Interfaith Reflections: A Note to My Daughters

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.

There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.

There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all people.

--1 Corinthians 12:4

Dear Jennifer and Hannah,

It seems like only yesterday that you were two young girls finding your way in the world, wishing to be entertained by the theatrical escapades of Charlie Horse and Kermit the Frog (Executive Producer: Dad), while discovering the beauty, wonder, and dangers of the world around you. Through the years, I have watched you grow and develop into kind, caring, compassionate, and well-adjusted young women. While your lives remain in their early stages, your accomplishments many and futures bright, you will almost certainly confront many challenges and dilemmas along the way. I will climb mountains and jump through fire whenever you need me, though I know that time, distance and mortality may make it impossible for me to always be there for you. So, as we give thanks for another year of life’s blessings, I wanted to express my hope that, as you wade through the many obstacles and decisions of life, you seek God’s presence and take seriously your individual faith journeys.

I am a preacher’s kid, so it is no surprise that religion was a major force in my life, personally and intellectually, for as long as I can remember. I attended church and Sunday school every week, was baptized and confirmed, memorized the Christian creeds, actively participated in Lutheran youth groups, and took comfort in the expressions of love and acceptance I found in the church community. Your grandfather’s professional standing in the Lutheran church, including eight years as Bishop of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod in the 1970’s, and your grandmother’s devout Christian faith, has naturally affected my worldview. My ethical and moral values, my politics, and my interest in other faith traditions have been influenced in some way by the centrality of religion in my family’s life during those formative years.

It was not until my early twenties, when I attended law school, that I began to seriously consider and challenge my own beliefs and assumptions about matters of faith, religion, God, and the cosmos. When I married your Mom at the age of 28, I was content with the notion of two equally valid faith traditions peacefully coexisting in a state of mutual respect. Not until the two of you came into this world was I forced to confront the importance of faith in my life and the lives of my children.

By then, my feelings toward Christianity had grown complicated. I remained connected to my Lutheran heritage, proud of my involvement with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Washington, D.C., and of the extensive advocacy and worldwide relief efforts of the Lutheran church on behalf of developing nations and the world’s poorest citizens. I was proud also of the example set by your grandfather as a socially conscience and politically aware Lutheran minister, one who practiced his faith in the world and all its messiness, providing counsel and comfort to pastors and parishioners, young and old alike. And I have always been amazed by your grandmother’s lifelong devotion and commitment to the church and to helping others. And yet, despite these positive experiences and influences, I personally struggled over the literal meaning of the traditional Christian creeds and doctrines. I began to question many of Christianity’s fundamental tenets and could no longer reconcile my head with my heart. And I refused to accept the belief of some Christians that the saving grace of God was denied to people of other faith traditions whom I loved and respected.

Theologically, I felt very much at home with liberal Judaism and its emphasis on living an ethical life, doing good deeds, and working for justice, principles shared by the mainline Protestant experience of my past, particularly the progressive Christianity as practiced by Luther Place when we lived in Washington. I also was fond of Judaism’s emphasis on education and intellectual inquiry, its openness to questions in a non-judgmental way. I continued to have a great affinity for the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and because Christianity is rooted in Judaism – Jesus was born a Jew, lived his life as a Jew, and died a Jew – I felt it did not compromise my integrity to participate actively in your Jewish education and upbringing, something that would not be true of your mom had she been asked to raise you as Christians.

For me, it was not particularly important to which faith tradition you were exposed. What was most important to me was that you be allowed to develop a rich heritage and a religious identity, to have a rock upon which to stand when life’s waters sometimes overflow. Any ambivalence I had about raising you as Jews stemmed mostly from a concern that non-orthodox American Judaism encompasses such a wide spectrum of religious and non-religious elements, and includes not only the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, but many secular, humanist, and New Age philosophies that have little connection or relevance to Judaism or religion. I have encountered many American Jews with little sense of spirituality and much skepticism about God and faith. That one could be theologically agnostic, or even an atheist, and yet maintain a strong Jewish identity is a notion at odds with my Christian experience, where one’s belief system is the defining element of one’s religion; in the Christian tradition, without God and faith, religion lacks purpose and meaning. I have spoken with many rabbis who share my concern, and I have been pleased to see a renewed sense of spirituality in American Judaism over the past few decades. Because while I always want you to have a strong sense of who you are, including a Jewish identity and pride in Jewish culture and history, I also desire that you maintain faith in God, a higher force that you can turn to in times of distress. Achieving an internal peace with God is something I wish for everyone, but something I desperately desire for you.

“The supreme issue is today not the halacha for the Jew or the Church for the Christian,” writes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “but the premise underlying both religions, namely, whether there is a pathos, a divine reality concerned with the destiny of man which mysteriously impinges upon history; the supreme issue is whether we are alive or dead to the challenge and the expectation of the living God.” It is, in many ways, what binds us together as human beings. I hope you someday take the time to study and read some of Heschel’s writings, as he offers gentle wisdom and a deep understanding of the essence of faith. “The crisis engulfs all of us,” he writes. “The misery and fear of alienation from God make Jew and Christian cry together.”

Although I cannot tell you what to believe or how to find God in your life, I can at least share with you what I believe. It seems we rarely discuss such things any more, but I think it important from time to time to consider and contemplate the mystery that is faith and creation, and to strive for deeper knowledge and understanding of God’s relationship to humankind.

For as long as I can remember, I have believed that God exists and is very much a part of our world. Although my concept of God has evolved over time, I understand now that God is a mystery, impossible to comprehend. But if you look carefully at the world around you and listen to the whispering silence of a gentle autumn breeze, if you watch a flock of geese fly in formation as they migrate south for winter; if you examine the stars on a clear night and consider the vastness of the universe, you will discover that God is everywhere. That there exists a little bit of God in everyone, waiting to be recognized, and that God provides guidance to those who sincerely seek God’s wisdom, seems more apparent now than ever. God is our conscience and our soul; God is nature. And though God may not actively intervene in our lives – God cannot do good things for us or prevent harm to us – God suffers with us when we are in pain and communicates with us through the people who inspire us and the people who need our time and attention, from a child in need of a parent’s love to the homeless beggar on the streets of our cities. When we ignore the suffering of others, we ignore God.

I believe that God listens to our prayers and attempts to provide answers, but we must look, listen, and search for those answers in the world around us. I believe in a compassionate and understanding God, a God of love who expects us (commands us in the Jewish tradition) to live an ethical and just life, to treat others with kindness and concern, to treat all of God’s creations – the grass, the trees, our lakes and rivers, the animal world, and most especially each other – with respect and love. “What is faith,” asked Mohandas Gandhi, “if it is not translated into action?”

Bishop Desmond Tutu, who helped guide South Africa in the 1980’s away from the racially-oppressive system of apartheid and through a process of racial reconciliation, reminded us that our humanity is bound up in each other, “for we can only be human together.” It is a simple, but important principle that applies to our everyday lives, our politics, our religious practices, and our respect for those from whom we differ. “All things are bound together,” said Chief Oren Lyons of the Onandaga Nation. “[A]ll things connect. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls also the children of the earth."

