POPS
Born out of the 2023 Huntington Music and Arts Festival’s 72-Hour Film Challenge (Huntington, West Virginia) and being chosen as an official selection, making its premiere on 28 August 2023, here is the entire 9-minute short film, Pops.
I love baseball. It’s unique in ways no other sport is. I often liken it to a chess match. Sure, you need power and strength to knock one out of the park or to throw the ball home from right field, but it’s so much more than that. It takes a manager who is calm, cool, and collected — placing each player at a particular position based on their strengths in that exact moment; a manager who, together with his coaching staff, knows just how to utilize each player on and off the field to ensure the entire organization accomplishes what it has set out to do. In baseball, just as with chess, there is anticipation and strategizing — something that, upon first glance, one may not see. Which direction is the batter most likely to hit? Let's shift our short-stop just a wee bit to the right. Have we got a player at second with no outs in extra innings? Let's sacrifice the current batter with a bunt, surely to be out at first, moving second around to third.
Baseball is, in every way, a team sport. No one person can do it alone. Like each element of a bicycle, each player must think and act with one unified purpose. In this same regard, life is a lot like baseball. We must often set aside our biases and desires to be the center of it all to help bring about the greater good for everyone, including ourselves. A good leader knows this. They understand that when the time comes, they will still be celebrating, but their achievements will be far more significant than if they had worked alone. As it says in Tao Te Ching, the best leader is one who lives in harmony with nature and can control himself.
I believe the best thing we can do for others is to work on ourselves. When we cultivate love, patience, and compassion for ourselves, we can develop love, patience, and understanding for others. Love, like a brilliant manager sitting silently in the shadows of the dugout, often unseen, continues to guide and direct us all toward hope and healing. It is always here; we have to pay attention. The quieter we become, the more we can hear. While our experiences may appear distinctly different from all others, the lessons behind them all are the same — to love more!
(With my brother and our Pop at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, standing with "The Great One" -- Roberto Clemente)
I love baseball, and my dad does too. It’s one thing we genuinely bond over and love spending quality time together enjoying, be it at a ballpark, watching a close one on TV, regardless of who may be playing, or simply listening to our favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, on the radio. Like all relationships, we don’t see eye to eye on everything, but when the Pirates are down one with bases loaded in the 9th, that doesn’t matter much — at least not then. For one moment, we are together, sharing this sacred space, wanting the same thing — a victor for our Battlin’ Buccos. Sometimes it happens, and other times it doesn’t. I’ve discovered that this is not always the most crucial focus of my attention. Being together in an environment where we can share love and continue to build a beautiful friendship is what I’ll remember most of all.
When I take time to listen to my dad’s opinion about what happens out at second base — after all, he has been a fan of the game for 74 years — I’m allowing myself the joy of learning a bit more than I previously knew, no matter how much I may be assured of my understanding right now. Also, when I’m with my dad listening or simply doing nothing but being together, it lets him know that I care and he has a friend he can depend on. Reassuring him I am here is especially important as his mental and physical health continues to evolve in his older age. Trusting in the love we share and the fluid communication we practice, I can know that he, too, with the best of his understanding and abilities, is navigating in ways that are best for my current mental and physical health — a health of which I always do my best to inform him of its current conditions. For this, I am very thankful. It isn’t always easy, but we both have worked earnestly to sustain the love we are cultivating within our relationship. While he will always be my Pop, and I will forever be his son, I continue to observe our roles manifesting in many forms as our experiences change and evolve. Not only father and son, we are also trusted friends who listen to and learn from one another.
Here is an essential thing for me to remember. I don’t have to agree with or understand every choice that one might make to give them the same respect I also desire. As I continue to navigate my individual experiences and move forward with careful consideration, I can remember that all others are doing the same with where they are and what they’ve got, regardless of what led them here. It isn’t easy to wake up and live day after day, and a little love can go a long way — even if it’s just a hug and an “I’m proud of you for what you’ve been doing despite all you’ve been dealing with!” To be seen and acknowledged can do so much! However, how can we recognize and encourage another without seeing true dignity and worth within ourselves?
When practicing this mutual respect, we can create a far more open pathway for each to be seen and understood more clearly. It is in these intentional spaces that we can now shift our actions from a place of response, critique, and judgment to becoming a good listener and being a love that craves genuine insight, empathy, compassion, and understanding that all previous and limited understandings might have hindered. Awakening, however bold it may be, is not to be feared. We can stand safely and securely within the light of awareness and still be with many others who share different values and experiences that may have led them to their current conclusions. That is the beauty of a love that has but one goal — to awaken itself within another. It cannot be challenged, overtaken, manipulated, or stolen. Love’s truest awareness calls out to us all. We must, however, have a desperate hunger to see with a new vision.
I’m certainly not saying my dad is devoid of love. The work he has accomplished in his life, be it as a teacher inspiring and empowering his countless number of students or in fulfilling his post-retirement passions of tirelessly helping the homeless and needy, he has devoted much of his life to sharing love with so many; and love, regardless of what theology or idea it may arise from, when shared with honest intentions of healing, will find where it is needed most of all. This is happening all around the world and can be so calming for me to remember as I continue to struggle with fear and anxiety while navigating, seemingly alone, in a world where love is so non-apparent. The reality is that I am not alone, and neither are you. Love is always alive and cannot die, and when we seek it out with an earnest desire, we will find it — if not within the eyes of another, it will be discovered deep within our own. When we find love arising spontaneously within ourselves and from a trusted loved one, we can begin to look for love everywhere. We have to know what we're looking for to see it. All the while, just because one may not yet see it does not mean it is not there.
I love the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I love my dad, and I love that we both love the Pittsburgh Pirates. He and I don’t, however, sit idly by watching our team trade incredible players while still making costly errors on the field without honestly mentioning what we observe. Just the same, I trust that my father will continue to do what he believes is best for us both. While we may not always agree, I trust he knows I am doing the same. We continually let one another know this by putting our love into action. Love, when shared with honest intentions of healing, will find where it is most needed—be it on the field during a passionate interaction between a coach and a rookie or within trusted intimate moments between a seasoned son and his hall of fame father.
