To Everything There Is a Season

Tomorrow is The Kentucky Derby. I didn't want to know it, but promotion everywhere. I'd have to be blind and deaf to avoid the hoopla. Even if I couldn't see and hear, the sponsors of the race would probably beam the news to me via ESP.

But while thinking about "Derby Day" I suddenly noticed that time seems different now that I am mostly cut off from sporting news.

When I was an active sports addict, I allowed the sporting industry to label time for me: March Madness, Boys of Summer, Super Bowl Sunday, Monday Night Football, the Memorial Five Hundred. I'm old enough to remember "Saturday Night Fights."

Without sports filling up my calendar, I find myself wondering: What day is this? What month?

Before the advent of big business spectatorship, the passing scene was defined differently. According to Ecclesiastes 3:
To everything there is a season
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh

The list goes on, but I promise you that verse never mentions basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, football, or boxing. The focus is on the activities that have direct meaning for ordinary people like you and like me.