football

i didn't understand the game of football AT ALL until my freshman year in college.

it was a long ways from my home in the Arizona desert to the frozen tundra - home of the Chicago Bears. but it was not long before i realized that these Chicago fans would risk life, love, limb, and frostbite to see a game at Soldier Field and breathe in the same air as DA BEARS. (ok, this was in the late 70's BEFORE our superbowl win in the 80's. we had payton - thee walter payton - but we were having quarterback issues back then too.)

i sat through a couple of Bears games in a crowded room being the only girl there and desperately trying to figure out what the heck a "down" was and why there were four of them. the game made no sense to me. and although i loved spending time with dave, i had entered the sacred shrine of male sports and it was fast becoming obvious when i didn't have the correct reaction to the play on TV that i was a football fan fake and worse - a Bears fan imposter.

i finally broke down and admitted to dave my failings as a girl friend and a human being - i did not understand the game of football.

he was stunned. i had attended numerous football games during high school. surely i picked up some of the rules. NOPE.

i was a member of the elite, disciplined, enthusiastic high school marching band. yes, we provided a stunning half time show but we also played appropriate snippets of songs during appropriate pauses in the game.

come on, who can forget the appropriately applied alka seltzer's "plop, plop, fizz, fizz - oh what a relief it is. . . " . or KC and the Sunshine Band's "oh, that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, i like it, uh-huh, uh-huh."

we roused the fans and the players with our enthusiasm and our nicely placed references to pop culture. i didn't have time to understand the finer points of football - i was helping to create the ambiance of the much sought after WIN.

after much hair pulling, teeth gnashing, and name calling - dave finally instilled the football novice's rules of the game. i could now watch football and not make a fool of myself or him. surprisingly, i found out that i like the game.

this did get me thinking that every day people participate in things they maybe don't fully understand. and maybe they don't want to admit they don't understand. like church. . .

i spent a lot years on Sunday mornings, sitting on the piano bench (and in this case "sitting on the bench" actually means you ARE playing in the "game") actively participating but not quite understanding the whole God sent his Son as a baby. . . wrapped in human flesh. . . becoming one of us. . .

i didn't truly understand until someone looked past my years of participating and asked me if i knew that "God so loved karen, that he gave his one and only son, so that if karen believed. . . "

so, being at the stadium and cheering your guts out doesn't prove that you really understand football any more than going to church and sitting through the service proves you know God loves you.