our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you...

(joey harrington?)

((damn))

a couple months back, i worried that my man-crush above all other man-crushes may be lost from his and my field of dreams for an extended period of time. it looks as though, now, those worries have come to fruition. because of his alleged participation in the fighting, beating, body-slamming, drowning and electrocuting of man's best friend, mike vick has been banned from reporting to his team's training camp. according to guys on espn and close to the situation, this seems to only be the first step in removing him from the team and memory of atlanta falcons fans forever. which is a shame, really.

the part that means he may be punished for doing something as mind-boggingly disgusting as some of the acts he's being accused of is not a shame, but the part that removes his hope/potential from my favorite nfl team is. sports, in my mind, is nothing without potential and hope. not that this idea is revolutionary by any means, but the reason a person attaches themself to a team or player or school is because of the garden of eden type feelings he/she/they can renew within that person prior to and sometimes during every season they participate in. why is it that, year after year, i allow myself the freedom to be a twelve year-old and convince myself that "this" will be the braves year? why is that i know, at this very moment, that nick saban will never lose a game as head coach of the university of alabama? why is it that, prior to mike vick taking a snap from center, i hold my breath? because, in some deep, dark, lonely, romantic, delusional part of my mind, the potential and hope held in those scenarios define, in my mind, what perfect could and should be. sports is nothing without potential and hope. neither is life.

i got to sit down with julie holly yesterday morning as part of my humc "tour of diplomacy" which may or may not culminate with a reconciliation between myself and the guy whose name rhymes with "marry me." it was a nice conversation. the kind that we both realized about midway-through that we had never had before. i admitted to her that that was probably my fault. i was already on the staff when julie was appointed to huffman and i carried two things with me and against her for a long time that weren't really her fault. the first was that she was brought into huffman and inherited a position as associate minister that had been eliminated several years prior and deemed "unnecessary" (you can also ask donna godwin to talk to you about being unnecessary to huffman) to our congregation. never mind the fact that it was just another way for huffman to usher "one of it's own", chris perry, out the door because he may have been ruffling too many feathers. and never mind that our congregation's number did not explode during the period between chris leaving and julie arriving. quite the contrary, actually. and never mind that huffman never admitted any error or wrongdoing in quietly reestablishing the position. it just did it. but this wasn't julie's fault. it was huffman's. and my own personal feelings just made it easier for me to hold it against julie. secondly, at one of, if not the, first staff meetings we shared together, julie moaned and groaned about having to attend annual conference events. looking back, she was surrounded by ministers (rick, gerry, charles, jack) with like-minded thoughts, so she was probably just saying out loud what she thought everyone around the table would want to hear. a gaffe? maybe, but i was sensitive at the time and skeptical of her even being there, so why not hold that against her too? and so i did.

i have come to realize over the last several months that julie (and others, i am sure...including marry me.) never even had an opportunity to play in my garden of eden. she never held any real hope or potential because i didn't allow there to be any. and it's a good place to be in, this place of realization. julie made a comment yesterday that i think, six months ago, i would have taken offense to. we were talking about my natural connection with the group of 18-25 year-olds that i think are absolutely critical to the future of my church. she commented that, because of that connection, she was fearful that if i hitched my wagon to theirs and came away wanting, the same feeling of hopelessness that i once had for huffman would rear it's ugly head again. i appreciated the concern, but i told her that i did not fear hopelessness any more. i have seen the bottom of that barrel, and i don't intend on returning. what i fear is lack of hope, and that is something entirely different altogether.

as soon as news came down that the falcons would be without the most brilliant athletic example of hope i have ever laid eyes on, i convinced myself that their season would be lost because it would be resting on the shoulders of one of the more brilliants athletic examples of mediocrity that the league has seen in the last five years. but i am trying to remember that, five short years ago, joey harrington was the third pick in the nfl draft and made teams drool at the thought of his potential. i am a firm believer that we never lose our potential. we just occasionally lose our way. in the same five year period that harrington has disappointed football fans, humc has disappointed me, itself and it's community. in both cases, potential and hope remain. i hope, in both cases, we can find our way.

the fates of my church and a trivial (in the grand scheme of things, not in my garden of eden) nfl quarterback are not intertwined, but it would be very cool if they paralleled. both rising from the ashes of disappointment and borderline disaster into something good and, once again, hopeful. one has to play better football. our task is more daunting. we have to change a mindset. one that bleeds from our oldest members to a twenty-something associate minister. a mindset that tells us that the only way to "fix" the machine/model/construct is to own it and change it from within. a mindset and a model that is failing us and blowing cannonball-sized holes through our potential. a mindset that will take longer than we have.

in my garden of eden, the model is new, and my church will still be standing in twenty years. and the falcons are not dead yet.