when faith and frisbee meet (and other high flying stories)
Things have been really busy here, with 3 jobs, Frisbee practices and a few weekend trips out of Canberra. I've still got some admin to do, and some pics to post here (of Sydney, camping at the coast, life etc) but thought I'd share a few frisbee stories quickly:
1. Last week my indoor ultimate team (the giant dwarfs) won the Indoor Winter League in Canberra. We were unbeaten in the 12 league games over the last 2 months, and on Wednesday won our semi game, and the final. It was a great re-entry to competitive ultimate, and a great way to meet new folks in Canberra. We finished with a beer at All-Bar-Nun in O'Connor, just up the road from our house, to celebrate.
2. Yesterday I booked tickets to Brisbane! Mixed nationals is there on October 18-20, and I'm part of the Kaboom team from Canberra. I'm excited about playing at this level, seeing a new city, and training with the Canberra folks. I'm not sure what to expect, but we do have about 5 people who went to worlds, so we should do rather well.
3. And lastly, the headline story:
On Sunday i spoke/preached at Kippax. Gordon is a clever man, and knew that one of the few ways to get me back into a pulpit would be to ask me to speak about Ultimate. So that's what i did. They are having a series on 'What are you passionate about', and as Ultimate really is something that grounds/energises/fulfills me, i was asked to tell the congregation about it. Not having been in a pulpit for about 6 or so months, this was a real mind-bender. Was it a Sunday sermon, or a frisbee development clinic talk? It was really different not to be standing there daring to speak God's word, but yet to still be talking about 'good news', and something that i take part in religiously.
Anyway, i think it went rather well. Many of the listeners were over 50, and i guess won't be taking up the sport tomorrow. However, I did ask them what it was that made them tick, and managed to squeeze in an explanation of Examen prayer in too. After explaining what Ultimate was, I expanded on why i thought Ultimate was such a life-giving thing for me. I found 3 reasons:
i - it is a sport: It gets me out of my head, into my body. As wise man Barry quotes: 'The 3 most important spiritual questions you can ask are, 'How am i eating, how am i sleeping & am i exercising regularly?'" With Ultimate at least one of those can be answered in the affirmative.
ii - it is a team sport: the 'Ultimate community' is a great inclusive, accepting, affirming bunch of people, and a wonderful breath of irreverent fresh air at times.
iii - it's not just any sport: although 'sport' and 'community' can cover a wide range of life-giving activities, there is something special about Ultimate that sets it apart from all other sports. And... that is its philosophy of "the Spirit of the Game." Read about it here and here and see for yourself. Just fabulous.
So, that was my frisbee sermon. To round it off, here's a quote from Ed Headrick, the inventor of the Frisbee:
So, that was my frisbee sermon. To round it off, here's a quote from Ed Headrick, the inventor of the Frisbee:
We used to say that Frisbee is really a religion - 'Frisbeeterians,' we'd call ourselves. When we die, we don't go to purgatory, we just land up on the roof and lie there.
haha! I know, i'm an unashamed frisbee addict (and evangelist). But it is such good news, and so life-giving, that i'm excited to tell others.
4 comments:
My (imaginary) church history friends tell me that 'Frisbee-terians' are a small heretical sect that formed as a Free-church breakaway from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in the late 18th Century. The actual reason for the split has become known in folklore as the 'UFO debate' (U-charist Flying Ordeal) where church deacons were caught using the Eucharist dish as a frisbee in the sanctuary. It would not have been a real problem if it weren't for a misdirected throw that broke a stained-glass window commemorating the life of a founding church member. The relatives of this founding member, a wealthy and uptight church family, were so infuriated at this desecration that they ordered the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to excommunicate all the guilty persons.
They left, with the complicit silver dish, to continue their proto-frisbee games on their own under the short-lived name of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland - Frisbee-tarian Synod.
Who would have thought!?
oh that's just rediculous!!!
it wasn't a silver dish, it was a carved wooden bowl...
finally! someone spots my subliminal blogging!
hope you are well sir. must do a catch up sometime.
Oh god, that reminds me of a radio interview i did about ultimate and the goose of an announcer pulled out this joke about Frisbeeterians. I didn't find it amusing at all at the time - I was concentrating on not saying stupid things on live radio. It must have sounded pretty stupid that I didn't get the joke. Oh well...
But Gareth, next time your pulpit-pounding about Ultimate, you need to expand on the 'honest system' approach that is self-refereeing. Honesty and integrity are positively reinforced by others showing such behaviours, and the punishment for not showing such behaviours is mild, at least until the absence of honesty and integrity becomes the opposite of it and social exclusion can result.
The biological world is full of honest systems, like the big horns on the strongest antelope, they really do reflect traits that a female would want for her children. I wonder if frisbee arseholes have fewer children? Can you tell I'm a biologist?
Nice work with the blog. I don't even try, the strain you describe makes it seem pointless to even attempt 99.9% of the time. I think censorship is probably sensible - you wouldn't want your friends and family knowing what you really think!
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