Life is beautiful and wonderful, full of joy and laughter, love and kindness. But it also involves no shortage of heartache. Sadly, you already have experienced tragedy and pain in life through the loss of your friends Hannah and Natan at such young ages. And you will face more loss as life goes on. This is a certainty. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” In Strength to Love, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” As you confront life’s challenges, I hope you find inspiration in the words of Dr. King and never lose your sense of idealism, justice, and compassion for others. And when you feel overwhelmed by life’s controversies, when your spirit is challenged, think of Anne Frank, a young girl of great courage and character who maintained her ideals during a time that for most of us would have been the depth of darkness. In her diary, shortly before her death, Anne Frank wrote:

It’s really a wonder that I haven’s dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. . . . I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

Although today’s world is not as immediately perilous as the world in which Anne Frank lived, our world nevertheless presents sad news and insecurity every day. If you remain true to yourselves, live your lives with integrity, and remain caring and loving persons, you will always have the respect of others and the love of many. Believe in yourselves, believe in God, feel God’s presence and see it in each other and in all of humanity, and you will find meaning and purpose in your lives. “The real and the spiritual are one,” wrote Heschel, “like body and soul in a living [person]. It is for the law to clear the path; it is for the soul to sense the spirit.” Be open to a sense of spirit in your lives; open your heart to God and trust that you can do anything to which you commit your heart and mind. Then, your only limitations will be of your own making.

With love always,

Dad

The End of Summer

You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it. – Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, leaving in its wake downed trees and power lines, flooded shores and destruction. Our home in Jenkintown survived with minimal disruption, though others nearby, and many colleagues and friends, were less fortunate. The squirrels in our back yard are particularly anxious, frantically jumping and running in circles as if to say the world has gone mad. They may be on to something. Branches from the large trees lining our property are scattered across the yard, but at least the rain has stopped as a cold front settles in. As I look from the window of my second floor study, I observe the colors of autumn, orange and red leaves falling to the ground, preparing to lay dormant for the winter as the rest of nature quietly anticipates October’s end. Baseball season is over. It is time to put life back into its proper perspective and to rake the leaves once again.

* * * *

Roger Kahn’s romantic sentiment notwithstanding, it is easier to fall in love with a winning team than a losing one. For Giants fans, the gift of a championship will take the edge off of winter’s chill. The next few months will allow the faithful to dwell in the shared joy of a memorable season and look forward to the day when their grandchildren ask about life back when. “I can still remember 2012,” they will say, “when Pablo Sandoval hit three home runs in one World Series game against, who were we playing? Oh, yes, the Tigers. What a glorious year that was.” For the rest of us, it is a winter of painful reflection and thoughts of what might have been. If only Lynn hadn’t thrown the ball away in the fourth inning of Game 5. If only Kozma had fielded the ball cleanly in Game 6. If only . . .

During the early glow of October, one sensed that the miracle run of 2011 might, for Cardinals fans, be replicated. That the Cardinals even made the post-season this year, winning 88 games after losing Albert Pujols to free agency, Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan to retirement, and Chris Carpenter to injury, was no small feat. They are a likeable bunch, too young and too old at the same time, with just enough talent and heart to always make things interesting.

After securing the second wild card berth on the last day of the regular season, the Cards upset the Braves in a one-game playoff before the hostile, can-throwing, tomahawk-chopping fans in Atlanta. Then, down 6-0 in Game 5 of the NLDS, playing before a loudly enthusiastic crowd in Washington, D.C., they mounted a spectacular, stunning comeback, sparked by a four-run rally with two outs in the top of the ninth that was led by the heroic efforts of a light-hitting utility infielder named Daniel Descalso, and Pete Kozma, a little known minor league shortstop who lingered without distinction until an injury befell Rafael Furcal at the end of August. I took the inspired play as a sign that, just maybe, the baseball gods continued to look with favor upon the Miracle Redbirds.

The good feelings and momentum flowed into the start of the National League Championship Series. The Cardinals quickly took a three-games-to-one lead against the San Francisco Giants and needed only one more victory to advance to the World Series for the second straight season. And yet, I was unable to relax. Perhaps it was the ghosts of postseasons past, but I experienced an eerie sensation, a brooding anxiety that things were not as they appeared. “True baseball fans do not cheer for their teams to win,” wrote Will Leitch, “they cheer for them not to lose. Victory does not come with joy, it comes with relief. Losing causes only pain.” I took little comfort in the historical fact that few major league teams have ever blown a three-games-to-one lead in postseason play. I am, after all, a Cardinals fan. I have committed to memory the years of darkness – 1968, 1985, 1996, and now . . . 2012.

For me, watching the last three games of the NLCS, as the Giants outscored the Cardinals 20-1, was like experiencing a temporary tumor with symptoms of blurred vision, migraines, and acute depression. Chinese water torture may possibly have been an only slightly less pleasurable alternative. Jay, Craig, Beltran, and Holliday all seemed to have lost the feel of the strike zone. Fastballs sailed over the middle of the plate without challenge. Pitches in the dirt resulted in awkward swings and misses. I tried to tell myself that these things happen, that the players are only human. In between prophecies of doom and Armageddon, I remained somewhat hopeful, even after losses in Games Five and Six, that despite these momentary setbacks, one more win could erase all the angst; I would then transfer my anxieties to the World Series, where we could chance a repeat of 2006, the magical year when an underachieving Cardinals team upset the powerful Tigers. It was not to be. Perhaps learning to live with defeat builds character and makes one emotionally stronger. Whatever the truth of such sentiments, I was relieved when the final out came this year, for it put an end to my misery.

* * * *

Within a few days of season’s end, when the players pack up for the winter and return home, I start, even now, to think of next year. For the Cardinals faithful, the future looks hopeful. Rosenthal, Kelly, and Miller, young pitchers with power arms and great stuff that hint at the promise of a more dominant bullpen and rotation; Taveras and Wong, standout minor leaguers ready to compete in the spring for a place in the Show; and another year of Yadier Molina behind the plate, the best catcher in my lifetime. But although I look ahead, I know that baseball and history remain forever linked. It is “the deep Eros of memory that separates baseball from other sports,” writes Dom DeLillo. The memories of childhood and of seasons past, the youthful dreams of one day making it to the major leagues, become the cherished remnants of days gone by. It is easy to forget as a fan that the players we watch perform on the field with such apparent ease were once young boys like us, longing to play before sellout crowds in big league parks. For the select few that actually make it, the pressures of competition and media scrutiny, where every mistake is repeated in high-definition and super-slow motion, diminishes the game’s tranquility and can only make it less fun. As for those of us who some time ago abandoned the dreams of youth, we look longingly at the first baseman who between innings casually flips grounders to the other infielders as music blasts from the loudspeakers. We study the shadow of the center fielder as he plays long toss with the right fielder while waiting for the pitcher to complete his warm-up throws. We absorb and digest the game’s intricate details, recognizing that we once did those same things in the prime of our youth, still believing that, with a simple twist of fate, we could have been there too. How I would love to have had that chance. . . .

“Baseball skill relates inversely to age,” wrote Roger Kahn in The Boys of Summer. “The older a man gets, the better a ball player he was when young, according to the watery eye of memory.” There remain times when I think back to high school, when baseball seemed easy and effortless, when reality and dreams had not yet been reconciled. Only later did I realize that the combination of skill, dedication and luck needed to advance was out of reach, if unknowable. Life would go on, but in a different direction.

There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us. – Tucker Elliott

I have been that guy for some time now, the one seated on the hood of his car, staring into the distance. I often wish I had played a few more years. At twilight on summer nights, I dream thoughts of what might have been had I the bat speed of Beltran or the balance of Pujols, the quick hands of Molina or the scrappiness of Scutaro. It is, in part, why I remain connected to the game. Living vicariously through the Cardinals, I pay heed to the ups-and-downs of a team I know only collectively, and mostly through the lens of a camera. I will, of course, do it all again next year; rejoice when the Cardinals win, silently suffer when they lose, all the while failing to understand why I care so much for the fate of a single team beyond my reach. “Addiction or obsession, love or need,” said Doris Kearns Goodwin, “I was born a baseball fan and a baseball fan I [am] fated to remain.” So, indeed, am I. Until next year then . . . and the first sign of spring.

