The Rapture

The disciples are lined up. Row after row after row. Heads bowed but for the few who have their eyes trained heavenward, beseeching their God for mercy. Hands clasped so tightly that their knuckles are white. Almost all are visibly praying. A hypnotic mumbling, each repeating their own personal words but along the same line. Chanting their wish, concentrating so deeply you believe whatever it is that they want must come true. Otherwise that will be proof that there is, in fact, no God at all. They sit together and rock and pray and even cry with the passion of their faith. They are true believers. It is as if they feel that all of them together can affect reality. As if their plaintive cries will sway the nature of what is going to come. As if, by their fevered and strident demands, they can change the outcome.

And then, as if the prayers were heard, as if the Almighty on high had actually been listening the entire time, as if all that desperate supplicating worked, a seemingly miraculous touchdown is scored and half the stadium explodes with joy. Now people really start crying. Everyone is on their feet. Laughing and weeping and slapping each other on the back. Hugging complete strangers in the frigid stadium. The snow is coming down, the winds are fierce. But no one cares. I don’t think anyone can even feel the cold. They are, one and all, in a state of rapture.

Of course, before I started watching football six years ago, I found all that fanaticism absurd. Who cares so much about a stupid game? “Don’t you have something better to do?” I would say to myself as I watched my husband and son laze away hours at a time in front of the “idiot box.” Watching their teams win and lose and screaming at the television while doing so. “You moron!” they would erupt at a fumbled pass or interception - as if them yelling at the screen would make any difference at all. “Yes. Yes. Yes!” They would jump up from their chairs at an amazing play, high-fiving each other, unable to sit down from sheer excitement.

Now I watch football too. And I must say that since recently learning the rules, I am a bit obsessed. In classic addict nature I overdo it. I have been known to sit for six hours at a stretch watching two back-to-back games. Of course I get up every once in a while to do something “productive.” Empty the dishwasher, take the dog for a walk, make a salad for dinner. But I am only half present while doing these chores. Anxious to get back in front of the television. Back to my team, which needs my full attention and support.

The truth is I don’t have a team. I like certain stories behind each team and I watch all games with those stories in mind. I’ve watched one player get transferred from team to team to team for six years. A star in college, he was drafted into the NFL and has been there, sitting on a bench, waiting for his turn.

Finally in year seven he got transferred from a terrible team to a mediocre team and he blossomed. He started to win. And win and win and win. He’s in the playoffs now and the betting men say he’s likely to win the Super Bowl. After all those years. After all that strife and suffering. After being transferred from team to team for a ham sandwich and a side of fries. He was worthless. But of course he is not worthless. He never was. He was just waiting for the right moment. And that moment is now. The whole tale is biblical really. He is football’s Job.

Every team has those stories and I love them all. My son and I also have a game that I enjoy more than he does but he humors me and plays along. When one of the players takes a decisively brutal hit we discuss what would happen to me, his fragile old mom, if I took that particular beatdown.

“Two broken legs and a concussion,” my son will assure me. Or maybe “a broken arm plus serious spine and brain damage.” Or even “I’m sorry Mom but that one would kill you. Your neck was snapped. You’re dead now.” And indeed I probably would be after having a 350 pound man fall violently on top of me and then “accidentally” stomp on my back as he leaves the scrum of other players. I feel relieved not to be playing in the NFL at those moments. I’m happy to be safe and warm and cozy on my couch, a fire roaring. I always hope that all the players come out of the game unscathed. But not all of them do. Maybe that’s the appeal. Football is the closet thing we have to a gladiatorial sport in America. Harm will be done and we’re here to watch it.

My son plays a lot of tennis. He’ll be playing in college next year and I’m thrilled about that. But it’s stressful watching your child play any sport at a high level. I don’t want him to lose. Ever. Yet lose he must. With the thrill of victory comes the agony of defeat. But that agony, for an over-excitable mother, can be brutal. Just this past weekend I was at a tournament, sitting in a freezing cold tennis bubble way out in New Jersey somewhere.

As I tried to lock in and watch the tennis the woman sitting next to me was a real distraction. She was all hunched over, her elbows resting on her knees, her shoulders tensely raised to her ears. She was rocking back and forth, back and forth, her eyes either closed or gazing upwards. She was whispering to herself incessantly, not watching the tennis at all. When I got up to get a drink of water and saw the other side of her body I realized that it was not some profound neurological disorder that was causing her behavior. She was praying the rosary, the long wooden beads almost touching the floor. The crucifix swayed slightly at her knee, crawling up toward her clasped hands as she ran the beads through her fingers. I was shocked. And sort of impressed. Reciting the rosary, I knew from my father, was no easy feat.

There are sixty prayers to be repeated in a full Rosary. The Apostles’ Creed, six Our Fathers, and (for the football fans) fifty-three Hail Marys. Yet here she was. And she kept going. She prayed that rosary like a demon, swaying and mumbling, eyes mostly closed in a state of deep concentration. And she obviously didn’t give a crap what other people thought about her for the twenty minutes that she was lost in her divine meditation.

Once she turned her attention back to the court, it became clear who her son was. And he was was crushing it. Demolishing his opponent.

My son, unlike the rosary-reciting mom’s son, was struggling. His opponent was getting the upper hand. I had not driven two hours in the snow for this! “I’m going to do what Miss Mary Magdalene next to me is doing,” I decided.

I adopted her devout position, hands clasped, eyes closed, brow furrowed, and I started to pray. “Dear God, please let that kid double fault. Make him double fault. Please dear God make him lose his serve (a valuable weapon which he was using to great effect) for the rest of the game. Let him double fault this entire match away. Let him never serve a good serve again.”

But that prayer felt bad. It did not sit easily in my stomach. Would God smite me for being so damn petty? And mean? I needed to switch tactics. I opened my eyes and saw that the kid had not double faulted while I was lost in prayer. In fact, he had broken my son’s serve and was now up a break.

“Dear God,” I tried again in a more conciliatory tone, “it’s me. Your humble servant. God, please let my son win this match. He has to win. Because he has been working so hard on his game. Because he deserves it. Because truth be told you and I know he’s a better player than that punk across the net. (He is.) Dear God, please let your will be done. And make sure your will is that my son triumph over this unworthy adversary.” But then I stopped that too, imagining myself praying to God when I really need His support and Him telling me, quite brusquely in fact, that I had “wasted” my last answered prayer on some inconsequential tennis match way out in Jersey.

I had prayed. I had mumbled. I had even rocked back and forth a little bit. But it hadn’t worked. I mean it didn’t work for me. My son lost. But not Miss Rosary’s son. He had smashed his opponent and was going to the finals. Was it her prayers? Her devotion?

Of course not. It was, like in every sporting event for every player in every sport, simply his day. Luck and talent and perseverance were on his side. And he won.

Now when I watch sports and see all those uber-fans lost in earnest prayer I have to smile. And I find myself casually praying for my preferred teams to win as well. Not because it will work. Not because it will change the outcome of the game. But because it calms me down in tense moments. Because it makes me feel invested in whatever game it is I am watching. Because it makes me feel like even if my son or my football team or my tennis star loses their game, I feel in some weird way connected to the other fans and to the outcome. I can then say, with the players’ herculean efforts and all of our combined prayers, that at least we tried our best.