“Holy Places", The San Diego Padres, and the Holy Spirit

Next Sunday at my church I am leading an Adult Class which will discuss “The Holy Spirit.” Last night I spoke with my son John who is head of the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. There he teaches a course on Holy Places, places like churches, temples, cathedrals and others usually associated with the various religions of the world.

This semester he has a student who has signed a contract to play baseball for the San Diego Padres organization. At the beginning of the term he had explained to John that he wanted to be excused from attending some of the classes because he wanted to attend spring training. John agreed and assigned him the task of writing an extra paper on a topic related to the class content.

This week John received the paper. In it the student explained that he was indeed at spring training. He described a particular place. He wrote that it was just an ordinary large room. It was virtually empty.  It had only a large group of chairs. There were no pictures on the walls, no symbols or decorations on any of the walls. It was the place where the players gathered, sometimes the whole big squad of regulars and new recruits, at other times just the rookies. As he thought of sitting in that room he recalled his own story, his hopes, his fears. Then he became aware of the reality that each person there had their own story: a story of excitement, fear, stardom, boredom, fantasy, anonymity, last chance and fresh hopes. In that moment he thought of what made each of them unique and what connected them all as one. He said he came to a profound realization: ”This is indeed a holy place.”

And I agree. The more I reflect upon it the more I realize the truth of the statement that the Holy Spirit moves among us as it wills, dwells in our midst, stirs up our memories and our visions and our faith. It is indeed true that spirit, the Holy Spirit, the San Diego Padres and all the rest of us are all connected.