It was the first day of 7th grade French class, and Mrs. (Mme.) Smith wanted us to pick more of a French name for us to be called in that classroom. She had us open our textbook to a list to choose from, and one stood out for me: Dikembe. Sports viewing was a beloved time-consumer for me during those days, and it was always fascinating to grapple with how the best could dominate a game, especially at the professional level. And so it was with Dikembe Mutumbo, one of the greatest defensive forces of nature standing under any basketball hoop to ever play. After his National Basketball Association (NBA) career drew to a close (18 seasons in all), he recorded the second most blocked shots in the sport’s history, many of which would precede his famous finger-wag to indicate that the opposing team better try to score anywhere beyond so many feet of radius from his 7’2’’ towering frame.
Tomorrow (September 26) will mark the 18th anniversary of the death of Paul Newman, a treasured part of Cleveland’s history, being born and raised in the Cleveland/Shaker Heights end of things. But his impact continues to be felt all over the world.
Over the 20th century, many people came to know and adore the East Side’s treasured phenom through the then-Hollywood blockbusters of The Sting (1973), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid (1969). I was slightly late to his filmography dominance, and so my go-to is Road to Perdition (2002), but minor detail. Nevertheless, the even more important influence still emerges in your local grocery store of all places.
There was this movie released 15 years ago called Up in the Air, in which Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) was often hired by large corporations to deliver the rather unpleasant news to respective employees that their own bosses, management or CEOs had no interest in doing so themselves; after they decided to lay off however many lower-on-the-company-food-chain personnel. In between all these horrible stops, the main character spent plenty of time “up in the air.” Soon enough, he had to show someone else the ropes, not just with delivering dissatisfactory severance packages, but with mastering air travel. So, he pointed out to his apprentice, of sorts, of certain groups of people to avoid and certain groups of people to follow when it came to the dreaded security checkpoint lines. In short, he said, “I’m like my mother, I stereotype. It’s faster.”
In recent weeks during worship, we have sung a few hymns from a new hymnal supplement called All Creation Sings, which is meant to add meaningful music selections to our red Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) hymnals in our pews. I suppose our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) worship team leaders are intentional about the whole “hymnal supplement” word choice to perhaps lessen our Lutheran stereotype of scared-the-heck-out-of-our-mind-over-change, especially with music. If they were to call it a new hymnal altogether, that might be a bit much, particularly for the European-descendent Luther-adorers.
I may have been on the tail end of the time when Wednesday evenings had their fair share of rituals to almost rival that of Sunday mornings. Now, it may seem blasphemous to type out, but as much as I appreciated going from handbell to vocal choir rehearsals in the precious church building sanctuary (which still held its fair share of soothing aura on darkened nights), I craved getting home in time to tune my bedroom television to NBC at 9pm. The West Wing grabbed my attention from its episodic infancy with its seemingly supreme acting and somewhat novel walk-and-talks (where actors wouldn’t stay in one room for most dialogues) and even captivating orchestral background music and serene lighting. The television drama in its seven seasons went on to win 26 Emmys with the famed Martin Sheen leading the way as the fictitious President Josiah Bartlett.