A Substantial Human Being: George McGovern 1922 - 2012

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard. – George S. McGovern

I was thirteen years old in 1972 when George McGovern ran for president and lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon. Although too young to vote, I remember vividly that election, the moral clarity of the choices facing the country and the volatility of the times in which we lived. The contrast between McGovern, the plain spoken son of a Methodist minister from the Great Plains who passionately opposed an unjust war and sought to make the United States a more inclusive, fair and decent nation, and the dark, brooding, paranoid Tricky Dick, was stark and readily apparent.

Robert Kennedy said that George McGovern was “the most decent man in the Senate.” The New Yorker described McGovern as “a calm, quiet, friendly, open, unself-conscious man” who “projects an air of old-fashioned integrity and decency.” A war hero who became an advocate for peace; a child of the Great Depression who understood how good, hardworking people sometimes need a helping hand, he was a rare politician, a kind and honest man who spoke truth to power. McGovern is no longer with us, and America has lost a good friend and a needed voice.

He believed America could do better. He did not understand why the United States, the richest, most blessed nation on earth, tolerated high levels of unemployment, failing schools, hungry children, and poverty in our inner cities, on Indian reservations, and in rural America. Throughout his political and post-political life, he urged policies of peace and compassion. In his campaign for President, he called for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, a national commitment to full employment, a guaranteed minimum income for the poor, amnesty for draft dodgers, diplomatic recognition of Cuba and China, and an end to corporate welfare. It may not have been smart politics, but he appealed always to America’s sense of decency and to the better instincts and traditions of U.S. history. And on most issues, history and time has proven him correct.

He wanted to end the war in Vietnam, not because he was a pacifist – he piloted a B-24 Liberator in World War II and flew 35 bombing missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross – but because he was sickened by American boys being maimed and killed by the thousands in support of a corrupt regime and an unjust war. “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in,” he said. McGovern had seen enough death and destruction as a member of the Greatest Generation to know that war should always be a last resort. It required no courage to advocate war from the Senate floor, he argued, or to send American boys to die from the safe confines of the Pentagon.

In September 1963, McGovern became the first U.S. Senator to publicly oppose America’s growing military commitment in Southeast Asia. “The current dilemma in Vietnam,” he said, “is a clear demonstration of the limitations of military power. . . . a policy of moral debacle and political defeat.” It was not a popular stance at the time and it upset his friends, the Kennedys. But he did not concern himself with polls or popular sentiment. He did and said what he believed was right.

Nine years later, during a speech at Wheaton College in Illinois, a distinctively Christian college, McGovern challenged the students to consider whether, consistent with the teachings of their religion, they prayed not only for American troops who were fighting and dying in a far off land, but also for the millions of Vietnamese whose homes were being destroyed and lives ended by U.S. bombs. Troubled by indifference to the suffering of others, he urged Americans to understand the larger consequences of war and to “change those things in our character which turned us astray, away from the truth that the people of Vietnam are, like us, children of God.”

Speaking in Miami at the Democratic convention in 1972, in a speech most Americans never heard because it was given at 2:00 a.m. (leave it to the Democrats), McGovern gave an impassioned promise to end the war within 90 days:

In 1968 many Americans thought they were voting to bring our sons home from Vietnam in peace, and since then 20,000 of our sons have come home in coffins. I have no secret plan for peace. I have a public plan. And as one whose heart has ached for the past ten years over the agony of Vietnam, I will halt a senseless bombing of Indochina on Inaugural Day. There will be no more Asian children running ablaze from bombed-out schools. There will be no more talk of bombing the dikes or the cities of the North. And . . . every American soldier and every American prisoner will be out of the jungle and out of their cells and then home in America where they belong. And then let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad.

A wise and educated man, McGovern had attended seminary and studied for the ministry before earning a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in American history. His greatest concerns, war and poverty, were a direct influence of his Christian faith. A history teacher before entering politics in 1957, he was perhaps too honest for his own good, too willing to say what he believed and to pursue causes he felt were the moral imperatives of a great nation. He was not necessarily a smart politician. “Ever since I was a young boy, I wanted to run for President in the worst possible way,” he said in 1973, “and I did.” By the early seventies, he was deemed too liberal, a naïve idealist, too tolerant of the countercultural instincts and social movements then sweeping across the land. “You know,” he acknowledged later, “sometimes, when they say you’re ahead of your time, it’s just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.”

Although remembered today mostly for his crushing presidential defeat, McGovern devoted most of his life to fighting hunger and poverty. In 1960, he conceived the idea of the Food for Peace program, which extended credit to poor countries to buy surplus U.S. crops. Appointed by President John F. Kennedy as its first director in 1961, Food for Peace helped feed 10 million people in its first year and operated in a dozen countries. McGovern also was instrumental in creating the United Nations World Food Program, a humanitarian agency that provides food assistance to hundreds of millions of poor and hungry people around the world, including victims of war and natural disasters. As a Senator he worked with Democrats and moderate Republicans to expand school lunch and nutrition programs, food stamps and other anti-poverty programs.

“It is in our self-interest to end hunger,” he wrote in 1998. “After all, we live in one world. Rich and poor alike, we breathe the same air; we share a global economy. . . . The chaos associated with political instability rooted in poverty and desperation is rarely contained within a single country.”

The history books do not often treat losers kindly. After his humiliating defeat in the 1972 election, McGovern became the brunt of jokes on late-night talk shows, a symbol of American defeatism on the right and of naïve idealism (and bad politics) on the left. But as Chris Hedges noted in a tribute to McGovern, “[T]hose who write history do not take into account the moral or the good, what is right or what is wrong, what endures and what does not.” I hope history treats McGovern kindly. As a lifelong teacher, public servant, and author, he never became a wealthy man. He instead sought to make the world a better, more decent place.

He is at peace now, forever resting while America continues to find its way in the world. His greatest legacy will be the decency of his politics, the kindness of his being, and the redeeming quality of his words. Shortly before he lost to Nixon, while campaigning in New York City, McGovern ordered a chopped-liver sandwich at Dubrow’s Cafeteria in the Garment District. As recounted in The New Yorker, McGovern had just finished his sandwich when someone in the background shouted, “Hey, McGovern, you’re a mensch!” McGovern turned to his aide. “Abrams,” he said, “what is a mensch?” Abrams replied, “It’s good, Senator. It means you’re a substantial human being.”

A substantial human being. A mensch. America needs more people like McGovern, people of his character and integrity, moral simplicity and honest speech. Perhaps his spirit will help us achieve his prayer for America, the concluding words of his nominating speech in 1972: “May God grant each one of us the wisdom to cherish this good land and to meet the great challenge that beckons us home.” We’ll miss you George.

Strat-O-Matic Memories: The Football Years

Okay, so it wasn’t quite like that. But since what I am about to discuss involves a group of knucklehead teenage males obsessed with a football board game played with dice and statistically-based player cards, I thought a photograph that depicted “fantasy football” could at least gain your attention. After all, even Ehlers on Everything is not beyond the shameless exploitation of sex to increase readership. In reality, Strat-O-Matic Pro Football, which helped define and influence the autumns of my youth, involved a geek-like devotion to statistics, strategy, and play calling; more fact than fantasy.

