Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Heavens To Murrgatroyd

I think it can be safely said, now that the Red Sox are in the World Series, that God is involved in sports once again, but it's hard to hold his attention for long. Nevertheless efforts to engage him continue to be made on the playing field.

Gestures change with the times and it's hard to keep up. We're starting to see the end of the double-fist-bump on the heart, which is good, because I'm always worried it signals palpitations. That's a general salutation anyway, not directed toward the Almighty so much as one's fans. But it's nice and short, and the shorter you keep these demonstrations, the less likely the game will be delayed. Experienced practitioners can whip out a sign of the cross between the wind-up and the first pitch. It signifies that the batter is from the Dominican Republic.

You don't see a lot of genuflecting on the field, though. This should be left to catchers, who have springs for knees. Again, it is important to speed up the gesture and not linger overlong with one knee on the ground, lest the player be mistaken for a black man with an opinion, which is something black men are not licensed to have in this country. If you're at all arthritic you shouldn't even try.

We do not have a surfeit of Muslim baseball players and it's just as well. There's no way to speed up the prayerful position, even if it occurs naturally during a slide into second base, inasmuch as the player would then have to ascertain which way is west and point his heinie in that direction. It's a tough call in a domed stadium.

I do think we are achieving the ultimate efficiencies in God-acknowledgment with the current fad of looking skyward while pointing one index finger straight up. The message being sent here is something along the lines of "glory be to God on high," which is certainly how I would feel if I ever landed on first base with a solid hit. (My usual reaction is "holy shit," actually, but that's close.) So far God has not seen fit to install me on base except on a fielder's choice and that's not the kind of thing people like to give God credit for; not disease or hurricanes or dropped pop flies either, although I would imagine he's equally responsible for those.

The specificity of the direction is interesting. For many people, God has an actual address, and it is almost universally assumed, at least by Christians, to be located "up." If a baseball player hits a triple and points somewhere over the horizon, everyone in the stands would turn and look in case there was an incoming asteroid or something. If you think about it, if all the Christians in the world pointed up at the same time, the whole globe would be bristling with fingers going every which way. Which makes sense, if God is indeed everywhere.

For behold, the kingdom of God is within you, or so I recall from my early training, though nobody wants their baseball heroes pointing at themselves even though they made a spectacular play and have worked hard to hone their skills for years and years. It's just not done. But many ascribe to the notion that if God exists, he exists in each of us, and so it might be nice to level a finger at your teammates, especially if one of them just winged you the ball from a rolling horizontal position just exactly where you'd need it to tag the runner. There's no better explanation for a play like that but that God is directing things from the vicinity of that person's chest. Go ahead and point.

As long as he's not a Yankee.

24 comments:

  1. Wow. I sure do encounter a lot of religious people when I drive. I get the finger all the time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Driving will put the fear of God in you for sure.

      Delete
  2. It's nice, I guess, to believe that there is a trusted manager up there making sure everything is going brilliantly, unless you're a kid starving in Yemen or a desperate family walking a thousand miles through Mexico or a brave, thoughtful journalist visiting a consulate in Turkey. Those peeps, well, no god is helping them because he's having fun on the holy couch watching the World Series. Which begs the question. How fun is it, really, for god to watch the World Series if he already knows how it turns out? But I guess he likes to take a break from solving world hunger and violence and stuff he's shitty at.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoaaaa Nelly! Susan's on a ROLL!

      Delete
    2. Are you god, Susan? If you are, please come help us because shit's gotten really ugly here. And the NFL, NHL, and NBA are all beginning their seasons and I don't have time for you to be messing with that shit right now.

      Delete
    3. I just realized I don't know God's first name. I hope it's Hank or Dotty.

      Delete
  3. Quoth Michael Valentine Smith (Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land, 1961): Thou art God. Which means thou, and thou, and thou, and all thou’uns. This book pretty well ruined religions for me. I was spared.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't remember religion being specifically ruined for me. Must've been a gradual erosion. I also don't remember getting the word about Santa Claus. You'd think that would stick with you.

      Delete
    2. Religion wasn't ruined for me, either. It just never stuck in the first place. Santa Claus was a very slow, very gentle awakening -- and I have no idea how my parents engineered that one.

      Delete
    3. You know? Must've been hearing kids in school. As for religion, I do remember being real dubious about that baptized thing, real early. Seemed like a pretty arbitrary rule for getting into heaven.

      Delete
  4. Sigh. I am glad of our secular society. And strongly resisting the efforts of some of our politicians to change it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had to ask Mr Google about dropped pop flies. I thought it might have to do with trouser flies being fastened with what kiddies call poppers or pop-studs. Mr Google hath disappointed me, verily.

      Delete
    2. Well, now I'm disappointed too, and I wrote it.

      Delete
  5. Assuming this god guy is everywhere, especially up, why is he only helping talented athletes. I am tempted (by the devil, no doubt) to add many more in need of something good to happen to Susan's list. When stuff goes wrong, how come those ball players don't point down?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Reminds me of one of my favourite gripes. When athletes win, they thank their god. When they lose, it was their god's plan. Sheesh. Talk about conveniently different interpretations. I'm all for giving teammates some credit instead!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I almost responded "Amen, sister" but thought twice. (Oops did it anyway.) I have the same feelings about musicians who thank god for an award instead of their band, their label, their manager ...

      Delete
    2. I don't believe in anything, and yet I still hope I'll have the presence of mind to say "Thank you" as my last words.

      Delete
  7. I subscribe to the idea of God being everywhere which means I can talk to him anywhere which makes for a great reason not to have to park my bum in a church pew when I'd rather be anywhere else.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Considering my spiritual condition, I seem to end up in a church pew rather often through the year. One thing or another.

      Delete
  8. " ... ultimate efficiencies in God-acknowledgment ..." Oh how I love this. I'm going to slip it into as many conversations as I can.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think you'll find TOO many places to wedge that in...but you're welcome to it.

      Delete