I just read an article in the LA Times sports section about Grant Desme, a 23 year-old prospect in the Oakland A's organization who retired from baseball to enter the priesthood. This is a kid who was ranked among the top potential major leaguers out there; it was basically guaranteed that he was going to play in the big leagues and enjoy whatever niceties come along with that: fame, enormous amounts of money, the joy of playing baseball every day as your vocation...and he willfully chose to say no to that life, shutting that door in favor of another one that allows him to speak to and about God every day.
It's truly astounding to me how little in common I can have with a fellow human being. I am more similar to almost any member of the animal kingdom than I am to Grant Desme. If aliens exist and they land on Earth and are murderous, power-hungry, conquering destroyers, I would easily relate to them more than this guy.
Clearly, the line dividing us is faith. He has all of it; I have basically none. I don't really believe in God, and Desme has chosen to devote his life to serving Him. This is what he told the Times: "If I hit a home run, the excitement would subside by the time I touched home plate. But the joy of talking with people about God never ended."
I don't even know what to say about that. Had I been wearing socks when I read that, they would have been blown right off my feet (by science, not God). All I know is, if there is a god, it's pretty cruel of him to have given Grant Desme the talent and ability to play professional baseball, knowing that he's going to squander it in favor of becoming a poor, brainwashed simpleton, when someone like me grew up daydreaming of hitting a homer in a major league stadium.
And if there isn't a god...well...let's hope for his sake that this kid never finds out. I guess the world needs dreamers. At least he didn't play for the Giants.
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Your entire kvetch was greatly reduced in potency when you called this person a simpleton.
ReplyDeleteHey Anonymous...your biting critiques are greatly reduced in potency when you fail to reveal your true identity.
ReplyDeleteMy identity is unimportant.Calling this person a "brainwashed simpleton" is the same as belittleing his faith.He obviously believes in a higher calling than hitting home runs and cashing in. That faith should deserve respect and admiration even if you would not choose that path.
ReplyDeleteWell, it does not deserve my respect and admiration; it deserves my scorn, in my opinion. Perhaps you should start your own blog where you shower praise upon those who blindly subscribe to fairy tales?
ReplyDeleteCritiquing this essay for not admiring people of faith is like going to an Eminem concert and complaining about the foul language. It's kinda the whole point. You might just be in the wrong audience.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was in an audience of respectful persons.I complained about the lack of respect for a man willing to embrace his faith rather than go down the road of short celebrity.Whatever happened to open mindedness?
ReplyDelete