Why Baseball

Tomorrow I’m heading to Phoenix to indulge my new favorite springtime ritual, spring training. I did it last year with my son Chase, to great effect, so am doing it again with sons Chase and Silas. If two of us could boost the A’s into first place in the AL East last year, what will happen with the power of three?

But it raises in my mind a perennial question: what is this about? Why does baseball mean so much to me?

Partly, it’s just sports, any sports–equally mysterious. But I do have a special feeling for baseball, so I’ll focus on that.

Baseball is a daily ritual. For six months of the year, six days a week, I follow it as a kind of second life. It’s something like reading a really engrossing novel, with characters you come to know and care about, with the future unknown. The dailyness is important.

It’s a spacious, outdoor sport, its visuals dominated by grass, merely dotted with players. Timewise it’s spacious too, with pauses between pitches, with 17 between-innings, each offering almost enough time to get something to eat. You can talk at a baseball game. You can let your eyes wander.

Baseball is human sized. Its players look normal. You can almost imagine yourself doing what they do.

Baseball is linear, which lends itself to storytelling and recapitulation. Most sports, a dozen people are moving at once; or the action is essentially repetitive (think tennis). It’s hard to tell the story of such games, at least in any detail. But I can recap the story of a baseball game pitch by pitch, inning by inning, with the rise and fall of drama as runners reach and score and the action see-saws. The linear nature of baseball also explains why it’s the most statistical of sports: it can be broken down to individual pieces in a way that basketball or football never can. As a result it can be savored, turned over, historicized.

Probably most of all, though, baseball (like all the other sports) connects the generations. My dad loved baseball and took me to my first games (in Yankee Stadium). I coached both my sons in Little League, which I believe they cared about nearly as much as I did. Baseball reminds me of days playing catch and hitting fly balls. It’s timeless, just the same now as it was when I was a child. So when I watch a baseball game, I haven’t aged at all.

Amour?

I can’t honestly urge anybody to see “Amour,” the French film that won the Oscar for best foreign film. It’s difficult to watch. If you want to see it–and it’s a fine movie–I’d encourage you to go with others who can talk it through afterwards. You can’t see “Amour” without thinking hard about your life.

The story is of two aging French music teachers. The wife, Anne, suffers a stroke. We watch as she declines in agonizing slow motion, and her husband Georges attempts to care for her. We see all the indignities, the terror and frustration. Nothing is romanticized; there are no compensations. These two clearly love each other, and the title, “Love,” is not ironic. But it’s not inspiring, either.

This kind of “amour” isn’t sweet or touching or motivating. This is love full of dread and duty.

That’s why you need people with whom to talk it through. The film presents the end of life for Georges and Anne the way they experience it: as a prison with no exit. But does it have to be that way? They see suicide as the only option. But there are actually many choices that they refuse.

They choose to be alone in their plight. They are not on terribly good terms with their daughter, who lives far away, but she wants to help, and offers to help. Georges rebuffs her.

He is reluctant to look for help, beyond a nurse who comes three times a week. Georges doesn’t get respite. He sees no one–no friends, no professional helpers. Hospice is not on board.

These two have built genteel, dignified lives. They love music. They inhabit a charming apartment full of their comforts. They have made it their castle. Facing terribly hard reality, they pull up the drawbridge.

You sense that all their lives they have cultivated independence, even from each other. Anne bristles against being cared for. She won’t listen to music, even a CD sent by one of her students, a successful pianist. The exigencies of care force Georges and Anne as close together as two humans can be, but there is little or no laughter in the way they embrace their indignities, only duty. And love. Genuine love.

But love is not enough. They need help, all kinds of help. They need community. Even with the best of help, what they go through is devastatingly hard. But hard is not the same as miserable. And they are fundamentally, abjectly miserable.

“Amour” pushes you to ask, “What would I do differently?” Lots of people have created charming, dignified lives that go well as long as they are healthy and have enough money. When they lose their health or their money, they may try to pull back into themselves, like a snail retreating into its shell. Georges and Anne do.  It’s just too undignified to admit people into their castle, to disturb their calculated life. They are stoics in the classical sense: their well-cultivated virtues will have to see them through.

