My youngest daughter loves the game. I'm not sure how this happened in a 'nominal' football family. We are amateur game watchers at best. But this is the second year we have celebrated the most sacred day on the AFL calender in style because our youngest is a true believer. And since our beloved Cats were out of the game, we showed our support for the underdogs. Go Sainters!
Here she is, in all her streamered, facepainted and inked out glory, meditating on the object of her worship...
I blame Lucy, apostle to the great game, for inflaming my youngest with her passion. Lucy can recite names, positions and tactics of players on the field. She knows the game better then the umpires on the field. They ought to have a phoneline directly to Lucy. When I am confused by the many rituals of this ancient game, I turn to Lucy for advice and guidance. She's my football mentor.
See? She's coached me well. Here I am, the most unlikely of supporters. Decked out in my full colours...
...carrying the sacred leather with all the confidence of a third generation believer.
On the most sacred day of the AFL calender, part of the ritual is to play the game. Our footy field is right outside our front door, on the median strip between two roads. The council had kindly slashed this hallowed ground two days before the big game, no doubt in antipication for this big match.
Ha! Here for the world to see!
Team-members trained for monts for this match. Nothing was left to chance!
Moments of brilliance...
And no holy day is complete without a feast. JB in charge of the sacraments.
People gathering, sharing.
On this sacred day, when the world stands still to watch two teams battle it out on the field, old friends become unspoken enemies, and long-standing enemies are tied to unlikely friendships in support of their team.
And this last photo and cryptic caption leads me to my own grand finale in this "Ode to the Great Game." Below is a journal entry, written about a month ago, when I was the reader in church one Sunday morning. These were my reflections from that morning. And my allusions to the religious rituals of football will become clear. I'm not sure whether this blog entry has returned the sacred to the secular, or made the secular sacred. I'm not sure if I am guilty of impiety before the court of either football fans or the religiously devout. I'll leave the verdict to you...
"reading the sacred text, aloud in god's temple with god's people...in that moment i have become part of something else. i have become grace-filled. in the moment when i attend to the task, to the reading, when i speak the words and hear my voice carried into the corners of the sanctuary, in that moment i know my voice is no longer simply 'mine' but has become part of something more, something beyond the everyday cursing, complaining, explaining, berating, cajoling, screaming, placating...i have entered the divine and for a moment i am home. there is simply no better place to be - nowhere pressing. nothing demanding. no multiplicity. no disunity. i have become my self, my voice is not just 'mine' and yet it belongs wholly to me, or i to my voice, to the words uttered - to the sacred text spoken. i belong there and i am whole. a transformative moment."
