BitterSweetLife

I turned around at the goal line and saw a slender white thread criss-crossing the field in my wake. It traced my route for about 50 feet, skewing right and left, connecting the dots of my escape, each point of evasion. In the dim, late-afternoon light, the filament glowed faintly, and the picture struck me as so funny that I couldn’t stop laughing as I walked off the field.

You could say my first experience with rugby was a success. A friend from school gave me the invite, and since my local gym has been unavailable for hooping, I decided to give rugby a shot. It was “flag rugby,” which seemed like a contradiction in terms, but I was desperate. I needed an outlet. Now, after one match, I think I’ll be back.

My playing time was limited, because Lindsay and I had a prior engagement, and with just a few minutes left, I was wondering if I would get a chance to show my mettle. Then, as luck would have it, my friend Ryan shoveled me a quick lateral pass, and I was off and running. All I saw as I hurtled downfield were large shapes rushing at me from the right and left. I wove back and forth, transecting the ground with instinctive 45% cuts; I felt hands grabbing at my flag, but kept evading them, kept running. Suddenly I had reached the end line. I held the ball up, then slammed it diplomatically. Score. Hoops-quick had been translated into rugby-cred.

That’s when I turned around and saw the thread-trail. Apparently a desperate grab had missed my flag but nicked my flag belt, unraveling some nylon, and the elastic cord hadn’t snapped. In fact, it was still attached to me, running all the way back to the scene of the attempted stop. In the frosty air, the human maze I had dashed and lunged through was hilarious and startlingly crooked. The trail of thread looked like a slalom course. The fact that the web was really mine, that I had run that pattern, made me grin all the wider. Not to mention that it made for a perfect exit.

As I walked off the field, the endorphins kicked in, adding a little extra luster. I collected some high fives. Now I knew I could “rugby.” And beyond that, there was something else. Something about that weird snapshot—the moment when I’d turned around and seen my whole offensive attack, my whole escape route, traced in luminous thread. Slightly surreal, very memorable. I don’t think I’ll forget it.

But why not?

All evening, the picture kept coming back. That stretchy, extended “Z”, woven over the field, still attached to me until I pulled off the belt. The thin bright strand in the autumn dusk. Not all pictures have to mean something, but this one did. At least it seemed to.

I hate it when people try to force an analogy that doesn’t fit, and maybe that’s what I’m doing, but the idea materialized. It was there, waiting. Will there be a day, an age-ending moment, when I turn around and see the cartography of my life furled out behind me? See the collisions just missed, the moments where death and disaster were barely escaped—see all the close calls, the times where victory stood on a knife’s edge? The idea does not seem unbelievable: To see, finally, what we can’t see now—the hidden windings of our present lives.

I suspect that, in the end, we will perceive for once what God sees all the time. We'll grasp the meaning, the mystery of those hidden lines, and smile at how fitting they were, all the time. Hair-breadth evasions, surprising interventions, all pieced together into a story that reads, in the end, as a W.