Possibilities and baseball

               To me, Field of Dreams has always been a story about faith—and dead baseball players emerging from corn stalks to play on a field built by a farmer in Iowa.  Yes, I am the person who could not “buy into” the tale of a young boy being accidentally left behind and outsmarting robbers in Home Alone.  But, dead ball players in Iowa—no problem.

               My husband, our two children and I were among the very first people to come looking for that farm with the baseball field during the summer of 1989.  We had seen the movie and decided to take a baseball vacation.  Chicago was our first stop, and game day at Wriggly Field was a rather miserable windy and rainy day.  We then headed to Galena, Illinois, a very quaint little town where part of the movie had been filmed.  Traveling farther west, we passed through Dubuque, Iowa, and set out to find the “magical” farm.

               Dyersville, Iowa, had not anticipated fame coming its way that summer, but it was the town closest to the farm.  Stopping there, we got directions and found the place where Ray heard “the voice” saying, “If you build it, he will come.”  On a perfect summer day, we sat in the porch swing of the old, white farmhouse where Ray, his wife and daughter lived.  Using some equipment from a bag on the field, my husband and son played ball on the diamond.  Our daughter and I sat on the bleachers with a lady, her daughter and grandchildren who were going to see the movie that night in Dubuque. 

               We have watched the movie many times since that summer, most recently in the last few weeks.  Again, I was struck by the simplicity of the story and the beauty of that simple life so technologically free compared to today’s world.  Again, I was reminded of how much I love this story, and how much about the life of faith it represents to me.  Many scriptures, Old and New Testament alike, identify the need to hear God’s voice and listen to His counsel above all others, just as Ray heeded the messages he heard that others didn’t. 

               God’s directions are often contrary to the world’s way of thinking.  Paul writes of God’s wisdom seeming like foolishness to the world (1 Cor. 1:20-24).  Losing income by cutting down a cornfield to build a baseball diamond was foolish and illogical; that’s why local people and even family members ridiculed Ray.  But Ray pressed on with his wife’s support.  After the field’s completion, there was a period of waiting and resisting discouragement before the arrival of the first “dead” baseball player.  Spending all the family’s savings to build the field put Ray and his family on the brink of losing the farm.  But one supernatural event after another kept confirming to Ray that what he was doing had a purpose, and other people were drawn into that purpose.  In the end, the “magic” of the field and its players was to bless many, illustrated by the long line of cars driving into the farm in the movie’s last scene.  

               From all around the world, thousands have visited the movie site since the summer it played in theaters.  Lovers of baseball, people drawn to the simple values of a simpler time and place and a chance to go back and make something right from the past—the movie stirs many feelings, prompting people to make their pilgrimages to this place where “dreams come true.”  Or, where impossibilities can happen because someone “hears” God’s voice and believes.  Mother Theresa puts it this way:  “May we not forget the infinite possibilities born of faith.”

Sheaves,corn, loaves and fish

                Although the title reads more like a shopping list, today I “saw” a connection between two Bible stories, and a deeper understanding of what they might teach us about God’s long range plans for good—always. The first story, made famous in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat, traces some unpleasant family history among Jacob’s 12 sons.  The second describes Jesus healing and then feeding 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish, the only miracle that appears in all gospels. 

               As a child,  I learned about the eleven mean brothers who almost literally “threw their brother under the bus,” an evil deed motivated by jealousy, it seems.  Beginning the tale in Genesis 37, is the information that Jacob favors his youngest son, Joseph, not a healthy, family dynamic. Then Joseph talks about his dreams with sheaves and stars bowing down to him.  His brothers “envied him” (Gen. 37:11), and when Jacob sends Joseph out to them as they mind the sheep, they seize this opportunity to kill him.  Murder gets upgraded to abandonment, and Joseph lands in an empty pit.  Thus begin years of hardship and imprisonment until God “promotes” Joseph, putting him in the right place at the right time.

               The Pharaoh of Egypt hears a prisoner can interpret his dreams about cows and corn, and he sends for Joseph.  The gift God had given him enables Joseph to predict seven years of plenty in Egypt to be followed by seven years of famine.  Wisely, he suggests storing up the abundance for the coming years of scarcity.  Pharaoh decides Joseph, the interpreter, is the perfect man to supervise the job.  This time his gift from God elevates Joseph to a position to do good instead of imprisoning him because of others’ jealousy.

               Fast forward to Joseph’s famished brothers coming from Canaan to Egypt seeking food but not knowing their little brother is now Pharaoh’s right hand man.  Who knows how God fashioned into Joseph, despite years of captivity and misery, a willingness to reveal his identity to his brothers and forgive them, but that is what Joseph does. With Godly perspective, Joseph declares, “ . . . you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good . . . to save many people alive” (Gen. 50:20).

               Evil treatment is part of the loaves and fish miracle, too.  When Jesus hears about his cousin, John the Baptist, getting beheaded after being unjustly imprisoned, he withdraws “to a deserted place by Himself” (John 14:13).  However, the multitudes follow Him.  Jesus is then “moved with compassion for them, and (He) healed their sick” (vs.14).  This takes some time, and all these people get hungry.  One young lad innocently presents five barley loaves and two small fish (John 6:9).  Despite the disciples’ objection to His assurance this would feed 5,000 people, Jesus blesses the offering of so little, and God multiplies it, yielding more leftovers than the original amount.

               In both stories, the wicked ways of people, their jealousies and smallness of mind and heart, are fully displayed.  However, God’s intention was to be working good, not just for one but for many.  Joseph allowed God to fashion in him perseverance, character and hope, the painful process Paul describes in Romans 5, a process beginning with experiencing tribulations.  How grievous it must have been when Jesus heard of John’s fate.  But instead of questioning God’s goodness or spouting supposedly comforting generalizations, Jesus healed the people who came to Him and then provided lunch as well.  He ministered in the power of God to the people of God who followed after Him.  He wasn’t overcome by evil, but overcame the “evil with good” (Romans 12:21) as God enabled Him to do so.  Surely, there are lessons to be learned in these timeless stories about good and evil, power and love, and what the real work of God’s people should be.