Super Bowl (and a lot more) is In the Air

 

Helicopters above my condo woke me up this morning. The Super Bowl is in town changing the way the city and I both operate. Yesterday, my twenty minute drive to the hairdresser was 45 minutes long. Stopped at a light I saw thirty or forty Seahawk fans cross the street. My attention was on one Seahawk fan with this blue 12 t-shirt on signifying he is a fan;  the 12th ingredient to the team’s success. Brown and grey speckled hair, slight belly pouch, surrounded by guy friends; he was carrying a blue and clear plastic purse. A man-bag. No longer metrosexual. Now, practical. I giggled.

Once my body rolled from the bed and my feet hit the tiled floor, along with this memory, I hear John 3:16 in my head, “for God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whomever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Taken literally, this passage is saying God loves me so much he murdered his son so I could live.

No longer surprised by holding two disparate thoughts within my mind (Superbowl and God as murderer), I hear myself saying, “that’s crap.” God didn’t have only one son; really? And, he didn’t kill him so that I would see from this act a deep love then run toward this Deity to be saved. This sounds like guilt and manipulation at its sickest. I make a mental note to begin exploring what this passage means historically, theologically, and metaphysically. Sounds like the making of my Valentine’s Day sermon next month.

I grab two books this morning for my study, Love Poems from God, and Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays and Journals. My first reading:

An Image that Makes Them Sad (Meister Eckhart)
How long will grown men and women in this world
keep drawing in their coloring books
an image of God
that makes them
sad?

Then, from Emerson’s address to the Divinity class he speaks of having a direct experience of God and living life from and directed by one’s soul.

“Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he … Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those who are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil….Imitation cannot go above its model. The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.”

Which brings me back to the Super Bowl and God. Last year I stopped judging what I perceived to be the violence and stupidity of ball chasing long enough to explore the fascination and interest in this sporting event. I discovered many parallels of awakened and alive spiritual living within football; which I will write about in my next blog post. Here’s something to think about today; though. One of the qualities of God is Joy. Joy is demonstrated through playfulness. Have you seen the Seahawk fans? Blue and green wigs, painted bodies, temporary tattoos from head to toe … singing songs, and being in a state of celebration. Pretty mystical behavior.

Happy Thursday,