Baseball and the Mystery of Life

Spring training is finally here.  I am a baseball fan.  Since I was a boy I have rooted for the New York Yankees.  For the last 35 years, I have also become a Minnesota Twins fan. I seem to not have problems with dual loyalty. No surprise there.

I love the game and relax as soon as I begin watching.  But there is a mystery about baseball.  This mystery is not new to baseball fans.  It has been a part of the sport since its very beginning.  Major league baseball teams play 163 games in each of their seasons.  But, and here is the mystery, even the best teams will lose close to one third of their games.  At the end of each season the teams that go to the World Series will have won 90-100 games and will be hailed as having a spectacular season.  Meanwhile in the process of having this great season they will have lost over 60 games.  How can a team be so good and yet lose so many games? Conversely, some of the worst teams will at least win one third of their games.  How did they do that?  I could understand a bad team winning a few games here and there by accident.  But to win over 60 games and still come in last place is a mystery.  If they are so bad, how did they manage to win all those games?  And if some teams are so good, how do they manage to lose so many games? 

I know, some of you will say, this not a mystery.  It is just the way the game and sports in general goes. You win some. You lose some.  Right, I get it. But why are baseball teams so inconsistent?  And, sometimes, a baseball team has a “great” season, wins over 110 out of 163 games, and goes on to lose the World Series in 4 games straight.  What is that?  I know, it’s a short series, 4 out of 7, so anything can happen?  But why should that be?  You’re a great team that has just had a great season.  You have great pitching, hitting and fielding and yet you go and lose 4 straight? 

The game is unpredictable and crazy. I love it but do not understand it.  And by the way, the team that sometimes wins the World Series is a team that struggled the whole season, a wild card team that barely made it into the playoffs, and they become the World Champions?!   I find all this quite mysterious.

The fact is baseball is a game played by human beings.  And human beings like baseball players are consistent and inconsistent, predictable and unpredictable, have the capacity to act well and the capacity to act poorly. That’s what makes them human. On any given day, a pitcher who is having a terrible year can pitch a great game.  As a boy, I recall going to a double header at Yankee stadium when the last place Washington Senators played the first place Yankees.  The Senators won both games.  The Yankees looked terrible; the Senators played like champions.  For good or for bad, such is the nature of the game.  What makes the game interesting and crazy is its unpredictability and inconsistency. 

And that is what bothers and enthralls me the most.  You can plan effectively, cover every position, spend tons of money, do everything right and still lose due to chance. A vital hitter or pitcher, all of a sudden, gets hurt.  A player swings awkwardly at a pitch in the bottom of the 9th, ends up hitting a perfect bunt that allows the winning run to score. 

Baseball like life itself is full of chance events that can radically alter the tenor of the entire game or your entire life.  There is nothing that can be done about this.  And yes, just like our lives, it makes the game fun, crazy, strange, scary, sad and mysterious to watch.  And yet, I love it and cannot get enough baseball.  Like life, the season can be a wild ride, but we rarely feel we’ve had enough and always want more.

A Few Words about Change

After years of using an IMAC, I have changed to a PC.  I resisted the change but was encouraged by my wife.  I was used to the Apple and didn’t want to learn a new system.  Yet, again, with my wife’s help, I am learning how to use the new computer.  I’m getting better at it.  Change may be inevitable and good for us but it is a threat to our stability.

The Biblical God is always trying to change people. Through various messengers, God is constantly calling on people to repent.  Now, the word “repent” means to turn around and be radically changed.  Live your life in a different way.  Every prophet in the Bible harps on the theme of repentance and change.  By the way, that’s why most prophets are killed.

 Here is a truth.  Some people violently resist the change others think is desperately essential. And, let’s be honest, there are times when we desire a change.  There are times when we are not looking to change and yet change comes anyway.  There are times when we purposefully choose to change.  Finally, there are times when we are just plain not sure we should change.  When is change appropriate and when ought we resist change?

I say, any change which gives life and enlivens the soul is a good change.  This change may not make you happy on all fronts but it gives your life integrity.  It keeps you sane.  And that is the key to life, staying sane. The purpose of commandments in the Bible is to keep us sane, help us resist chaos and teach us what it means to be a human being.

