Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ashes and Baseball

Today is Ash Wednesday. I didn't feel like going to church at 5:30 am (which the Sisters do every day) so I went at 6:00 pm. It was a nice mass even if I didn't understand a word of it as usual. In Nigeria mass is two or two and a half or maybe even three hours long. And church rarely starts on time (last Sunday it was 45 minutes late). Behind the altar there is a huge clock, which is almost as big as the cross, to taunt me as I sit in the sweltering over packed church waiting for the priest to begin. Here in Nigeria even the church has power outages and that means no lights or microphones or worst of all fans. Today it was so hot that a few parents started stripping down young children to their underwear. Also the building can not possibly hold all of the worshippers so it is common for people to bring lawn chairs and sit outside. Sometimes I think I would come to mass even if I wasn't Catholic, just to watch the people.


Today is also the start of baseball season. The Kansas City Royals are playing the Rangers in their first spring training game today. There might be other teams playing but who cares? Only 39 more days until Opening Day. I have a good feeling about this season, after all it is the Royal's 40th year of pure awesomeness.

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