This is your place to publicly comment on the topics and issues addressed in Speaking of Faith programs. React in a personal way, and put into words what the programs mean to you.
How have sports played a role in your spiritual life?
Share Your Reflection
Now I Can Fess Up (July 10, 2005)
I sometimes feel a little strange being a spiritual director and writer on the inner life and, at the same time, an avid baseball fan. My friends just smile and tolerate me! But I must say when I have my score book all filled in with the line ups for the day and the national anthem has been sung, there is this spiritual moment when the whole stadium waits for the home team to run out on the field to start the game. It is a "thin place," a place in which something in addition to baseball seems to be happening. I can honestly say that I can feel as close to God watching a beautiful double play as I do in prayer. Well, almost! Thank you for a very thought-provoking show.
Janet Hagberg
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)
Dealing with Spiritual Meaning (July 8, 2005)
I feel like we know each other, but we don't — I'm just a loyal listener. First, thank you for a great program. The show is consistently well produced with interesting guests and discussion. We don't spend enough time thinking about or talking about things of faith. Your program both starts and makes these conversations more frequent. Thank you.
With that said, last week's show was a puzzler. While I enjoyed the funny bits on religious language as a part of sports culture, I honestly found the discussion of sport as religion rather out of context from your program's historical topics. Has American society degraded so far that we honestly can't tell the difference between the spiritual and the mundane? Are we so "fallen" that we feel the need to find "spiritual meaning" in the pursuit of leisure. Can mastery of a physical skill (like Michael Jordan's phenomenal basketball playing) be legitimately confused with spiritual experience?
I had hoped to hear at least a PART of the show deal with the implications of such claims, but instead, it felt that you were guided down the well worn path of "spectacular as substitute for spiritual." Admiration is not automatically a form of spiritual enlightenment. It seems modern America has finally found itself in the company of the great civilizations of Pharaoh's Egypt where he sought to best Moses' God-given powers with the skills of his own magicians, and Nero's Rome when the gladiators and games were more important than the health of the empire. God bless America.
Scott Rackham
Milwaukee, WI (WUWM, 89.7 FM)
The Real Message (July 7, 2005)
I believe the real eye-opener of this excellent and original piece is the possibility that society's seemingly insatiable thirst for sports can be explained by a genetically driven need for community, shared vision, and ecstasy (or in the case of some fan, agony). And that this same genetic coding could be behind the almost universal presence of organized religion throughout the planet. The "god-gene" so to speak. I am wondering if anyone knows of any further information on this theory.
Jim Shanahan
Landenberg, PA (Listens via Web Audio)
Books on Baseball (July 7, 2005)
I loved this program. I am a BIG baseball fan, a Chicago Cubs fan, which takes a LOT of faith! I also have a Master in Theological Studies from St. Francis Seminary, Archdiocese of Milwaukee (1991). Someone gave me a great essay from America (April 4, 1992) by Clyde F. Crews, titled "The Metaphysics of Baseball." Although it is somewhat dated, it has become one of my favorite writings on baseball.
There is also a picture book about baseball stadiums called "Green Cathedrals" (not sure of the author). And I love Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin, about growing up as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, which paralleled my experience as a fan of the old Milwaukee Braves. Her father instilled in her the love of the game and my father did the same. In her book, she also compares the major league baseball season with the liturgical year. I find your program very interesting and thoughtful and challenging. I am happy to know that you interview the guests with compassion and respect. Often, when I listen, I take notes, in addition to having your e-mail newsletter in front of me. Thank you so much!
Sandy Schmidt
Milwaukee, WI (WUWM, 89.7 FM)
Spiritual Connections from Sports (July 5, 2005)
I just loved your show concerning play/sports and their importance to us as a people and a nation. I am a physical education teacher and played sports throughout my life. Baseball was my passion which I gave my all. What is interesting is that many of my intense spiritual moments were connected to playing or being around sports. It was almost as if God used sports to communicate with me and let me know he is always present and can intervene in
one's life.
In one baseball game as a college athlete, I had the best game that I ever played after sitting on the bench for many games. I accounted for the only two runs that my team scored. In the last inning, up by one run and the tying run on second base, I visualized the play that was to occur on the next pitch. I ran to the spot as the pitcher released which was a single to left center. I was able to field the ball on the full run and throw home, which was important due to the fact I had a weak arm. The runner was tagged and out by an eyelash and the game was over. Was this just a quirk? There was no mistake I knew and I trusted that I did. Sports help bring out intense emotions and its when ones' passions are at their highest levels learning and intuition occur.
Terry Thourson
Mount Prospect, IL (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)
Pan of Show (July 4, 2005)
I'm a big fan of your show, but I thought yesterday's show with the sports theologian guy Price was off your high standard. The topic was great, though, and if you can ever get that charismatic Chicago Bulls coach
(Jackson?), I hope you will try again. I'm going to send a monetary vote for your show to my NPR station nevertheless. Best wishes.
Thomas Witten
Chicago, IL (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)
Work Can Be Play Too (July 1, 2005)
I truly relish your program, but this week I must disagree with your and Michael Novak's conclusion that "work is diversion and escape" vis-a-vis the essential reality of play. In truth, each of us — as individuals, as organizations — have the opportunity to approach our work as deeply enriching, joyful service to one another and ourselves. In so doing, we learn, stretch, grow and improve, and we enrich people's lives. Few of us experience such joy — due to our own personal and cultural shortage of vision or wherewithal regarding the essence of work. Nonetheless, that opportunity is there for each of us, whatever our task or station in life. And, with such a view, we can find that our work, too, becomes play in its special form, and we achieve an increased integration between our extra-curricular play lives and the joyful play potential of our work lives.