Change is part of life.  My advice??? Absorb and enjoy the nice changes. I love the change to spring and summer.  Expect that sometimes change will not work out well. Craziness is, after all, a part of life.  I don’t like it but there it is.  People say, “this too shall pass.”  Yes, but sometimes it passes like a kidney stone.  Do what you can do to transform the unpleasant or unexpected changes into something that gives life. I know, easier said than done.

Finally, remember, and this is key, change is most difficult when you are moving, starting a new part of your life, a new job or working on a new project.  All beginnings are hard.  So, be easy on yourself.  Don't make your life decisions on the basis of fear.  Do the best you can, enjoy your friends, be encouraged and hugged by your pets, love your lovers, get a good night’s sleep.  All the rest is commentary.  And stay sane out there!

Wrestling with Nature

Nature has no conscience.  It does what it does.  It flings its arrows every which way.  Nature can be a beautiful mystery at which we marvel.  The amazing vastness of space, the billions of shiny stars, a beautiful summer night, the sheer power and depth of the oceans, a loud crashing thunderstorm, the massive mountains looming over us, all making us feel small and in awe.  But, nature can also bring disaster, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, ice storms, cancers and diseases of every sort, and many other calamities.  Nature can amaze us and dismay us.  Regardless, we cannot get away from its precarious power.

We survive nature by respecting its power and wrestling to overcome its chaos.  Sometimes we succeed; sometimes we fail.  In the Bible, God is pictured as constantly struggling to contain the chaos of nature, human and non-human.  Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not. 

But, note, the word "nature" does not occur in scripture.  Why not?

For the biblical writers, nature is not mentioned because it is not to be worshipped.  Nature is not God.  Nature is something created by God.  Nature has no morality.  Many times, nature is chaotic, something to be survived, managed and overcome.

It is our lot on this planet to wrestle with nature, for good and for bad.  And wrestle we will, to our very last breath.

Assuming God created nature, why does nature have so much power?  I do not know.  Perhaps it is there to humble us into realizing that we are not God.  Perhaps it is there to force us to wrestle with our lives, to appreciate each day we have on this floating rotating planet.  The older I get the more I realize Seth Godin is right, “We are not grateful when we are happy.  We are happy when we are grateful.”

Have a successful and sane day wrestling with nature.  And be grateful the parts are working well this morning.

The Heart, Soul, Mind of Being Jewish

Being Jewish is, primarily, not a matter of faith, it is a way of life.  Whether someone Jewish believes in God or not, is not as important as obeying the Torah of God.  That ought to strike you strange.  If there is no God, if no one is there, why are you bothering to obey his teaching?  Because God’s Torah is more important that God. 

The Torah or teaching from God about how to live our lives is vital to staying sane and avoiding chaos.  Once the Torah has been given to the Jewish people, it is no longer under God's control.  Jews must determine how to interpret and what to do with God's teaching.  The Jewish tradition believes that the secret to life lies in the doing.  When Jews debate and argue with each other, as they often do, it is over what to do and how to do it.  Long live this argument!

Most Jews do not know who or where God is, nor do they know what God is doing, but they know what God wants.  Torah teaches us to pursue justice, to care for the stranger, to rest on the Sabbath day, to refrain from worship of anything or anyone that is not God, to not murder, to remember the Exodus from Egypt as paradigmatic, to seek forgiveness from those we hurt before we ask mercy of God, to be in awe of, praise, question and even accuse God with equal intellectual and emotional integrity, and finally, to respect any religion that urges concern for the neighbor and clamors for justice.

Jews are people who are called upon to do what they can do to stop craziness wherever they live, from the smallest insignificant kindness to the greatest acts in pursuit of what is right.  To be honest, not all Jews do what they should do, that is true.  But the goal is the goal. The secret resides in the doing.  This is the heart, soul and mind of being Jewish. This goal of doing what you can do, "without God before God", is what gave birth to Christianity and Islam.

 And when a Christian or a Muslim does what he or she can do to stop craziness, they are each acting in a profoundly Jewish manner.  Whatever else those religions are about, they are at their best when they know, the secret resides in the doing and in the arguing about what to do.