Hats

I came close to being a Steelers fan this past year.

Well, actually, “fan” is probably too strong a word. I was going to root for Pittsburgh, because of the hats. I was going to hope they won in a very noncommittal way and maybe even catch a game or two on television.
The reason for this is that in January we were in Pittsburgh. Annaka was a few weeks out of surgery but still in the hospital. The older two kids and I, along with my parents, were visiting for the weekend. The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has a number of diversions, and we were spending some time in the 6^th floor atrium, a large, three story rec-room big enough for a kid to blow off some steam. We were planning on playing hockey, but New Era, the very famous sport cap company, was giving away Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers hats in the middle of the room.

Now, like many of you, I could never convince myself to wear a Pirates anything. Pirates play baseball and I’m a Cardinal fan and therefore the Pirates are the enemy. Football, though, for me, is much more benign, so the kids picked out a few Steelers hats and we went on our way.

The caps didn’t really mean much to me one way or another, because I didn’t grow up with football. In high school we played baseball and basketball and we sometimes ran track. I’m a St. Louis fan, yes, but the Rams left, and I could never bring myself to consciously root for a Chicago franchise. (Again, it’s nothing personal against Chicago, it’s just…you know.)

However, as I’ve aged and had children, there was something about football that began to entice me. What I found appealing, besides the fact that it’s one of the rare times in a week where it’s socially acceptable to sit and eat junk food for three hours, is the tradition of it all.  I wanted to create a sports tradition for my kids, and the Steelers’ storyline made sense.

“Why are we Steelers fans, dad?” one of my kids would ask someday. “We live in Illinois.”

“Well, don’t you remember, child?” I would respond, “Little Annaka’s life was saved in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is the city of her second birth. And they also gave us those free hats.  Remember?”

The fact that the Steelers made it to the playoffs last year, of course, didn’t hurt.

It would be a quaint story, one that reinforced our family narrative. Rooting for Pittsburgh would be an annual source of family bonding. It would be something we could look forward to now and remember fondly when the kids are all grown up and act like they don’t know us.

And then, of course, the President picked up his smartphone.

As an abrupt rhetorical pivot, Mr. Donald J. Trump may be the only person in American history that consistently and unapologetically makes bad things worse just by telling us what he thinks.

For example, in case you haven’t heard, North Korea has nuclear missiles.  North Korea.  How does a person even make that worse?  The worseness of that situation should be imputable, like at a glass ceiling of bad.  But Trump did it.  He picked up his smartphone, cyberbullied the biggest psycho on the planet, and now here we are, the closest we have been to a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And if that wasn’t enough, he has nearly ruined an entire NFL season, an organization that is already in need of a considerable P.R. makeover, by, again, simply not filtering what is in his brain.  The truth is, his stream-of-consciousness rambling is enough to get a pee wee soccer coach fired, but he’s the President. A certain amount of authenticity is nice, I guess, but seriously.  Openly mocking senators? From your own party? Please tell me the G.O.P. is vetting someone to start running against this guy a year from now.

Now, what do I, personally, think about the flag “controversy?”  Well, personally, I think it actually is disrespectful. It is shameful. My father served in Vietnam and I was always taught to respect the flag. It truly does bother me when Americans, regardless of their background, disrespect a symbol that people have fought and died for throughout our country’s 240 year history.

Having said that, however, we also need to keep in mind that forced patriotism is not really patriotism, and requiring someone to stand for a symbol that partially represents freedom of thought is a little suspect, anyway.

More importantly, however, the “not-standing-for-the-National-Anthem” thing would likely have died down after a while. Before Mr. Trump started tweeting about it and otherwise calling people names, players not standing were protesting a historical narrative and ideological position that you may or may not believe even exists. When the President became involved, however, it became personal. It became a protest against a specific individual doing what he has always done, which is to create controversy and incite division in order to boost ratings.

So, finally, let’s turn back to the hats.  I personally, cannot root for a team that refuses to respect the American flag. Even a basic understanding of how the world functions should convince a person that, “Hey, America has its problems, sure, but the least I can do is stand for my own country’s national anthem.” 

On the flip side of that, do I think the players have the “right” to kneel at football games?  Of course they do.  Do owners have the “right” to fine those players? Sure. It’s partially entertainment. If the script says to stand at attention and you don’t do that, then you also have the freedom to suffer the consequences. 

The entire spectacle, however, has become a useless diversion more suited for reality television than running a country. If only there had been hints. 

Project 7:15 - Three Month Reflection

It is October 15^th, which means we are now a full three months into my uncertified life-coaching street cred enhancement A.I.T., “Project 7:15.”  (To reiterate, an A.I.T. is known as an Amazing and/or Inspiring Transformation.  All good life coaches, uncertified or not, have at least one A.I.T. on their resume.) Initially my goal was to go an entire year without binge eating cookies in the middle of the night; this soon evolved into not eating cookies at all and then avoiding all sugar altogether.

The first thing we need to know about Project 7:15 is that I have eaten sugar.  I have not eaten that much sugar, but I have consumed enough that I think I should probably come clean and tell you about it. 

About three weeks into Project 7:15, I was standing around a fire while a friend was making s’mores for our kids.  I was the passer outer, and there came a point when all the kids had been s’mored and she handed me a melting treat.  “That’s yours,” she explained, going back to the task at hand.

