The sacred versus the profane

Back at good old Miami U, I minored in French. I had taken four years of high school Spanish in part because I dreamed of going to California, perhaps going to UCLA, but when I decided to go to Miami - mostly because of the excellent study abroad program in Luxembourg - I switched to French.

The way university language classes are taught in this country make proficiency in a language difficult to obtain. I read plenty of French literature, but the speaking part was slow to come around. However, there was one professor, Dr. Sandro, who really helped me out my senior year. During the first semester I took his class, the theme was the sacred versus the profane. I never quite got it until years later after I had experienced life a bit. Now I see it everywhere. Things that are sacred tend to be bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat stamped with profanity.

Remember back in the day when the rooftops overlooking Wrigley Field weren't owned by corporations and everything that went on there felt spontaneous and unrehearsed? Remember when Tom Browning went up onto one of the rooftops in 1993 and waved at the Wrigley crowd, which erupted into gleeful cheering? People used to sit up there in card chairs; now they have reserved bleacher spots. There is a place called the Budweiser House. It's super expensive for such a crappy seat, even if it is all you can eat food and beer - can you consume $170 worth of food and beer for a view that should be $10? It's all prepackaged these days in the name of the Almighty Dollar.

I feel something sacred has become profane. The soul is sucked from the game - and from life - when sacred ritual turns into a soulless profit munching enterprise.

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