March is Madness

I love basketball. I love to watch it and read about it and listen to sporting news dedicated to it. I loved to play it and wanted to be a college basketball player. The goofy picture here is embarrassing, but it conveys, by my silly facial expression, how much I loved playing the sport. But I need to admit something here--one might take from this that I was an accomplished basketball player myself. I wasn't.

I am 5'3" (with shoes on). In junior high school, I was a point guard (read: not allowed to shoot). In my last season as a basketball player (7th grade for the Western Branch Bruins), I was 10% from the foul line. I have said more often than my husband cares to hear, "if only I had height and talent . . ." He then reminds me that EVERYONE with height and talent probably could have made it past being a bench warmer for her junior high team.

And I'm not one of those basketball fans who hates other teams. I just love the game, especially NCAA basketball. I'm a Duke fan who does not hate UNC (which is enough for people to start questioning my sanity). To me, a great college basketball game is physical poetry, and a poor one is aesthetically irritating. I will even watch classic basketball and cheer out loud, as if the outcome is uncertain.

But this love can get out of control, and we are about to enter that time of year when I lose control, especially in light of the fact that my alma mater, Penn State, perennial cellar-dwellers of the Big Ten, likely will receive an NCAA Tournament bid.

Things we love can be curses. We do them to the exclusion of other (good) things we should do. I usually don't exercise enough during March, and I surely don't get the sleep I need (how am I supposed to see West Coast games if I am asleep by 11:00??) Something in me knew I should give up basketball viewing for Lent, but I was just too weak to even try it. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do that. Easier for me to give up carbs than to go basketball-free for 40 days.

My admission here is related to reading Romans 12 today, as suggested by the Nativity Message Guide. "Do not be conformed to this world . . ." (Romans 12:2). This time of year, I really fail at this. I am so conformed to the world during basketball season. Normally an active person, I sit and watch (and yell). And this year I am doing it without my usual bowl of popcorn (the one sacrifice my weak self was able to forgo during this sacrificial season). Romans 12:2 continues: "but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." The Message Guide is helping me this year, as I have been faithful in doing the "outside readings" and praying about how I can use these readings to be transformed.

If I have one piece of advice for people this Lent, it is to pick up the Message Guide, and use it for more than a place to jot down your quickie grocery list after Mass. Spend some time in prayer, read the short passages suggested (which are selected to dovetail with our Message Series, Tug of War) and use the questions provided to go deeper into the Scripture passage and your own heart. It really helps.

These readings surely renew my mind. I feel more energetic, and at the same time, more peaceful after this prayer time.

And I need that, because Duke is playing Boston College tonight . . .