Philadelphia Eagles and My Emotions

There have not been too many times when my emotions have gone from sky high to subterranean low. I mean as extreme as I can imagine. Not as bad as winning the lottery and then getting hit by a car, but close. The Philadelphia Eagles have not been playing well lately, and they needed this game to get "back on track." The team made tons of mistakes, including several by their sometimes brilliant and sometimes brain dead quarterback Donovan McNabb. Anyway, the game seemed lost, but with forty five seconds to go, the Eagles' terrific, but often injured running back, Brian Westbrook ran fifty some yards for an improbable touchdown. I was screaming and clapping alone in my condo. My wife was out shopping, but I screamed with pure joy all by myself. Thirty five seconds to go, and the game would be one of those last second steals. The Eagles didn't do a great job on the kickoff to Tampa Bay, who started on their own 36 yard line. To make a horrible story short, Tampa was down to their last play, and went for a 62 yard field goal for the win. A kick like this has only been done twice in NFL history, and the kicker, Matt Bryant wasn't even that good. The longest field goal of his career was like 50 yards. Making a 62 yard field goal would be like throwing a basketball from the opposite side of the court, and having it go in!
Do I really have to tell you what happened? The kick was GOOD!. The game was over, and I sat in shocked disbelief and dismay along with the rest of the city. Another day in the life of a Philadelphia sports fan.

Shedding a Tear

I was going to write about shedding a few tears at the gym yesterday. No, it wasn't from working out too hard, it was from something I caught on television. It was the discovery of a young female college student's body. The pictures they flashed, showed her cheek to cheek with her friend, a huge smile on her face. Maybe it was a graduation or a birthday. Maybe it was the first day in her new apartment. The picture could have been one of my girls, especially the younger one who always poses with her cheek touching her friend's cheek. Same big smile. Same future that is wide open. Same possibilities that anything can happen. But I won't write about this young woman because it is too sad.

Or is it? Could it be that physical death takes us to a whole new world of possibilities? Could that be the time that we shed the low densities of physicality and again become what we really are? Who we are, are pieces of God with every bit the same powers of creation, and potential for love and happiness. What if we're just seeing this whole existence through a dark bottle? What if we could peel off the layers upon layers of negativity, "I can'ts," "what ifs," and "if onlys" like an onion?

Could physical death be the most freeing experience we will ever know? Maybe like taking off three sweaters, two coats, 4 pairs of socks, a pair of boots, and running into a wonderfully warm, but refreshing shower. From stuck in the goop to flying in the breeze.

I don't know, but I still shed a tear.

Forgiveness

I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet that before last week, a lot of people made fun of the Amish. They ride around in horse drawn buggies, don’t use electricity, and live much the same life they lived two hundred years ago. Amish folks don’t follow college and professional sports, have cable TV(remember no electricity) or care much about Brad and Angelina. They’re probably aware of current events like war, crime, and some popular culture, but those things are not a part of their consciousness or life.

What an indescribable jolt it must have been to the Amish community in Lancaster, PA when a gunman and would be molester walked into the Nickel Mines Amish School, shot 10 children, and killed five little girls? What would that type of tragedy do to anyone? How would most of us react?

Here’s what I can’t get out of my mind. The Amish community issued a statement where they offered forgiveness to the gunman, and set aside a portion of the contributions intended for the victims’ families, for the gunman’s family. They said that part of it was to help with his children’s education. To even think or say the word “forgive” just days after such an unimaginable event is beyond most peoples’ understanding.

Spiritual thought and tradition says that God will forgive everything we do. And everything means everyhing. If you accept that, then you may also agree that a person who can forgive the cold blooded murder of their child must not only have an unshakeable belief in God, but be themselves God-like. They truly are living and thinking the same as God. What a different life we would all be living if more of us not only believed in God, but lived as God.