The Man in the arena

In her phenomenal bestseller, sociologist Brené Brown talks about the importance of vulnerability, the act of showing up, making mistakes and learning from them. At the centre of her thought is the influential Theodore Roosevelt quote, “The Man in the Arena”.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat”

• Theodore Roosevelt

This has been so profound for me that I actually have a print of this speech on my Study wall. I have a natural tendency to be paralysed by fear of failure, saying the wrong thing, being misinterpreted and written off. This is rooted the many unfortunate events, inappropriate actions and simple mistakes that are part and parcel of living with ADHD.

The call to just show up, knowing that failure isn’t an option it’s a certainty and refusing to sit on the sidelines when I could be living a wholehearted life.

Psalm 1 and Roosevelt’s Speech

I love discovering places where wisdom in scripture resonate with cultural ideas (read more about that in Wisdom can be found in surprising places). Just as Roosevelt compares two postures, the critic and the person in the arena, so Psalm 1 describes two ways of being:

Blessed is the one who does not: walk in the council of the wicked,
or stand on the Sinners’ path, or sit in the seat of scoffers
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked!
    They are like chaff
  that the wind blows away.
  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

There are many ways in which these two passages diverge, but one afternoon I was struck by some interesting parallels that have stayed with me for a few weeks so I wanted to get them out on paper.

Lazy Scoffers and Critics

While I was at a conference I needed some quiet space so I went to the incredible Cloud coffee shop in Crookes, treated myself to an overpriced (but phenomenal) pour over. And opened the Hebrew for Psalm 1 to do some relaxing translation practice. Translating forces me to read incredibly slowly and attentively to the various potential meanings and interpretations of the text.

As I was sipping on my recent investment and finishing off the first sentence, I realised the direction of travel of its cautionary subject:

Blessed is the one who does not: 
walk in the council of the wicked,
or stand on the Sinners’ path,
or sit in the seat of mockers (leitzim לֵצִים )
- Psalm 1:1

In the Psalm we see a descent into a fossilised critical posture. Someone who has sort of dried up, calloused. They deferred their direction to other voices walking in the council of the wicked, which caused them to stop and stand in the way of sinners and then finally they sit in the seat of לֵצִים

Who are the לֵצִים?

The NIV translates this as mocker. If we look at similar usages across Hebrew wisdom literature in particular, we see the word somewhere in the space of scoffing, cynicism, dismissing, unteachable.

There are some other potential uses of the same root elsewhere in scripture where it translated more as ambassador or interpreter. This is interesting to me because it could mean that לֵצִים in Psalm 1 carries a sense of lazy unoriginality but it would be hard to make that load bearing in an academic argument.

Regardless of whether it’s held in the word itself, the context paint a picture of somebody who hasn’t done the hard yards of critical thinking, meditating or participating in their formation.

A picture this paints for me is the armchair critic who has ironically uncritically absorbed the influence of the wicked. They have Learnt by wrote the position of their echo chamber and now hold those who diverge from their position in contempt. They are shouting criticisms at those who continuing to learn and to grow, “to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night”.

The fate of the scoffer

Psalm 1 ultimately draws the conclusion that “it is not the critic who counts” to use Roosevelt’s word. The scoffer’s fate is is to end dried up, brittle, blown away in the breeze.

The final line “the way of the wicked shall perish” doesn’t describe some kind of dramatic punishment. It could not be romanticised as some sort of rebellious “highway to hell”. It is a futile, fruitless fading away into irrelevance. In roosevelt’s words: “those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat”.

The lonely man in the arena

One differing point between the two pictures however is that the man in the arena is alone. They fight on through force of will and draw their power from within. Not so the righteous one.

The righteous person in Psalm 1 draw their power from God’s word. Like the arena fighter, they are impervious to the external voices that seek only to criticise, but they still listen, they devote themselves to the voice of God. More than that their formation is organic like a tree, drawing sustenance from outside themselves. They don’t receive council from others and simply accept it. They participate in the conversation. By meditating on the torah day and night.

Like Jacob, they wrestle with the Lord beside the river all night long and refuse to leave until he blesses them.

23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

• Genesis 32:23-28