| 06 February 2006 Secular Sunday My Mother, bless her, asked if I was pulling for the Steelers or the Seahawks. I had to think for a moment. The Seattle Seahawks had beaten my Washington Redskins on their way to the Superbowl, but I had a hard time dredging up any particular animosity to them. And I like Seattle , or at least the idea of Seattle , with Dr. Frazier Crane's cute apartment and those little dogs and the wonderful coffee. I considered the Steelers, in those retro uniforms, and the distant memory of wonderful teams long ago. They have done a wonderful job in cleaning up the old Steel City . The confluence of the three Rivers, the Alleghany, Monongahela and Ohio , is once again almost pristine. The banks along the water is once again home to over 50 unique species of wildlife, only one of them interested in football. “I talked to my Boys, Mom,” I said carefully, “And as a tribute to the environmental clean-up, we are going with the Steelers.” She seemed pleased, since her family had lived downstream on the banks of the Ohio , and I think Pittsburgh had once represented the Big City and Bright Lights to her when she was small. I wished I could pull for them both, and looking out over the tarpaulin-covered pool and flat gray sky I thought about how good the coffee tasted on the ferry, heading out of Seattle and across the water. It is a luxury to take a longer view on things like the Superbowl, not having anything personal involved in the outcome. If the intensity is less, then there is an equal lessening of pain in the outcome. For all of us who have no team in the game, no dog in the fight, there is no particular fervor. I had a long conversation with a fellow unbeliever who was slightly inclined to favor Seattle , and felt the most emotion of the night when a 63-year-old rock and roll artist took the stage with a geriatric band and launched into “Satisfaction.” Mick Jagger rolled his eyes and pursed his lips and said they could have had the Rolling Stones at the first Superbowl. I don't think any of the players in that game could prance the way he can. The believers hype this contest into a quasi-religious affair, and it is, if a team is elevated into an uber-representative of a city or region, a symbol of the civic vitality and spirit. According to the cashier at the supermarket, it is an unofficial holiday with nearly the same impact as Thanksgiving, without the obligation of travel, or family, or praising Providence for the bounty of the year. It is almost perfect. I watched the game, and the excess, and the eventual victory of the Steelers with satisfaction as mild as the emotion I had committed to it. Then I went to bed, wondering why the powers that be schedule these things on the night before we must slog back to work. I woke to the murmur of the radio, and a vague feeling of dread. Were the Holidays finally over? Was it time to actually get on with the year? Were there no further excuses? It appeared there were not. The attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, is scheduled to testify about warrantless searches conducted by the National Security Agency this morning in an open hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Syrians apparently provoked the violent protest in Beirut over the cartoons with the unflattering depictions of the Prophet, PBUH, in a largely Christian neighborhood where the Danish mission is located. Part of the crowd surged toward a Maronite Catholic Church, chanting anti-Danish slogans in Arabic and vandalizing cars. I have a hard time imagining what an Anti-Danish slogan might be. Danish flags and banners bearing images of the cross were burned. A Dutch photographer was mistaken for a Dane, as if, and the crowd went after him. The Lebanese Government was embarrassed, but other protests erupted in Afghanistan and as far away as Thailand . I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker the other day that featured the Prophet of the Christian Church. I think the Buddha was with him, or perhaps I have that confused with another joke. This is certainly no laughing matter, and the very idea of starting out a story with the line: “So, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed walk into this bar...” would be insensitive beyond belief. Or a punch-line to a recent story I heard that went “No, I meant 77 Virginians.... .” I am relieved that we have the luxury of concentrating on the secular here, and the manifestations of that secular society. It was not a good millennium for the Christian family, this one just past, and the wars between the factions of the True Church do not appear to be completely over. According to recent polls, more Americans believe in the Devil than in Darwin , and a significant component of the citizenry appears to believe in the literal meaning of the Good Book. Those would be English words, translated at the behest of a long dead English King from other tongues several times from an original text of compiled from letters and poems. So be it. We just have to deal with the world as it is. All the conceivable holidays have been exhausted. The President's Day break is weeks away. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra www.vicsocotra.com |