PLAY BALL!

Today there was a snow storm in Minnesota. I got to experience it first hand, driving from Duluth to Minneapolis and back. It was also the opening day of the 2008 baseball season. One can be grateful that at this time, the Minnesota Twins play ball indoors, though most of us baseball fans prefer the game outdoors.

I have been a baseball fan since I was a boy. One of the first books I ever owned was a Scholastic Book Club selection, The Greatest in Baseball, a book of portraits of some of the games greatest players into the 1950s (a book I still have somewhere). I collected baseball cards (and I have moved these around over the years, too), and invented a way for my teams to play one another. I enjoyed listening to Minnesota Twins baseball games on a transistor radio – Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Bob Allison, Jim Perry, Dave Boswell. In elementary school, boys tried to sneak radios to school and listen to parts of the afternoon season opener as we could.

Though my interest in the game has risen and fallen some over the years, there remains something special about it, and I find myself drawn back to the game again and again. Recently, I read in The Boston Review that the eminent philosopher, John Rawls, was a devoted baseball fan. They printed a letter Rawls wrote about a conversation he had with Harry Kalven, a legal scholar, on the splendid features of baseball – among which is the familiar fact that baseball is one of the few games where time doesn’t matter. The game goes on until nine innings are played – more if the game is knotted up. “This means there is always time for the losing side to make a comeback. The last of the ninth inning becomes one of the most potentially exciting parts of the game.” I also listened the other day to Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour broadcast on baseball (a free CD given out awhile back with the purchase of another Bob Dylan CD). I was reminded why I enjoy this game, and was reminded of some of my favorite words about it.

So in honor of opening day, I share two pictures from the Twins game in 2004 where I had the privilege of delivering the ceremonial first pitch. I hadn’t really picked up on the irony of the beer and casino ads flanking the sign with my name until looking at this picture again! I also share three pieces of writing about the game,found in Baseball: A Literary Anthology, published by the Library of America.

Baseball certainly is a diversion, but an uncommonly familiar one to a large number of people who summon from the daily nine-inning narrative a cast of heroes and villains, scraps of gossip, ethical conundrums, moments of despair, laughter, tears, plenty of hope, and the occasional lasting satisfaction. It acquires significance by virtue of the emotions that people invest in it. Perhaps the most important baseball games take place in the mind, memory and imagination of the individual fan. The daily ballgame isn’t as important as the decisions of generals and politicians, but something that absorbs so many private imaginations has an emotional heft that cannot be dismissed…. The wonderful irresistible game of baseball, so enduring in its rules and rhythms, so varied in its lore and lexicon, has everything a writer could ask for, most especially the opportunity for vivid characters to involve themselves in a highly dramatic activity. Baseball is governed by no clock, and there is no margin that spells ruin until the last inning is over. Because baseball is so fundamentally timeless, it is fundamentally prone to surprises.
Nicholas Dawidoff

Baseball’s time is seamless and invisible, a bubble within which players move at exactly the same pace and rhythms as all their predecessors. This is the way the game was played in our youth and in our father’s youth, and even back then… there must have been the same feeling that time could be stopped.
Roger Angell

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling afternoons and evenings, and then, as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops…. Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.
A. Bartlett Giamatti

With Faith and With Feathers (at the start of a new season),

David

I have been warned about this and have turned this over and over again in my mind, but I am casting caution to the wind. Here goes…. I am endorsing Barack Obama - - - as my candidate for church member of the year! Is there some other position he is seeking??

Last week a firestorm broke out over some of the sermons the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama’s church, preached. In the sermon snippets in question, Wright is harshly critical of the United States, and in the fiery oratorical style of the African-American church he preached with passion about this, utilizing rather colorful language on occasion. Like Senator Obama, I disagree strongly with some of the statements made. Like Senator Obama, I believe such statements need to be put in the context of the entire ministry of Rev. Wright at Trinity UCC, and in the context of his experience as an African American in the United States. To do so does not excuse the excess in the rhetoric, nor temper my disagreement with what he says in the now infamous sermon clips.

Senator Obama’s speech, addressing this issue, and addressing larger issues of race in American society, is worth reading in its entirety (it can be found in many places on the web – I found it on politico.com). Whether you support the Senator in his race for the presidency or not, I commend his speech to you. I believe his speech will be considered one of the finer pieces of political speech-making in our history. That alone does not qualify Senator Obama for president. Don’t mistake my admiration for his speech for an endorsement. On that score I intend to remain neutral.

