3/1/24 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption:

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

Like all of you — I would guess — I woke up last Saturday morning to a surprising amount of snow on the ground. After a relatively mild week for February, this was, at least to me, and the weather forecasters on whom I rely for information, not expected. Of course, I blame myself for Saturday’s snow. The Thursday before, I had thoroughly washed my car of many layers of salt. On Sunday morning, the grime was back as if to mock me for daring to clean it.

The opening match for the Crew was on Saturday afternoon. The last soccer match of the previous season was the championship on December 9. Now, just two months and days later, we were all back for the team to defend its title and for me to defend the door to the premium seats.

When I got to Lower.com Stadium, the field was still mostly covered in snow. Because they treat their grass with tender, loving care, workers were using the same little snow shovels that you and I use on our driveways to clear it. Towards the end of the process, they used leaf blowers to dissipate any remaining signs of snow and ice.

Before the match began against the Atlanta team, the Crew unveiled the year “2023” to the south wall with the other Championship markers. MLS Commissioner, Don Garber, was on the field, booed as usual by Columbus fans who won’t forget his part in trying to move the club to Austin, and the players received their Championship rings. Immediately after getting them, the players gave them right back to the staff. They had a new match for a new season.

Although the Crew are the reigning champions until another is crowned in ten months (long season!), they, like everyone else in the league, start the new one 0-0, tied with every other club. While some have predicted that they will win again, no one can be sure how the season will go for them.

Driving home that evening after the 1-0 victory, my mind was not focused on soccer at all, but strangely, and maybe appropriately, on Lent. By that time, Lent had been with us for a week-and-a-half. This weekend, there will be less than a month before Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. The connection between the Crew and Lent is not as far-fetched as it seems. I had already reneged on one of my Lenten promises of sacrifice and I was feeling guilty about it, vowing to let this be a one-off incident not to be repeated. I blame it on the snow that morning. I was stressed driving on the roads from Granville, not yet treated by any plows or salt. Although it was cold during the match and on the drive back, the snow had mostly dissipated by then. My anxiety of driving on snow-covered roads seemed silly then and I felt guilty.

Lent is a journey. Each year, on Ash Wednesday, we begin that journey. No matter our successes or failures of the previous year, we too are starting the Lenten season 0-0. Our hope is to get to Easter with more victories than losses in our relationship with God and in our contemplations of the sacrifice on the cross. We make promises at this time, traditionally by giving up this or that. Many people, no doubt, are disciplined enough to finish the season undefeated. Unlike the Crew, I started mine with a loss.

Fortunately, Lent is simply a magnified version of our lives. We strive, we fail, we get up, we fall down, we make goals and promises, we fall short of those goals and break those promises. It is, we hope, a long season. We get surprised by things we don’t expect, which throws our resolve out the window. It’s all part of the journey.

My relationship with God, like many of you, I suppose, is not an extended winning streak which brings us to the end in spectacular fashion where we receive our ring and enter the gates of heaven untarnished. Instead, my relationship is like most of my other relationships, full of twists and turns, good days and bad. The difference is that in my relationship with my Creator, it is only I that does the twisting and turning. He is unwavering in his love and patience for me. He knows that the season is long and unpredictable.

For me, every single day is like a match. Some days I win, some days I lose; some days the balance between the two is a tie. Sometimes I feel like a champion and many days very much a loser. But I get up each morning ready to enter the playing field once more.

The season of Lent leads to a commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus. May the end of our lifelong Lenten journey lead us to join in that resurrection when the final season is over.

Jim Silcott