidance. We all have neighbors in need. Standing in the gap is being Christ like, our actions are to enhance the holiness of life, life given by God. It’s important to stay thirsty for righteousness, but to also to stay hydrated, too. That means when we stand in the gap for our less fortunate neighbors – we should be drinking in all their stories as we pray and advocate for them. Let their stories enrich our lives. Value them as a person and their experiences.

Breaches or gaps can create significant issues. False storefronts are facades that look great on the outside but are only window dressing. They hide the old and ugly storefront. If a fire gets going in the gap between, firemen have a huge problem fighting it because of the hidden nature of it. Even the smallest of gaps when under pressure can be disastrous. A gap created by a frozen O-ring not allowing a true seal caused the Challenger explosion. "Watch or Mind the gap" is a safety warning issued to passengers while crossing the station platform to the train.

Coming together is a way that communities or nations stand in the breach. We see time and time again that when tragedy strikes, people care about one another, they answer the call, do whatever needs to be done. 

Ephesians Chapter 4 is often looked at as a plea for unity in the church. But Christian unity is more than adherence to a common belief. It is shown in serving the community more Christlike by standing in the gap. St. Paul writes in the opening verses, “I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit.” Paul is preaching to the Ephesians to stand in the gap for each other.

An everyday common area where we can stand in the breach within ourselves is in our words, in our actions. Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden saw hypocrisy in the gap between 'Do as I say’ and ‘not as I do.' Hypocrisy is the practice of feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not. A self-hypocrite is a person who pretends to have virtues or qualities or whose actions contradict their stated beliefs or feelings. Hypocrisy can be the gap that exists between our public life and our private life. If there is a gap, we must watch our steps more carefully lest we trip ourselves or, worse, fall into the opening.

In the ancient world of the Bible, cities had walls surrounding them to provide protection from enemies. When the wall was breached, the city was vulnerable to destruction; the only way to secure it was for people to risk their lives by literally standing in the gap in the wall and fighting the enemy. This is the reference behind Ezekiel’s plea, “I sought a

If you are a follower of Coach Mahr at all, then you know that I love the analogy of life being a journey and our need to focus on that journey and not the destination. This perspective started back in High School when my Dad shared with me the Robert Hastings essay called “The Station.” During this Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church I am reflecting on where I am in my journey and what lies ahead. I’ve decided to transform my journey into a pilgrimage.

What is the difference? A pilgrimage is a journey that carries with it a greater significance, a level of importance where the result can lead to a personal transformation. A pilgrimage can change our hearts and expand our minds. A journey becomes a pilgrimage through its uniqueness and the presence we bring to it. 

I look at a pilgrimage the way I do a long hike. A hike is a slow trek in nature that provides time for reflection and communion with my being. They are walks of convictions, purpose, and direction.

Salvation history is the story of a pilgrimage.  Abram journeys from civilization to the desert. Moses from the Pharaoh’s palace to a mountaintop. The people of Israel are led through the desert to the Promised Land. All these journeys are God inspired, where He accompanied them. We likewise – for our Salvation - should be on a pilgrimage, living our current, earthly lives in a way that brings us closer to Him.

Our pilgrimage upon this earth began when we were born. Each of the moments we live are the ones that "count" and that prepare us for our destination. The pilgrimage process is about the grace, custom-designed for each of us by the Holy Spirit, imparted by God’s power and in God’s perfect time. This is the greatest reason to listen for and respond to God’s call to transform our journey into a pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place with a holy purpose. As Christians, all of our life journeys need to be pilgrimages – we should all have a holy purpose, to move His Kingdom forward, to a holy place, heaven. 

A community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action. People within a group feel united in a more intense way when they come together for unique experiences, a “sensation of sacredness” that happens when we are a part of something bigger than us. 

During these experiences, our focus shifts from self to group. It is more than just people coming together to distract themselves from life by watching a game, volunteering, or attending an event. It is an opportunity to feel joy, social connection, meaning, and peace – and then share it. Research suggests that people who experience these things are likely to be happier and feel less anxious and depressed. 

The very definition of spirituality is the recognition that we’re all intimately connected to each other through love and compassion. Religious rituals and experiences have the power to generate strong feelings of identification with a group. There is a collective joy that is social and familial.

We were commanded to live every day with love for each of our neighbors. Love the best we can today, then get up tomorrow and do it again. True meaning, purpose, and community are to be found in Christ. Through our two commandments - Love God and Love others.

It is early February so let’s discuss the furry rodent that sticks its head out of the ground to tell us how much longer winter will last. Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is also the same day as “Candlemas Day” and the two are related. And, yes, Groundhog Day has its roots in the Bible.

Our lives are a collection of ‘nows.’ A collection of moments. A collection of choices, failures, successes, ups, and downs. Each one is a piece of a bigger picture, like a mosaic, an image comprised of thousands of smaller colored tiles. Life is a mosaic of moments. Mosaics will include sudden moments of significance, moments we know are coming, unplanned moments that catch us off-guard, moments that seize us and those we must seize intentionally. There will also be moments that might be of something we are not proud of, but still part of who we are. Irregularities in a mosaic do not “spoil” it. But removing a tile leaves a gap, an incomplete picture. God’s plan for our lives is less like a roadmap and more like a mosaic. The process of taking unrelated fragments and assembling them to reveal something only in the mind and the heart of the artist. Or Creator.

