Beauty

Last week a friend invited me to a football game. I was part of a small crowd at this stadium (there were only 65,000 of us instead of the normal 80,000+). I love football, and I love hanging out with my friend, but this event turned spectacular when I didn't expect it.

First the invocation was done in Hebrew by a local Rabbi. It was a blessing on the children of the world and it got to my heart. I thought about how much money was represented by the tickets, the refreshments, the appropriate colored clothing and all the other expenditures. Then I thought about multiplying that times all the college and professional stadiums hosting games that day and wondered what would happen in NCAA and the NFL really decided to bless the children of the world and donate a small portion of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent last weekend. (I am not asking anyone to give up football. I love football and as much as I enjoy Christian writers trying to take back manhood, I reject their notion that everything will be alright if we get rid of football and just send all the men and boys into the wilderness for a weekend).

That was only the first part of the unexpected blessing. The football in the first half was mediocre at best (I enjoyed being at the game with someone who has an outstanding understanding of the depth of strategy in the game). The half time started with the home team (our team) having a band play with three people competing in a vocal competition. The concept of a marching band playing for pop vocals seemed like a shaky idea to begin with and from my seat in the stands the execution of the idea was worse than the idea itself.
Things changed radically when a second band took the field. It was the "Marching 101", the marching band from South Carolina State University. If you have never seen them perform you have missed something of beauty.

The following link is a home made video with poor sound quality but gives you a small taste of what I was able to experience.
http://showbandcentral.vidiac.com/category/Non-HBCUs/0/5db8d792-804a-4542-9de9-99ae000d852e.htm


This week the value of music has reverberated through my soul.