This just in.....

Fenway through the alleys
Originally uploaded by mikerogerssj.

This just in....

The Boston Globe
August 21, 2006

Roxbury MA (AP) - A seven-year-old boy was at the center of a Boston
courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Boston Red Sox, whom the boy firmly believes is not capable of beating anyone.



Ok so I didn't write that, it came in a forward from my dad, but unfortunately it seems to be true. The Sox are tanking, and there is nothing we can do about it. No postseason this year, no World Series, I won’t be wearing my once lucky jersey until late October, and I will be watching football far sooner than I normally care to. All this because the Sox are tanking. When Yankee fans, and I know a few, get into it with me over the sad state of affairs at Fenway park, I simply give a gracious smile if I can, even though deep down I want to tell them precisely what they can do with their $200,000,000 payroll. At some point, though, you just have to laugh, and be able to laugh at yourself and your own situation. When I get upset about the Sox I am obviously taking myself and the game WAY too seriously….. and perhaps losing streaks are most in order for my own spiritual well being at that moment.
I think that we all have things in our lives which, if we are honest, we have to admit that we take way too seriously. In general they are things which are far more important than the Boston Red Sox. They are things which drive us often enough, things which we are passionate about, things which can motivate us, and drive us forward. All of that stuff is straw, as Thomas Aquinas once said, in comparison to knowing and loving God. In the end its not that I shouldn’t enjoy the Red Sox, with their ups and downs, but its that moments like this remind me how insignificant something like being a baseball fan is in the long run. Its fun, but will I remember who played second base for the ’06 Sox in 20 years? Probably not. I am a passionate baseball fan, no doubt, but this applies to other things, be it what I enjoy studying in philosophy, or the kind of apostolic work I do, in the end, its all one small, broken gift which we offer up to God, to be made whole in the glory of his Love for us. That is the same love which flows through each of us in the person of the spirit, and the very thing which impels us on to the one thing which is not straw in the end, God himself.