Well, it's a little early, but a happy Rosh Hashanah to one and all.

Religion has been on my mind a lot lately. Part of it is the season--the High Holy Days are coming, for one, and with the anniversary of September 11 coming up, thoughts of life and death are easily generated. Part of it is my own fascination with the topic; it's certainly true that religion tries to answer the most important question in human existence--"Is this it?"--regardless of the answers it provides. And yes, part of it is due to the antics of a rather irritating poster at my usual online hangout. He goes out of his way to insult the religious beliefs of anyone who doesn't subscribe to his own (very narrow) set of beliefs, and does so in a way that is strident, immature, and clueless. (For a guy who claims to go to hundreds of concerts every year, he has a real tin ear when it comes to the tone of a conversation.) He asserts his position so badly that I find myself sympathizing with anyone--everyone--who disagrees with him, regardless of whether my religious beliefs match up with theirs.

So I guess what I'm discovering is that my religious beliefs involve a basic commandment: Thou shalt not be such a goddam fanatic, OK? Lighten up!

I've dealt with believers of all religious stripes before, though. I've taught Catholic boys with ashes on their foreheads and Muslim girls in headscarves, Bible-thumping fundamentalists and Jews trying quietly to pass, agnostics and atheists, pagans and Mormons and Jains, oh my. Religion is a big part of the Woodberry life, too. Our headmaster was the dean of the divinity school at Duke for 15 years, and our school has both a required course on the Bible and required chapel services for the students. (I don't attend them very often. It's not a religious objection at all--I just want a few hours to myself on Sundays.)

And of course, I've probably made mention of my own ecumenical background. My mom was raised Jewish. Her sister married a Quaker and converted. Mom's brother married a Catholic woman who converted to Judaism. My dad was raised as an Episcopalian, but his father started attending a Baptist church late in life, while his uncle converted to Catholicism. In my own generation, I've had two Quaker cousins who married Catholics and a brother who got married in one of the biggest Baptist churches in Fayetteville. I got married in the Methodist church my wife had attended all her life, but after we moved to Virginia, she joined a Presbyterian church. And I've got a cousin who's celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in a couple of months.

But even with all this open-mindedness, these varying faiths that have sailed over my personal horizon to show their sails, I still find it hard to know what I believe. I'm a firm believer in evolution--how could I enjoy the beauty of Stephen Jay Gould otherwise?--so no matter what faith I profess, that alone means I'm no fundamentalist. In some ways, I like to think of myself as Jewish, but the sad fact is that I'm a Jew only according to the laws of Israel and--ironically--the definitions established by the Third Reich. I can't speak or read Hebrew; I don't celebrate Jewish holidays with anything but a passing nod; I know only a smattering of the rich and complex traditions of Judaism. Also, I've been baptized and confirmed (in the Episcopal church, back in '75), which sort of disqualifies me as a Jew (unless I convert, which sort of seems like gilding the lily.) Moreover, I gleefully celebrate Christmas every year, and the services I'm most familiar with are solidly Episcopalian in nature--but still, I can't honestly say that I'm a Christian. In the end, I simply don't believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Deity would have set up a universe where everyone prior to 33 A.D. was condemned to hell, necessitating a complicated and messy incarnation that could only be managed by the suspension of numerous laws of nature. And if I have this many objections to being a Jew or a Christian, joining the third People of the Book, the Muslims, would cause at least as many.

The text that has matched my philosophical questions most completely is the Tao Te Ching, but Taoism does lack a certain spiritual oomph somehow. It's more like air through which you move than like wind that moves you. Buddhism's philosophy has many comforting elements, but I also find its focus on escaping this world and, to be honest with myself, its emphasis on self-denial somewhat off-putting; if I wanted to focus on the next world and give up this one's comforts, I'd have joined a Franciscan monastery already. Hinduism is simply bewildering to me, a swirling mandala of gods, traditions, and heptosyllabic names, a faith that defies my understanding and even my pronunciation.

This would seem to point me toward atheism, but I can't manage to work up much enthusiasm for it. After all, what does it offer the human spirit? It doesn't even provide the pettiest of the comforts offered by most religions, namely the right to say "Nyaaah-nyaaah-nyaaah" after death. And it's still a religion. Oh, yes, very much so. Faith is belief in something that can't be proved, after all, and you can't disprove the existence of an omnipotent being who might just be really, really good at hiding from you.

