While driving home from delivering my son to football practice, I heard about a football team in Michigan that is holding the annual two-a-day football practices between 11:00 pm and 4:00 am. In the Texas heat, I see this as just plan smart. They are doing this because, according to an article at ESPN.com, 95% of the team is fasting for Ramadan. See the article here. I am not complaining. I am congratulating the team and the individuals on the team. They are all making sacrifices so they can fast and prayer during these High Holy Days of Ramadan.
Do we as Christians, take our holidays (this comes from the words HOLY and DAYS) as seriously? How many of us will attend and or watch the Cowboys play on Christmas Day, or watch a double header of NBA basketball? Major League Baseball tends to love playing on Easter. Even Southern Methodist University has followed the mighty TV money and will be opening their season on Sunday, September 4th in Lubbock on ESPN.Now, we can argue this several ways. First, they are all following willing money. The teams are simply doing what they have to do to make a buck. Second, we can blame TV. They have times slots to fill and will offer good money for teams to play and get TV time. Third, we can blame the owners of professional teams. I like to blame Jerry Jones for almost everything anyway, so this is all the same to me. Finally, we could and should blame us. We are the ones who demand, watch, and ultimately pay for games to be played on Christmas, Easter, and Sunday afternoon.
What if, we turned off our TVs, radios, and did not attend games on Sundays? What if we avoided sports on Christmas and Easter? Would the sports marketing crumble? Probably not. They might find other times to play the games. But, let's be honest. We are almost Christian and lazy at that. If we were not watching our beloved Cowboys on Christmas Day, we would be at the movie theater laughing it up over popcorn.
2 comments:
First off: love the new look of the blog.
Second off: love the clip art.
Third off: I had a buddy in high school who played soccer with me. However his family refused to allow their son (Rich) to play on Sunday games. This family paid a lot of money to be on a club soccer team in Plano (at the time that was THE league) in order to pull their son from 1/2 of the games because they fell on Sundays. Rich never played in finals of tournaments we progressed to because the games were on Sundays.
I never understood why his parents would do that. As I study more and more Wesley, I begin to understand.
(As a total sidebar, Rich's father (Rich Senior) was a total jerk. While half of the games were spent in church, the other half of the games Rich Sr. sent in the parking lot after being thrown out of the games for yelling at the refs. Which makes me wonder what he learned on Sundays...)
I could not agree more. When the girls were little I was constantly explaining why the girls did not do things on Sundays & wondered why more parents did not put their foot down more. We lived in a community which was 40% Jewish then & athletic or sporting events were not scheduled during High Holidays but the Christians just did not want to say anything or say, we care too when it came to holidays or even Sundays.
**On a side note: I know we are related in all football matters when I see that you too blame Jerry Jones for many things, ha! (Stands to reason in my head!)
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