Sermon from the gridiron

"Ancient, traditional themes appear in the most ordinary of circumstances, and all it takes is an eye for the sacred to see them. The clearest place where this is true is sports. There you witness a dramatic battle between self and other, and home and visitors. Sports bring out the basic themes in any human life: facing difficult odds; struggling, advancing and retreating; winning and losing. A ball game takes place within certain bounds and according to strict rules, which keep the game separate from real life. These rules are like the rubrics or instructions for ritual. They allow a certain kind of athletic theater to take place, where both players and spectators experience in imagination the tensions they feel more meaningfully in everyday life. The spiritual element in sports appears in language such as 'miracle plays,' 'super bowls' and superstars---'super' is a word for transcendence--and in the pagentry and rituals of various games. In professional football, the Super Bowl is for some a powerful rite of civil religion, a compelling ritual process for a large segment of the culture."

Thomas Moore

Consecration of the beer and pretzels is at 3:30 p. PST. Go Steelers. (Well, in '06. Don't much care who wins '05. After all, there is only one team that beat both teams in the Super Bowl this year, back-to-back. )