It’s better to be undignified. It’s better to ask for help. It’s better to laugh and cry together. It’s better to be weak. It’s better to be dependent. It’s better to have friends. It’s better to rely on your family.

It’s still hard.

First Convert! Toothbrush Balancing Galore!

I’m back from some travel with exciting news. I saw Andy Crouch, the remarkable worship leader, sociologist, writer, social critic, and culture vulture. He told me that he AND HIS WIFE CATHERINE have converted to toothbrush balancing. Picture the two of them, looking incredibly goofy doing exercises in the bathroom with foam coming out of their mouths.

You too can look like this! (Please post picture if you do.)

In case you don’t know what I am talking about, review this old post.

Balancing with a Toothbrush

Emphatically this is a thought blog, and certainly not a health and fitness blog. Just for today, though, we are taking a break from heavy thinking in order to talk about a wonderful discovery I have made. No, not a weight loss shake! This simple innovation in my lifestyle has eliminated four minutes of boredom a day, while improving my balance and ending my problems with calf strain. Want to know more? Keep reading!

It began with a newspaper article about the importance of balance, especially for people as they age. I was talking about this article with a physical therapist friend, Janet, when she suggested that I try balancing on one foot while brushing my teeth.

This is not as easy as it sounds. At first I would start sawing the air after ten seconds or so. But I got better.

Then, a few months later, I was complaining to another physical therapist friend, Dave, about repeated calf strain that interrupted my daily running. He suggested hip strengthening exercises. (The hip bone is connected to the leg bone, as you may know.) When Dave offered some sample exercises I realized I could add them to my balancing act. That’s what I’ve done for the last several months. I’ve had no more calf strains, and my balance is definitely improved.

And most importantly, I am not bored. I’ve long found two minutes of tooth brushing morning and night intolerably dull. Now I have a simple, challenging routine which occupies my attention and is doing me good.

Here’s what I do: standing on one leg I brush my teeth while lifting the other leg outward in a scissors motion. After 30 seconds or so I switch to a one-legged frog kick. At the one minute mark I switch legs.

It’s just hard enough but not too hard. Generally I can do it without tipping over (I couldn’t at first), but it still takes concentration. Try it!

Living Alone

Sunday’s New York Times has a fascinating piece by NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg. It begins with this startling statement: “More people live alone than at any other time in history.” It notes that in Manhattan and Washington, D.C., almost half of all households have just one occupant.

In a chart comparing nations, the most solo country of all is Sweden, where 47% live alone. At the bottom are India and Pakistan, where 3% of households have just one occupant. The U.S. and Canada are in the middle of that broad range, at 27%.

Klinenberg puts a rosy spin on the trend, noting that people who live alone aren’t necessarily lonely or isolated. In fact, he says, “living alone can make it easier to be social, because single people have more free time, absent family obligations, to engage in social activities.” He notes that “compared with their married counterparts, single people are more likely to spend time with friends and neighbors, go to restaurants and attend art classes and lectures.” It’s true of older people too: “Single seniors had the same number of friends and core discussion partners as their married peers.”

We’re not necessarily becoming more solitary or isolated, then, but we are shedding obligations. When you live alone you can be as socially engaged as you wish—on your schedule and your terms.

When you share a living space, on the other hand, you have certain nagging obligations: to cleanliness, to schedule, to shared expenses… and perhaps also to shared meals and social times. Obviously marriage and family—which are equally in decline—obligate you much more deeply. Is there any doubt this is the environment where character and spirituality are formed?

It’s not a simple matter. Freedom and privacy are terrifically valuable, and our evolution from tribe to democracy is progress, I believe. Nevertheless, I feel some deep concerns over this trend. Libertarianism enthralls the right on certain issues and the left on certain other issues. (Economic liberty, gun-toting liberty, abortion liberty, sexual liberty.)There are good grounds for wanting to be left alone, especially by the government. But there are also good grounds for entering a covenant commitment, whether to people sharing your apartment, to a wife or husband or children, or even to the government formed by “we the people.”

Clearly, we’re moving in the general direction of “we the individualists.”

Thoughts Before a Wedding

My daughter is in town planning her wedding. This morning she made an interesting observation: many funerals make a deep impression, but weddings almost never do.

