The Greek word “metanoia” is sometimes used in church jargon. It means an about-face or one-eighty-degree change—a total turn-around conversion. This week in Kansas City many sports fans marveled over how our major league baseball team fared last year with a 56-106 record (tied for worst in their history) compared to where they ended up this season, 86-72 in regular play plus a few post-season victories. It was a metanoia that produced an exuberant Blue October amidst perfect autumn weather. There was even one memorable night this week when the Royals rolled to an MLB playoff victory while the 5-0 Chiefs stayed undefeated after two-consecutive Super Bowl victories and four Super Bowl appearances in five years after a fifty-year drought. The Monday night classic was a rare occurrence that brought smiles of joyous accomplishment to many in the kingdom, even if our cheers had little or nothing to do with the victorious results.
Unfortunately, also this week in the nation’s southeast region, as many were burying their dead, cleaning up mud and debris, and picking up the pieces of their lives after Hurricane Helene destroyed homes and villages, Hurricane Milton struck with equally devastating power. While citizens respond with gracious care and loving generosity, we are reminded of an even more uplifting aspect of the human soul and the American spirit. This deep sadness, coupled with the ongoing worldwide strife of wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan, and other places, drapes a pall of grief over the globe. In that sense, we might say along with Charles Dickens: “It was the best of weeks, and it was the worst of weeks.”
It’s funny how little kids can shift from moments of high elation to an instant of upsetting misery and outcry, then quickly again to a sense that all is well. As we age, I think we get used to shifting gears and balancing our emotions, realizing that any period of time or stage of life might bring forth the best and worst simultaneously; somehow, we learn to go along with it. Many of the people we admire most are those who are well balanced: their highs are not too high, and their lows are not too low, and they respond appropriately to situations before them. In priesthood, I and my ordained brothers learn to shift quite a bit as we are given the privilege of being with people in their happiest and saddest hours.
These moments are profound, and they stay with us for a long time. This week, many local baseball fans readily recalled the 1980 and ’85 Royals or the 2014-15 campaigns that brought a similar sense of pride and happiness. But while reminiscing, we can’t forget those frustrating postseason series in the late ’70s with the Yankees that, too many times, spoiled our dreams. Sports losses don’t compare with the losses in Florida and North Carolina and the painful sentiment that will remain with victims for all time. In a like manner, certain occurrences each week can remind us of how we felt the day that our parent, child, sibling, or spouse died, or how we were impacted on the day our child was born or when we got married or when we overcame a great obstacle or accomplished a tremendous feat. As we react to our personal joys and sorrows, let us be mindful of national and international blessings and heartbreaks as well.
Somewhere around the world, the best of weeks and the worst of weeks occur each week. Let us pray that, because of the blessed human spirit that reaches out to help, those who suffer most will experience a metanoia or discover some nugget of hope and goodness in their losses.
