On the Minister’s Mind

with Rev. Laine

This past weekend I had family in town, and we went to a spring training baseball game.  The weather was spectacular, and the Red Sox played well, so overall, it was a fun outing.  As all good ministers do, I spent the time considering the possible metaphysical messages I could find in baseball.

Overall, we use so many baseball references in our daily lives, so people have been using baseball metaphors to teach concepts for many years.  How many times have you been asked to “step up to the plate” when you needed to get more involved?  Or how about being told you “hit that one out of the park” when you did something well?  “Keep your eye on the ball” is the phrase we use when we want someone to pay close attention.  More than once, I have heard the saying “go down swinging” as encouragement to just keep trying.

As I enjoyed the game last weekend, I was reminded that all the players on the field were pursuing a dream they have likely held in their hearts since they were little boys. They had each sacrificed so many other activities to keep throwing, catching, and hitting those balls. They had gathered with others like them thousands of times over the years forming teams to just keep playing. So much time, physical energy and financial resources had been poured into this dream, and I am sure most of them did quite a bit of praying too! 

But I also realized that there were hundreds of people, not in a Red Sox or Orioles uniform, but just as present in the ballpark, that also held a baseball dream in their hearts. Managers, coaches, bat and ball handlers, player’s family members, physical therapists, ushers, ticket takers, umpires, field maintenance, and numerous other folks were present at that game to continue their love of baseball too. Maybe they didn’t have the physical skills to play professional baseball, but they were close enough to the action to feel satisfied that their dream had been fulfilled. 

Is there a dream you hold in your heart now that you have been holding there since you were young? Have you dedicated sufficient time, physical energy, and financial resources to bring it into your reality?  Maybe you realized along the way that you couldn’t be the star player, so you threw the entire dream away, not considering alternative ways to be immersed in your dream.  Is the past blocking you now?

There was a Peanuts cartoon once that had Charlie Brown as the baseball manager and Lucy Van Pelt as an outfielder who missed a fly ball.  In one frame, Lucy went to Charle Brown on the mound and said, “I am sorry I missed that easy fly.  I thought I had it, but suddenly I remembered all the other times I had missed.”  In the final frame, as she is walking off the mound, Lucy says, “The past just got in my eyes.”

Don’t let the past get in your eyes.  Take a fresh look at your life from an empowered spiritual perspective and see if you can “swing for the fences!”