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.”