"Nothing like it...."

Opening Day!
Baseball is back in town!

Yes, our Buccos have already played six games and wear a 2-4 record, yet, there remains something electric and fresh about your home team's opening game!

This afternoon, PNC Park will have the red-white-and blue bunting; "Opening Series 2015" will be painted on the field; they'll announce the line-ups and players will trot out and stand along the baselines; the hot dog buns will still be fresh (try one in late August...); and all will be well.

Baseball is a glorious game. Perhaps it's because of the symmetric structure of the game, the fact that there is no clock and games can go on for hours upon hours. The pace of the game is easy lending itself to conversation on the history and the stories that mark an individual fan's journey with the game. Perhaps it's because for many of us this was the game we played and watched; these were the cards we collected and traded and saved; these heroes we mimicked --- how many of us did the Willie Stargell bat windmill in the games we played in backyards and Little Leagues? The game stretches over the wonderful times of spring and summer and into autumn. Timeless is the ache from a painful loss (Franciso Cabrera, 1992, anyone?) and the exhiliration of a huge victory (October 1, 2013, Wild Card Playoff win, anyone?).

Another season of baseball along the Allegheny River begins! Glorious!
Is there anything better than day baseball played on a grass field with the sun shining?

I'll be there today and I'll think back to Opening Days when I got out of school to attend the game.
I'll refect on my first game when I was a kid and was amazed at how big everything was and how I was a bit anxious to stand up because of how high it seemed we were sitting.
I'll remember collecting "Town Talk" bread wrappers to receive a free ticket to the game.
I'll mist a little bit when the jumbo-tron shows the greats of Pirates past --- Wagner, Law, Face, Kiner, Maz, Clemente, Stargell.
I'll stand, as I do every game, when my Buccos take the field and I'll keep score --- my one and only venture into anything resembling mathematics.

It will be glorious, win or lose because it's baseball in the home park with the home team with a new season jolted with a hope-filled buzz and a bloom of possibility ready to bloom.

Play ball!

sj;

Ramblings on Resurrection Sunday

Whenever one of us would be bummed over a lost game, a lost opportunity, a lost grade, a lost deer, a lost love (note: the last two mentions in the list would perhaps lead one to believe I misspelled dear...nope....I come from a family of hunters....I meant to write deer)....our mother would say, "Life goes on." The confidence with which she said those words was a comfort as well as evidence of the conviction of her faith.

Today is the exclamation point for we who access the Divine through the life and ministry of the Christ. Easter is the answer, the why, the reason, the foundation, the hope, the energy that drives our faith.

Like most holy days, the point is they are recognized in a 24-hour cycle yet the reason behind the celebration is to continue each day and cycle and season. To borrow a phrase from the poet and envrionmentalist, Wendell Berry, "practice resurrection."

Here in Pittsburgh following another "winter of our discontent" it does look like Spring has finally sprung. A day with bright sunshine, warm temperatures and buds about to burst --- practice resurrection.

The start of a new baseball season, that sport without a clock, a Pirates team seriously being mentioned as a World Series contender(!)....practice resurrection.

Birdsong in the morning...practice resurrection.

The yellow tips of the daffodils in the yard just needing a little more sun and then boom!....practice resurrection.

Kids on swings....practice resurrection.

Resurrection is liberation from all that binds us, blocks us, breaks us.

Faith is always in need of being renewed. I often say that I head the list of persons least likely to be ordained...yet, here I am...23 years this June. The president of my seminary said to the freshman gathered in his Systemic Theology class that one would've had a good seminary experience if one's views and thoughts were different, had changed when one graduated, evidence that one had wrestled and grown. I can say with that criterion, I had a good seminary experience.

What's true of individuals is true of the congregation, denomination and institution. We have always struggeled with who to let in...what to do with the Gentiles? The women? The blacks? The refugees? The undocumented? The gays and lesbians and bisexuals and transgendered? I think it's an easy answer: Love 'em. Welcome 'em. Include 'em.

In that spirit and in response to what went on this week in Indiana (not the Final Four...my bracket is officially blown), I quote the Easter Sunday sermon delivered by the priest finding his voice in the movie CHOCOLAT:

"Why do we choose to measure our goodness based on what we give up and who we exclude? Why? When we should measure our goodness by what we do and who we include. Christ is kindess, tolerance, life, love, joy!"

....practice resurrection;

Pep Squad

Throughout my high school years, that bastion of mature and welcoming hearts, I was not friends with one cheerleader. Nope. Not one. Furthermore, I still do not understand why they were ever and continue to be invited to the annual high school athletic banquet. Seriously. More still, during the high school football games I used to wish the coach would call a sweep play whenever the team was near where the cheerleaders roamed….preened….cheered (?).

With the gift of distance (a whole lot of it) from my days at dear old Freeport High School, I have come to both realize and appreciate the need for the cheerleaders in our lives --- those who encourage us, cheer us on and remind us of the little old ant and the rubber tree plant (shout out to Shirley Feeney).

I am reminded of this from, of all things, the wrapper on a HALLS cough drop. Printed on the wrapper are things like “Get back in the game” or “It’s yours for the taking” and “Fire Up these engines!”

These “a pep talk in every drop” lozenges got me thinking as to why? Perhaps, it’s because one takes them when feeling a bit under the proverbial weather or one uses them when preparing to do a lot of talking, teaching, preaching. If so, what a nice pick-me-up!

Along with the occasional cough drop, who are the cheerleaders on our sideline?

Are you a picker-upper?

Sincere words of encouragement from someone who is strongly in one’s corner work and have amazing staying power. Case in point, to this day in the Bible I received on the day of my ordination there is little note card. It was placed in the bag lunch she packed for me on the day of my ordination interview. The card said, “there is nothing you and God cannot accomplish together.” The card was from my mother. Gift in so many ways and still.

A few days after I wrote this post, I saw a segment about high school basketball in Texas. The Juvenile Correctional Facility in Gainesville, Texas fields a boys basketball team. As you might imagine, there is not an abundance of fans at their games --- being in lock down prevents that.

However, for good behavior the team is able to travel outside of the correctional facility to play a few games against other schools --- these schools are predominantly private schools in Texas. A couple of players from Vanguard College Preparatory School had the brilliant idea to ask half of their typical fan base to cheer for the boys from the correctional facility in Gainesville.

The students and parents went all out: signs, cheerleaders, and shouts and whoops whenever a Gainesville player scored or made a good play.

This fan base was a total surprise to the players from Gainesville who are used to playing with zero support. The players said the fans and cheering section was something they would remember the rest of their lives.

As one of the Vanguard players said, “It’s a very real impact that encouragement and support can mean for someone. We all need to have someone who believes in us.”

Encourage someone today. Better yet, encourage someone who would least expect it, yet needs it the most.

sj;