A Tribute to a Great Athlete!

I was saddened this morning to hear the news of the passing of  Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest if not the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. Born Cassius Clay he later became a convert to the Nation of Islam thus changing his name to Muhammad Ali.  

There is no doubt in my mind that Ali was one of the greatest athletes to step inside of a boxing ring. There were others who punched harder and were bigger, but none seemed to possess the athletic skills of the man from Louisville, Kentucky. 

I will never forget those epic battles with Smoking Joe Frazier or that brutal slugfest with George Foreman. Muhammad Ali was a living highlight reel. 

He lived up to his own mantra: "I am the greatest!"

Yet like so many I had a love-hate relationship with Ali. 

I loved to watch him box but I always rooted against him. When he refused to be drafted and fight in the Vietnam War my dislike for the man became increasingly intense. 

I considered him a traitor; one who enjoyed the benefits of living in America yet was unwilling to fight for his country. His antiwar position became public as I was serving my country in the United States Air Force, so as you can imagine his antiwar protest didn’t set right with me. 

I just couldn’t harmonize his being against the Vietnam War while at the same time pound another person senseless in the ring. At the time I simply could not reconcile this assumed contradiction. It made no sense to me.

But people change.

I have changed and I pray for the better. I am not the same person I was during those tumultuous days of the 1960s and the Vietnam War.

From where I sit now I am far less judgmental of Ali’s antiwar stance. I am now able to recognize the courage it took for him to stick by his convictions even though it cost him his heavyweight title and almost his career as a boxer.

The news of Muhammad Ali’s death this morning has given me pause to reflect on that long journey I have been on since the 1960s. I can’t speak for Ali as to why he protested the Vietnam War. I am sure it was not cowardice since a coward would have never climbed in the ring with the ferocious Sonny Liston or the mammoth George Foreman.

Perhaps Ali was perceptive enough to realize that Vietnam was a war fought for deeply flawed political reasons. As of now we do not know for sure what motivated this man with regards to Vietnam.

But I have let Muhammad Ali off the hook as it were. I no longer harbor ill feelings toward this great athlete for his antiwar protest. I forgave him years ago.

Why?

What has changed?

The sort answer is: “Me!” 

I’ve changed.

I now believe he was right to protest that tragic war. 

I believe he was right because I now believe the political reasons behind the war were deeply flawed.

He may not have understood all the political nuances surrounding the reasons for that war; a war that took the lives of over 58,000 cherished American souls and caused irreparable damage to so many that survived it. God bless them all. We must honor them still.

In the words of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, war is a “sickness unto death.” The untold pain and suffering that our American wars have caused is immeasurable. The overall costs of war in terms of both dollars and human suffering is almost incalculable. 

I realize that there are many Christians who embrace a so-called “Just War” theory. I do not. Besides the wars we have been engaged in as a nation since World War II have not risen to the level of satisfying the criteria for a Just War.

The motives behind Muhammad Ali’s war protest may have been different from my own antiwar protests today but our goal seems to have been the same: Preserve life!

War never solves the problem of human conflict. If anything it exasperates conflict and intensifies human alienation from one another. World War II ended some seventy years ago and there are many Americans today who are angered with President Obama for visiting Hiroshima and acknowledging our part in that war. Consider the latent hostility in the hearts of so many Southerners over the American Civil War that ended in 1865.

Yes today is a sad day. An American icon has left us. You may not agree with the man’s religion or his politics but you cannot dismiss his courage. He took a stand and paid the price for it.

RIP Ali!

I pray that I would be so strong in my convictions about the futility of war—all wars. I pray that I will remain steadfast even in the face of criticism from friends and family concerning my position on war.

I pray for the peace of America. I pray for the peace of the world. But I also pray that we humans will wake up and realize before it’s too late that war is not the way to peace, rather it is the way unto death. God help us all.