Take me out to the...cricket game?
After several days of rain, the sun was finally out. I left the front door open to enjoy the breeze, settled down into an easy chair in the living room and set to work grading a stack of papers.
But it was noisy outside; kids were yelling and laughing in the street. I heard the crack of a bat. That set me thinking about my son, who is now away at college, and the many pick-up baseball games he played when he was younger.
Few neighborhoods come equipped with a handy dandy official baseball diamond and ours was no exception. With no desire to walk over to the park, he and his buddies modified the rules a bit. They called these games home run derby or automatic.
Using this nostalgic reverie as an excuse to postpone the inevitable chore of marking up the papers, I popped my head out the door to sneak a peek at what was going on.
A group of boys was playing in the cul de sac across the street. It took me a few moments to make out what they were doing. It was a slow-motion instant when you know what you expect to see but then realize that the picture in front of you differs somewhat and you need to reconcile the two.
The kids were playing with balls and bats but the bats were flat and the batter held the bat way down low like a golf club. After the batter hit the ball he ran straight toward the pitcher. It wasn’t baseball I was watching, but rather, cricket.
I’d like to say I was delighted by the sight, this refreshing change from the ordinary. But I wasn’t. Rather I was discomfited. I stared a while longer trying to figure out what was going on, trying to parse out the rules for the game and most importantly, thinking about why I was upset that they weren’t playing baseball.
What could be more wholesome than this scene in front of me? It was a story as old as childhood itself, kids amusing themselves with a ball. But this ballgame wasn’t my ballgame. The one I wanted to see. The one I thought Americans played.
We’re surrounded by talk about embracing our differences. We know the language. The phrases roll easily off the tongue. See ourselves as one family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. But being consistent in thought and action is harder than just repeating the words.
Being comfortable with our distinctions is not easy. In large ways and small ones, too, we cling to the familiar. Aversion to change runs deep. So too does the tendency to want everyone to be just like us.
But I like both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story. The goodness of something new doesn’t repudiate the goodness of something past.
The resounding thwack was familiar and so was the laughter but I was thrown by this cricket thing. It took a few thoughtful moments to remember that all the important parts were the same.