Faith: it brings your life together; does it end curses?

Like that guy in Stargate Atlantis, who brings up many subjects when he's videotaping farewell messages to his family on earth, but returns to the topic of leadership every time, I'd like to introduce a similar topic that may in itself take up several posts: faith.

What is faith? Some people may describe it as a religious thing, while others apply it more to the secular world. I see it as all these things, and much more. Having rediscovered my faith in the church over the past school year (while I was up at St Olaf), it was perhaps one of the most wonderful things to happen to me. As I had been technically churchless for about 14 months, spanning most of my senior year in high school, the following summer, and half of my freshman year in college, my life was in the midst of a whole bunch of confusion, and refusing to believe certain events happened, even if I had witnessed them. Over that time period, I experienced the political collapse of my home church, my high school graduation, going to New York to see my choir school mates for the first time in four years, visiting Ground Zero for the first time, my grandmother's funeral, going off to college for the first time, the Cubs' collapse in the final week of the baseball season, and the Red Sox's curse-breaking World Series run. Most of the time, I either believed too readily, or not at all, the fact that each event was actually happening. It was for good reason, too, as I was still searching for a valid source of faith that I had misplaced when I would refuse to wallow with the rest of the parishioners during this political collapse.

I was also personally in a state of shock on the first day of being at college, as I had not been away from home for a long time (not counting a choir tour to Europe in 2003). Per my wishes in choosing my school after St Thomas that I be with my family and friends and that everything at home would return to how I left it at the end of 4th grade, such hope proved waywardly wrong, as I soon realized. After a completely disillusioning summer to ponder the past year (as well as the past 4 years), I realized it was indeed time to go and try start a new life. So I did, on the backdrop of my first rain-free and snow-free road trip up to Minnesota of my life, and made plenty of friends and went to my classes and went to my choir rehearsals, etc. But something still did not feel right. Typical to habit back then, I slept in every Sunday, and felt like I had no true common link with my friends besides being in the same class and/or living in close proximity with them. (Of course, I don't hang out with many of the friends I had first semester as much, and I made more friends second semester that I still keep tabs with.)

It wasn't till that month between semesters, popularly denoted as "Interim" (January), that I finally found at least one possible niche in which to carve myself. I joined Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and suddenly found myself spending my weekends playing broomball, participating in worship services, playing Sardines, praying, and by God, I found something that made my life pretty complete. I had a vision of Him in my head during our evening worship service at Lani Land (after a day of broomball), and that was the highlight of my whole college freshman year right there. I'd definitely say it was one of the highlights in my life, but I'd have to go back over a score number of years to find anything that competed with it. That goes to show how faith works when I have it.

I even had faith working for me during Spring Break. While my roommate was down in San Padre Island getting laid, I was doing the laying (same word, completely different meaning) in a small town called Marvell, Arkansas. In the midst of all my ground digging and sod-laying, I was also laying friendships with the people in the town, but also with those Oles that came on the trip with me. Out of the 11 other people that made the trip, I didn't know 10 of them beforehand, and for the most part I made friends with pretty much everyone in the group. At the same time, this was after a couple months of feeling down for the first part of second semester, possibly because I had hoped the excitement of Interim would carry over to the following term. However, being separated from the FCA people more often than not, and sharing classes with people I practically expected to hang out and be friends with but somehow didn't happen, I was left questioning all the faith I had built up over interim, and trying to decide how to make things happen socially. So that was hell. After spring break, my spirits were up for a while, but then crashed again after about a month or so, feeling like I wasn't much of a person to anyone. This also coinciding with roomdraw, hoping to find a couple friends to room with for next year. Even though I'm not disappointed with my plans with my roommate for the upcoming year, it would've been nice to find people that hung out in groups and become friends with everyone in the group.