Despite the fact that wedding ceremonies are planned with great care, they end up gauzy creations, hard to remember. The readings, the flute solos, the carefully constructed candle lightings all blend into one undifferentiated haze. One’s mind drifts off.

Funerals, which are hardly planned at all, have far more solidity. Perhaps it’s because weddings are about the future, celebrating hope, while funerals are about the past, things realized. One is contingent, the other known.

In that respect all weddings are more or less alike, because the hopes are the hopes of humankind. But each and every funeral has its own distinct character, laid down in the life of the person remembered.

We live on the boundary between the future and the past, what we call the present. That thin and elastic membrane continuously and ineluctably converts hopes into realities. On one side we have our ideals and our illusions. On the other side, our honor and our regrets. Some of us have weddings. All of us have funerals.

Keep Visits Short

On the long plane rides to and from Sri Lanka I had the joy of reading both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility on my Kindle. (Entire Jane Austen collection downloaded for $1.) Here is one quotation I marked from S&S:

“The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion [of her sister’s breakdown] was a happy relief to Elinor’s spirits, oppressed as they often were by the clamorous kindness of others. It was a great comfort to her to be sure of exciting no interest in one person at least among their circle of friends: a great comfort to know that there was one who would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for her sister’s health.”

Allowing for Austen’s dry wit, she speaks a truth for people in sorrow. A friend of mine experienced something like it when her mother was dying. She sat at her mother’s side and greeted many visitors. It was very moving to see how much her mother meant to them. Some people, however—and some of the finest Christians were among them—were oppressively concerned. They showed their love through praying too exquisitely and staying too long. Exhausted by their well-meaning efforts, my friend found herself sometimes dreading their visits. She told me that the experience underlined the advice we often hear for hospital visits: keep it short.

A Unique, Wonderful Life

Celebrating the Life of Ozzie Belle Herrod

Feb 22, 1918 – June 16, 2011

My mother-in-law, Ozzie Belle Herrod, died peacefully last Thursday at the age of 93. She had grown increasingly fragile over the past few years. When the tornado roared through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on April 27, it went right through her neighborhood. She was unhurt but the house was damaged and she had to be moved into a nursing home.  Since all the roads were blocked by huge trees, this involved taking her by stretcher through several back yards to an ambulance. Whether because of the shock of this move, or because it was simply her time to go, she never completely regained her strength. My wife Popie was with her for most of the last three weeks, much of it in a lovely hospice unit. All her children were able to visit her and say goodbye.

On Monday, I spoke at a graveside service for the family. (Later that morning more than 350 people attended a service at her Baptist church.) This is the text of what I said:

You created my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made……

Psalm 139:13,14

The Bible teaches that every human being is unique, crafted in a wonderful and personal way by God himself. All people are meant to be wonderful, each in a distinctive way.

We all know Ozzie Belle Herrod as a wonderful human being, but it is a worthwhile task to ponder what was uniquely wonderful about her—to try to understand what made her different from everyone else.

**

Ozzie valued people, and no one else was as important to her as her husband, Henry. They were very different personalities, but they loved each other and were committed to each other so powerfully that they made a remarkable marriage—one that has undoubtedly influenced all of their children and many others besides. They made each other better people. One of the greatest challenges of Ozzie’s life has come during the last twenty years since Pops has been gone: to find new ways of being herself without her husband.

Ozzie valued family, especially her children and her grandchildren. She was certain that you were something special if you were a member of her family. This was an open category, as those of us who were adopted into the family learned.  When I joined the family I had a lot more hair and a lot more beard than Ozzie could possibly have been comfortable with, I dressed scruffily, I was a writer and a Yankee. How many strikes do you get in this league? Nevertheless, Ozzie loved me unreservedly and thought I was very special, simply because I was family.

Ozzie made people feel special. She had so many friends—young people and old, friends she had known since elementary school and friends she had made last week. All of us here today believed that we had a very special connection to Ozzie—that when we called her or saw her, she was especially delighted to hear from us. The funny thing is that at the service today, there will be hundreds of people who feel exactly the same way—that Ozzie had a very special connection with them.

