Achilles heel . . .

It is Saturday morning again which means coffee, sofa, and pre-inauguration coverage on the television, presently muted so I can listen to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR.

I love basketball. I particularly love University of Alabama basketball.

So I was disturbed last Sunday, even though Alabama beat LSU, to see Ron Steele, our talented point guard and incredibly good human being, clearly hurting, unable to push off one foot, which for a point guard, is serious business.

The news reports originally said he had a stone bruise. Now the report is plantar faciitis. I am not a doctor. But I have started to drive down the lane in a pickup game and felt the pain in that little place on the bottom of the foot which didn't allow me to walk or stand on that foot for several weeks.

Anyway, I'm praying for Ron Steele. He deserves better.

Whatever that injury, it is isolated in a very small area on the bottom of one of Ron's feet. The rest of him appears to be in great shape.

It is amazing how one tiny thing can mess everything else up. Have you ever been on a hike or a jog and felt a pain in your foot? You think, how did something that big get in my shoe? You try to go on, because it is always an aggravation to stop and take off the shoes and lace them back up. But after a few steps you realize you just can't go on like this. You stop, take off the violated shoe, and turn it upside down and shake it. If you are lucky you see the tiny piece of gravel or stick fall out. Sometimes you don't even see it. What felt like a large jagged stone is smaller than the diamond chip in a hundred dollar engagement ring.

I don't like that about life. One thing can mess up all the other good things. You don't want to stop and unlace the shoes because the pace is good, the rhythm is good, you're making good time. Sometimes it's hard to get started again after you stop.

Occasionally you can run through it. The stone or the splinter is pushed to the side by the motion of the run and the pain is gone. At least for awhile. But the offender is still in the shoe and it may find its way back underfoot again if not dealt with.

But sometimes, like in Ron's case, the pain does not come from a rock or a splinter that can simply be shaken off. The pain comes from somewhere within. It is not from an invader, but from an injury to things as they are meant to be. The doctors will give you some anti-inflammatories and advice about what therapy to do and what activities not to do. They will tell you that to get rid of the pain you have to take care of yourself. And then they will tell you that it just takes time for things to get right again.

I've thought a lot about pain lately. The pain in Ron's foot is a message that he needs to keep the weight off of that injured part of his body for awhile.

So apparently pain is good and necessary for our health, as painful as pain is. It tells us we need to take the pressure off the injury so that restoration can take place.

But it's hard to quit playing, to quit running, to not pick at it, especially when the pain focuses attention like a magnifying glass on the source of the pain.

But that's all that is left to do to be restored. God bless Ron, and all the rest of us who are injured.

.