My soapbox

"Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!!!!!!!"

That is what we've been hearing a lot of in our house for the last week. The World Cup soccer games have held Sam's attention, and he's been watching the Spanish language television channel coverage. The announcers are so much more interesting and animated than the American sports commentators. I usually pick up a new Spanish word or two as I walk through the livingroom.
Watching sports (particularly golf--oh help!) has never been something I've had patience for. But soccer is one sport that I understand and appreciate since I played it for awhile in middle school.

What I really love about watching the World Cup series is the crowd reactions in the stands. Soccer is not a spectator sport for European audiences. They actively encourage the players by robust singing, clapping, and shouting. As the plays get closer to the goal, the intensity of the crowd increases until there is a deafening roar coming from the grandstands. Involvement is the name of their game, even if it is from the stands. I just love the solidarity and support that spills out onto the streets after games (sans the fights, riots, and general destruction that can occur).

As I was watching the games this morning, it occurred to me that for many people, life is only a spectator sport--and one that they watch with quiet despair. People often do anything but examine their own lives, or build their own dreams. It is far easier to be the spectator while someone else does the work. We hover about our televisions every night, cheering on people who are racing around the world, or who must drink cow bile to win a million dollars, or who are gambling for big bucks. We even cheer for actors who make men and women appear to be idiotic, inept, insensitive, and clueless in every way. We watch murders and crimes of all kinds, silently cheering for the good guy and hoping that right wins in the end.
Or, if it's not television, we read romance novels about impossible sexual exploits that if truly happened, would put nature on its ear. Grand relationships birthed from a furtive glance, a heaving (visible, voluptuous) breast, and communication that even cavemen would find insufficient.

Meanwhile, life in the real world passes us by. Many people can talk with you about the plot of the series, "Lost" but can't talk about anything substantive about their own life, their thoughts, hopes, dreams. We know who the American Idol is and what Simon Cowle's comments were about him, but few people know the height and breadth of their own emotional terrain. We know what Tom Cruise's religious beliefs are, but do we know our own with any measure of certainty? We watch people do a slow verbal and emotional striptease on shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil, but have we ever looked at the issues in ourselves that the guests of these shows share with the world?

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:26).

Soulfulness is hard to come by for people who live their lives through the experience of other people. Their souls become neglected, lonely, melancholy starvelings that are kept hidden away because they're not as exciting or romantic as what we can watch or read about elsewhere. God forbid that life becomes a spectator sport for anyone!