Having discovered Strat-O-Matic Baseball and its statistical realism a year earlier, my brother Steve and I decided to give the football version a try following the 1970 NFL season. Hal Richman and the Strat-O-Matic Game Company came out with the first edition of the football game in 1968, following the NFL season that featured Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers as Super Bowl champions. My interest in pro football developed a year or so later, when Joe Namath and the New York Jets upset Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl. Unlike Strat-O-Matic Baseball, which I played alone, the football version involved head-to-head matchups between testosterone-driven teenagers whose pride and emotional well-being depended on winning a game that was determined in part by the luck of a dice roll.

Intrigued by the notion of friendly competition, Steve and I recruited three of our best friends from the neighborhood and formed a five-team league. Mark Erson, a Lutheran minister’s son from across the street whose family hailed from New York, picked the Vikings, while his older brother Tim chose the New York Giants. Mike Dennehy, my lifelong friend who loved Detroit teams for reasons possibly less rational than my love of St. Louis teams, coached the Detroit Lions. I naturally picked the St. Louis football Cardinals that first season, while Steve chose the Philadelphia Eagles. In the first year of play, we each coached just one team, though in subsequent years we expanded to three teams each. After the first season, Mark and Tim would drop out and we would be joined by Joe Sbarra, the oldest of five siblings from a rambunctious, sports-crazed family up the street, and Phil Zirkle, another resident of our block, whose family originated from Baltimore. Phil reminded me of our dog Peppy, a bit moody and surly around the edges, but whose bark was worse than his bite.

The games were intense, the desire to win palpable. I recall more than a few closed-door pep talks to a stack of player cards before the scheduled kickoffs as the “coaches” defined offensive and defensive strategies and anticipated how to out-maneuver the opponent. I know most of you reading this cannot likely relate. But for those who ever played Strat-O-Matic Football, there exists a mutual understanding from shared experiences, when bonds and friendships are formed. “Friendship,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’”

As with all Strat-O-Matic games, the statistical realism of the football version is unmatched, as each player and team performs consistent with real-life abilities. But it was the head-to-head competition in the football version that made playing Strat-O-Matic Football such a uniquely intense experience. As Hal Richman has said, “Head-to-head, Strat-O-Matic Football is the best sports game ever invented.” We engaged in a battle of wits, constantly trying to outguess the other side. After a close game, the winner was elated, the loser emotionally spent. This profound desire to win undoubtedly contributed to the creative assortment of profanities frequently uttered on the sidelines during each game. It was not unheard of for occasional inanimate objects to be thrown. Visitors entered the room of play at their own risk. Parents did their best to ignore us, and we wisely played most games in the basement, protected by distance and built-in concrete sound barriers, but every so often an adult would yell, “Settle down!” or “Watch your language!” usually to little effect.

Similar to Strat-O-Matic Baseball (see Strat-O-Matic Memories: The Baseball Years), the outcome of each play was determined by a roll of the dice – one white and two red. The white die determined whether to look on the offensive cards (1, 2, 3) or defensive cards (4, 5, 6), while the red die (totaling between 2 and 12) determined where in that column to look. The offense could choose to run (linebuck, off-tackle, or end run) or pass (flat pass, short pass, and long pass), directing each play to a particular running back or receiver. Some running backs, like O.J. Simpson (my favorite player before I discovered he was a homicidal maniac), was particularly dangerous on the end run and off tackle, while fullbacks like Larry Csonka were solid and almost unstoppable on inside runs. Fumbles and interceptions were always a concern, and you learned to minimize the risks where possible. On passing plays, the flat pass was the easiest to complete but often yielded short yardage. A short pass was designed to gain at least ten or more yards, but you needed a really good quarterback to complete a high percentage of these passes without getting sacked or throwing an interception. And the deep route, or long pass, involved substantial risks (more interceptions and sacks), but offered potentially great rewards (long gains and touchdowns).

Coaching and play calling was particularly important in the football version because the outcome of each play was greatly affected by whether the defensive team “guessed” right or wrong in defending against the run or pass. As the offensive player cards were divided between “right” and “wrong” columns, guessing correctly on defense could make the difference between stopping the offense or giving up substantial yardage. The defensive coach could also key on a particular running back or double team a receiver. A successful double team could shut down a team’s offense and unsettle the opposing team’s coach, but if you guessed wrong, you risked giving up a big play.

To protect the integrity of the play calling, we cut out the ends of shoe boxes, which when placed upside down formed an enclosed shelter that shielded the play-calling cards on each side of the game board. The offensive coach secretly chose a play – say, short pass-flanker – by placing a penny over the markers for “short pass” and “flanker”. Meanwhile, the defensive coach placed a penny over the marker depicting either “run” or “pass”. If he was particularly daring, he might also double team or key on a running back or receiver (but keying the wrong player automatically resulted in a “wrong” defensive formation). When the offensive coach announced the play, the defensive coach would respond “right”, “wrong”, or “keyed”. Although we mostly operated under an honor system, there were times when the defensive coach guessed right several plays in a row and the offensive coach would demand proof. The defensive coach would then have to reveal the placement of his penny by lifting the shoe box shelter. Sadly, even in these pre-Watergate days of American innocence, an opponent was occasionally caught with the penny lingering somewhere in-between the run and pass markers. Richard Nixon’s lament, “I am not a crook,” fell on deaf ears. Tell it to the judge. At such times, bad feelings ensued and proof was thereafter demanded after every play, restoring truth and justice to the American gridiron.

“Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.” So said David Sarnoff, founder of the RCA Corporation. Never was this more so than in our Strat-O-Matic Football league, where displays of poor character and unhinged emotional breakdowns were common occurrences. You see, however realistic Strat-O-Matic board games are – and the statistical realism is unmatched with each team playing to its abilities over the course of fourteen or sixteen games – the outcome of each play, each field goal attempt, each pass or run, is still determined in the end by luck and a roll of the dice.

Thus, there was the time when Mike’s Detroit Lions lost to my Kansas City Chiefs on a last second field goal. Although these final points occurred as the result of clever play calling that put my team within field goal range with fifteen seconds left on the clock, followed by a skillful roll of the dice, Mike failed to see it that way. As I quietly celebrated a 40-yard kick by Jan Stenerud and waited for the customary handshake and “good game” exchange, Mike slammed his fist and overturned the card table. Player cards and dice immediately became airborne as the game board landed on my lap. Mike stormed up the stairs and out of the basement as I gently lifted the card table from my thighs and picked up the scattered dice and player cards from the basement floor. As Mike reached the top of the basement steps, I seem to recall that his last remarks involved references to “luck” and the son of a female canine.

Years later, when Mike went off to Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, he and a group of classmates formed their own Strat-O-Matic Football league.  Following one particularly frustrating loss, Mike is reported to have tossed a copy of The Lives of Saints through his dorm window.  A few minutes later, his roommate, who was nearly struck by the flying book while returning from the library, entered the room, looked at the disheveled state of affairs and the shattered glass and said, "I guess Mike lost."  Mike now makes his living as a guidance counselor and coach of the women’s softball team at a public high school in New Jersey, molding the hearts and minds of our nation’s youth.

Then there was the time Roy Shivers, my prize halfback for the Cardinals who averaged 4.7 yards per carry, fumbled the ball, not once but twice, while inside the opposing team’s ten yard line, each time resulting in a stomach churning turnover. After the second fumble I may have experienced a temporary blackout. In the words of Jimmy Hoffa before a Senate Rackets Committee hearing, “My memory fails to recall my recollection.” A string of profanities and end-of-the-world prophecies were likely exclaimed. It is possible that an old wooden chair was broken after an unfortunate collision with the basement floor (sorry Dad, it was me after all) and, much to my regret, Shivers’ player card was crumpled beyond recognition. Later in the game, realizing I still needed Shivers in the backfield, I sheepishly picked him up off the floor, un-crumpled his card, and attempted to iron out his wrinkles. He remained a wounded warrior the rest of the season.