Now that I've gone slightly off-topic about how fun the second half of last year was, I'd like to talk about a subject that's very dear to my heart: leadership. Ahem, I mean faith. As of right now, I'm in-between churches, because I will continually refuse to return to my home church, even though it's functioning much more cohesively than it was, but also between Lutheranism and Episcopalianism. I went to Canterbury for the Sunday evening service, and everything was too "run-through-the-motions" as far as the service was concerned. We had our readings, prayers, hymns, and communion, but it had that "get-this-done-and-move-on-to-the-next-thing" feeling. The services I'd experienced at the chapel on-campus, and the worship services organized by FCA was simply to take time and reflect and share views about how God wants us to come to Him and we'll be saved, rather than fulfilling obligations, remembering everything on the calendar and we're lucky to go to purgatory for a week, for example. It was about expressing faith, and sharing it with others, be they friends or non-believers. Now I'm a big fan of community in the services, and I'll admit it took me a while to get used to a church service with different music, but now I feel like I have to go to a more Protestant church just to get the enthusiasm I so crave to feel like I'm in God's house, rather than zipping through the services in a robotic fashion.

***

I've spent the past couple of days intently on the online baseball message boards, particularly the Cubs' board, and it amazes me that even though the Cubs have returned to .500 by virtue of a 4-game winning streak, many fans have already begun to write off this season as a possible curse-breaker via a World Series championship. Several days ago, I myself also began to echo many of their sentiments, as the Cubs just seem to keep piling up quality players on the DL due to injuries. What amazes me is that a possible reason that the Cubs don't win very often is that the fans lose faith in the team when even the littlest thing goes wrong, and write off the season "because of the curse." Apparently the Red Sox fans finally decided to stop believing in curses and pull for their team no matter what, because after being down 0-3 to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series their team pulled out a comeback, beat the Yankees, and then bush-slapped the best team in all of baseball, the Cardinals, back to Sportsman's Park. In other words, the Red Sox absolutely humiliated them in four straight games. Now that's reward for faith. [For those of you who don't know, Sportsman's Park used to be the ball field for St. Louis' other baseball team before it contracted in the 60s or 70s. I think it's been demolished.]

Of course, the Red Sox fans never simply showed up at Fenway Park "to have a beer" and get some 'rays, like so many Cub fans of my parent's generation. Of course, in those years, Chicago didn't really have a winning team in any other sport, so it helped fuel the apathy. Fortunately, the fan culture may change now, as so many people in my generation grew up watching the Bulls win not one, but six championships, and were also treated to the Cubs playoff run in 2003 of which was unhinged merely by player shock via a deflected foul ball. That was all evidenced in the fans booing LaTroy Hawkins, the misfortunate reliever who was supposed to be a great reliever but couldn't close out games. Thus shows how the fans want change now, if there's a problem, rather than next year. I'm sure there's plenty of faith for this year's Cubs team, as the Marlins were deep in the gutter about this time 2 years ago, changed managers, and went on to win the World Series. Hopefully the Cubs themselves could be on their way to duplicating that (minus changing managers), but it'll take faith, if nothing else, among the team and among the fans to pull it out, just like the Red Sox did last year. One last note, the problem with having a cursed team is that if enough people believe it, then it is cursed. Once we (Cub fans) stop believing in the curse even if one of our outfielders trips while running for a routine fly ball to end the game and win the NLCS, and believe that we still have a great chance to win, then we will.

But all it takes is faith, and not that wimpy, "hope-it's-possible" faith, like I've had in various aspects of my life over the past few years. Put your strength in the Lord, and anything is possible. [And I'm sure I just quoted a Bible verse in there somewhere.]

Behind the Whistle and Underneath the Stripes

When you're watching a game, whether it's on TV or in person, if it's not the opposing team, it's the umpire or referee. Sometimes they'll drive you so mad you want to run down on the field and challenge them, either verbally or physically. Sure, even I have felt for players and coaches when they believed their integrity was questioned when a ref puts them down for their outbursts. I remember last spring, in the last inning one of our guys cursed after striking out, and was promptly ejected and suspended for a game as well.

It's kind of weird how generally the most mild-mannered and level-headed guys (off the court or field) can be insulted if they strike out or commit a foul. And of course we want to blame the official; after all, [he] was the one who made the call. I've been around sports quite a bit to understand the stakes and tensions in a game, and when a call (especially a dumb one) goes against my team even my adrenaline goes up because I'd never want my team in that kind of situation.

