…it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Shattered Dreams
So today’s Super Bowl Sunday. It will be a hard one to watch this year. Monday before last, the day after the AFC Championship game, I spent the better part of the day stewing about the Chief’s loss to the Patriots. After years of pessimism and doubt, I had allowed myself to dream this time, and look what it got me. My mind turned to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “Thou art indeed just, Lord.”*
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? And why must
Disappointment all I endeavor end?**
It was petty to care about how a football game ended. I knew that, but it didn’t change how I felt. I even justified it to myself by reflecting on a quote from noted philosopher Patrick Mahomes II, who said, “You have to accept that this hurts. It’s supposed to hurt.”
Of course, that Monday wasn’t just the day after a football game. It was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. As part of their commemoration of his life and legacy, our NPR station ran the documentary “King’s Last March.” I picked up the broadcast while they were talking about a sermon King gave at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, on March 3, 1968. The most famous dreamer in America was talking about dreams. “Life is a continual story of shattered dreams,” he said.
One month to the day later, Dr. King spoke in Memphis. He mentioned how happy he was to have lived to tell America about the dream he had. As he ended, he acknowledged his uncertainty that he would be around to see his dream fulfilled.
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. . . . And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The next day he was killed.
I drove around, listening to the end of the show, thinking about the puny dreams I dream.
*Does anyone else think about nineteenth century poets while brooding about their hometown football team’s loss? I’m guessing not. What can I say?
** It’s hard to read this and not think that Hopkins saw the Patriots coming.