In the midst of discussing race in America and his relationship with Reverend Wright, Obama makes the following statement. Did I know [Reverend Wright] to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

It is that last sentence that earns Obama my endorsement for church member of the year. What a novel idea, disagree with your pastor yet stick around as a member of the church. Not long ago I met a person who told me he used to attend the church where I am the pastor, that is, until one of my predecessors said that Christians should not be surprised if they see Muslims in heaven. That was too much for him and he left to find some place else to worship. Awhile back I preached a sermon in which I made the following statement: These days I sometimes wonder if we are not making an idol of national security, sacrificing at its altar values that we have long held important for our life as a county, values that are important to Christian faith. What are we willing to sacrifice for security? I am not denigrating concern for national security, only questioning the effects an exclusive concern for it may be having on us. The United States has kept people in prison for years, now, without charges and without trials. We have people debating whether or not simulated drowning is an appropriate interrogation technique. Are we becoming ruthless and heartless? I meant these questions as genuine questions as I tried to explore how we might understand some of the New Testament language around the spiritual forces of wickedness and the evil powers of this world (terms that also come from traditional baptismal liturgies). Later that week I received an e-mail from a person who was in the military telling me that he and his children and girlfriend had visited a couple of times, but after hearing me question “waterboarding,” an interrogation technique he believed to be effective and essential in our war on terrorism, they would not be coming back. He did not think it had anything to do with Jesus and God’s love. I replied by thanking him for his service to our country, but asking him to consider whether “effectiveness” is the only criterion in to be used in thinking about warfare and national security. I used the example of threatening to kill a person’s family as a potentially effective technique for gathering information from somebody. It may be effective, but is it moral, and if there are moral limits to defense of our national security, shouldn’t we be discussing these and don’t our moral standards have something to do with Jesus, with God’s love and with our Christian faith? I have not seen this man since and I wish him nothing but the best. But apparently disagreeing with his pastor on some delicate issues was not a choice he wanted to make in this instance.

About the time of Senator Obama’s speech, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released the first set of findings from its massive survey of religion in the United States. Among the statistics noted – 44% of those surveyed indicated that they had moved from the religious tradition they were born into to another. How many of these people left because they disagreed with the pastor, priest or rabbi about something? I don’t know, but my guess is that it is one factor among others.

I believe clergy/religious leaders have a responsibility to address difficult subjects intelligently and sensitively and avoid inflammatory rhetoric as much as possible. I take that responsibility seriously. I also believe that there are times when one’s principles may lead one to move from one community of faith to another, when one’s disagreements with a pastor or priest or rabbi and with that community become a significant stumbling block to one’s spiritual growth and development. However, in our day and time, when so many choices are subsumed under the paradigm of making choices in the consumer market, so that searching for a community of faith becomes “church shopping” and moving from one community of faith to another becomes akin to buying a different automobile, one’s spiritual growth and development may be significantly enhanced by engaging with others amidst differences – by being able to say, with a Barack Obama – “just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed,” and being able to say of your pastor, priest, or rabbi as Senator Obama said of Rev. Wright – “as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.”

Feel free to disagree!

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

This is “Holy Week” in the Christian Church, the week when we recall and re-tell the story of the last week in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As you might imagine it is both a wonderful and a busy week in the life of a church pastor.

So this week, I am simply going to share two pieces of writing that illumine the Easter story (the culminating event of the week) for me.

Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in the rain, said I do…. For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible?... it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

To believe in Christ’s rising and death’s dying is also to live with the power and the challenge to rise up now from all our dark graves of suffering love. If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded, if gratitude for what is good does not flame up, if insight is not deepened, if commitment to what is important is not strengthened, if aching for a new day is not intensified, if hope is weakened and faith diminished, if from the experience of death comes nothing good, then death has won. Then death, be proud.

So I shall struggle to live the reality of Christ’s rising and death’s dying. In my living, my son’s dying will not be the last word. But as I rise up, I bear the wounds of his death. My rising does not remove them. They mark me. If you want to know who I am, put your hand in.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Grace, Peace and Easter Joy.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

As a part of my work, I serve on a few denominational boards, including The United General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. The title sounds rather impressive, doesn’t it? Our board is concerned with learning and the formation of leaders for our church. The board is comprised of United Methodists from all over the country and from around the world, and we meet twice a year.

I was traveling to Nashville for the spring meeting of this board when it occurred – the travel day from hell. It was as if the Marquis de Sade were the trip planner for the day, or as if the plans made for my day were mapped out in some ancient document from the medieval inquisition. Well, maybe I am being just a bit dramatic.

