My grandfather Sam called me up last Tuesday to
ask me if I'd take him to a football game.
Grandfather likes small-town high school
football--and even better, the eight-man ball
played by crossroads teams. Grandfather is
a fan of amateurs and small scale. Some
people are concerned about how it is that good
things happen to bad people, and there are those
concerned about how bad things happen to good
people. But my grandfather is interested
in those times when miracles happen to
ordinary people. Here again, he likes
small scale.
When a nothing team full of nothing kids from a
nothing town rises up with nothing to lose
against some upmarket suburban outfit with new
uniforms, and starts chucking hail-Mary bombs
from their own goal line, and their scrawny
freshman tight end catches three in a row to win
the game--well, it does your heart good.
Murphy's Law does not always hold, says
Grandfather Sam. Every once in a while the
fundamental laws of the universe seem to be
momentarily suspended, and not only does
everything go right, nothing seems to be able to
keep it from going right. It's not always
something as dramatic as the long bomb or the
slam-dunk that wins ball games.
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Ever drop a glass in the sink when you're
washing dishes and have it bounce nine times and
not even chip? Ever come out after work to
find your lights have been on all day and your
battery's dead but you're parked on a hill and
you let your old hoopy roll and it fires the
first time you pop the clutch and off you roar
with a high heart? Ever pull out that
drawer in your desk that has a ten-year
accumulation of junk in it--pull it too far and
too fast--and just as it's about to vomit its
contents all over the room you get a knee under
it and stagger back hopping on one foot doing a
balancing act like the Great Zucchini and you
don't lose it? A near-miss at an
intersection; the glass of knocked-over milk
that waltzes across the table but doesn't spill;
the deposit that beat your rubber check to the
bank because there was a holiday you forgot
about; the lump in your breast that turned out
to be benign; the heart attack that turned out
to be gas; picking the right lane for once in a
traffic jam; opening the door of your car with a
coat hanger through the wing window on the first
try. And on and on and on and on.
When small miracles occur for ordinary people,
day by ordinary day. When not only did the
worst not happen, but maybe nothing much
happened at all, or some little piece fell
neatly into place. The grace of
what-might-have- been-but wasn't, and it was
good to get off scot-free for once. The
ecstasy of what-could-never-happen-but-did, and
it was grand to have beat the odds against for a
change. Or the bliss of just
what-was-for-a-day when nothing special took
place--life just worked.
My grandfather says he blesses God each day when
he takes himself off to bed having eaten
and not having been eaten once
again. "Now I lay me down to
sleep. In the peace of amateurs, for whom
so many blessings flow. I thank you, God,
for what went right! Amen."
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