There’s a new interview with me running on most NPR stations as of today. The show is called The Story. The host is Dick Gordon. As is true with most NPR programming, The Story allows some breathing room. I spoke with Dick for some 45 minutes. He was vastly curious, prompted new thoughts from me, and was bold enough to suggest that the Cuba Dream is likely “unreachable”.

Dick may be the first call when I make it all the way across come summer.

The interview is edited down and posted on The Story site today. The link below.

Enjoy.

The Longest Swim – The Story

But my friend taught me the value of trying to recreate a scene with a brush because it’s just amazing how more intently you observe an orange tree or a winding country road or a man’s hat when you’re trying to create your own image of it on paper….even if you’re not trying for precise realism but rather an artistic interpretation of whatever you’re painting.

Try it. It will set you free.

Well, why should I be surprised that any topic on religion would draw some outrage, some controversy? I have read all your comments from my blog post very carefully and take a lot of your salient points with intellectual response, rather than emotional bias. I have admitted to feeling offended by Tebow’s on-field prayers and I guess a number of you have felt the same way. But the arguments for freedom of expression, for applauding this young man’s positive life and world-view, make me sit back and think. The conversation is rich. It’s at the heart of the national zeitgeist at the moment. I have absolutely no disregard for anybody’s religious beliefs. NONE. The discussion isn’t about religious beliefs. It’s about whether a football player, the leader of the team, should carry his religious mantle above the rest of the team’s beliefs.

As a football player, he’s a force. A bold leader, a positive burst of energy, an agile and powerful runner, even if he’s not yet an impressive, accurate passer. I have no reason to doubt that he will carve out a successful NFL career for himself.

I do, however, rail against his acting out his faith in such a public forum, while in his team uniform.

When at the University of Florida, he was well known for painting different numbers of Biblical scriptures into his eye black. You would see the number “3:16″ under his eyes, for instance, in reference to that chapter and verse of the Bible. In the end, the NCAA outlawed players displaying such public signs of personal faith.

I, for one, was a public radio journalist who spoke out against his eye black expressions. He was in his University uniform, representing the Gator Nation. It wasn’t fair to his teammates, nor anybody else from his school, to be lumped in with his own private beliefs.

So now he is a Denver Bronco and again he sets himself apart from his teammates by constant public display of his Christian faith.

Quite a few players kneel in a quick prayer or point to the sky in recognition of their God after a successful moment on the field. OK. But if you tune in to the Tebow proselytizing throughout a game, it is outrageous in its persistence. NFL Films did an hour special on Tebow late in the season. Unlike the networks that cover live games, NFL films have microphones in the huddles, on the sidelines. You can hear every breath, every syllable.

When Tebow sits with the quarterback coach on the bench, when he approaches the guys in the huddle, when he runs to a wide receiver after a big play, he does say the right “football stuff”. “Come on guys, this is THE 3rd down we need. We need it NOW.” But before any syllable he utters, every single time, it is first “God is good”. “God is great.” “My God is an awesome God”. “It’s God’s will.” As he roams the sideline, mouthing, you think he’s talking to the defense on the field, urging them on. No, he’s singing, “God is my saviour. God is almighty”.

He often gathers even the Christians on the other team after a game and gets them in a circle to kneel and pray together.

I say take it into the locker room. What if, at the end of every session of Congress, the Christians gathered and knelt and prayed together, right there on the Congress floor? As was true at the University of Florida, doesn’t this constant Christian promotion, in a Broncos uniform, trump the other common bonds of the team? Doesn’t Tebow separate himself from his non-Christian teammates?

Or am I just the kid who in first grade went to the principal to demand that I not be forced to speak aloud the words “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance to the flag? (Point of interest:  The original Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, did not have the words “Under God”. President Eisenhower in 1954 requested that Congress add the two words, despite the protest of Bellamy’s daughter.)

Tim Tebow is admirably inspired by his strong faith. He does many good works, from building schools for the poor to bringing disabled and underprivileged individuals to the sidelines of his games. His particular brand of Christianity requires that he spread the gospel far and wide. But when he wears a uniform, he owes that team the respect of making his faith more private expression, less public spectacle.

If you haven’t yet sipped the TED Kool-Aid, get yourself a straw. I’ve been a public speaker for 35 years now but hit the Mt Everest of conferences when I spoke for the TEDMED group this past October. The concept is 50 speakers, the most forward-thinking mavericks on our planet. Each one gets only 15 minutes. Each one is unique, powerful, and leaves your mind significantly expanded.  The TED folks launched my speech on YouTube this week. There have been thousands of inspired responses.

