Candlelight Service & Trailblazer Basketball

Christmas Eve I went to a candlelight service at a local church and the next night I went to a Portland Trailblazer basketball game. I came away struck by a common thread that connected the two.

The Christmas Eve service was at a church in downtown Sherwood. Maybe 200 hundred in attendance. After the nornal Christmas Carols and the story of the birth of Christ they handed out candles to everyone. Then they turned out the lights. The place was pitch black. The choir started singing Silent Night. One person lit a candle and then turned to his neighbor and lit his candle, the neighbor then turned to the next person to light their candle. It was still pretty dark when maybe fifty candles were lit but when all two hundred candles were lit the church was lighter than it was with the normal lights turned on. Two hundred people doing the same thing, working towards the same goal, working together turned darkness into light. The power of togetherness.

When I lived in the Los Angeles area and worked for a CPA firm in Beverly Hills I used to go to the Laker games. Loved them. However, it is quite a different experience to attend a basketball game in Portland than it was in LA. At the Laker games it was more of a case of who is there and at the Portland games it is more about the basketball. Madonna once said in an interview that she loved Portland because nobody cared that she was here and she could go jogging in the morning without being disturbed. People would look at her, shrug their shoulders and go on about their lives. The Trailblazers have won eleven games in a row. They have the youngest team in the NBA. They are playing together. As a team. They have fans that love them and not only support them but lift the players to better performances. When the Trailblazers get on a run, all 20,000 people in the stands began yelling, encouraging the players, and it does really provide energy for the players on the court. They make shots they wouldn't normally make. They run faster than the normally run. They dive for balls. It is an incredible experience to watch how the energy from the crowd can provide energy for the players. Once I scored fifty points in a summer league basketball game. There were maybe five hundred people in the stands. I made a couple of shots and they started screaming and supporting me. They lifted me. It was an incredible experience. At the Trailblazer game Christmas Night the home team was down and their winning streak was in danger. Then one of the Blazers made a couple of three pointers and the fans went wild. All 20,000 of them got out of their seats and started yelling. It was an incredible amount of energy. The players started playing better, started hustling more and the home team continued their winning streak. Just like the 200 people at church that turned darkness into light, 20,000 people doing the same thing, with the same goal turned defeat into victory.

Todays political climate is very divisive. It is no longer about what is best for America, it is what is best for Democrats or what is best for Republicans. Separation instead of togetherness. Separate goals vs. same goals. I read once that President Bush and President Clinton were the two must hated presidents by their opposite parties in the history of US politics. Something like 80% of Republicans polled hated Clinton and something like 85% of The Democrats hate Bush. That really is tragic and really leads to politics of ideology instead of politics of success. In order to fix the country we need more togetherness instead of more division. We all have to be willing to give up a little and start listening to each other. We have to quit being Republicans and Democrats and start being Americans and friends.

Just like the 200 people at church that turned darkness into light and the 20,000 people at the basketball game that turned defeat into victory there is no limit of what we can do if we work together to fix what is wrong with the country.