I was up at 4 a.m. on Thursday March 6 to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Nashville from Duluth. I was at the airport at the duly recommended time of 5 a.m. with all my liquid carry-ons – deodorant and toothpaste, neatly packed in a Ziploc bag for easy viewing by the TSA. I was ready with my boarding pass and ID when going through security, and was ready to roll. Please understand my jubilation at these seemingly small events. Getting up at 4 a.m. is for me something like those practices of mortification of the flesh that one sometimes hears about, or even witnessed in the “spiritual practice” of the demented monk in the DaVinci Code.

Anyway, the time came to board the plane, and in a slight touch of cruelty on a cold morning in Duluth, we had to walk outside to get on the place. Part way across the tarmac, we were turned around. The plane was experiencing mechanical difficulties. We returned to the terminal where two employees of the airline began to see what could be done to get us on other flights. One seemed very calm and competent. The other seemed overwhelmed by this turn of events – not a good sign for those of us waiting to see what might happen next. Well, about an hour later, we were told that the plane would board in about twenty minutes – the problem had been solved. There was much rejoicing.

We boarded the plane, and waited. Soon the pilot came on to tell us that a warning light was on in the cockpit, and though it was probably just the cold weather, we needed someone to come and check it out. We waited. The mechanic came. The pilot got on the radio again to say that we would be taking off when the paper work was completed. Why didn’t that thought encourage me? After a short while, the pilot again got on the radio to say that the paperwork was nearing completion, but we needed gas. Aren’t completing paperwork and filling up with gas activities that might occur simultaneously? But what do I know, I’m not a pilot.

We finally took off, three and a half hours late. My connecting flight in Detroit was long gone by the time I arrived. Not to worry, there was a 2 p.m. flight to Nashville on the same airline with room for me. I could relax, find my quiet center, and grab a quick bite to eat. The bite had to be quick, because my time was limited, so I grabbed something and returned to the gate at the requisite time, thirty minutes before takeoff. I would miss most of the afternoon meeting, but looked forward to greeting old friends at dinner. But the departure time had been changed. Now it was 2:30. 2:30 became 3:00, then 3:30. The plane that was supposed to take us to Nashville was not leaving South Bend due to mechanical difficulties. I began to wonder if the other passengers should ask me to leave the airport – I was feeling a bit like Jonah with trouble following me everywhere I went. 3:30 became 4:30, then 5:30 – then CANCELLED. What to do now. Well, I waited in line, and the person at the counter, who worked with grace and good humor throughout, told me that the computer had already booked me for a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina with a connection to Nashville. I would miss dinner but still get there at a respectable 8:30. I was handed new boarding passes and a few coupons for dinner.

I found a restaurant and again had to eat a little more quickly than I might have liked. I made my way to the appropriate gate, only to find that the gate had been changed. No problem I still had plenty of time to get there. Unfortunately, I had even more time than I desired. The plane to Charlotte was leaving 90 minutes later than scheduled. I quickly did the math and figured I could get to Charlotte, but not catch the flight to Nashville.

Three gate personnel later, I located the woman who had first been so helpful in Detroit. I was booked on a flight to Philadelphia with a connecting flight to Nashville arriving there about 11:30 p.m. At least I would get to Nashville before the day was out. This time it all worked out, and I arrived at my hotel at about midnight. Let’s see, 5 a.m. to midnight – I had been in airplanes, at airports or on shuttles for 19 hours!! I would like to go the rest of my life without a day like this again, though the chances are something like this may just come my way another time.

In the midst of all my running from gate to gate, and all my worrying about spending the night in a chair at the Detroit airport, I caught a little bit of news. CNN was on all over the place, and the news that day was not good. In Jerusalem, a gunman had entered a seminary killing eight – this following days of violence in Gaza as the Israeli army had entered the territory following Hamas rocket attacks. In Gaza, guns were shot off in celebration over the news of the seminary shooting. Will the violence there never end? Will peace ever come? College campuses were reeling as two young college students had been murdered in the past couple of days, one at Auburn and one at North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Stupid, senseless violence cutting life short.

Yes, my day was not what I would have hoped for or planned. But I was warm, sometimes a little too warm lugging my carry-on bags from one end of the Detroit airport to the other, and I was fed. I was not staring at the barrel of a gun held in the hands of a person whose only goal is to do harm and get revenge in some form. I was not a friend of someone who just lost their life to random violence, nor was I a parent grieving the death of a child. While I was at the airport, my older daughter called me from college to discuss some of her spring break plans.

Life can be frustrating when our plans go awry. We can get impatient when timetables are missed, when airplanes are not ready to fly. We would do well in such situations to breathe deeply, slow down our reaction times, do the best we can, and never forget to be kind. Life, even life at the Detroit airport, is a gift that God would have us use well.