For markers, check out Southwest Airlines or Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market, each embracing "play" as a core organizational value. To close, a heroic workplace leader-friend challenged his team members to "Have fun!" at work! When asked by a team member to explain, he replied: "I'll know when you're having fun when I see you racing out of your 4x4s each morning — 'Can't wait to get to work!' — and then at day's end you drag yourself back to your 4x4s, dog-tired but deeply joyful and fulfilled by the outstanding work that you've accomplished in service of others and yourselves."
Robert Moore
Columbus, OH (WOSU, 820 AM)
The Phenomenon of Play (July 1, 2005)
I've become a fan of Speaking of Faith. To deal with "play," the work of O. Fred Donaldson needs to be examined. He has investigated "original play" both as a phenomenon across many species and also as a fundamental state of being that underlies much human accomplishment and error. His research has meant playing personally with wild animals: wolves, bear, lions, insects — and humans. You might take a look at "bear and dog" on his site for starters, or the Phoenix Academy school in Fairfield, Connecticut.
My organization, Urban Visions, Inc., has been running "peace dojos" in South Bronx community organizations and NYC public schools for eight years. We adapted Donaldson's original play as part of physical nonviolence training in a dojo setting (that also includes aikido, verbal conflict resolution, meditation, and council circle). The play element, which our children named "Kitty Game," has become their initiation ritual for new participants and a powerful means of teaching the physical basis for love.
Bill Leicht
Ancramdale, NY (WNPR, 89.1 FM)
Sports Dimension of Faith (June 30, 2005)
First, thanks for continuing to provide a literate and insightful contribution to faith discussion on the airwaves. Second, I'm looking forward to the sports dimension of faith — or the faith dimension of sports. One of my richest experiences of the human/faith dimension in sport was provided by Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer. Keep up the good work!
Arthur Carrillo
Detroit, MI (WUOM, 91.7 FM)
Baseball - God's Game (September 5, 2004)
As I listened to the program "In Praise of Play," I was reassured that I was/am not as crazy as people would imagine me to be. I serve as an Associate Pastor in a local Baptist congregation and I am an avid baseball fan. Many times I have jokingly referred to baseball as my mistress, although my wife finds no humor whatsoever in it.
Since I was a child I have loved the game and in the stillness of a moment watching a game I feel the connection with God. The God I worship is the Creator God who rested on the seventh day. God also commands us to enjoy the Sabbath and baseball is a game of Sabbath. There is no time clock, no hurry to get to the end, only nine innings of pure Sabbath. Each pitch, each swing of the bat, each diving catch, each vendor yelling "Hot Dooogss", a moment of rest from everything else. Deadlines are forgotten, projects put on hold… for a period of
time nothing else matters but that we are watching baseball, God's game.
Also, for a moment in time we all are kids again. Our teams hat placed firmly on our
head, cracker jacks in one hand and our worn tattered baseball glove on the other. We all think that today is the day that we will catch a foul ball, the ultimate souvenir. All that matters for a moment of time, for a sunny afternoon is the hope that we live out as we wait for the ball to be hit to us.
Baseball is God's game for God asks us to come to him in childlike faith, a faith that I think is much like the faith I have at the ballpark. Finally, baseball, like religion, calls us to remember the feats of those gone by and celebrate their lives. No sport has the richness of baseball in it's remembrance. There are tales of Babe, Teddy Ballgame, Joltin' Joe, Hammerin Hank, the Wizard of Oz, Jackie Robinson, Ty Cobb, etc., etc, etc. We recall in Christianity the stories and lives of those of yesteryear those who have played the game of life before us and their greatness. There was Abraham, David, Ruth, Jesus, Paul, Augustine, St. John of the Cross, Mother Theresa, etc. etc. etc. Lives that remind us that there is something bigger than ourselves calling us into relationship. God is a God who I know who loves baseball.
Bland Campbell
Charles Town, WV (WETA, 90.9 FM)
Athletes as Moral Exemplars (August 22, 2004)
In regard to your recent program "In Praise of Play," I have attached an essay titled "The Moral Value of Sports: Lessons for the Church." I submit that for the life of Christian faith, exploring the practice nature of sports is more fruitful than Joe Price's mile-wide-but-inch-deep appropriation of phenomenology via Eliade. We all recognize the quasi-religious ritual aspects of spectator sport events. So what? What does that contribute to the moral life, the life well-lived?
One of the most inspiring Olympic moments for me was when Marcus Rogan stood in solidarity with his buddy-though-competitor Aaron Peirsol in the 200m backstroke finals. Stanford swimmer Rogan, swimming for Austria, immediately supported Peirsol when the judges disqualified the American for an illegal turn. Rogan said: "My friendship with Aaron is more important than a medal. As far as I am concerned I didn't care about getting silver. I know he is a better swimmer than me. I would have just been a nominal champion, not a real champion." Using MacIntyre's categories, Rogan knows something about the goods internal to the practice of swimming, and to the good life of being a swimmer. He was not swayed by goods external to this practice — even by the good of winning Olympic gold (under unfair conditions).
Likewise, Michael Phelps knows about the internal goods of swimming, as he demonstrated in sacrificing his earned opportunity to swim in the 4x100m relay so that his archrival (!) Ian Crocker could swim butterfly for history and gold. Rogan and Phelps are both modern-day Andrew Lindsays; as I suggest in my essay, it's the Lindsays of the world that we need to pay more attention to as moral exemplars.
Don C. Richter
Asheville, NC (WCQS, 88.1 FM)
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