Through the Front Door: June Week Two

And Now to Sports News

NBA Championship

Warriors fans live across the street. Warriors fans live to the right of me; they live to the left of me; they live behind me. Everywhere seniors hi-fiving around the block. Tuesday morning early,early carpools full of fans will be heading out for the victory parade in Oakland.

Justify Takes the Triple Crown

Yesterday, my BIG QUESTION: “Will there be another Triple Crown winner today?

Can Justify hang on that extra quarter of a mile and get his nose first across the finish line at Belmont. I thought he struggled for his win at the Preakness. Watching that race, I was not sanguine that he could handle the mile-and-a-half distance of the third leg of the Triple Crown. After all, he would be up against fresh horses trained to peak at the Belmont.

Justify did win take the Triple Crown. And it was a grand run to watch. He took the lead at the start, and kept the lead all the way to the finish line. He did it easily, with plenty of energy left at the finish line.

Watching beautiful horses run lifts the spirits. Sadly, shadows darken the”sport of kings” in America. Doping is illegal, but are many practices that flirt with the dark side, and are harmful to the horses in the long run.

The Triple Crown itself is open to criticism because of the grueling stress placed upon young horses whose joints and bones are still cartilage. The official birthdate for all Thoroughbreds is January 1; but many foals don’t see daylight until March. Those late arrivals are several months shy of two years when they are officially eligible to race. They are not really mature. Given that ‘baby’ cartilage doesn’t finish maturing into bone until horses are five or six, it’s not surprising that race horses break and have to be destroyed.

Through the Front Door June 5

Castle in Spain I kick open the front door and drop my bags. Immediately I turn on music, filling the air with “A Thousand Years” by The Piano Guys. Opening wide my arms I twirl circles across the bare boards of a room filled with sunlight.

It’s been months since I visited the Front Door. Wouldn’t it be fun to say that I’d packed real bags and went visiting castles in Spain, and surf fishing on the beaches of Ibiza. Imagine posting Instagram photos of me outside Castle Coca, Castle Manzanares El Real, and Castle Alcazar of Segovia.

I have Spain on the brain because one of the things I actually did while vacationing from this blog is rereading that wonderful trio of novels by Lois McMaster Bujold, loosely known as the “Chalion novels.” They are fantasies set in a world based upon medieval Spain. All three books spin a yarn that speculates on the nature of the relationship between the human and the divine.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but I always close each book wondering how Bujold come up with the stuff she writes. I shelve her novels next to those eccentric little theological novels of Charles Williams, who as one of the Inklings, was a friend of C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Like olives and caviar, Williams is an acquired taste, but I reread his books annually.

In addition to re-reading theological fiction, I attended the April NaNoWriMo boot camp. This is an online workshop for writers. I am happy to announce that I have lost my fear of the first sentence. I remember how many times I started letters “Dear Friend, How are you? I am fine” and never wrote another sentence. Now I can knock out a paragraph or two with ease. AND, and, and, I am getting better at writing with an active voice.