Tag Archives: heaven

July 8, 2011 · 19:52

Sometimes between Life and Death a Baseball often Matters as much as a Prayer

I have had a number of patients in my ICUs who have been avid baseball fans.  Likewise there are a number of physicians and nurses who are avid fans of the game, or sometimes certain teams.  Like me they were members of the Church of Baseball.  Some even attend my parish, Harbor Park.  It is funny how in the intersection of life and death that baseball finds a place more than any other sport.  Baseball has a quality and nuance that is different from most other sports, save perhaps golf.  Baseball is not bound by the constraints of time.  It has an eternal quality that somehow transcends life and death and one can see that in the stories that we tell in film in novels, histories and our own narratives.

There is a scene in The Babe Ruth Story where a critically ill child asks the Babe to hit a home run for him.  The Babe then went out and hit two.  Later in the movie when the Babe is dying of cancer he is given a Miraculous Medal.  The film was rushed to completion before Ruth died and the scene at Yankee Stadium was filmed shortly before a game and Ruth came from his death bed to be there.

In Field of Dreams the spirits of the 1919 White Sox who were forced out of baseball in the Blacksox scandal.  The Pride of the Yankees deals with the life of Lou Gehrig, baseballs original Iron Man and his battle with ALS.  His speech at Yankee Stadium when he retired from the game is classic.  It is a reflection on life well lived and thanksgiving for what he experienced.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t have considered it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrows? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat and vice versa, sends you a gift, that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeeper and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that’s something. When you have a father and mother work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that’s the finest I know. I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. And I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.” – July 4, 1939 at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day

These are intersections of life and death.  In the ICUs I have a surprising amount of dealings with baseball.  In one ICU I had a lady that was very sick with chronic and apparently terminal heart disease.  She was a delightful woman with a wonderful husband.  I had met them and while she had struggled she looked like she was on the uptick. She was delightful to spend time with and in those pastoral conversations when I had the overnight duty we found that we shared a common passion, baseball.

We agreed that the Biblical writer’s description of heaven was inaccurate being that they were unaware of the Deity’s love of baseball. We agreed that heaven had to have not streets of gold, but the most amazing turf and most immaculate infield which one could imagine and foul lines that went into infinity. She and her husband were watching the Nationals and Astros play deep into the night but the following day she took a bad turn for the worse.

I saw her that day we visited again and she was struggling. I prayed and anointed her at her request.  And I asked her if she would like a baseball. Her eyes lit up and she nodded “yes.”  So I promised that I would get one from the stadium last night.  The game at Harbor Park was rained out that night so I went home and got a ball that I had received after throwing out the first pitch at a Kinston Indians game.  I inscribed it to her and took it to her room the next day. She was pretty heavily sedated and her sister was with her.  I spent some time with her sister to let her know that I had the baseball for her.  We then went to the bedside where I let the lady know that I had her baseball. She opened her eyes and I put the ball in her hand.  Her hand gripped it tight and I blessed her.

The lady did get better and about 8 months later following my “Christmas miracle” I was walking past the Medical Center Pharmacy and I heard a familiar voice. It was the lady’s husband and she sat beside him looking very well. It turned out that they had been able to correct the worst part of her condition through a catheterization after she had gotten out of the ICU. New medications were also helping but she was most thankful of my little visits to her and the gift of the baseball.

Her husband talked of how the ball seldom left her hand during her ICU stay.  As we visited they both told me how much what I did in the ICU meant to them, the prayer, anointing of the sick and the baseball.  She told me that the ball, an official Carolina League ball was now on her mantle.  We chatted some more and talked about all the prayer that had been made on her behalf as well as the hard work of the ICU and Cardiology teams to keep her alive and help her recover.  I mentioned that it was likely that the whole companies of baseball “saints” in heaven were praying for her as well and we all had a great laugh.  I had to leave and go to a call but we exchanged hugs and blessings.

Sometimes the miracle is not in the prayer but in the things that touch us and mean much to us. For this lady, her husband and I that was baseball.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 14, 2010 · 00:00

Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Heck and Helven…Choices for Eternity

I was reading the comics yesterday when I found this great Dilbert.  I have loved the strip for years and some of the funniest strips for me have been those dealing with religion and spirituality.  Be it Saint Dogbert and his “Out out Demons of Stupidity” or Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light who rules over “Heck” with his pitch-spoon where people are “darned to Heck for minor infractions,” I have always gotten a chuckle or even a belly laugh out of them.

Of course many people and religions have different conceptions of the afterlife for both the saved, sometimes known as the elect or the unsaved that are sometimes referred to as the damned.  Without getting into anyone’s knickers I want to just have some fun with what can be a subject of speculation and even controversy.

