Props to the Dayton Flyers.
I guess.
Didn’t actually see the game yesterday. But I understand that UD outscored my beloved Billikens. So props to them for that.
I’m having a bit more trouble being gracious, though … about the final handful of seconds in the contest.
I would much prefer that “my guys” would have been given the chance to extend the game for a bit. Like, for instance, if our coach had been granted a time-out after our final bucket … instead of being ignored by the ref (who, moments before, had promised to be paying attention).
Or, for instance, if UD had been assessed the technical foul they earned … by having a bench player (and a coach) rush the floor while the game was still being played. At least one of the refs had a pretty good view of that infraction.
Alas, the clock ran out on the Billikens’ run to the A10 Championship this weekend. An untimely bit of blindness (and deafness) meant we wouldn’t be given the chance to extend things for a bit.
It’s not the end of the world, I guess. It’s just a game, after all.
Still … it stings. It hurts to be reminded – so specifically, so episodically – that we continue to stumble around in brokenness and imperfection. This is in fact the human condition. Things don’t always break our way, even if we’ve got the rulebook on our side.
In a sense, we are all born blind to that core aspect of our nature. We think we can sort things ourselves – we have no need of redemption. But into our muck of prideful self-sufficiency strolls the Christ on this Laetare Sunday.
As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.
Before we can even think to ask for help, Jesus sets about the work of re-creating us. He takes the mud in which we so often find ourselves stuck … and breathes new life into it. He gives us a way to see.
“It is unheard of…” And yet – boom! – there it is, says the once-blind man: “If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”
Our call, says Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, is simply to accept this unmerited gift … and then use it, to somehow extend the game.
You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light…
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 