Presence is an essence, a state of being. Presence is seeing all aspects for what they are. To grasp what presence is, we must be fully present, fully conscious, with an acute awareness of our surroundings. Presence generates dignity. Peace is presence. Justice is presence. Presence is understanding and appreciating where we are on our journey at that moment. Not distracted by reflections on the past or worries about the future. We need far more than physical presence to cope in today’s world. We must be “rooted within ourselves” & “rooted within our faith.” Presence becomes meaningful when we move beyond the trivial and rise above the chaos. Through the act of creation, God manifested His Divine Presence into the physical and material world. God created all things. Ordinary matter is the hiding place for Spirit and thus the very Body of God. The burning bush, the communion wafer. Since the very beginning of time, God’s Spirit has been revealing its glory and goodness through the physical creation. There are sections of space and moments of time more “sacred” to us than others. The very thing that defines something as sacred is that it is precisely where and when God attempts to make Himself known to us.

“We are saved by grace through faith, a faith demonstrated by acts of love and works of mercy.” Jesus demonstrated His love for us by an act, the ultimate act. We present our beliefs over and over. If we don’t demonstrate those beliefs with our actions, they are simply words. We need to walk our talk. Community is a byproduct of our creation. It does not bring us to life, we bring it to life. We bring it to life by works and acts. “What you and I do feeds what we become.” We must use our God given gifts to bring to life the community that reflects His kingdom. It is our choice to act and model Jesus’ ministry. I want to live love; not by feelings but by acting accordingly and giving the gift of self to those around me, friend, or stranger. To love God, is to will the good of what God loves, which, of course, is our neighbor’s good.

There is a line from the movie, Avenger’s End Game, said by Tony Stark/Iron Man - ‘part of the journey is the end’. Michael J Fox, of Back to the Future, while reflecting on his current state with Parkinson Disease said, “The last thing we run out of in life, is the future.” We are not physical beings having spiritual journeys, we are spiritual beings having physical journeys. Our physical journeys are finite, they will expire. When a river arrives at the sea, the river’s journey has ended but the essence that was the river continues and becomes part of something bigger. The journey of our spirit does not end here on this Earth but continues onward. Our divine journey has no end. It has a goal. We are all passing through this life. We have no permanency in this world. Our ultimate goal is beyond this life.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, “Anybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.” God will use whoever is willing to be used. So “open up” to being used - where, when and how. “I am Third” means that God is first, others are second, and I am third. Being Third in a “Me First” age of social media, selfies, and instant gratification where personal comfort reigns is no easy task. By placing ourselves third, we have things in the right order. It is a dynamic in which God wins, others win, and we win. A key piece of a rewarding life is helping others; truly being altruistic without any obligation to do so.

Love takes work and ‘work’ is the definition of a verb. Consider the meaning of love, it is filled with actions—sacrificing, serving, listening, honoring, protecting, trusting, appreciating, affirming, among many others. Love is about making a positive difference in people's lives, all people’s lives. It is accepting people for who they are, including difficult people. “The Coin of Mattering” is the currency that values how we have existed and spent time on earth. It is a responsibility to live a life that matters. To transform, create, build, experience, and do what matters; be what matters. Live for the privilege of serving those around us. God has put us in a position to contribute to the success of wherever we are and with whomever. He has given us the opportunity to love and serve those around us and to do it with excellence for His glory. He has given us the means and opportunity to matter. It is our responsibility to live lives that matter.

Athletics and athletes were created in Greece. Purpose was to train citizens to strive for excellence, not merely victory. Excellence in every area.     To improve society. Sports teach us to persevere and push through, something we need in our faith. We can’t finish strong without pushing through somewhere along the way. We all like to win. Competing to win is good. However, the value derived from playing sports lies not in winning the game, but in giving our best; regardless of the outcome. The primary motivation for playing sports must be to obtain the goods internal to them, more so than the external gains. Competing to give glory to God and respect for others, is a display of loving God and loving others. God is with us in the wins, He is with us in the losses, and His acceptance of us doesn’t change in either of those circumstances. He is with us in the competition. Importantly, He is ‘with us’, not ‘for us.’

Humility has gone out of style. In an era of selfies and Social Media channels we are more aware of ourselves than ever before. The concept of ‘self’ is constantly in the forefront of our minds. Humility is the “lack of vanity or self-importance.” It is vitally important, but mostly overlooked in society today. Humble people don’t feel the need to paint a perfect picture of an “ideal life”. They are more concerned with the quality of their effort, the impact of their lives, and the content of their character. People with humility do not think less of themselves, they think of themselves less. They do not deny their talents and capabilities, rather they recognize these strengths pass through them, not from them. We live in a world where ego gets attention, but modesty gets results. Where arrogance makes headlines, but humility makes a difference.

We were commanded to live every day with love for each of our neighbors. To welcome them. The best we can today, then get up tomorrow and do it again. We must rise to the level of belonging. Belonging implies welcoming - acceptance and inclusion. Belonging is good for society. Creating a Welcoming environment in our community means loving those that live in our community, all of them. The foundation of welcoming is Love. The Bible does not say “tolerate thy neighbor” or even “be civil with thy neighbor,” it says, “love thy neighbor.” To love my neighbor is to welcome my neighbor. To welcome my neighbor is to see them through the eyes of God’s grace.

My “Coach Mahr” persona grew out of “answering a call.” Built off my life experiences as a business leader, a high school football coach, and a father. Most importantly it is uncovering how God’s presence is interwoven through everyday life. Now being in my third and final phase I feel called to invest in others and focus on “eulogy virtues” and not “résumé virtues.” Mentoring, motivating, building connections, raising the tide for all ships; establishing a better tomorrow, moving HIS kingdom forward. I am happy to be where I am in my life. The road I have taken is unique and it is mine, one that I was called to take.