I was raised to believe that all humans start out equal and the difference between good men and evil men is how they choose to use what has been given to them. Good men gain value over time by doing good deeds. And over time evil men become more evil as they continue to make bad choices. However what I discovered over time was that all humans are equal period. No one is of more value to this planet than anyone else. That the so-called successful ones are not of any more value than the so-called non-successful ones. That we all have made outrageous mistakes and no matter how much we may have failed, we all have the potential to do something that is of importance. We all have something that is needed by others. This is a very outrageous statement to make in America right now. Most Americans blame those that are outsiders to their own circles for the reasons America is not so great anymore. But I am finding that what analysts are finding for the perceived troubles that America is facing right now is that we are not working together as equals.

See I have always been super smart and I have always been told that the smarter you are and the more you use your smarts to get ahead the better you will do and the better you will be than other people. I believe this was the biggest lie ever taught to me. And of course, this lie is at odds with the teaching that all men are created equal. I still tried to be better than others because that is what selfishness does. Thank goodness love is working on our hearts too. What my smarts learned from love is that all humans are smart, just in different ways. We each have abilities and we each have something of value to add to any situation.

One of my fundamental beliefs is that we all have strengths and weaknesses and that if you try to remove the weaknesses you destroy the strengths and hence can destroy the person. When medicine cures a blind person, that person then stops seeing other things. I am very linear and very quick at math and to go with that I am a very bad speller. You remove my bad spelling and I become bad at math then.

One more thing before I delve into my main subject today. A parent’s love for a child (and the parent’s selfish pride for themselves) causes them to always see their own children as better than other children, more talented. That is ok if they are honest about it and let other parents have the same view of their own children – more love and less pride. Just a side point, for now, let me continue with my main subject.

It seems like every time I use my brains and get something all figured out then something comes along and disproves everything I just figured out. So after many years of struggling to get ahead and at the same time not really understand equality, I finally started to understand that all are equal. I stop trying to be better than others and instead started working on helping others. But that is not the end of my story that is only the beginning. I then met someone that seemingly disproves just how equal we are. She is not perfect but at a very young age, she already has a long list of accomplishments. She has gotten all A’s except for one B in grade school and one B in high school. She has been class president for four years out of the last five years. This year she is Spiritual Vice president for the student association. She has been captain of a championship volleyball team for 3 years. She is an accomplished singer with several different groups. She is a leader. She is my daughter Hailey and on Friday night, Sept 15, we celebrate at her Senior Dedication. She seems to a notch above the rest, better than other humans somehow. But there is one little twist I have noticed.

So I am sitting on the sidelines cheering for my favorite sports team, Hailey’s volleyball team, here a few days ago. The team plays for PHAA, a small Christian in the East Bay, and they are visiting another Christian high school in the East Bay. There are some young men behind me that are not parents, cheering on Hailey’s team. They are all into this game like they were watching Monday Night Football. The funny part is that this is not pro ball and this is just a low-level girls volleyball game. And this just cracks me up, my daughter’s team has a fan club. Her team has not always had a fan club.

The first year I started to watch this team, which was Hailey’s Freshman year, there was no fan club and not many parents either. I enjoyed watching Hailey’s team play and I especial loved to watch how Hailey worked with the other players. Hailey loves volleyball but she is short so she has to add to the team in other ways than being a star player. But her 3 years on a JV team helped her learn to field the ball and serve the ball and this kept her in as one of the starters on the team her freshman year. They were an Ok team and it was a good experience.

Her sophomore year she became a team captain after the more senior players left. There seemed to be this feeling that if the team was not winning then why play. It is true, the volleyball skills of the team were … to put it nicely, bad. But the coach, the team and Hailey believed everyone had value and they started building that value into each member on this newer younger team. One more thing they stopped functioning as independent star players and started functioning as a team, more so than almost any other team I have ever seen. They only won a few games that year and I was often about the only one there watching them. There was another thing that was amazing about them and that was they made sure the whole team was having fun, not just a set of star players.

The first glimpse of what was in the making for this young team became visible at a coed charity volleyball tournament that came after the season was over. Hailey setup a team from the available girls from her volleyball team and 2 teachers. They played against a local guys team that is really good and a local girls club team. Those teams were the teams expected to be the winners. Well, you got it, those teams did not win. Hailey’s team won. They simply functioned as a whole fun-loving unit that did their best volleyball. It was some tense playing but they showed that the months of practice and of teamwork paid off.

The next year they were only a team and no individual or star players at all. There was only six of them and they had to play every second of every game. At one point one player got a minor injury and while she was taking a break they kept playing with only 5. But then she either had to come back in or they had to lose the set. She came in and did her serves and then they went on to win that set of games.

To watch them play was a thrill at every game that year. This was Hailey’s junior year and they went on to win their league championship and a very exciting tournament that is hosted by a local college every year. All six team members had to play every game they were scheduled for with no breaks. In the championship and the tournament, they out lasted all the other teams they played. The other teams ran out of energy and this six just kept going. They volleyball skills have very much improved and they were fun to watch. But what made them better than others was that everyone on the team was important and added value to the team. They were a single unit, one team. This is when they started to build a fan club and it was not just about their volleyball skills it was about how they treat each other and how they worked together.

This year they are the team to beat and they are the target. They have 5 new Freshmen on the team. They are struggling now to include the value that these newbies bring to the team. They are struggling to function again as a single unit with new members that are not used to their ways of moving around on the floor. But nothing could make me more proud of them that how they have taken these newbies in and are helping them. They will be a single unit again soon and better for it. They may even lose a few more games because of it. But their goal has never been to be better than others. Their goals have always been to build each other up, to play the best volleyball they can, and to just have fun.

To conclude, I have to say I just love it when the principle of human kindness is what takes the trophy in the end – not the strongest or the best or the smartest. I hope that this fan club of young men sees that too and not just sweat volleyball moves and the pretty faces. Me, I am just smiling inside, my Hailey has a fan club. What really makes me smile is every time I see my Hailey work with a team member, a class member, etc. to encourage them, to show them that they have value, or to lift them up in someway or another.

So if I may say so, if Hailey is better in any way at all, it is that she has learned that all are equal and she has learned how to help others build on that and in return she has benefited greatly from that and I get to watch one of the most beautiful things in the universe. Love demonstrating that it is the most profitable way to do things. That love wins in the end.

Hailey actually says it best herself in her first vespers as Spiritual Vice President. Will be posting that video soon. Here are some more pictures of Hailey.