Trust me. Get your straw ready and immerse yourself in the exciting zeitgeist of TED.

~ Diana

This is my close, dear friend of 35 years, Candace Hogan. Candace grew up a land athlete. Quick on the track, great on the softball field, agile in a soccer game. But she never had exposure to pools or the ocean and thus never learned how to swim.

When we were both about 40, living in NYC, we used to go upstate New York to those idyllic warm lakes and ponds where Candace was determined to do something about NOT spending the rest of her life a non-swimmer. I taught her (and our buddy LeAnne Schreiber, another land beast) the basic freestyle stroke. They worked at it every summer and lo and behold, some 20-plus years later, Candace can swim across those lakes. She can stroke miles off the coast out into the deep ocean. A swimmer (two swimmers…Le Anne the same success story!!!) is born.

Yet another living example of “It’s Never Too Late“.

Sarah came to our Billie Jean King Women’s Sports Foundation black-tie dinner in New York most Octobers over recent years. Her bold passion for her sport, and insistence that women in her sport be included in the Olympics (a crusade she single-handedly fought and won), was palpable.  Finally, after winning 4 X-Games gold medals, Sarah was primed to fulfill her long-term vision and win Olympic gold in Sochi, Russia, 2014.  That dream is not to be fulfilled.

I will remember Sarah as a huge smile and constantly open personality, to go along with that fighting spirit. She knew each of the 100 athletes at the end of our week-ends in New York, could recall their sports stats, the names of their parents and children and dogs. There was no doubt that we were going to witness the fly-highing, maverick Super-piper on the gold medal stand in Sochi.

May the magnanimous soul and champion spirit

of the ebullient and talented

Sarah Burke rest in peace forever.

Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech is just about 50 years old, delivered by the activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August of 1963. Considered the greatest speech of the 20th Century, what many don’t know is that the legendary words of the Dream section of that speech were an impassioned ad-lib, prompted when gospel singer Mahalia Jackson
shouted to him “Tell them about the Dream, Martin!”

The timeless masterpiece should be our wake-up call, a reminder of how our nation needs to conduct itself, this year, every year.  For me, personally, hearing Dr. King’s resounding voice and truth again today, the speech means two things at this particular time:

1) The melting pot has deepened in these current times and yet the compassion for equality is not lived out across our nation. From Muslims to Gays to all manner of Immigrants, we still find hate rather than acceptance. When will we finally live, proud of our differences, in the Dr. King creed?

2) President Obama is our greatest orator since Dr. King. Yes, perhaps his ability to speak eloquently excited us to believe he was going to turn our long-standing problems around overnight. But our national issues such  as health care and the economy are mammoth crises and not going to be solved quickly by the slow-turning cog of government. Do we really want Romney or any of these GOP candidates running our country?

Let’s make sure to keep Obama at the helm. Give him a chance to do the work he’s earnestly striving toward.

As Dr. King poetically put it:  ”Let Freedom Ring”.

It’s been five weeks now that we’ve had 80-plus degrees and brilliant blue skies in Los Angeles. I don’t know what I was thinking years ago when I moved here from New York, kicking and screaming, with all the Woody Allen lines. “L.A. is the last place on Earth I’d live, that culture void where all people talk about is plastic surgery……”

Well, I gave up long ago comparing this place to NYC. No place on the planet compares to my old home town, the Big Apple. But if you love the outdoors, this is no doubt the most spectacular winter imaginable.

We’re swimming OUTDOORS in mid-January!!! Please let me retract all the bad mouthing I ever did about this place.

~Diana

So today was a BIG DAY for me. Josh and I met for a few hours. The creative juices flowed readily. I tell a story. Josh adds some perspective. I tell a story. Josh notices a subtle connection to something we were talking about an hour earlier. We talk music. And philosophy. Laughter ensues. Tears are at the surface. I’ve been afraid. I’ve stalled. Somehow I’m quite sure you can relate. You’ve had dreams. You’re a painter. A musician. A writer. A designer. But you’re not at all sure your talents will carry you.

Well, for me, today was the day to set the fears aside.

Today we started. Nerves are melting into excitement and confidence. I’m training for the Xtreme Dream Cuba swim in the summer. Training is going to escalate month by month now. And in tandem I’m working on this theatrical piece.

Wish me luck. But don’t tell me to Break a Leg. I’ll need the whole body for that Swim