Rumor has it that Phil once kicked a hole in the kitchen wall of the Sbarra residence following the second of two blocked punts by Joe’s Green Bay Packers. I am told that the Sbarra-version of Lambeau Field was thereafter moved to an undisclosed location. A few years later, Phil was hired as a security guard, responsible for protecting property. Fortunately, his background check failed to disclose his past act of vandalism and expulsion from the Sbarra household.

I would like to tell you that playing Strat-O-Matic football brought with it a certain stature in life, a series of lessons that built character and developed a sense of manhood. While slightly older and braver young men went off to war and fought valiantly in the jungles of Vietnam, the five of us battled over a game board, player cards, and the statistical probabilities of dice rolls. It was a test of wills between an eclectic group of neighborhood friends in central New Jersey, each seeking bragging rights in what seemed at the time a very important matter.

With the passing of time comes perspective. “There are no days more full, than those we go back to,” wrote Colum McCann. There are days still when I long for the simple joys of playing a game with impractical seriousness. I have traveled far from the zany days of my youth, when life’s successes and failures were measured in part by a football board game, player cards, and a roll of the dice. It seems silly now, but I treasure the memories. Whenever I speak with or visit my former Strat football opponents, we inevitably re-live the controversial, funny, and heart wrenching moments of past games. I am forever grateful to Strat-O-Matic for allowing me to have been irrational and passionate about something so insignificant, yet which seemed at the time so momentous. “What was our life like?” ponders Richard Ford in The Sportswriter. “I almost don’t remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.”

An American President: The Case for Obama 2012

Barack Obama knows the American Dream because he’s lived it . . . and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we’re from, or what we look like, or who we love. And he believes that when you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity . . . you do not slam it shut behind you . . . you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed. – Michelle Obama, September 4, 2012

For the past four years, I have closely followed the presidency of Barack Obama. I embraced  Obama’s candidacy in the early stages of the Democratic primaries in late 2007, spent many weekends canvassing local neighborhoods and knocking on doors to get out the vote in the summer and fall of 2008, and celebrated his election and inauguration in January 2009. I supported Obama then, despite his relative youth and inexperience, because I saw a man of character, vision and common sense; a man who remains cool under pressure and looks at the long term effects of policy, who exercises good judgment. Obama the man impressed me as uniquely capable of uniting this country at a time when our political and social fabric had been torn asunder by eight years of go-it-alone unilateralism in foreign policy and a survival-of-the-fittest mentality in economic policy.

Four years ago, Obama was the only viable candidate committed to ending the tragically flawed War in Iraq and refocusing our efforts in Afghanistan; jumpstarting the hunt for Osama bin-Laden and restoring America’s reputation abroad; and addressing America’s health care crisis while working to restore the American economy in a fair and sensible manner.

From the moment Obama was sworn in as president on January 20, 2009, he has been attacked from the right as an enemy of free enterprise and criticized from the left for coddling Wall Street and caving to conservative demands. I have not agreed with everything Obama has done as president  – more on that later – but I have not forgotten the enormity of the burdens he inherited and the incredible political obstructionism he has confronted along the way. A fair assessment of Obama’s record suggests he has delivered on his key promises and put the country on the right track. Is he perfect? Of course not. Are we exactly where we would like to be? No. But the Republican alternative to Obama in this election is a spineless man with no core beliefs, who as far as I can discern would have us revert to the very policies that resulted in economic calamity, tragic warfare, massive deficits, the highest degree of inequality since the 1920’s, and a damaged American psyche. I’ll stick with the guy we have.

The Economy. When President Obama took office, the world financial system was on the brink of collapse and the American economy was experiencing its worst decline since the Great Depression. The United States was losing 750,000 jobs per month and the GDP was declining at a rate of nearly 9 percent. Before Obama placed his hand on the bible, unemployment and debt were soaring at record levels and the economy was in free fall. While it is appropriate to ask if we are better off today than four years ago, one cannot fairly judge the performance of the U.S. economy under President Obama without acknowledging the terrible conditions he inherited. The declining economic indicators of his first year were out of his control. A fair assessment must allow for the time needed to implement new policies. Economies are always slow to shift course, especially following a collapse of world financial markets.

It is irrelevant whether and to what extent the policies of President Bush are properly blamed for the sordid state of affairs Obama inherited. I personally do not believe any President has as much control over or responsibility for the economy as is popularly imagined; from the price of gas to the value of the dollar on international markets, presidential policy makers exert little control. I do blame President Bush for converting the budget surplus of 2001 into eight straight years of record deficits and a growing debt burden, for this was the obvious and fully expected result of two unfunded wars, a prescription drug plan not paid for, and large-scale, across-the-board tax cuts. But other aspects of the global financial crisis, the trade imbalances, and the worldwide recession were not the fault of President Bush any more than high gas prices are the fault of President Obama.

So, let’s simply acknowledge that President Obama was confronted with the worst economic crisis the country had faced in nearly 70 years. How did he respond? Obama did several things at once. He put a floor under the free fall and prevented a downward spiral that could have led to the Second Great Depression. He single-handedly saved the Big Three automakers from collapse, saving more than 1 million jobs in the process. He drove the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provided much needed stimulus and prevented cuts to state governments that would have cost at least 300,000 education jobs and hundreds of thousands of police officers, firefighters, and other state and local government workers. He reappointed Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve, backing the Fed’s use of record-low interest rates to better enable bank lending and economic growth. And he put his administration’s full support behind the Targeted Asset Relief Program (TARP), first implemented by President Bush, which allowed the country’s major financial institutions to survive and prosper and world financial markets to stabilize.

By the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect, the financial system had recovered (in the end, most of the TARP funds loaned out by the federal government were repaid), the auto industry had turned the corner and now competes fiercely and profitably on world markets, and monthly net job losses became monthly net job gains. Since then, the United States has added over 4.5 million private sector jobs and unemployment has declined from a peak of 10.2 percent in late 2009 to just over 8 percent now.

It is true that unemployment remains far too high and the economy has not grown as fast and as deep as everyone had hoped. I sided three years ago with economists such as Paul Krugman who argued that the stimulus was not large enough, that we needed a massive influx of government-created, New Deal-style jobs directed at putting people immediately to work, fixing and repairing the nation’s infrastructure, and sparking a faster economic recovery (see “The Lingering Great Recession: Jobs Needed”). President Obama took a more cautious, less Keynesian approach. The resulting job growth occurred in the private sector, offset partly by fewer government jobs. But neither Paul Krugman nor I had to deal with Republican intransigence and the rise of the Tea Party. Presidents must not only implement policy, they must deal with political reality. And there was simply no way the Obama administration could have pushed for more stimulus without sacrificing its ability to get things done on other fronts. That is the way Washington works and, while this president is less enamored of the political game than many of his predecessors (think Clinton, LBJ, FDR), he has demonstrated a masterful capacity to understand what can be achieved and what cannot.

It is a myth that Obama simply spent hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful government expenditures. In fact, one-third of stimulus “expenditures” were in the form of middle class tax cuts, which affected 95% of all taxpayers. Another third was in restoring cuts to state and local governments to prevent massive layoffs of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other essential government workers. The actual spending that did occur was properly targeted on re-building the nation’s infrastructure – roads, bridges, tunnels, and schools – which have been badly neglected and are in great need of fixing; on education; and on an historic commitment to clean energy. And by expanding America’s social safety net, Obama ensured that the poor and the unemployed would be taken care of while investments were made in low-income housing, food stamps, and child care.

