Does god have favorites when it comes to football?

So a good friend of mine posts this meme this morning – not just any friend mind you, but a pastor and a really – a good Christian man. 
 

Now I know he is only getting on board with team spirit, and of course, there are similar memes for the local team, the Broncos – stuff like god and the color of sunsets and such, but I was oddly disquieted by the whole idea as I headed off to fellowship.  And once there, surrounded by a sea of orange – I began to ponder – what exactly does god think about all this.  There were only two people I saw in something else – both Dallas cowboys fans so clearly god was unimpressed by their low attendance in church as they lost.  However I suppose in Texas there were churches full of white and bluish colors if like us they don’t have formal dress codes. 

And then there’s the whole praying thing on the fields, extra prayers after touchdowns and such – and I’m not offended by that – people should have the freedom to honor who they want – but what are they praying for in such a public way – I don’t ever remember praying before a hockey or cricket match in Australia – either as a player or a spectator.  Does the team with the best prayers get a leg up somehow?  I doubt it would intimidate me if I was an opponent of less or no faith.  You want intimidating – the All Blacks famous Haka – now that’s intimidating.

However what really troubled me as I pondered the sea of orange in the church assembly this morning was how do we disconnect the ever present reality of a significant part of what football “culture” is and what they believe?  How do you reconcile a business (call it a sport if you must) that tacitly endorses (is two faced about at best) rape, general violence against women and children, misogynistic behavior in general, violence in general (both on and off the field), the bullying, and then of course you have the general failings we all struggle with more commonly – greed, arrogance and so on. 

Now I’m not saying ALL people involved in football have these failings.  Nor am I saying NFL football is the only sport or that US major league sports are the only ones that have these problems.  Clearly there are some really standup guys in the staff and playing the game throughout the sport and often singled out for their good example at the professional level.  But there is no shortage of evidence than many of these problems start at high school level, and with a wink and a nod, just become more entrenched for those who are so inclined as they move through the levels.  And move through the levels they will.  Very rarely will the college system and especially the NFL uniformly pass on a player with great on-field potential because of his poor off-field behavior.  And in the rare instances where a team washes their hands of a problem player, more often than not, if he is good enough, someone else will pick him up.

How do we separate the knowledge of the reality through the week and what we sing and pray about on Sunday morning and then revel in on Sunday afternoon?  I really don’t know – I have no answers.  I know I mostly pay attention and are happy to see the Broncos do well because it affects the whole mood of the town I live in – but other than that if I’m being really honest – I couldn’t care less.  As I’ve said before – I don’t even rate NFL football as a sport.  I think of it more as war games dressed up as a sport at best – which might explain a lot of the behavioral issues.  But I had to wonder – and have no idea how this works out in the minds of those so affected…  if I were a woman who had been the victim of rape or something similar at the hands of a football player or players, or if I were gay and the victim of collective harassment and bullying to the point of violence and assault – how would I feel walking into church to a sea of football jerseys…

We All Should be Feminists.

Epilogue/Prologue:

Here’s the thing – this only tangible linkage between this post and International Women’s Day is that the NPR piece that got me thinking MAY have been on air yesterday in some may marking this day.  

What I would note is the commemorative aspects of the day in and of themselves were unremarkable to me, other than the Google doodle.  What is interesting in the post analysis of this, and recognizing this in some way may contribute to discussions around the theme of International Women’s Day (this prologue being added to the original post a few hours later), is that some of the material I’m recommending you listen to in this blog now hits home harder on the subject of my and male generally blindness in some ways, or simply inability to see in others, how different certain things are for women than they are for me.

My mind went off on an odd tangent (as it is slightly prone to) the other day discussing a critique of another of the “Modest is Hottest” campaigns with a friend.

My concern shifted from worrying whether or not males could control themselves or harming girls outlook by leading them to believe they are sexual object that must be covered.  Because at the root of it all, the message is still about “being hot” – just doing it one way versus another.  In other words, what is still important here is wanting to be sought after by boys/men.

“We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs, or for accomplishments — which I think can be a good thing — but for the attention of men.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

So I guess what prompted me to write this morning and more than anything I could say was to draw your attention to a recent TED speech by this incredible lady.

We should all be feminists: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I was drawn to find out more about this woman and her amazing story listening to an NPR interview yesterday.  You might want to check that out too – it explores quite different themes, but also well worth the half hour of your life.

Americanah' Author Explains 'Learning' To Be Black In The U.S.

As an interesting aside, one of the starts from the acclaimed movie “12 Years a Slave” will also star in the movie production of another book by Adichie, “Half of a Yellow Sun”.

To wrap up what will be a short post – for me anyway, another thought provoked by this speech.

“Now, marriage can be a good thing. It can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?”

One wonders whether if this were not the case, and it very much is, whether the failure rate of marriage would be much lower?  No deep answers – just a question.  Enjoy your day…

 

an endless, deafening silence…

I don’t often go back and read what I’ve written but I felt compelled to go back and read this recent post.  What grieves me terribly is the events in Newtown compelled me to do so this soon.

