As I sat in Dodger Stadium, watching thousands of people stream
onto the outfield to “recommit themselves to Christ,” it suddenly occurred to
me that this was an ideal moment to get up and get myself a Dodger Dog. The
concession lines would probably be empty, because for the first time in about
three hours those in the stands were forced to choose between getting a third
helping of nachos and getting born again.
I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one thinking about food
at the moment. The second I entered Dodger Stadium the first thing I noticed
was a sea of people carrying what looked like shipping containers filled with
nachos to their families. Once I sat down, after wading through puddles of
peanut shells, I noticed that everyone around me had a crate of hotdogs in
their laps. As I looked around half expecting to find a man shouting that he
has Cracker Jacks for sale, I noticed the pile of peanut shells rapidly growing
into a flood of Noachian proportions.
Still though, even though the worshippers were eating enough
food to feed a sizeable nation, I was willing to give religion at Dodger
Stadium a chance. Truth be told, I couldn’t help fantasizing what it would have
been like if I had showed up with a baseball glove and a Dodger t-shirt,
wandering around the stands looking really confused. Would there be a seventh
inning stretch? But, really, I gave it a shot. I laughed off the fact that we were bouncing a
beach ball around the stands, and I brushed off the fact that one Christian
lady cussed out her fellow Christians for dropping the ball when it came to
continuing The Wave.
But then came the prayer. Some pastor took to the stage to
lead some generic “just” prayer, and the stadium reverently bowed its heads. At
this point I noticed that, yes, people had bowed their heads. But some, and a
fair few, continued to stuff food in their mouths…while keeping their heads
bowed in prayer.
How do you pray and eat at the same time? Am I just
spectacularly uncoordinated that I think this would prove difficult? If nothing
else it seems disrespectful. “Dear Lord, SNARF we just want to GARRR thank you
for just GULP giving us today and just HAAMMM just making us URGH all that we
just are….”
Looking around at people bowing their heads and closing
their eyes in reverence while shoveling Dodger Dogs into their mouths was
perhaps the highlight of my life. It was at this point that I started laughing so
hard that I cried.
These are the things I missed this past year in the English
Anglo-Catholic world. And how would this year have been different? I imagined a
world of seminarians eating nachos while kneeling in prayer. Of half a
congregation getting up during the middle of the Creed in Latin to go get
another suitcase-sized bag of peanuts. Or of choral evensong in St. Paul’s
being interrupted by a fat man in a t-shirt letting out an echoing hearty belch
fueled by gallons of non-alcoholic beer.
But no. it could never happen in England, and not just the
non-alcoholic beer part. This Church at Dodger Stadium is such an American
expression of Church—not the fact that it’s a megachurch, not the greasy
charisma, not the red/white/blue color scheme, not the jokes about other people’s
bad hygiene, but the FOOD.
And you know what, America? This is why we are all fat. This is a sign of the end times—Americans who
bother coming to “church” cannot put their hot dogs or frozen lemonades down
for the one minute it takes to say a prayer.
Aw crap though. Now my next visit to a “normal” church is
going to feel sorely lacking in Dodger Dogs.
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