Everyone agrees that the resulting recovery has been slower than desired, the deepness of the worldwide recession more profound than we were led to believe at the end of 2008. But once the stimulus, the bailouts, and the looser monetary policies of the Fed went into effect, we went from a net loss of 750,000 jobs per month to net gains of nearly 150,000 jobs per month in 2010 and 2011. Economic growth is slower than we would like, but it is a substantial improvement over where we were and shows the economy is moving in the right direction. Are we better off than four years ago? Simply put, yes. According to a study of economists at Princeton University and Moody’s Analytics, Obama’s stimulus package alone created over 2.7 million jobs, and without the stimulus, bailouts, and lower interest rates, unemployment would have risen to 16.5 percent, more than double what it is today.

Reforming Health Care. With the Affordable Care Act, President Obama has achieved what no President before him was able to accomplish. Every progressive president in the 20th Century, from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, tried and failed to enact a comprehensive national health plan. The failure to do so was among Harry Truman’s most bitter disappointments and nearly destroyed Clinton’s presidency in his first year. Despite vitriolic opposition from the right, what has come to be known as Obamacare is far more moderate than its critics claim. The much despised individual mandate, for example, was pioneered by the conservative Heritage Foundation and championed by Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney (until President Obama embraced the concept). Much to the disappointment of his liberal supporters, Obama quickly gave up on the public option in an attempt to appease conservatives. The foundation of the Affordable Care Act is a much expanded client base for private insurance and drug companies. Health-care exchanges, set to begin in 2014, are another conservative concept adopted by Obama’s health plan. Indeed, Obamacare is far to the right of Clinton’s 1993 proposal and very similar to proposals originally advocated by Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bob Dole in 1996.

While many innovative cost-saving measures are yet to take effect, in the last two years we have experienced the lowest increases in health care costs nationwide than at any time in the past decade. Although not the single-payer, universal system that is my preference, the Affordable Care Act has moved the country in a more compassionate and fiscally prudent direction. It expands coverage to 30 million people previously uninsured, prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions, expands Medicaid and strengthens Medicare, allows parents to keep their children on family health plans until age 26, and disallows insurance companies from dropping patients after they become sick. The Affordable Care Act is a singular achievement in American history and makes the United States a kinder, more decent society.

Investing in Clean Energy. The nation’s first black president may also be our first green president. Obama has made an historic commitment to power America with clean, renewable energy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and dirty coal. Under Obama, we have doubled our renewable energy capacity, from solar panels to wind turbines, producing enough clean energy to power all five boroughs of New York City. Part of this success is due to the stimulus bill, which targeted $94 billion for unprecedented investments in projects from weatherizing federal buildings to building solar thermal plants in the Mojave. Half of the investment comes from tax incentives and loan guarantees that require matching private sector funds and investments. The administration has adopted new fuel efficiency standards that require automakers to increase the average, unadjusted fuel-economy rating of their vehicles to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, more than double the efficiency of today’s cars. This will conserve nearly two billion barrels of oil annually and reduce carbon emissions by 21 percent. And by executive order, federal agencies must now reduce their carbon pollution by 28 percent over the next ten years, enough to eliminate 101 million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere, equivalent to the climate-heating pollution of several small countries.

Protecting Consumers and Students. Obama has overseen the most sweeping reforms of Wall Street since the Great Depression, fashioning rules under the Dodd-Frank legislation that prevent banks from using consumers’ money to invest in high-risk financial instruments. He established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect consumers from unethical lending and credit practices. Through the Credit Card Act, the major credit card companies must now include a box on your statement that provides how long it will take to pay off your debt by making only the minimum payment, and they cannot so easily lure college kids into mountains of debt by providing easy credit.

Obama has enacted stricter and more effective food safety laws. And he reformed the federal student loan program by lowering the cost of student loans and allowing students to repay them over 20 years as a low, fixed percentage of their incomes. As explained by President Clinton in Charlotte, this means “no one will ever have to drop-out of college for fear they can’t repay their debt. And it means that if someone wants to take a job with a modest income, a teacher, a police officer, if they want to be a small-town doctor in a little rural area, they won’t have to turn those jobs down because they don’t pay enough to repay their debt.”

Civil Rights and Liberties. The most significant and lingering civil rights issues at the start of Obama’s presidency were (1) the right of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military and (2) to enter into state-sanctioned marriage with someone of their choosing, a constitutional right deemed sacred by all other Americans. To his credit, the president secured the consent of the top military brass in repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a humiliating policy that forced gay service members to lead dishonest lives in order to serve their country. And although he had previously opposed same-sex marriage, he has since publicly expressed support for the right of all Americans, gay or straight, to marry. He has extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, changed housing rules to disallow discrimination in public housing on the basis of gender and sexual orientation, issued a Presidential Memorandum reaffirming the rights of gay couples to make medical decisions for each other, and pushed for the United Nations to adopt a policy supporting gay rights worldwide.

Foreign Policy and Peace. Mitt Romney is not anxious to engage President Obama in a foreign policy debate, because by any reasonable measure, Obama’s record in this area is stellar. As promised, he ended the War in Iraq and oversaw the efficient withdrawal of American troops, quietly putting this tragic and flawed war behind us. He immediately refocused American military and intelligence efforts to capture and kill Osama bin Laden and, when the moment of decision came, overruled the Secretary of State and Vice President in ordering the riskiest alternative before him, the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed America’s number one global enemy and produced a large cache of new intelligence against al Qaeda. Republicans have sought to ridicule Obama for taking any credit, but as Andrew Sullivan has noted, “If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies. . . .”

In Libya, Obama ordered the intervention that ousted Gadhafi and protected Western oil supplies at minimal financial cost and no U.S. casualties. He did not act unilaterally, but respectfully and appropriately involved our European and NATO allies, an approach that also has served us well in confronting Iran. Indeed, a combination of strict sanctions, diplomacy, and internationally coordinated pressure on Iran has proven far more effective than grandiose threats of war.

Leading foreign policy conservatives, including Robert Kagan, a national security adviser to John McCain, has strongly praised Obama’s Asia policy. Obama has made China a key strategic priority, adding to U.S. military presence in the Pacific while challenging China on human rights, trade, and economic espionage. He also has taken significant steps to reduce the threat of nuclear war by negotiating further reductions in America’s and Russia’s nuclear arsenals.

I was disappointed in Obama’s decision not to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and I have taken issue with the legality and collateral consequences of Obama’s increased use of drone missile strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. I continue to believe that drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill and display an American arrogance that reflects poorly on American values in the Muslim world. But admittedly I am more willing to trust Obama’s instincts and decisions on these highly sensitive, secretive matters, because Obama’s words and deeds suggest he is at least sensitive to the long-term effects of American military might. Obama signed a detailed Executive Order banning torture and the “enhanced interrogation” techniques that undermined the rule of law and degraded America’s standing in the world and he has closed a number of secret detention facilities. In short, Obama acts like a Commander-in-Chief concerned for America’s long-term interests.