Of course heaven is the place of the elect and is usually characterized by streets of gold, angels, pearly gates and lots of time around whichever Deity that the religion in question believes in.  Heaven is a good place and probably where you want to be going if you have to spend the rest of eternity, which I am assured sports fans is a very long time.  Now there are variations on heaven. Some religions have different concepts about it and others have looser or tighter rules as to who gets in, everything from the “All dogs go to heaven” of universalists to the 144,000 of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to the real strict fundamentalists of various religions (fundamentalists of all religions tend to be peas in a pod) who are even more select that the JWs.

Some even have different levels of heaven.  To go back to the JWs they have “real heaven” where the 144,000 go and then a perfect earth where the rest of the JWs go to pick fruit and pet animals for eternity.  If you ask me that kind of sucks because it is a works system based around how many people you convert to be JWs.  The thing that would suck is like you thought you had gotten the last of the 144,000 available spaces and someone that you converted knocked you out of the competition.  If you are not a JW forget it, you just get annihilated, not even the eternal punishment of hell to look forward to.  The Latter Day Saints have a cool belief that if you are a super cool Mormon man you get to be God of your own planet while everyone else gets regular heaven and only the really bad people go to hell. Of course some Moslems believe that if you are martyred for your faith you get to have 72 virgins in heaven to have eternal sex with, no mention of what happens to female martyrs but I wonder if their virgins would be the ones with pimples and wearing rape control glasses, Moslem nerds so to speak.  The Hindus have a number of different beliefs but the prevailing trend is that heaven and hell are things to help get you perspective in between periods of reincarnation.  Since the soul is immortal and you keep getting reincarnated this sounds like summer school.  Have you ever noticed that a lot of people who believe in reincarnation believe that they were someone famous in a previous life?  I think that Kevin Costner playing “Crash” Davis in Bull Durham asked the same question to Susan Sarandon but regardless why don’t you hear people say that they were a flea on Napoleon’s horse at Waterloo? In Buddhism the endless quest is to attain Nirvana whose lead singer Kurt Cobain off’d himself.  Actually it is to attain Nirvana but that has nothing to do with Curt Cobain.  Nirvana is a state of nothingness which in my mind is kind of boring if you worked really hard to get things right for a multitude of lifetimes.  I guess that I’m too western and wonder what the payback is for working hard only to end up as nothing.  I am also uncomfortable that there will be no more “me” if I am successful, I like me.  The folks who are Jewish have a number of ideas about heaven and hell that are not too much different than those of Christians except the little fact of who gets in. Now this will vary between the three major groups of Jews from the pretty open minded Reformed Jews, to the Conservative and then to the Orthodox Jews who come in various strains of strictness.  The Reformed folks are pretty open-minded and the more extreme versions or Orthodox don’t think that anyone apart from them will get in.

Now as far as Christians we have a wide number of interpretations of both heaven and hell and to whom might be qualified to be admitted to either location. The Calvinists that are really serious believe in something called double predestination which basically means that people were either saved or damned before the creation of the world.  Not much room for choice in that theology.  There is a subgroup of these folks who sometimes are called Antinomians who believe that since they are saved that they can do anything that they want, any sin, no matter how big and still be saved. Personally I think that is really pretty presumptuous and downright scary.  Then those who are more Wesleyan or Armenian weigh in on the side of choice even including that one can “lose their salvation” after they were saved this is often found in Wesleyan and Pentecostal groups.  A similar stream is found in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, where though not technically losing salvation keeps you on edge wondering if you made it or not until you die.  In Roman Catholicism this might mean that you end up in heaven, hell or purgatory.  There are a wide number of interpretations within the Christian faith other than these but these are probably the most common views and interpretations.

So since I have in a nutshell (you are what you eat) in a manner of speaking have presented what different religions think of heaven and hell I shall move on to some of the interpretations of what this means.

As I said heaven, regardless of the religion is “good” unless of course that your religion does not have one in which case it is what it is.  Of course the opposite is true as well, if you don’t have a hell that can’t be too bad, unless of course you guess wrong which would really suck.  It would be almost as bad as when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson missed the Rapture.

Moving on the Roman Catholic Church has a doctrine that is called Purgatory.  Now Purgatory much to the disappointment of some is now “junior hell.”  It is a place for the elect, or the saved to go to clean up their act and learn to love Jesus better before getting admitted into heaven proper.  It is a place like being elected to the baseball Hall of Fame you may get elected to the Hall but there is a period of time that you get to wait before the plaque goes up at Cooperstown. Likewise there must be a “Purgatory” because the state of West Virginia is described as “Almost Heaven” which would mean that it is in reality Purgatory. Since that is where my family originally comes from and from where my current driver’s license is issued that I too am headed there?