So here I am, walking my own awkward and meandering Middle Path between belief and unbelief, and wishing fervently that all the believers and unbelievers would just calm down. Maybe this is all we get, maybe it's not. But if it is, we could sure do a better job of enjoying it together.
8:17 PM

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Back on July 10th, I reported on the upcoming fantasy football season. (I'm sure all of you bookmarked that page with care.) At the time the season seemed full of wild but unspecific promise.

Now we're getting close to the specifics.

A week ago tonight, the ten owners in the Fantasy League of Gentlemen/Gentlewomen gathered online to draft this season's players. The draft would last fifteen rounds, and if we all chose quickly, the theory went, we could be done inside of three hours. Alas, when we began the draft at 8:30 p.m., it was pretty obvious that we'd be there a mite longer--only seven of us were online. One had already informed the commissioner, Dick Dinkle, that he would be late to the proceedings, while two others were struggling with computer problems. Unfortunately, none had prepared their teams for an automated draft, the usual procedure in such a situation.

This left us with a difficult choice: let the commissioner draft their early-round selections for them, or try to find another night on which all ten of us could log on at the same time. Since Labor Day was approaching, creating vacation havoc in our schedule, and since two of FLOGG's owners, Red Altower and Bug Grunt, have children in diapers, I for one did not expect that another night could be found. With the wisdom of Solomon (and a copy of the CBS player rankings in hand), Dinkle made the calls and drafted a handful of quality players for the Peace Corps, the Pitt County Pizza, and the Screaming Boiled Lobsters, whose owners turned up after a round or two and were generally happy with his picks--as if Kurt Warner, Shaun Alexander or Jeff Garcia would leave anyone unhappy. Alas, after round three, we lost Dinkle (and had to halt the entire draft) for about forty-five minutes when his computer went down. What with all the electronic angst, we ran a bit late, wrapping up just after midnight, but I was pretty happy with the way things went.

Before I even sat down at the keyboard, I had established a plan of attack for each round of the draft: One: get the best running back on the board--RBs are absolutely crucial, and usually spell the difference between a loss and a win; they're also drafted at a furious rate because they get injured at the drop of a hat, making it very hard to find a good one later in the season. Two: draft a quality starting quarterback. Three: try for another running back, unless a top-of-the-line wide receiver is available. From that point on, pick up a second wideout and the best backup backs possible.

It's a strategy born of last year's failures. To some degree, I finished ninth in 2001 because on draft day I panicked and used early picks on players at the less important positions--tight end, defense, and kicker--who don't usually score that much and are easy to obtain later in the season; this year I resolved not to draft any positions but the Big Three--RB, QB, and WR until the 8th round at the earliest. Alas, this year I was randomly assigned the tenth pick in the first round (and all odd-numbered rounds). The good news is that the draft order reversed in the second round and all even-numbered rounds. I thus picked tenth and eleventh, thirtieth and thirty-first, fiftieth and fifty-first, etc.

My first two picks got me the high-quality RB and QB I'd hoped for--LaDainian Tomlinson and Brett Favre--and when top-three receiver Marvin Harrison was available in the third round, I jumped on him. Unfortunately, my next few rounds saw me scrambling to fill my starting lineup. I was able to draft four more running backs, all of whom have question marks: Emmitt Smith, who's old, Antowain Smith, whose consistency is uncertain, Mike Alstott, who doesn't get that many carries, and Mike Anderson, who may end up blocking for another runner this year. Here's hoping at least one of them can put together a productive season. My other wide receivers have some potential: Rod Gardner, who'll catch a bunch of passes for pass-happy Steve Spurrier's team, Muhsin Muhammad, who may be the only offensive threat the Panthers have, and Koren Robinson, who may finally make something happen in Seattle. My backup quarterback is Trent Green--it might be a good thing that Favre is so durable--and I gambled a 14th-round pick on Washington's Danny Wuerffel, figuring he'll end up in the starting lineup at some point. The good news, however, is that even using late-round picks, my tight end is Denver's wily veteran Shannon Sharpe, my kicker is Super Bowl hero Adam Vinatieri, and my defense wears the red and pewter of the mighty Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

I'm ready for some football. But if someone would give Hank Williams, Jr., a quick karate chop to the larynx before this weekend, I'd be obliged.
4:10 PM

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