The Alternative. If I had lingering doubts about an Obama second term, and I do not, they would be erased by a look at the alternative. Mitt Romney is a poor second choice not because he is a bad person. I do not doubt that Mr. Romney is a relatively nice man. Like the President, he has a beautiful family and appears to have been a good father and faithful husband. But on matters of policy, on where he stands on fundamental values, on where his heart rests, I simply haven’t a clue. In Massachusetts, Romney was a moderate, pro-choice Governor who openly supported gay rights and designed a health care plan upon which the Affordable Care Act was modeled. Only six years ago, he was a strong proponent of the individual mandate, which he knew then was essential to the state’s ability to provide and pay for universal coverage. Romney has since reversed his position 180 degrees on these and so many other issues that I do not know who Mitt Romney is or what he would do if elected. To obtain his party’s nomination, Romney has proved willing to say anything. He is beholden to the right-wing extremists of his party, although I cannot help but question whether he believes everything he says, or how long it will be until he says something different. In Romney, I do not see a man with any core principles.

A Matter of Character. No president or man is perfect. Obama is no exception. He has made his share of mistakes. There is much unfinished business. The economy continues to grow at too slow a pace. Unemployment remains too high. The deficits must eventually be brought under control or the federal budget will be consumed by interest on the debt, making it more difficult for the government to do the very things liberals and progressives care most about. But I continue to believe in this president and I remain confident in America knowing he is in the White House. He has conducted himself with grace and calm in very trying times. He has managed crises and conflicts with intelligence and dignity. I trust him to do all he can to keep our troops from harm’s way while protecting the freedoms we most cherish. He believes, like I do, in a country that values fairness and productivity, safety and liberty, individual responsibility and community. I love what Obama said in Charlotte during his acceptance speech, because it summarizes precisely how I understand the essence of the American ideal:

We insist on personal responsibility, and we celebrate individual initiative. We’re not entitled to success. We have to earn it. We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world [has] ever known.

But we also believe in something called citizenship . . . a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. . . .

We don’t think the government can solve all of our problems, but we don’t think the government is the source of all of our problems. . . . As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together – through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.

It makes no sense to reverse course now. I believe too much in this country to not give this president an opportunity to finish the work he set out to do. I continue to believe that no one is better equipped to bridge the gap between red America and blue America than President Obama. He is not a Democratic president. He is an American president. And should remain so for four more years.

On the Water's Edge: Another Dose of Heschel

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. . . . [To] get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. – Abraham Joshua Heschel

Last week, Andrea and I spent time in the northernmost portions of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, on the shores of Lake Michigan, where the air is clean, the water clear, and the sky a deep blue. There is something about life at the water’s edge that causes one to reflect upon the wonders of nature and the magnificence of the Earth. Walking each morning along the shoreline and looking out over the horizon, I am humbled by the abundant beauty of the world in which we live. This is especially so where vast expanses of water meld into cloud formations that line the borders of the universe. From here, I become temporarily transported into another place and time, far from the hustle of everyday life. The country’s political divisions are muted, economic concerns set aside, the pressures of life momentarily forgotten.

The Canadian geese are at home as they congregate along the sandy beach, unhurried and content to let time pass slowly as the trees sway quietly in a late August breeze. The sun reflects off the lake’s surface as mild waves calmly swish to shore. A small boat anchored near the coastline rocks silently as the undercurrents of Lake Michigan gently caress its underside. I feel the presence of God on these walks, alone in my thoughts; the peacefulness of the universe fills me with awe.

It is times like these when I find myself revisiting the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, exploring once again his writings on God, religion, and the human quest for understanding. Heschel is uniquely capable of describing the ineffable. His words have a way of touching the soul and connecting God and man and nature. Although concerned primarily with issues of justice and compassion, Heschel spoke also of the mysterious wonder of God’s universe; the feelings of awe and “radical amazement” that help us gain a deeper perception of the divine. “Awareness of the divine begins with wonder,” he wrote. “Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.”

Heschel turned religious assumptions upside down. He spoke not of humanity’s search for God, but of God’s search for man. The purpose of religion is to help us respond to God’s need for humanity, God’s challenge for us to heal and repair the world, to live at peace with one another, to lead lives of love and compassion. “The Almighty has not created the universe," he said, "that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition.”

Heschel wrote often about God, prayer, and the nature of human life, topics to which everyone, of all religious faiths, could relate. He did not waste time trying to prove the existence of God, but instead explored how we can cultivate our inner lives to become aware of God’s purpose for the human experience. His words were ecumenical in nature and resonated widely as he sought to unite rather than divide people of diverse backgrounds. To Heschel, “prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive” of humanity’s callousness and indifference. “Prayer must never be a citadel for selfish concerns but rather a place for deepening concern over other people’s plight.”

Heschel’s writings combine a universal sense of spirituality with humility and respect for the divine. He taught that God has a stake in the life of every human being and that “God’s voice speaks in many languages, communicating itself in a diversity of intuitions.”

He understood also the importance of the Sabbath; to renew the soul and find sustenance one day a week. To help us survive the materialism and spiritual degradation of modern society, a concept diminished not only among Jews but Christians as well. “Gallantly, ceaselessly, quietly, we must fight for inner liberty” to remain independent and liberated from the material world. “The Sabbath is the presence of God in the world, open to the soul of man.” Although I have never committed to its practice, I am conceptually drawn to the notion of the Sabbath as a day to reflect, study, and pray. The world would be a calmer, more fulfilling place if more people of faith practiced the Sabbath as envisioned by Heschel.

Even in a country as “religious” as the United States, the true notion of the Sabbath is mostly a relic of the past. Like Heschel, I struggle with the failures of religion in human life. Too often, instead of ennobling humanity in its search for answers to life’s ultimate questions, religious institutions are confined to creeds, rituals, dogmas, and their institutional advancement. Heschel expounded upon this in a series of lectures he gave at the University of Minnesota in 1960, published in an essay entitled “Depth Theology” in The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967):

[T]here is an inherent weakness of religion not to take offense at the segregation of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. Religion has often suffered from the tendency to become an end in itself, to seclude the holy, to become parochial, self-indulgent, self-seeking; as if the task were not to ennoble human nature, but to enhance the power and beauty of its institutions or to enlarge the body of doctrines. It has often done more to canonize prejudices than to wrestle for truth; to petrify the sacred than to sanctify the secular.

Heschel taught we must strive to see the world from God’s perspective; to give voice to those who suffer in silence, fight injustice, and emulate God’s compassion for human beings. He recognized the limitations of language to convey what is essentially unique, the mystery of faith and humanity’s response to God. The religious institution loses its way when “faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit.” Among the most vital dimensions of religion, often missed “because of its imponderable nature . . . is that which goes on within the person: the innerness of religion. Vague and often indecipherable, it is the heart of religious existence.”

Walking along the shores of Lake Michigan last week helped me to reawaken my sense of awe and wonder, to ponder the essence of God and nature. Upon returning to Philadelphia and confronting the reality of everyday existence, I am forced to examine life anew, to see the divine in my fellow human beings and to perceive the world through the eyes of God. It is comforting to know that we are not alone. Although incapable of complete understanding, I am reminded of God’s presence in nature, in humanity, and in the messy reality of life on Earth. As Heschel reminds us, “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

The Enduring Lessons of Baseball

Where we love is home,

Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

There is wisdom to youth; an ability to perceive essential truths in life’s many dimensions. I reflected upon this sentiment Sunday while we drove Hannah to Washington, D.C., for her college orientation and the start of her freshman year. A warm, cloudy day, it began to rain shortly after we arrived, a small reminder from God that life at American University faces the same obstacles and pitfalls as all other destinations. As Hannah unpacked her belongings and arranged her dorm room, I experienced a moment of melancholy; a recognition that my youngest child has reached the end of an era and is about to embark on a new stage in life’s journey. I am proud of Hannah as she takes another step toward independence; and yet, hopeful optimism is tempered by a sense of loss that the little girl who so depended on me for 18 years may now find her way without me.