Map of Hell

Now Hell, with the exception of Hinduism is pretty much universally a place that you don’t want to go, kind of like Detroit.  There are many images of Hell including the best which come out of Dante’s Inferno which should not be confused with Disco Inferno even if you despised Disco.

I like the image of Hell as the “Lake of Fire.”  This conveys to me the image of a lake in the deep south which is painfully hot, overwhelmingly humid and swarming with flies, mosquitoes and other vermin.  I cannot imagine anywhere worse.  Rowan Atkinson has a great skit called Welcome to Hell where he plays the Devil welcoming a fresh group of the damned to the infernal regions. I’ve linked that here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFGrQMD6Uqc

Now I have already mentioned “Heck” which is ruled by Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light who “darns you to Heck for minor infractions and Helvin the place that souls are outsourced to due to the unionization of the Angels and Demons.   It seems to me that heck is not a particularly bad place however Helvin may not be too great of place to be.  I really don’t want to know how they would give my harp to me.

So anyway, I guess I shall invoke Saint Dogbert to banish the Demons of Stupidity as I go to sleep dreaming of the real heaven where the baseball diamond is the lushest green field with foul lines that extend to eternity.  In this heaven the game never ends and you never get tired.  Not much longer until the earthly baseball season begins again.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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May 7, 2009 · 15:38

Baseball in Between Life and Death in the ICU

CALBaseball_142

I have had a number of patients in my ICUs who are or in the case of some who have passed away avid baseball fans.  Likewise there are a number of physicians and nurses who are avid fans of the game, or sometimes certain teams.  Like me the are members of the Church of Baseball.  Some even attend my parish, Harbor Park.  It is funny how in the intersection of life and death that baseball finds a place more than any other sport.  Baseball has a quality and nuance that is different from most other sports, save perhaps golf.  Baseball is not bound by the constraints of time.  It has an eternal quality that somehow transcends life and death. Two of my favorite attending physicians are big fans and one coaches on the side.

There is a scene in The Babe Ruth Story where a critically ill child asks the Babe to hit a home run for him.  The Babe then went out and hit two.  Later in the movie when the Babe is dying of cancer he is given a Miraculous Medal.  The film was rushed to completion before Ruth died and the scene at Yankee Stadium was filmed shortly before a game and Ruth came from his death bed to be there.

In Field of Dreams the spirits of the 1919 White Sox who were forced out of baseball in the “Blacksox” scandal.  The Pride of the Yankees deals with the life of Lou Gehrig, baseball’s original “Iron Man” and his battle with ALS.  His speech at Yankee Stadium when he retired from the game is classic.  It is a reflection on life well lived and thanksgiving for what he experienced.

LouGehrigDay

Lou Gehrig at Lou Gehrig Day July 4th 1939

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t have considered it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrows? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat and vice versa, sends you a gift, that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeeper and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that’s something. When you have a father and mother work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that’s the finest I know. I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. And I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.” – July 4, 1939 at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day

These are intersections of life and death.  In the ICUs I have a surprising amount of dealings with baseball.  I have a lady who is very sick.  She is a delightful woman with a wonderful husband. She looked like she was on the uptick a couple of days ago we had a great talk, and wonderful time.  We found that we shared a common passion…you guessed it, baseball. We agreed that the Biblical writers describing heaven being unaware of the Deity’s love of baseball had erred in their description of heaven. We agreed that heaven had to have not streets of gold, but the lushest turf and most immaculate infield, with foul lines that went into infinity.   She and her husband watched the Nationals and Astros play deep into the night.  Yesterday she took a turn for the worse.  As we visited we visited I prayed and anointed her at her request.  And I asked her if she would like a baseball. Her eyes lit up and she nodded “yes.”  So I promised that I would get one from the stadium last night.  Well, the Devil got in the mix and the Tides got rained out, so I went home.  I found a ball that I got when throwing out the first pitch at a Kinston Indians game a few years back.  I inscribed it to her and took it to her room. She was pretty heavily sedated, but her sister was with her.  I let her know that I had the baseball for her.  She opened her eyes and I put the ball in her hand.  Her hand gripped it tight and I blessed her.

I do pray that she will get better.

Peace, Steve+

grainger stadiumGranger Stadium Kinston NC

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April 4, 2009 · 22:05

Saturday Morning Distractions-Jehovah’s Witnesses at the Door

molly-and-daddy Me and Molly, Canine Terrorist and defender of the Realm reading my blog.

The morning was quiet, too quiet.  I had taken a leisurely light breakfast of Kellogg’s Special K with cinnamon and pecans and sliced fresh bananas, with my Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla coffee with non-fat french vanilla creamer.  Laptop on my lap and dog at my side I perused Facebook, read my favorite comics and scanned my home town newspaper’s obituaries and crime beat sections.  What better way of keeping track of old acquaintances? The morning seemed ideal. Then it changed.

