Of worship and fandom

Published : 4 Feb 2013, 02:39 PM
Updated : 4 Feb 2013, 02:39 PM

Age is like a superstorm, and life is a floodplain. Here on the Jersey shore, the grounded boats, the boardwalks that look like torn stitching invoke nostalgia. We really didn't have any idea how nice everything was until it was gone.

Two blocks from me, an old church kneels reverently in the space between two abandoned buildings. I remember walking to this church each Sunday, wearing my best clothes, dragging my three girls behind me, and often carrying my little son on my shoulders. I remember the music, good rich gospel music, the preaching so profound that I can still quote many of the sermons I heard.

The children are older now; only two still live at home. The other two are off in the world, seeking their educations. A little further down the road, on the grounds of the high school, a very different sort of house of worship also lays claim to my memory. It's the football field.

My second born daughter, the one who takes organized religion the most seriously, was, ironically, the one who prevented us from attending church during the football season. For eight or nine years, she played American football, a very unusual choice of sport for girl, even here in America. Her football games coincided with church time, so during the football season we were absent from the congregation. The spiritual commute between sports and religion formed some of the happiest memories I had as a father. All my other children play baseball and acquitted themselves well on all boy's teams. Both older girls were chosen year after year for the All-Star team. As a father of athletes, I can honestly say that I probably prayed as much at the ball field, and perhaps more fervently, than I did in the pews.

I miss the old church, its wonderful people, the deep gratitude those people felt just that God granted them another day. Still, I hesitate to return. When my children were young, my philosophical opposition to some of the fundamental theology of Christianity did not prevent me from sharing membership in a wonderful community. But this proved to be a weak foundation, and, as that great super storm, Time, rushed over its boarded-up habits, church-going was swept into the sea of my middle-aged nostalgia.

Religious zeal, in its worst form, can be an abusive form of herding — totalitarianism for your soul's sake. It is often a form of self-denial, even a denial of "the better angels of our nature." On the other hand, in my experience, at least, the zealots I have met have been a surprising lot. Most have not forgotten that their own paths were not prescribed by some leader, but inspired by the obstacles God gave them as a gift to make them strong. They are zealous, but they are not judgmental. They are healers and not judges. They allow me space to disagree while they acknowledge that we worship the same God.

This week, I noticed that someone had posted pictures of my daughter on Facebook. She is spending a semester in Hyderabad, and any small news of her is a source of great joy. The photos portray my oldest girl as batsman and bowler, as she plays cricket for the first time. I trot down to the local convenience store and report. "My daughter was carried off the field on the shoulders of her teammates. I don't know what she did, but it looks like those baseball skills came in handy."

Then we launch into a conversation about cricket, even though the shopkeeper supports India and knows that I am a well-wisher of those Tigers of yours.

It hits me that being a religious zealot and being a sports fan result in often very similar behaviors.

It is a very normal average middle-class lifestyle that we experience here in New Jersey. In fact, to speak the name New Jersey is to instantly conjure an infinite series of identical lawns and parkway exits — quintessentially suburban . But even here, with the blessing of leisure, where sports and religion are served like sweet desserts at the end of the week of feasting, the cold fingers of Time find their way into the crevices and pry our world apart.

All we can do is safeguard the rights of passage so that our grandchildren may receive from our children the same sources of joy that they received from us. This is why we now rebuild the churches, boardwalks, and ball fields that the storm raked from the shore. These are the places where youthful exuberance never finds gray hair. These are the fields of our forever youth. In church, at the beach, at the ballpark, I am forever twelve, a devoted fan of the New York Mets, those beloved losers unburdened by ambition, and earnestly on my knees before the unfathomable secrets of the universe.

I'm sure Karl Marx would have something to say about my comfortable middle-class way of viewing the events of the world, but as I read about the soccer riots and subsequent death sentences in Port Said, what resonates for me is the image of that twelve year-old, a soccer fan, for whom a trip to the pitch to see his local team is unthinkably dangerous.

In 1986, I was living in Buenos Aires. I was part of the mania that swept the country as Diego Maradona led the Argentinian national soccer team to the pinnacle of the sport. Never was a nation so united in prayer. The game against England was the most cathartic moment I had ever seen in sports up to that point. Four years after a military defeat at the hands of British naval forces in the Malvinas Islands, the rivalry between Great Britain and Argentina was made manifest on the soccer pitch. I remembered our collective prayer: "Dear God, if we go no further, at least give us this victory."

And So It Came To Pass. A high pass, a jump by the diminutive Maradona, and GOOOOOOL!! We went wild. We hardly notice that Maradona's left hand had come up and touched the ball. Even the partisan announcer, after he'd settled from the usual excitement said, "for me, it was a hand ball. What do you want me to say?"

After the game, Maradona commented, "The goal was made a bit by the head of Maradona, and a bit by the Hand of God." From then on, the goal came to be known as "the Hand of God".

The miracles didn't end there.

Four minutes later, with all of us pressed around a TV set up in a storefront out on the street, Maradona scored the "goal of the century." He dodged British players as if they were wooden soldiers, and pressed on to the net.

The announcer was in tears, crying as if he had just witnessed the birth of his own child, and screaming as if he were the one giving birth. He shouted at Maradona, buzzing the microphone with his cries, "Cosmic Rocket, from what planet have you come to leave so many Englishmen in the dust?"

It was glorious, my friends. Absolutely glorious. I could understand the announcer's tears. In an instant, all the horrors of the military dictatorship, of the thousands of disappeared, of the disastrous war, all melted in the exuberance of the moment. It was the Rapture made manifest in sports, and I am sure that millions felt as if they had been lifted into Heaven that afternoon. It reminded me of the exhilaration felt by the crowds in Buenos Aires when Pope John Paul II visited the city.

On the other side of the coin, we have the tragedy of violence in the name of both sports and religion that mean that a younger generation will be lost to the sweeter gentler rewards of worship and fandom. I'm talking about the violence at the soccer stadium in Port Said, Egypt, where seventy-three people were killed.

I guess the people I mourn for most are individuals who weren't even at the Stadium. In a culture of hooliganism, many children will attend more funerals than soccer games. I wonder if it will be possible for that generation to rediscover a childhood that they never will really experience. Politics aside, harming another human being in the name of religion or team sports is the worst form blasphemy–not just for the victims themselves, but for the impact it can have on youth.

It can lead innocent children towards unnatural inclinations, like atheism or golf.

Here, I have no observations, no insights, absolutely no wisdom to offer on the state of affairs in the world as I enjoy that "uselessly disturbing interlude in the blissful repose of nothingness" known here in the football world as Superbowl Sunday.

Only a wish, a prayer that somehow we can rebuild the boardwalks and houses of worship, and that someday, soon, in Egypt, parents will have enough peace to be able to forget their adult obligations and take their children, with confidence, to a soccer match at a stadium in Port Said.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", teaches the native art of oral tradition storytelling.