The Amazing

As I sit watching the Home Run Derby, I am marveling at Josh Hamilton. His story is incredible: former coke-head/heroin addict who was out of baseball for three years, had a dream he was hitting in the home run derby at Yankee Stadium, got clean, and is now in the running to be the first Triple Crown winner in decades. He hit 28 homeruns in the first round of tonight's derby at Yankee Stadium. What did he have to stay after the historic performance? "It's amazing what God's done in my life and how quickly he did it." God, god, god -- I feel like his name is on the lips of half my favorite ball players these days. I'm not a religious person, so my first reaction to all this god talk is to be turned off. I mean, people should recognize that working out and physics has something to do with baseball, not just god. But then, who (or what) is god?

Josh Hamilton's psychic dream brings to my mind the idea that the human brain is capable of way more than we can even fathom. And time, that's a fluid concept. We understand and can experience time moving forward, but in all other aspects of existence that which moves forward can also move backwards. And sideways. Maybe we don't consciously experience it, but time is moving all around us. Maybe our little-understood brains actually experience time in all its dimensions, even if our bodies cannot.

Some people would call these ideas science fiction. Others call it quantum physics. And still others, they call it god. When one person see things others cannot, people call it god. When someone is able to overcome enormous physical obstacles, people call it god. They call it god because they can't explain it. "It's god's will," they may say. Well I think there is an explanation. I don't necessarily have that explanation, but I believe it's out there. Put me in the quantum physics camp. But from that camp, I feel like I have to reach a hand out to the god folks. They're recognizing all the same amazing things I am -- they've just decided that instead of finding an explanation, they're better off trusting in the existence of the amazing for what it is. I'd rather acknowledge that the explanation for the amazing is possibly the most amazing of it all, and only by seeking understanding can a person truly appreciate it -- but that's just me.

Ode To Summer!

Day to day, night to night
That's how we live and we're all right
We walk around this town like we own the streets
And stay awake through summer like we own the heat
We live on front porches and swing life away
Love and trust and shows all summer
Life's better lived in smaller lengths of time
Paycheck to dollar night

May I never lose my youth, and if I do may I be forgettable.
Getting older only makes it harder to remember
Let this demon in -- he'll only remind you
We are our only saviors

I've got some friends, some that I hardly know
But we've had some times I wouldn't trade for the world
We chase these days down with talks of the places that we will go
I will never lose my youth.
All of this is too unforgettable
We're gonna build something this summer

Props to The Copyrights (Kids of the Black Hole), Brand New (Soco Amaretto Lime), Rise Against (Swing Life Away), The Hold Steady (Constructive Summer), and Set Your Goals (The Fallen).