Placidly laying next to me on the couch after finishing off the residue of the milk from my cereal bowl, my little canine terrorist exploded into action, alerting me to the danger at hand.   I had not heard anything, in fact I am not sure if the unwelcome visitors even had time to push the doorbell or knock. However my little shit was now at the door barking furiously as she bounced up and down her hackles raised.

Dislodging my laptop from my lap I rushed to the door yelling “MOLLY DAMMIT SHUT THE HELL UP OR I GET THE BOTTLE!”  The “bottle” is what we call the “Molly Bottle” a small spray bottle filled with water with which we soak the little shit when she fails to obey when people come to the door.  As I got to the door I moved her back and opened the door just a bit, leaning over to keep an eye on her while seeing who was at the door. My eyes spied a woman with a book bag with an Awake magazine, while Molly charged the glass storm door barking furiously. Looking up I simply said “Go away or the dog will eat you.” and closed the door.  Satisfied Molly trotted back to the living room. Judy said “Did you punish her her for disobeying?”  As Molly and I each got back on the couch and Molly moved next to me, I said “no, but I almost told her that she was a good girl.” Judy, looking disgusted said “I think that you just did.” Molly wagged.  All was right in her little world and peace returned to our quiet abode.

Now let me get this straight.  This is not a hit piece on the Witnesses.  They have every right to waste their Saturdays bothering people who just want to be left alone, like yours truly.  I just don’t get it though.  When I was a young person I would attempt to counter-evangelize them as they came to the door, since of each pair one is always in training.  Giving up on that as I got older I would politely tell them that I was not  interested.  As I have gotten even older and come back from Iraq my resentment for anyone ignoring our doormat which plainly states: “We love our vacuum, we found God, and we gave at the office,” has become palpable.  I don’t want to be bothered by the Witnesses, vendors or any other solicitors.  I will however give the young Mormon missionaries a nice greeting as one of their Army Chaplains saved my ass and career when I was a young chaplain. He is now the denomination endorsing agent. Both Judy and I provide these young men with his contact info should they desire to enter the military as a chaplain. They are usually surprised by our friendliness and leave somewhat perplexed.

What I don’t get about the Witnesses is the illogic of their whole system.  Now I know that atheists say this about all religions.  But as one who believes firmly in the Deity,as expressed in both in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds, I just don’t go around knocking other people who believe in God for the fun of it.  I do respect the beliefs of others even if I disagree with them.  I believe in our country that we have a wonderful history of tolerance for wide variations of religious practices, and that this tolerance is good for everyone. I will not mess with the Witnesses gooned up understanding of the Godhead, hackneyed translation of the Bible, the many times they have predicted the Second Coming and missed, or their somewhat odd social customs or limitations on medical care here.  I will only focus on the odds of going to real heaven if you join them.

Like I said, I just don’t get it.  The Witness system is one that if you join you will be destined to fail to make the grade.  There is no way around this cold fact. The Witness only believe that 144,000 will get to top level, real heaven.  The rest of them, number 144,001 and higher will end up petting animals and picking fruit on a perfect earth.  Unbelievers are simply annihilated, do not pass Hell and do not collect $200.  The Mormons have a much better deal, if you are a male Mormon who has done all the right Mormon stuff you get to be God of your own planet.  Now I have no desire to be God, far too much work and trouble if you ask me, but a pretty good deal if they are right about this stuff.  For the Mormons good religious folks get to second level eternal life, especially if they have been baptized by proxy by a Mormon friend or relative. Real scum get to go to hell.

Let’s face it.  If there have been millions and millions of Witnesses since they came into being and only 144,000 boat spaces in heaven, then the odds are stacked against you for getting in.  Since you acquire points by bringing other people in you are in effect creating more competition for those slots.  Not really a good idea if you ask me, not that I’m selfish or anything.  Now let’s suppose that you became a Witness, handed out tons of Watchtower and Awake magazines and ushered in gazillions of other people into the faith.  Let’s say that you did enough to break into the top level.  You work your way up to 144,000 and then pass away.  You got in  right?  Not so fast.  Joe Schmuckatelli the lapsed Catholic that you converted the week before you passed away got serious about his new found faith.  He really hustled and was a superstar, the guy was a hall of fame Witness converting half the population of Salt Lake City to the faith.  Hey, I said he was an all star, he even out hustled the Mormons on their home field.  Old Joe not only gets in, but by getting into the top tier he bumps you out.  It’s just not right, its unfair.  You work you ass off and end up picking fruit and petting animals for all eternity.  That just blows.

Anyway, thank God for my little canine terrorist.  Peace, Steve+

doormat

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