I remember in basketball last year, we were at Mooseheart in the middle of nowhere. The varsity team was a little more determined to win than usual because the JV team (who was having a good season) lost by one point on a last-second shot by Mooseheart's JV. So we found ourselves in a tight game but ahead by a certain number of points. However, Mooseheart had momentum and was clawing away at our lead. Then the fireworks came out when, while we were on defense, the refs whistled a foul, and the announcer's table immediately reported the foul on our star player, his fifth, even though he was nowhere near the play. What really got to me was that the refs weren't intelligent enough to look at the jersey numbers and clearly identify that a different person had committed the foul. So our star player was out of the game, and Mooseheart would go on to win the game on another last-second shot. Never mind that our star player would have reached a career high in points scored had he stayed in.

So, why would I bring this topic up, you ask? I ran into a couple of FCA friends at lunch today, and one of them happens to be an umpire for youth baseball, lacrosse and other youth sports. Tex and I lingered for half an hour talking about our experiences in games, and how he had to deal with angry players and coaches, and he made me realize how truly hard umpiring a game can be. What with angry players and coaches (and fans too, occasionally) coming up to his face, he'd sometimes want to end the game because of a true lack of sportsmanship. We discussed the little, hard calls, such as whacking people's arms with lacrosse sticks, and getting into the tidbits of what was legal and what wasn't--for example, using a stick to whack someone else's arm or stick is legal as long as it's under control--and how people erupt when a call is made. He also told me of times he ejected people simply to send a message, not that he had a personal problem with any of them.

Tex told me he once officiated a game where some high school kid took out another's head with his stick. He went over to the coach, and told him he'd let off the kid this time, but if he did it again he'd write a note to the league asking for the kid to be kicked out. The coach completely understood, and appeared as angry as Tex was. So the coach yanked the kid off the field and completely chewed him out, trying to send a message that the behavior would not be allowed, period.

I may or may not want to be a referee. I mean, you're the king once you set foot on the playing surface; even the coaches cannot dictate the game. However, I'd have to learn all the game and league rules and regulations, ace all the exams, and then exercise stiff judgment and stand by them even in the face of anger. I'm not 100 percent sure if I could do all that. Not that I'm afraid, but in my small frame I'd have to have a lot of guts standing up to 40-plus old-school coaches trying to manipulate me in to playing by their rules rather than the league's rules. I suppose if I had a late growth spurt and went on an eating binge, then it's possible. But I seriously doubt that.

Imagery/Figuration: Twins pitchers fall asleep

This story will be about how I survived my third time working in the Dome. Except it won't be much of a story, as this time wasn't as bad as the second time. For starters, our concession stand was quite a bit bigger than last time. We actually had room to move about in the back, and store all our food products as well. I also learned how the fountain drinks in these stands (almost) never run out. There was some tubing connected to bags of pop (yes, in bags), that was stabilized by a pump consistently pressurizing these drinks and linking the bags to where the cashiers put the drinks in the cup. I'm a big fan of space anyway; you wouldn't get any of that cool pressure-and-pump stuff anywhere else.

There were other interesting quirks I picked up about the stadium, like the Dome's policy not on not serving the bottle caps with the bottles. I suppose they implemented that rule when Chuck Knoblauch returned to the Dome for the first time as an outfielder (he used to be a great second basemen with the Twins, but was traded to the Yankees in 1998), and many fans had taken the opportunity to show them their "appreciation" by throwing all that crap on the field. Anyway, I kind of felt sorry for one of the customers that I rang up, because he had "bad hands," and therefore couldn't carry everything he ordered (a couple drinks, plus a bag of peanuts). So our manager sent someone to help him carry his stuff. Crazy times.

Anyway, my carpool was the first to leave (at our request), and as we departed the others in our group still had a few things to clean up, and the Twins game languished in the top of the 11th inning (ie extra innings) with the Rangers suddenly putting on an offensive outburst. So on the way back to St. Olaf, I sort of tried to doze off in the car (I wasn't nearly as succesful as I was on the way to the Dome). Upon entering my dorm room Tyler (my roommate) was fast asleep... and this was at 11:45 PM on a Friday night! So naturally I stayed up for another couple hours (not without dozing off during a movie), crashed at 1:45 AM and slept in till 11:30 this morning. Now that's what I'm talking about. :-)

We finally had our first remotely sunny day since Sunday. It's been an awfully cold and rainy week. On the flip side, you can't beat those post-8:30 PM sunsets, which Chicago doesn't get until the solstice, anyway.