Why I shunned basketball

There is a pension house not far from the courthouse.  It has a small restaurant, of about six tables, each accommodating six diners.  You will probably find the place not worth stopping by — it is hot, its electric fans are small and modest, and disperse, together with the tepid air, the heat and odors from an open, active kitchen.

But I do, and in fact I often take my lunch there, for the singular reason that it offers the same food that Mother cooked before a stroke felled and retired her from kitchen duty.  She holds the key to why I gravitate towards this and similar places.  A person’s destiny is decided at his mother’s table.

But today I shied away from having lunch there, not without a heavy heart.  While making a detour, I tried to dispel from my mind’s eye what already my mouth was savoring — tuna stewed in vinegar and coconut milk, sautéed squash, chicken liver and giblets braised in soy sauce.  But it did not take much effort to free myself of these temptations (it helped that I remembered the Rule of St. Benedict, which directs that, right at their onset, one should dash temptations against Christ), because I knew beyond doubt that the restaurant would be jam-packed with people, who — while they might order food — would be there for the sake, less of their mouths than of their eyes, to watch the final game of a basketball match on the TV set on the wall.  And I knew that every time a team scored there would be a rumpus — everyone a-jumpin’ and a-shoutin’ — and where would that leave me, with my inun-onang barilis and extra rice, a meaningful experience in the eating of which would require no less than a monk’s untainted contemplation?

Still, while elsewhere applying myself to a plate of pasta as surrogate lunch, I could not help mulling over what the top player of one of the contending teams announced, that he was in the game for no other reason than to win.  Which I would have dismissed as nothing more than a motherhood statement, undeserving of a QED at the last, except that the guy’s nickname, something like King James, reminded me of the Bible.

I suppose this made it a whole new ball game for me, because I am a Bible freak, and in the Bible, Christ set the idea of winning on its head. For instance, in his Gospel, Luke writes that during prayer, after asking his disciples who the crowds said that he was — and getting as answers John the Baptist, Elijah and one of the prophets — and eliciting from Peter himself his own estimation (the Messiah of God), Jesus let on that he would be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and killed, and on the third day raised from the dead, and then he reminded them of what was required of his followers, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  Then he added what to me amounts to Christ’s idea of winning, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

It is clear to me the true significance of winning cannot be conveyed by a simple statement — being the top, being first, getting the highest score, receiving the trophy — but by a paradox, an assertion of an apparent contradiction, which, if one stops to think about it, draws out a deeper, the real meaning, a truer truth.

Of course, Jesus was not talking about basketball, but his statement covers it as well, as it does every other aspect, and in fact the whole of living itself.

That late morning of the basketball game, to the people in the restaurant, winning meant only thing — the victory of their team.  And to me, it simply meant being undisturbed in a quiet corner, enjoying a lunch to cure a recurrent homesickness.

We were then concerned only with the success of the moment, which was no different from what Brendan Behan meant, when, speaking of difficult times in Ireland, he said, “To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement.  To get drunk was a victory.”