As you might imagine, this put me in something of quandary.  I couldn’t exactly just drop the s’more, obviously, because that would be beyond stupid.  It was Hersey’s chocolate.  I also couldn’t give it back and say something lame, like, “Yeah, I trying not to eat sugar for a year,” because she was busy making more s’mores.  So I ate the s’more.  As you might imagine, it was delicious, and, more importantly, the experience reminded me of a truth I had known since first grade. Sometimes food is not just food.  Sometimes food is community.

Nothing necessarily was gained by my eating the s’more, at least not socially, but had I not eaten it, especially since I had already touched it, something would have been lost.  I would have been one of those annoying weirdos that eventually are no longer given the task of handing out s’mores.

So, Project 7:15 was adjusted in that moment, and instead of dismissing all sugar for an entire year, I chose to dismiss all sugar that carried with it no community.  I dismissed random sugar.  So, since then, I’ve eaten a piece of birthday cake at my niece’s birthday party, a gift of a homemade candy brought in by a colleagues, a left over cupcake delivered by a student, and perhaps two or three other sweets that were basically handed to me by people I didn’t want to insult.

I also still have a piece of dark chocolate with my afternoon coffee and I still eat peanut butter with my oat meal.  Beyond that, however, twelve weeks into this thing, I have achieved three important benchmarks.

1.      Pants I haven’t worn in years now fit comfortably, which immediately enhances the wardrobe.  Instead of buying larger pants I simply now fit into pants I once wore.  This saves money and time, because I hate buying pants.

2.      My brain works better.  Although I only get about five or six hours of sleep at night due to my job as a parent, I still have a decent amount of creativity, something that wasn’t as obvious while I was still eating random sugar.

3.       And, perhaps most importantly, I don’t really miss sugar the way I did right at first.  I can get my kids donuts and have zero desire to buy myself one.  The smell of sugar, once intoxicating, is actually now kind of gross.

Thus, now Project 7:15, instead of resting on its laurels, will double down on its success and be even more amazing and/or inspirational.  Why?  How?  Find out in a month.  Until next time, remember, “The life coached well today becomes the legacy lived eventually.”  

Star Gazing

The world was supposed to end last month. 

As some of you may have heard, September 23^rd marked a moment of peak celestial alignment, when the planets of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were near the constellations Virgo and Leo. The sun and moon were also nearby, and some people believe that this orientation was actually a sign spoken of in the Book of Revelation:

"A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who ‘will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.’ And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.”

            According to some interpretations, Jupiter’s departure from the constellation of Virgo, which began on the 23^rd, correlated to the child being born. A tremendous cosmic spectacle, such as a sun storm or the sudden appearance of an asteroid or even a rogue planet, was going to fill in for the devouring dragon. Those convinced that September 23^rd marked the beginning of the end suggest that the recent string of unsettling events leading up to the date, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, political disruption, and of course, the recent eclipse, are too closely linked in time and space to be mere coincidence. 

In other words: September 23^rd. Apocalypse Now.

I realize, of course, that as soon as I began quoting from Revelation, some of you lost interest and some of you became defensive, but if you’re still with me, it should be noted at this point that I do read the Bible. Every morning, before anyone else in the house is awake, I try to spend a good half hour or so reading and praying. As a husband, a parent of three kids, and a high school English teacher, there is usually plenty to discuss.

I am a very imperfect Christian living in a very broken world, and I don’t take any book of the Bible, Revelation included, lightly.

However, I am also genetically wired, I think, to be something of a skeptic, particularly when it comes to concrete dates pertaining to concrete events. After all, in the 24^th chapter of Matthew, Jesus himself says of the end of days, “… no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” This is one reason why it bothers me when humans, who are quite earth bound, try to pin point an exact time when the world will end.

In many ways, it is even unbiblical to do so. After all, Christians are told throughout the New Testament, and I’m paraphrasing, “things will be rough, don’t freak out about it, trust God and pray about everything.” One might suggest that there is irony to this, considering that some Christians seem to be among the most anxious people on the planet.

However, these are, truly, unsettling times, as the recent massacre in Las Vegas has only emphasized, and there is no indication that things will calm down anytime soon. Anyone who has been awake for more than five minutes in the last twelve or so months should be forgiven for some frazzled nerves.

Many of Jesus’ disciples had frazzled nerves, too, and when they themselves asked their teacher for signs pertaining to his return, Jesus had this to say, as written in the 21^st Chapter of Luke: (For the sake of brevity verses have been condensed.)

 “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.”  A few verses later, Jesus continues, “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.”

Or, in other words, the nightly news.

If we take the long view, however, it could be argued that the events Jesus described actually happen to about every generation, at least somewhere, and so perhaps the larger lesson he was trying to teach his young students was that timing is much less important than truth, and the truth is this: the end—relatively speaking, at least—is always near. 

After all, the world did end last month for many, many people. It will end for many more this month, too. Whether the entire world ends tomorrow or a thousand years from now, nearly everyone alive today will be gone within a century. Sorry. I understand this is not my typically upbeat tone, but just do the math. It shouldn’t take one catastrophe after another, one nuclear-tinged tirade on top of tirade on top of yet another demonic mass shooting, to get us to pause on occasion and think about the very, very big picture.

When we die or how we die—an earthquake, a hurricane, quietly in our bed years down the road—is actually pretty irrelevant. The only thing that will make any difference at that point will be our relationship with God and our relationship with each other. 

Everything else is just star gazing.