Thrive We are made for "yes". The arts and sports are not about merely surviving in this world, but thriving. He said that he came that we might have life - and have it more abundantly. We were made for senseless acts of beauty and fun. -Br. Mark Brown Full Sermon: http://ssje.org/ssje/category/sermon/?p=565 Sun Ra - Watusa The mention of sports provoked this song for me. The reason is that it feels as if in order to get to “yes”, we must be on solid footing - balanced with ourselves. Otherwise, I think as God tries to lead me, I resist and and fret and retreat. The reason sports elicited Sun Ra in my head was because this song reminds me so much of one of the vintage Sam Spence songs from the soundtracks of NFL Films back when John Facenda narrated the films. Sun Ra got to "yes" by figuring out a very elaborate way to co-exist with a world which wounded him. Often, it would continue to try to do so, especially through mockery, but my sense of him is that he had developed a thick skin along the line, and while he surely suffered at times, by getting to “yes”, he tapped into the power, the unique power that occurs when someone cultivates the Divine within themselves. Even NFL Films as an entity shares a similar story. Ed Sabol, the founder of NFL Films, was a brilliant visionary. The films he produced, crucially, in tandem with the gifted compositions of Sam Spence, captured the essence of the ultimate team sport, football, by using innovative techniques with slow motion but also by framing the game in a romantic grandeur. Sure, the symmetry between football and gambling and the occasional thrill of colliding bodies built the sport to the corporate monstrosity it now is, but the organically evolved films - gorgeous, innovative color films of every play of every game, layered with Spence's stirring score - were pure artistry. And it was those accidental marketing productions which captivated a couple of generations of people, caught up in the cinematic artistry as much as the story of the game itself. We are given much by being given life. But it is sort of a blob…the work of our lives to shape that blob, to find the divine within it and work in harmony to not just survive, but thrive. At times, maybe it is all we can do to survive. But thrive we must. And if for too long we are merely surviving, that may be an invitation to pause and take stock….because, yes, we are built to thrive. How? That is unique to each one.
