Vocation

Since the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl on Sunday, I have been trying and failing to think of something theological to write this blog post on. So I’m not going to. Instead, I’d like to talk about sports.

The reason I love the world of sports so much is because it celebrates human triumphs—it’s a world where people can overcome adversity, where the place you come from shapes who you are but doesn’t determine where you can go, where dreams can come true. I think the reason why losses are so difficult is because we allow ourselves to dream—to really dream. In the midst of pain and disease and famine and death and war, sports provide this tiny window of miracle, of tangible “could be”s. We put so much of ourselves into this dream, wishing and hoping and praying, that a tiny part of ourselves dies if those dreams come crashing down. And even though there will always be another game, another championship, another opportunity, wounds like that are permanent. The throbbing slowly fades into numbness and that numbness becomes part of who we are—it’s part of where we come from and it fuels us towards where we can go.

These experiences bond us together as it becomes us against the world.

As I’ve walked through this city over the past three days, my favorite Seahawks beanie snug against my ears, I’ve entered a polarized world. Suddenly, everyone has an opinion and my clothing seems to be an open invitation for people to talk at me. A few offer words of consolation or encouragement while most act as if they’ve smelled blood.

I realized today that I feel like I am caught in the center of a religious war where my clothing seems to spark hatred for everything that I am. In some ways, I suppose, sports is a kind of religion: we watch our gods take on the gods of others, engage in ritualized superstition, brand ourselves with icons, strive for perfection, and pour ourselves into a group identity, seeking affirmation from others of the same sect. We have governing bodies and send out people to gather new recruits; different affiliations can lead to supposedly irreconcilable differences; and despite our imperfections we still have the audacity to believe we can improve ourselves. I find this religious quality of sports disturbing, as it seems we are setting up modern idols in our midst. Even so, with all the issues I may have with the system—the politics, the sheer aggression and violence, the polarization of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ I still can’t help but love the game of football and what it strives to be. It can be brutal, but it can also be beautiful, a carefully choreographed dance that stretches the limits of the human body, that seems to defy the laws of physics, that can turn nobodies into somebodies within ten seconds. This is a game of the highest highs and the lowest lows, a game where there’s always next year no matter what happened in this one. Some people call it incomprehensible and I can’t blame them, but I still can’t tear myself away. Because this is the game that taught me to love where I come from, that gave me an ‘us’ when I thought I was facing the world alone, that showed me the dangers of religion but also the joys, that took the rainy city I love and showed it to the rest of the world, that took the ones no one wanted and turned them into a family, a band of brothers, a legion. This is the game of my rain city’s redemption and, no matter what the critics say, this hat I’m wearing snug against my ears is not going anywhere. Because it represents so much more than just a team and holds so much more than just a logo.