Baseball, before it's too late, and belief, because I feel like it

I thought I would be rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays, so I was surprised when, on Saturday night during game three, I whooped when Philadelphia won in the bottom of the 9th. It was the weirdest sensation: I honestly didn't know who I was rooting for until the team that turned out to be my team won.

In my head, I was rooting for the scrappy Rays. In my gut, for reasons unclear, I was rooting for Philadelphia. Perhaps because Jimmy Rollins is from Alameda, or because Joe Blanton is pitching for them, or because the Rays are an American League rival. I couldn't tell you. It isn't rational, but it's true nonetheless.

I've thought for a while about how you can't make yourself believe something. Belief, I have come to believe, is a very strange thing that inhabits a person without as much rational thought as perhaps we might wish. Someone asked me not too long ago whether I believed literally in the resurrection of Jesus and as I thought about it, I realized that despite any rational argument to the contrary, I actually do.

It also seems to me that a lot of people either beat up on themselves or on the church for believing or not believing the right things. Shouldn't we be a bit more relaxed about it? Just keeping our eyes and hearts open, allowing ourselves to take in what's actually happening around us and in us, remaining curious and flexible, and being transformed by the renewing of our minds, as Paul says.

This thing with the Phillies was a surprise to me. I want to know how many more tenets I hold that I don't even know about.

Go Phillies!