A Sidebar

So as of last night my plan on what to talk about in my blog this week was to continue to explore my experiences with running the marathon because I feel there are a lot of interesting insights to be gained from it. However late last night and this morning something has come up that has intrigued me even more. Like a lot of Minnesotans, I am a Vikings fan, and so like many others I sat down yesterday to watch the game and this morning I got up, went online and read the Star Tribune to see what the local sportswriters were saying about the game. I tend to find the Strib writers to generally be negative and today proved to be no exception. What was remarkable to me was the level of anger and frustration expressed not just by the writers but by almost everyone who commented online about the articles. This reminded me of something I learned in seminary, it is never really about the color of the carpet. A classic case of church pettiness and in-fighting that often comes up is the examples of when churches have been torn apart about what color to make the new carpet in the sanctuary or if the church even needs a new carpet. What we are taught in serminary is that often conflicts like this are not really about carpets, they are about larger issues that cannot be expressed easily or are deliberately repressed but come out in other ways, such as feuds over colors and patterns.

The level of animousity expressed on the message boards for ever article makes me think that the Vikings are another such example of this. As I mentioned, I watched the game and I cannot say that I was overly impressed with the performance of the players and coaches on the Vikings team. I feel that there were numerous miscues at a variety of levels, however at the end of the game, the Vikings were ahead, they had won. Yes they beat a team by 2 points that had not won all year and was being outscore by about 20 pts in every other game, but they won. What is so striking to me is that immediately following the Vikings game, FOX cut away to another game in progress, and I watched as the previously win-less Rams kicked a last second field goal to beat a theoretically strong Redskins team, a team that is generally considered much better than the Vikings. The Rams, like the Lions have the distinction of having previously lost by on average baout 20 points. So do we as fans of the Vikings have a right to be upset and concerned by our teams poor performance, yes, but should we also be glad that unlike the Redskins we came away with a win, and a share of first place, yes. The aggression and negativity expressed by the "fans" is highlighted even more when in some of the articles there were numerous quotes from players expressing support for their coach and also commenting that the booing and negativity of the fans was far from helpful. Rather than simply be the sign of diehard fans who are sick of having a "sub-par" team, or fair weather fans who are seeing a few too many clouds for their liking, I think there is another cause for all the anger: the economy. At a time where people are losing homes, watching their house values plummet at the same time that stocks do and seeing economic leaders around the world scrambling for answers, it is easy to see why people would be worried. Maybe this really is all about a football team playing well under their potential, but far more likely I think it is that people need a place to vent, a place to express the hurt in their lives, and that football is a safe place to do it. We are powerless to save the stock market, and many people are powerless to even save their own mortgages, but we can log on and vent our anger into cyberspace. After 9/11, people used baseball and football as a way to come together in the midst of grief, now maybe we need to use football and baseball as ways to express our frustration, because venting about a sports team is a lot healthier than bottling it up, drinking it away, or something worse. I am not sure what the church can do to help people with their powerlessness in a time like this, but at very least maybe we can help people remember that deep down it is not about the carpets.