Glorifying the Eagle

This past Sunday many people were dressing up to prepare themselves for many different rituals. Mothers dressed their children in matching outfits for church, brides dressed in white to get married, and an old woman puts on her best dress to attend the same services she has been attending for 60 years.

This past Sunday, I prepared myself for a different kind of ritual. I slipped on my green jersey, combed my hair into two pigtails with green ribbons, and carefully smeared black war paint on my cheeks. I was going to the Eagles Game!
As we approached the stadium, the crowd was frantically searching for parking spots, paying as much as $30 to get in to the spectacle. As we approached Lincoln Financial, people were dressed to the nines, showing support for the team. You could hear profane chants at the rival fans from across the stadium. People painted their faces in silver and green, wore jerseys, and hats with the official Philly cheese steak on them.
People displayed modern art as you approached the stadium. There were many painted cars and trucks, each one was more magnificent that the next. Each fan was trying to out-do the other; but also, they were all people joined together for one cause.

So does an Eagles game count as a ritual as Goethals tried to suggest? I think so. A “ritual organizes, confirms, and conserves; it operates as a kind of adhesive, binding people to each other and to modes of living that have stood the test of time”(Ritual: Ceremony and Super Sunday, 258). The Eagle’s game definitely brought people together. I saw people from all different backgrounds chiming together to sing the Eagles’ fight song or booing whenever Raiders fans were put on the big screen. People enjoyed spending time with one another.
It’s upsetting that people have started to look at leisurely rituals as more of a bonding experience than religion. Religion is based on love, support, and acceptance of one another. If religious peers are supposed to have an unwavering love for one another, why is it so awkward in church when you touch the person next to you? Some people come to church not wanting to be there; parents force their kids and some spouses only go to support their partner. People try to be quiet, polite, and to themselves instead interacting with the people around you. So if a ritual is supposed to confirm our morals, I find it disappointing that an Eagles game binds me with my fellow man better than a service based on love and helping one another.