This weekend in sports there was a glorious moment turned tragic. Basically a player on the Anaheim Angels hit a grand slam to win the game – one of highest of highs a player can feel. Then when he jumped onto home plate into the celebratory mob of his teammates he broke his leg and now he’s out for the foreseeable future. You can read about it and see it here http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=300529103&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines .
As a Chicago Cubs fan I was thinking about this and began thinking about how people would interpret this in Chicago where there’s well chronicled angst and catastrophizing is part of the culture. When you perceive there to be a lot of bad things that happen to you in a random, but tragic sort of way most start thinking that it’s somehow part of your karma or it’s something about you that is drawing bad things to you. Thing about the iconic sufferer of all-time Job from the Bible. Even his friends couldn’t help but look at him and say, “Dude, what did you do?”
If what happened to the Angels happened to the Cubs it would be called a “Cubbie Occurrence,” the phrase that has come to describe all of the random and tragic events that have ruined the Cubs’ fortunes such as Bartman in 2003 or the infamous black cat on the field in 1969. It would serve as confirmation that there is something about the Chicago Cubs that attracts suffering and bad luck on the existential level. Basically, bad things happen because we are who we are.
Now there are plenty of ways we can sabotage ourselves and invite suffering and destruction upon us, but that doesn’t explain the random stuff of life that has no clear explanation. The reality is – stuff happens and sometimes really tragic stuff happens and there is a wrong place, wrong time reality to this life, which the news confirms on a daily basis.
I think this fatalism is a subtle way to try to control life and manage disappointment. It’s easier to believe bad things exist or happen, because there is something wrong with us. It’s a little more unsettling to recognize that there’s a lot of things that can happen in this world that are out of our control and that God, if he exists, might allow them to happen. We end up at the age old – how can a loving God allow bad things to happen to people – tension.
As a Cubs fan I don’t rejoice in the Angels’ misfortunes (I do live in Anaheim after all), but it serves as confirmation that bad things can happen to anyone. When you start thinking you are the focal point of all suffering and tragic randomness then really you are actually engaging in narcissistic futility. Bad things can happen – anytime and anywhere and to anyone. The question is – what do we cling to that transcends the power of circumstances and this life? It’s easier to blame yourself and try to control things than to get in touch with your finiteness and vulnerability. If you’re vulnerable and dependent then you have to trust something or someone.
What do you trust?
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