Listening to my MP3 player on the last leg of my journey, I couldn’t help but chuckle inside (and on an airplane, in the middle seat, it is best to keep your chuckling to yourself!) as these three songs followed each other in succession:

Don’t Worry Baby, The Beach Boys
Sweet Home Alabama, Lynard Skynard (there were at least a few places I had not been
scheduled to fly that day)
The Waiting, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (the chorus includes the words: “the
waiting is the hardest part”)

Be well. Be kind.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

Old days
Good times I remember
Fun days
Filled with simple pleasures
Drive-in movies
Comic books and blue jeans
Howdy doody
Baseball cards and birthdays
Chicago, Old Days

I still dream of the lake of peacefulness
The warm summer breeze
cause my life was so much simpler then
Street corners and tastee freeze

Take me back to chicago
cause hustlins not my style
L.a. was just a bit too hard
I wish I could be a child
Chicago, Take Me Back to Chicago

Truly I tell you,
whoever does not
receive the kingdom of God
as a little child
will never enter it
Jesus, Matthew 15:15

Not long ago, I read Krista Tippett’s book Speaking of Faith (which has recently been issued in paperback). One of the passages that moved me most was her discussion of “humility.” As I watched my children move through the world, I began to imagine what Jesus meant by humility. The humility of a child, moving through the world discovering everything anew, is closely linked with delight. This original spiritual humility is not about debasing oneself; it is about approaching everything new and other with a sense of curiosity and wonder. (231)

This past weekend I was driving from Duluth to Minneapolis and listening to a Chicago CD I had created to include my favorite songs by this band that was enormously popular when I was in junior high, high school and college. Funny what I remember about some of these songs. Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is? I remember listening to that on an old transistor radio when I was home sick from school one day, listening to it on WEBC from Duluth, which has now become an all-sports talk radio station. Colour My World was a song, that when played, you hoped the girl you asked to dance might say “yes.” If You Leave Me Now got a lot of airtime the fall of my senior year in high school, and I can almost feel fall in the air when I hear the song.

I really don’t remember Old Days (1975) or Take Me Back To Chicago (1977) from my high school or college days. I recall them from a later time, when I discovered an inexpensive cassette tape with a few Chicago songs on it, songs that I did not have in my record collection – If You Leave Me Now, Baby What a Big Surprise, Old Days, Take Me Back to Chicago and a few other songs. The first two were the familiar ones to me, but the latter two have stuck with me for quite some time.

Anyway, I was listening to this CD and to these songs, which are back-to-back on it, and it hit me. Jesus once said that we need to receive the kingdom of God like children. What child-like qualities did he have in mind? We may not be able to say for sure, but it may have something to do with the delight in simple things that we experience when we are young – drive-in movies, baseball cards and blue jeans, street corners and tastee freeze. As Krista Tippett reminds us, to be a child is to be open to the world, to receive it with curiosity and wonder, and delight.

Do you remember what it was like to delight in simple pleasures – the smell of the hard bubble gum when you opened a package of baseball cards, the thrill of getting the card of the best players on the team you most rooted for (Minnesota Twins – Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Jim Perry), riding your single speed bicycle along a dirt road (the Seven Bridges Road in Duluth), the first time you heard a song that really grabbed your attention (for instance, The Beatles, Blackbird on a record my sister bought through the Scholastic Book Club).

Then we grow up and experiences accumulate. It becomes more difficult, it seems, to be surprised or delighted. We recognize the complexity of the world. If we are fortunate as children, we only slowly learn about hunger and poverty and war – if we are fortunate. But once we hear the cries of the hungry, the anguish of war, we cannot silence them, or we should not. The kingdom of God also has something to do with hearing these cries and feeling the pain,and responding – children seem pretty good at understanding the pain of others, too. We cannot ignore the complexities of the world, and those who try and jam everything into an all-too-simple faith, a faith that does not grapple with the complexities and tragedies of life, should not be seen as models for the childlike quality Jesus is after.

Even so, there is something in the delight of the child, the ability to appreciate the small pleasures of life, that God encourages in us, I think. As many search to live more simply, a good place to begin is to nurture the child-like capacity to enjoy simple pleasures, to delight in them.

Old days
Good times I remember
Fun days
Filled with simple pleasures
Drive-in movies
Comic books and blue jeans
Howdy doody
Baseball cards and birthdays

I still dream of the lake of peacefulness
The warm summer breeze
cause my life was so much simpler then
Street corners and tastee freeze

With Faith and With Feathers,

David