Sunday, February 05, 2006

Superbowl of the End Times


Those of you who know me on a personal level will be surprised to learn I watched the Seahawks play the Steelers in Superbowl XL. Yes, I'm sure more than a few people would have paid money to see Barry Moses watching football. Others would regard this as a sign of the end times; but before you cash in on the great apocalypse, just remember I grew up surrounded by football, and while I resisted it all these years, I just couldn't escape the gravitational pull of my home team playing the mother of all games (I lived in Seattle for 8 years during my childhood, so if I had to claim allegiance to any team, I would have to claim Seattle).

To be quite honest, I even surprised myself. Since my earliest childhood, football represented everything I hated about American males; the beer, the aggression, the cursing. It represented everything I was NOT. I was always quite the sensitive, artistic, and creative young man, and I always assumed footballers were some kind of alien species, or at least a foreign race.

And yet there I was, watching the Seahawks lose the ultimate game, jumping up and down from my seat and wanting to curse out loud. We were guests in our friend's home, so I managed to refrain myself (their pastor was also a guest in their home), but it was like the energy of the moment reached through the television and took control of my body. By the time the game ended and I finally accepted the defeat of Seattle's team, I found myself pacing around the house wondering what the hell just happened to me. Had I really just watched the first football game in over 20 years? Did I actually enjoy the game? The answer to these questions may very well shatter my cherished self-perceptions and cause me to re-think my assumptions about what it means to be ME.

Wow! Maybe these really are the end times after all! ;)

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