The Sweet Science.

Today in the men’s center we watched Resurrecting the Champ. It tells the story of a young sports writer at the fictional Denver Times who is eager to make a name for himself and jumps at the chance to write a feature on a former boxing champ that most believed died 20 years prior, but who he “discovers” living on the Denver streets. However, in his excitement, he is careless and neglects to do some basic background checking that would have easily shown that the homeless man was an imposter and that the real champ had indeed been dead for 20 years.

It is far from a great movie, yet it’s strangely compelling. It’s a movie about struggle and passion and the dangers and misguided beauty in attempting to be more than you really are.

As the movie played it was interesting to hear some of the guys talk about Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and other boxing greats and see the way they reacted to the movie’s fight scenes.

The movie ends with a voice-over of the young sports reporter at his desk in a dark room pounding away at his computer, owning up to his mistakes, and he says something to the effect that in boxing, like writing, one must stand alone--there is no place hide.

Boxing like no other sport turns impoverished men into gods and just as quickly throws them back on the street as soon as every ounce of value has been extracted. And if the guys in the men’s center can’t relate to the highs of a heavyweight-champion, they can certainly relate to the lows that follow. It is no wonder that writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates have been compelled to write about the sport—it is life heightened and accentuated. One man loses. One man is exalted in victory. Both are bloodied and battered and will ultimately pay a price—physically and mentally—that few can fully comprehend.

Many argue that boxing is barbaric and has no place in a civilized society, which is probably true, I myself am no great fan, but never the less, it is a metaphor we should strive for every single day of our lives. It is the end of deception and the illumination of truth. When a fighter is knocked out cold on the mat, there is no longer doubt regarding who’s the better man. It’s the honesty we need when examining our work, interactions with friends, relationships with family and commitment to living out our faith.

“Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge