Second Thoughts

 

 

My Parents’ Advice

I am guilty!  I watched the Eagles defeat the Colts last night!  Lots of my friends probably watched Sunday’s football games and in rooting for their favorite team and when a block or tackle was missed were dismayed at a missed “hit.”  Football is a violent game and the gladiators are told to hit anything that is in sight!  Remember the high school football cheers:  “Push ‘me back, shove ‘em back, w..a..y back”……"Hit them again, harder, harder.”  Football fans in some small way are co-conspirators in the increasing abuse of woman and children and humanity in general.  So what should we expect from grown men who are told for most of their lives to hit and shove anything in their way? I know what you are thinking – “Bob, that’s taking it a little too far.”  Have I got your attention!

We are told that football is the new “America’s game!”  Good bye Babe Ruth and your drunken behavior, good bye Barry Bonds and your synthetic muscles, good bye Ty Cobb with your abusive language, good bye Mike Trout with your marvelous character and ability, good bye ……….  We now love hitting people rather than inanimate objects like baseballs.  Violence is in, gentleness is out!  People in the legislature striking others with their harsh words; gun lobbyists buying the hearts and votes of elected officials.  We moved from boxing and Greco Roman wrestling to full contact fighting – the crowds are growing.  We allow poverty to exist thus fostering violence in our cities and around the world as the left out try to fight their way out.

What is the anecdote to end the violence – or at least curbing it spread?  We could stop watching football?  For sports enthusiasts like myself, there’s not a fighting chance of that!  We could boycott the sponsors of such gladiator events.  Good bye Budweiser, almost all fast food restaurants, General Motors products, cellphone carriers, Marriott points, computer operating systems, and hundreds of other companies that are part of our everyday lives.  We could picket all violent sporting events.  We could get impassioned and put our hearts and money into pushing for stronger gun and abuse legislation.

However, it was my parents who taught me the simple answer to it all.  “Don’t you ever hit anybody!”    Before my studies in Biblical exegesis I took their words “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “Turn the other cheek” literally.  That stance in life did cause me some pain – like being thrown into gym lockers when I wouldn’t fight back or receiving an extra black and blue mark here or there.  Oh, I may have pushed someone away or grabbed a child to calm him down or keep her from hurting him or herself.  “Don’t hit anyone!”  Don’t hit or slap anyone –regardless of gender or age.  Practice non-violence!  Don’t hit people with your angry, hurtful words! 

There has been a lot of talk this past week of what the court can do or the NFL should do about violence against women and child abuse.  I will have to debate whether I stop watching my Eagles and whether I change from the Marriot to the Radisson – they just dropped their sponsorship of the NFL (hopefully for righteousness sake and not for the sake of the dollar).  I know I will continue to do what I can to fight poverty so that the left out won’t have to fight their way out.  But, I know that for the sake of my parents, my children, and those who meet me I will try to always turn the other cheek and be a peacemaker.

Prayer -  God of love and God of shalom, I pray for all those who are abused by acts of emotional and physical violence.  I pray for those who have violence so woven into their souls that their first response to life’s trials is to be physically and verbally aggressive.  God who embraced the little ones and touched with gentleness the rejected, instill in me a gentleness toward all and an aggressiveness in  fighting the causes of violence in the world.  I pray this in the Peacemaker’s name.  Amen.