Can sports heal the soul?

Some might say that the New Orleans Saints football team has long been the sporting soul of a city that has suffered so much. On Sunday, less than five years after Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans — and considering that the Saints nearly moved out of town permanently not long after Katrina — the franchise won its first Super Bowl. Many people in New Orleans, which is still recovering from Katrina, compared the team’s championship game victory to a miracle and a sign of the city’s resurrection.

These and other words with religious connotations have been bandied about since the Saints won Sunday, the most Biblical of days. For example, Monday’s edition of the local paper, The Times-Picayune, carried a one-word headline: “Amen!”

Do you think that sports can have a spiritual effect?

The miracle is a walk on the pier, attending a club soccer game or watching the Super Bowl on TV with family and friends. When applying Zen to an activity such as archery, the archer tries to clear his or her mind of thoughts about hitting the bull’s-eye and concerns about winning, focusing instead upon the drawing of the string, the breath and the smooth release of the arrow.

This applies to other activities. Phil Jackson is well-known for using Zen practices to help his team and players to progress. He emphasized that superstars needed to move beyond ego to take their own game and the team to the next level.

Coach Bill Walsh turned the 49ers around by mindfulness practices, such as insisting that players handle their helmets with attention, either wearing them, holding them or placing them on the top shelf of their locker, rather than throwing them around carelessly.

Sports, like all of the activities of daily life, can be as good a place for spiritual development as mountaintops, caves or monasteries.

Zen Center of Orange County

Obviously, God is trying to make amends with the people of New Orleans by miraculously intervening to allow Tracy Porter to intercept on third down and five, giving the Saints a commanding lead.

Yes, this is how God operates, and it was on a par with splitting the sea and bestowing the daily manna in the wilderness. After all, Drew Brees said the victory was “God’s master plan and destiny.” Who am I to argue?

No doubt my Christian friends see the win as certifying the Gospel of Luke: “The last shall be first.” Some naively say that God has more important things to do and to worry about than a sporting event, like the devastation in Haiti or Iran’s imminent nuclear capability. Oh, really? More important than the Super Bowl?

The specific question before us is: “Can sports heal the soul?” I am waiting for a Chicago Cubs World Series title this year to find the answer.

If a storm named Katrina can devastate a city, then surely a storm of “Saints” can restore a city. If human frailty contributed to the destruction, then surely a human team can repair emotional wounds.

The recent Super Bowl was not just a storybook moment. It was a global symbol. One commentator pointed out how many people in New Orleans wanted the Saints to win for somebody who had not made it back. We were all cheering for New Orleans and for all those who have been lost, are still lost, and no longer have a home.

Games and sports can always offer us a glimpse of our home. But healing and spiritual well-being require more than emotional connections or symbolic value. There can be no healing without restoration.

In New Orleans, there are homes still unrepaired, families that have not returned, and mistakes still to be reconciled. If we truly support the Saints, we must strive for more than a game, provide for more than a party, and become more than a symbol. We have to rebuild homes, and find all the ways to bring all God’s children home.

Sports can be a religious experience because most sports are just like many religions: oriented to competition, winning and performance. Many ministers and athletes have a lot in common, like dedication, practice and accomplishment. Some of my colleagues work very hard because they are driven by a desire to convince the world that their religion is the only way. I’m sure some of my colleagues consider conversion a triumph and might even want to run a victory lap when they win another for God.

But, alas, I cannot join them because I don’t believe that any religion has a corner on God. If God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, then how could that God be in competition?

I don’t have a vision of God being a supernatural power that favors some over others. I see God as a natural goodness, and each human is God’s creative way of putting love into motion. What if forgiveness was a sport? What if we competed to be more peaceful, joyous and constructive? Who would win?

Sports can unite the community around a common goal and victory. It can add pride and a good feeling to the community, but sports cannot heal the soul. The soul of man has been wounded by sin, and there is only one cure for sin. I John 1:7: “...the blood of Jesus Christ God’s son cleanseth us from all sin.” My congratulations go out to New Orleans and to the Saints for their much-deserved Super Bowl victory. I pray that this win brings great pride of accomplishment, but if you want healing for the soul, it must come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Liberty Baptist Church

Life is spiritual! A child laughing is spiritual! Making love to your spouse is spiritual! Watching the clouds roll across a clear blue sky is spiritual!

We are spiritual beings, and God created us to live life abundantly, to enjoy what He has given us. We live in a world broken by our own choices, and it hurts. Bad things affect us spiritually, and good things affect us spiritually.

Western culture lives under the platonic distinctions between spirit and flesh and view them as unrelated, viewing spiritual activities as good, and activities of the body as bad. There is no such distinction in Scripture outside of death. We are meant to live life as spiritual beings, which includes the body God gave us.

Yes, it is healing for the soul, and for the battered people of New Orleans, I think it has been especially healing. Ultimately, healing is available through the Son of God who died so there would be no more suffering and pain, no more isolation from God.

In heaven, football will seem lacking in peace, harmony, gentleness, graciousness and love. Honestly, I doubt that football is the sport most favored by the Almighty; I have long suspected that’s tennis, and, of course, the devil’s game is golf. But in this world of struggle and strife, football is an almost revelatory liturgy; it externalizes the warfare in our hearts and offers us a way of knowing ourselves while wrestling some grace from our struggle. And when we think football is too violent, Christians need to meditate once again on the body and blood of Christ and pray, as Bobby Bare sings, “Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.”

Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church

People attach religious or spiritual significance to many areas of their lives. To some, it is gardening; to others, music, and, yes, to some, it is athletics. Sometimes, it is a part of the culture of a religious community, and we learn from our study of different faiths and practices.

Frankly, since I had no attachment to either team at this Super Bowl, I was hoping that the New Orleans Saints would win to bring some good feelings to an area that had been severely tested recently and continues in a valiant effort at recovery. Some of the greatest inspiration can be found in sports anecdotes that demonstrate a person’s, team’s or community’s ability to reach deep and find the desire to excel or overcome adversity.

I have no doubt that this event Sunday gave a morale boost to Louisiana residents. For this I am grateful. At the same time, to say that God somehow favored one team or individual over another in a sporting event is, to me, ludicrous.

Director of Interfaith Relations

I wouldn’t affirm that God had a hand in the win. It strikes me as completely insensitive to imply that God decided to intervene when it came to a football game, but didn’t during a devastating disaster.

Miracle? No. That’s just bad theology.

However, I can see how the win has had a positive effect upon the city. Perhaps it is a metaphor for renewal: a sign that though the city was devastated by the hurricane, devastation will not overcome the spirit of the people of New Orleans.

I believe that when people find something to believe in (like a football team) that rallies them together for a common purpose (in this case the victory of the Super Bowl) they can experience hope in the midst of horrible circumstances. Hope itself is spiritual — no matter where it occurs — and hope can heal the soul! So, while I cringe at thinking a Super Bowl win is miraculous, I can see how it has lifted the spirits of the people of New Orleans.