Sometimes it is the little things one notices on days like this, the photographs, posters, and possessions Hannah brought with her to school and which she now places on her shelf, desk, and wall. As she unpacks and puts on display the varied pieces of her brief history, I am comforted by the realization that it is these seemingly insignificant objects and symbols which document meaningful attachments and bonds between us. Whatever the future holds, there is a father-daughter connection that will endure for a lifetime.

On the shelf above her desk is a copy of Eat Bananas and Follow Your Heart (Bookstand Publishing, 2011), a collection of my past essays, dedicated to Hannah and Jennifer, which provides a permanent record of my thoughts on life, baseball, faith, and the world around us. Near the window on Hannah’s side of the room, on a small section of the wall, is a St. Louis Cardinals pennant, accompanied by a picture of David Eckstein, Hannah’s favorite player from years past. In the photograph, Eckstein is sliding into home plate, the red-and-white birds on the bat and familiar number 22 adorning his uniform. The picture is from the 2006 season, when Eckstein was World Series MVP. It was during that magical season Hannah and I forever bonded over the Cardinals, when she fully embraced the team as her own, sharing in my inexplicable, irrational, and lifelong passion. Angled on her desk is a picture of Hannah and me at the entrance to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, each dressed in bright red Cardinals’ shirts and hats, smiling confidently, if a bit apprehensively, before entering the lion’s den on a warm summer evening.

There are certain topics Hannah and I do not much discuss – boys, the general anxieties of being a girl in the 21st century, and other areas of which I am of little help – but through our mutual love of the Cardinals we have developed a language and system of communication all our own: the combination high-five-fist-pump when the Cardinals get a hit or Yadier Molina throws out a base runner; the diagonal crisscross-hand-slap and double-fist-pump when Freese, Holliday, Beltran, or any other Cardinal player hits a home run. It is the soulful and emotional side of baseball.

Hannah is, of course, far more sane and rational in her love of the Cardinals, more selective in her expenditure of emotions for what is, after all, something over which she has no control. But she knows the heartache of the game; she understands the spiritual transcendence of connecting to a team, the joys of a winning season, and the disappointments, pain and repeated sufferings that accompany large segments of every season. She understands that baseball is a lot like life, mostly a game of failure and, in the end, often a collection of unfulfilled promises. “Baseball is the only field of endeavor,” Ted Williams often reminded us, “where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.”

Baseball endures for reasons that transcend the game. To fall in love with the game as a child and to commit one’s heart to a team requires a dedication to the romance of life, a search for meaning and purpose in something larger than the game itself. When I was twelve years old, I was the best player on my little league team. I batted cleanup, pitched, and played first base. The other kids looked up to me. The coaches relied on me to give our team a chance. There was nothing in my life as important as baseball. I looked forward to each game with exuberant anticipation. And yet, whenever I stood in the on deck circle awaiting my turn at bat, my stomach filled with butterflies and anxiety lingered quietly in the batter’s box. On most occasions, I used the nervousness to my advantage. It helped me to concentrate, to focus on the ball as it left the pitcher’s hand; to decide in a split second whether to swing, or not, as I attempted to reach base and advance the cause of my team; to hit a fast-moving round ball with a long, smooth, rounded stick.

Of the many lessons I learned from baseball, perhaps the most important is that, to achieve anything worthwhile in life, we must be willing to fail more than we succeed. The game teaches that when we strike out or make an error, we will have another chance in the batter’s box, an opportunity for redemption. “God gets you to the plate,” said Williams, “but once you’re there you’re on your own.”

Everything in baseball looks easy, slow and safe. But true fans know better, for the perfection demanded of each player, the full accounting for each pitch, means that one player’s success is balanced by another player’s failure. What is certain is that, in every game, in every at-bat, someone will fail. A 12 year-old little leaguer will look at a called third strike with the bases loaded and two outs in the last inning of a tied game, and then never forgive himself for this errant moment of indecision. Two years later, he will be called out at home plate on a boneheaded running play, ending the game and missing out on a chance at being a hero and reversing the hand of fate, disappointing teammates and coaches. These truths I know from personal experience. “Every day is a new opportunity,” Bob Feller said. “You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”

Baseball has likely meant different things to Hannah than to me. She never played the game competitively or dreamed of playing in the Major Leagues. She was ten years old in the spring of 2004, when MLB Extra Innings and satellite television entered my life and Cardinals baseball invaded my kitchen and living room. With the nightly games broadcast on whichever room I occupied, Hannah experienced with me the ups and downs of each season’s team. As she did her homework, brushed her teeth, texted her friends, a Cardinals game was inevitably on in the background, her father inexplicably enmeshed in the outcome of each at bat.

In the summer of 2006, Hannah and I traveled to Pittsburgh to see the Cards play the Pirates. Hoping for a weekend of Albert Pujols home runs and acrobatic defensive plays by Jim Edmonds in the outfield, the season hit a low point as the Cardinals’ offense went mysteriously absent. Swept by the last-place Pirates, it was a long ride home. But as Hannah experienced with me the pain and suffering of loss, we were unexpectedly rewarded in October when the Cardinals made the post-season and, to most everyone’s surprise, won the World Series, a feat they would repeat again last year.

Over the years, Hannah has courageously accompanied me to many Cardinals-Phillies games, enduring the hostile fans of brotherly love fame. To my chagrin, she always insisted that we proudly don Cardinals t-shirts and hats in support of our team. “Stand up for your principles, Dad!” she demanded whenever I would meekly suggest that, in Philadelphia, things can get a little dicey when wearing the colors and logos of the opposition. I breathed many sighs of relief when those games ended and we arrived safely home.

It seems the Cards lost more than they won whenever we saw them in person, usually in slow, torturous fashion. But despite our bad luck, we bonded over these shared experiences. Looking back, I would not exchange the time I shared with Hannah (and Jen when she was not off at college or summer camp) for a Cardinals victory. As a father, it has always been a joy to spend time at the ballpark with my daughters, despite how miserable I become after a Cards loss. I hope to have more such experiences in the years to come, though I know time and distance may sometimes stand in the way.

With Hannah now tucked away at college, it feels a little lonelier, the quiet slightly more permanent and transparent. I find solace in knowing that, as Hannah develops into a young woman and learns to use her newfound wings, we will forever share the experience of baseball and a love of the Cardinals. Together, we will celebrate when they win and commiserate when they lose.

“There is something transformational about connecting with the game at the right time in your life, almost always in youth,” writes former major leaguer and Penn grad Doug Glanville. It is then “when you learn to fully embrace its character and every potential: the patience and endurance required, the long season, the triumph, the forgiveness. When you fall in love with this game, there is no doubt.” Even as childhood fades, we continue to know the wisdom and affection that the game imparts. Baseball endures through life’s many challenges; its appeal and intergenerational bonds remain intact even when the world becomes, as it sometimes does, a lonely, sad and pressure-filled place.

As Hannah finds her way in the world, she will inevitably make her share of errors; like the rest of us, she will strikeout and fail at times, only to wait for her next at bat. I hope that baseball has imparted a degree of wisdom, essential knowledge, and real and metaphorical life lessons that will give her the strength to confront difficulties. I trust that Hannah is, like her older sister Jen, a wiser and steadier person than I. For they understand what I occasionally forget, that in the words of Henry Stanley Haskins, regardless of how the Cardinals perform in any given year, “What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”