Friday, April 10, 2009

Valuing sacrifice


The quotation below may surprise you for a meditation blog but I'll tell you why I chose it. Today, of course, is Good Friday - a day of somber holiness for Christians. So it seemed an appropriate day to look at the function and value of sacrifice - for that is a universal value and concept to people of all faiths as well as to those who claim no particular religion. And, as we observe over and over again, sacrifice (especially for one's young) is also a part of the life of many animals - sometimes truly astonishingly so.

To me, the statement below makes it luminously clear why valuing sacrifice in others and being willing to make sacrifices ourselves need to be not only cultivated but treasured in our interior work:

There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren't willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.

-- Michael Jordan

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