[ref: Don't Let There Be Hole in the World Tomorrow ]

Did I want it to reassure me?  Did I want it to ease the disquiet in my soul? Was I hoping I had somewhere in my rambling jotted down an answer?

The truth is I don’t have an answer.  A friend of mine posted a podcast.  Phil is a pastor of a rather non-traditional faith community.  He didn’t have any answers either – just a lament.  I was glad to hear his heartfelt honesty.  I don't know why people are so convinced pastors and ministers in particular and we as a society in general needs to have an answer.  Maybe it would make it all easier to put it away in a little box and move on.  If only we knew why…  if only there was someone or something we could blame.  Do we think even the most perfect answer will make moving on possible for the people affected there in Newtown?

I grieve for them... I have no answers either, but my heart is broken with them.

I heard some of a press conference with the governor of Connecticut.  Amongst so many heart rending pieces of information and the grief poured out, one particular statement has really been gnawing away at me…

“Evil visited this community today” 

What do we do with that?  How do we prevent that?  Is it true that it is always there – latent – malevolent – waiting to be unleashed upon unsuspecting and undeserving people?  And whether it is there under the surface all the time – or just pops up at the most inopportune moments – where is God in all this?

Less than five months ago, one day after the tragic theater shootings in nearby Aurora I wrote:

Yes – yesterday there was a hole in the world.  Today is a new day – and while that does not mean something like this will never happen again (although I hope and pray that it does not), I will move forward in my life, believing that forgiveness and love has the capacity to overcome fear and evil.

Can I still believe this?  Is forgiveness and love enough?  Five months ago perhaps is was cathartic to write that – it almost seems trite now.  Perhaps it was easier to say last time writing a day after the tragedy – when my emotions were less raw.  It’s like these words were at best a Band-Aid that has been ripped away. 

The Band-Aid gets ripped away again when I read what to me is unconscionable nonsense from recent presidential primary candidate Mike Huckabee – suggesting that the violence was no surprise because we have "systematically removed God" from public schools.  Seriously?  What is he saying – that God repays evil (at least Huckabee’s vision of evil) with evil?  Again in the words of my friend Jimmy, “If you think God allowed 20 children to die because some folks turned their back on him I don't know what to say to that... I choose not to believe God is that petty?  If he is we are ALL in trouble.”   Me personally – I don’t think we are in trouble – God’s heart broke over this much faster than any of ours.

The Band-Aid gets ripped away again when I hear people advocating for our teachers to carry handguns and be trained to use them.  Again – seriously?  My wife is a teacher and I asked her.  She didn’t think you could convince many teachers to do it.  But even if you could – is this an answer?  It seems over and over to be one of the preferred answers here – answer violence with violence.  Personally I find the notion of armed teachers horrific - and we would be outraged soon enough over the shooting of a child by a teacher that turned out to be unjustified - even more so than we are when this happens at the hands of our armed law enforcement.

The Band-Aid get ripped away again when I hear nonsense like “guns don’t kill people – bad people with guns kill people”, or “we have all the laws we need to prevent this – we just need to enforce them”, or directly attributable to a leader of the NRA “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (Wayne LaPierre).  I’m sorry; I grew up on a farm.  I’m not opposed to guns.  I get the need as we had in Australia for control of animals threatening your livestock.  I get the utility as we did in Australia of using them to hunt for food.  I never contemplated and can think of no plausible reason why handguns or assault style weapons are needed for either of these purposes, both of which I consider legitimate.

But the truth remains - I still don’t have an answer.  Yesterday at least for me was not the day for answers.  I don’t know how to overcome evil, but I think a part of me will continue to hold out for forgiveness and love as a strong undercurrent.  Some of the most significant and transformative social change we have seen in this last hundred years came through adoption of largely nonviolent approaches.  

But we do need answers soon.  Tomorrow there will still be a hole in the world for many.  Tomorrow more than today, there will be for some as my friend Brandon wrote, “an endless deafening silence”.  Love and forgiveness will help – but we cannot just put this behind us and forge on stoically.  We can’t just say this is not us – because while there is unquestionably far more good than evil, the father of a student murdered in a school shooting 20 years ago makes an challenging statement which I think of more as a proposition:

“I came to realize that, in essence, this is the way we in America want things to be.”

The horror of this proposition is of course unacceptable today of all days, and yet are we willing to really go deep into darkest places of our souls and answer this.  Fundamentally I would say the answer to that proposition is no – this is NOT the way we want things to be, but then the challenge remains - what are we willing to do to change it?

I don’t have the answers for how this evil came among us, the nature of evil or how evil generally comes about.  Edmund Burke has been quoted perhaps uncountable times for saying:

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

The obvious extension of this is saying nothing is the same as doing nothing.   If the endless deafening silence is not only that in the homes of the victims in Newtown, then the blame for the next tragedy like this falls at our feet.