Softball, Seasons, and Sinatra

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."- Albert Camus, French writer and philosopher

As a kid growing up in New Jersey, I loved almost everything about autumn including the crisp morning air, the colorful foliage, touch football games, and pumpkin-flavored treats. I wasn’t so keen about school starting back up in September, putting an end to my summer vacation, but at least I got to see all my friends again.

But as an adult – and especially once I started my athletic prison ministry in 1987 – I began dreading autumn more and more with each passing year. Why is that? First, every time there was a sunny and warm day in October or November, I found myself wondering, “Will this be the last one until spring?” Second, because autumn brought an end to softball season… and mere words cannot express how much I enjoyed playing softball and using it to reach prisoners with the gospel.

Originally, our ministry’s softball season began with practices in April and a full slate of games from May through September. Every other Saturday – and one weeknight in between – would find me playing and ministering in a prison somewhere in the MidAtlantic States. Eventually, we added a weeklong “crusade” in August that allowed us to reach correctional institutions as far away as the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and even Canada. A few years later, we tacked on a preseason trip to Florida state prisons and a postseason trip to places like Arizona, New Mexico, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Now that I live in Florida, the passing of the seasons doesn’t concern me in the least. One sunny and warm day is usually followed by another sunny and warm day… and so, I can play golf or fish 12 months of the year. However, I still miss playing softball – the competition, the fellowship with my teammates, and especially ministering to tens of thousands of inmates every year. Fortunately, our RTC basketball team still makes quarterly trips to prisons throughout the Sunshine State, so God has permitted me to keep my hand in a ministry that has been my passion for the past 39 years and counting.

My friend, life is a series of seasons. Our youth is the spring, and our adulthood is the summer. Now, at age 67, I am firmly in the “autumn of the year” as Frank Sinatra reminded us in the classic “It Was a Very Good Year”. As such, I have come to realize that the key is to live each season to the max… cherish the memories… and then move on, embracing the next season or chapter of life.

As Francis Albert also sang, “The best is yet to come and won’t it be fine?”

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President