Dean:
Jonathan Trager, prominent television producer for ESPN, died last night from complications of losing his soul mate and his fiancee. He was 35 years old. Soft-spoken and obsessive, Trager never looked the part of a hopeless romantic. But, in the final days of his life, he revealed an unknown side of his psyche. This hidden quasi-Jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit of his long reputed soul mate, a woman whom he only spent a few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure. Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly clung to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences. Uh-uh. But rather, its a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan. Asked about the loss of his dear friend, Dean Kansky, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and executive editor of the New York Times, described Jonathan as a changed man in the last days of his life. "Things were clearer for him," Kansky noted. Ultimately Jonathan concluded that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call "fatum", what we currently refer to as destiny.
Romeo:
If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this. For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
Juliet:
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo:
Well, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet:
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
Romeo:
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Romeo:
[They kiss] Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
Juliet:
Then have my lips the sin that they have took?
Romeo:
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.
Juliet:
[they kiss again] You kiss by the book.
Jenna:
Dear Baby: If I was writing you a letter, it would probably sounds something like an apology. I know everyone deserves a mama who'd want a nice baby such as yourself... who was also a good wife, a fine member of a society. And I can't rightly say that I'm any of that. And I'm not sure the world is scuh a fine place to bringing you. Many of the people I've met are not worth meeting. Many of the things that happened are not worth living through. And you shouldn't take it personal, Baby... if I don't seem like all the other mama-to-be, jumping all over themselves with joy. I frankly don't know what I got to give you, Baby. What if I leave Earl, and don't win that contest next week, and don't have money? What the hell am I gonna give you then? All my life, Baby, the only thing I wanna do is run away. What kind of mama is that? I wish I could think other things, Baby, like excitement that you with me now... or faith that I'll be a good mama... even if my life ain't such a good place, and the world as I see it ain't so pretty like they'd have you believe in this book. Anyway, writing this letter to you, sounds more like a letter writing to me, don't it? Love, Mama.
Jasper:
Everything is a mythical, cosmic battle between faith and chance. [offers Miriam a joint]
Miriam:
Maybe I shouldn't.
Jasper:
You already did. Take another one. Now cough. What do you taste?
Miriam:
Strawberries!
Jasper:
Strawberries? That's what it's called: Strawberry Cough!
Kee:
Wicked!
Jasper:
So. You've got faith over here, right? And chance over there.
Miriam:
Like yin and yang.
Jasper:
Sort of.
Miriam:
Or Shiva and Shakti.
Jasper:
Lennon and McCartney!
Kee:
[looking at pictures] Look, Julian and Theo.
Jasper:
Yeah, there you go! Julian and Theo met among a million protestors in a rally by chance. But they were there because of what they believed in in the first place, their faith. They wanted to change the world. And their faith kept them together. But by chance, Dylan was born.
Kee:
[picks up another photo] This is him?
Jasper:
Yeah, that's him. He'd have been about your age. Magical child. Beautiful. Their faith put in praxis.
Miriam:
"Praxis"? What happened?
Jasper:
Chance. He was their sweet little dream. He had little hands, little legs, little feet. Little lungs. And in 2008, along came the flu pandemic. And then, by chance, he was gone. You see, Theo's faith lost out to chance. So, why bother if life's going to make its own choices?
Kee:
Baby's got Theo's eyes.
Jasper:
Yeah.
Miriam:
Oh, boy. That's terrible. But, you know, everything happens for a reason.
Jasper:
That, I don't know. But Theo and Julian would always bring Dylan. He loved it here.
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.
Brock Kelley:
You don't want us to win games?
Grant Taylor:
No. Not if that's our main goal. Winning football games is too small a thing to live for. And I love football as much as anybody. But even championship trophies will collect dust and one day be forgotten. It's just that so far this has all been about us; how we can look good, how we can get the glory. The more I read this book, the more I realize that life's not about us. We're not here to get glory, make money, and die. The Bible says that God put us here for Him. To honour Him. Jesus said that the most important thing you can do with your life is to love God with everything you are, to love others and yourself. So if we win every game and we miss that, we've done nothing. Football then means nothing. So I'm here to present you a new team philosophy. I think that football is just one of the tools we use to honor God.
Brock Kelley:
So you think that God does care about football?
Grant Taylor:
I think He cares about your faith. He cares about where your heart is. And if you can live your faith out on the football field then yes, God cares about football because He cares about you. He sent His son Jesus to die for us so we could live for Him. That's why we're here. But see, it's not just on the football field; we've got to honor Him in our relationships, our respect for authority, in the classroom, and when you're at home alone surfing the internet. I want God to bless this team so much that people talk about what He did. But it means we got to give Him our best in every area. If we win, we praise Him. And if we loose, we praise Him. Either way, we honour Him with our actions and our attitudes. So I'm asking you: what are you living for? I've resolved to give God everything I've got. Then I'll leave the results up to Him. I want to know if you'll join me?
Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good...