Ozzie was interested in people and their doings, here in this world. She was not particularly interested in ideas. She was not interested in the past. I am interested in the past, but when I tried to get her to tell me stories of the old days, of her childhood or her early days with Pops, it was very hard to get much information out of her. She just wasn’t that interested. She was interested in people today, in the present.

She was not really interested in the future, either. She left it to others to have ambitions or lofty goals or life plans.

But she was really interested in you, and in your mother and father, and your children, and where they were going to school, and the trip she knew you were planning, and your garden, and a million other details. She asked and listened with interest and enthusiasm, and genuinely so. She remembered what you had told her the last time you saw her. She was not focused on herself but on you and your doings—the little things that are of very limited interest to most people but that matter to you.

I never met her father, Mr. Pope, but from all I can gather she inherited his temperament. He was a very gentle and easygoing man sometimes remembered as the whistling deacon, because he went around whistling. Like him, Ozzie didn’t get angry. She liked gossip but hardly ever, I think, in a malevolent way. She had opinions but she mostly kept them to herself. There was a lightness and a simplicity in relating to Ozzie. There was nothing heavy about it. She was not trying to give you advice or tell you what she thought. She was simply interested in you.

Ozzie was a Christian. In fact, I think she asked me to speak today because she knew I would say something about her faith. Faith may seem extraneous to the traits I have mentioned, but I don’t think it really is. She was of one piece. Her faith was integrally part of who she was.

She was not interested, to the best of my knowledge, in pondering theology or the deep questions of life. She was interested in people and their doings. And the people whom she cared for most—her parents and her husband—were all committed Christians. Her parents in particular lived in and for the church. She admired them and she followed their ways, which involved being regular and active in church and Sunday school, teaching your children the ways of faith, and loving your neighbors. Ozzie sincerely wanted to live out the convictions that animated her parents and her husband, not to earn a place in heaven, but to make a difference on earth. She tried, to the best of her abilities, and in her own unique way, to love her neighbors.

No wonder she was so loved. There was no one like her, and we will not see her like again. Although, as Ozzie would surely tell us, there is nothing so difficult about what she did. All you have to do is care about people and their doings—to show a sincere and enthusiastic interest in the details of life that matter to them.

Bend Over and Coffee

Don’t you love stories like this? Sounds like a serious study that finds drinking coffee significantly decreases your risk of prostate disease. (For men only, of course.)

Jacob’s Drive

In my Sunday night group we’ve been studying Jacob’s life. Most of that, as presented in Genesis, tells of a trip to nowhere. After engaging in a bare-knuckles struggle for the family primacy, Jacob has to run to Paddan Aram, where his uncle Laban lives. He makes a full life there, accumulating two wives, two concubines, twelve children and lots of property (mostly the four-legged kind). Despite these signs of permanence, he drags it all back to Palestine on the long journey to reconcile with his brother (who after all these years is extraordinarily gracious) and his father. The struggle for primacy seems long gone and irrelevant.

Jacob’s drive for property, for primacy, and for children is very powerful. That drive pushes him forward on his journey. But his acquisitions gradually lose their grand significance. His stolen “birthright” has not set him apart or above his brother in the least. When drought comes, he has to send to Egypt for help, just like his grandfather, the first wanderer. His children are a jealous and quarrelsome lot, not unlike him and his brother. (His brother wanted to murder him; his children want to murder his favorite.) He ends up just where he began. After all, he is living in the same place his forefathers lived, in a tent, and he will die just as they did.

What rises above this human futility are strange, numinous encounters with God. Once, running away, he has a dream of a ladder to heaven. Years later, terrified of meeting his brother, he wrestles with God. These stick. He gets a new name, “Israel,” or “God-struggler.”

Jacob is not a particularly good man. He has a powerful will, but in the scale of a vast desert, a continent, a planet, a cosmos, he does not amount to much. What sets him apart, in the end, are these encounters with a holy God, who has a particular and enigmatic interest in him and all his kind.

It’s a parable. Some of us have more drive than others; some have more wit and skill. Our lives are filled with adventure and achievement, largely based on that drive and skill. But we all are on a round trip. How different am I from my brother, my father, my grandfather? How far from home do I ever really get? “Dust to dust” remains the best summary of our lives, except for those few breakings-in of another reality.