By Putt
It is simply a bad joke. to say that it must be legally forbidden for Refugio folks ever to offer a spoken prayer before a sporting event. For in that small town in South Texas, the two go together like Coke and peanuts, like candy and sugar. It’s impossible to separate them.
In Refugio, you see, prayer and play have likely been inseparable ever since, if not before, the mission was founded there some 245 years ago.
The native Karankawa's had bows and arrows, sticks and stones. They worked hard fishing and growing vegetables and the like; but they also needed play time, very much like the Refugians of today; and they had it.
But let’s assume that present-day legal authorities have told the Refugio folks they could not pray in public, lest they be trying to convert the non-Christians.
Doesn’t matter. The people there have already said their prayers publicly. well before game time, they have continued when a game was started, plus all the while it was going on, and after it was 0ver.
The prayers of Refugio folks are specific. They pray for victory, then as a kind ofnice and necessary after-thought, for good sportsmanship by one and all who participate in the game at hand.
Too, there’s almost always a preacher on or near the Refugio bench when a game is on; and that preacher can be called upon to speak up at any time, depending on what the particular need is. Frequently, the public prayer is for the wellbeing of an opposing player who has been injured during the game. Always, after a victory is usually won, or even if a rare loss has taken place, prayer is spouted, publicly and privately.
However, this very tight relationship between prayer and play can be unsettling. At church service, the talk is usually about the last game, and prayers are customarily offered for a win in the next game. But the church prayers too seldom center on how to live the Christlike life; for, you see, Refugians think they have already succeeded at that, and surely know how to live like Christ; and their “how” always has prayer and play in the same mindset, never to be separated.
What I personally would like is for more of America to be more like the folks in Refugio. And I don’t care whether they’re Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever. I don’t care as long, that is, as long as the prayers of the people and their play go together.
For you see, I'm a product of Refugio, always and forever conscious since I left there some six decades ago, that the people there were praying for me, and to be quite frank, I 've had a lot more wins than I've had losses.
Godspeed.
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