Dear Listener,
its been an interesting few weeks since I last posted, the new year came and went, the post-holiday come-down unfolded and football stepped in front and center. While sports is not typically font and center for me, the Damar Hamlin story was particularly moving. ‘Human stories’ tend to catch my interest, particularly when it illustrates hope or human advances in unexpected places. An article in the New York Times comes to mind as an example... Im including the link below (the paper doesn’t seem to allow a free reading) and will share snippets which stood out to me as important.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/sports/damar-hamlin-collapse-nfl.html
It is great Damar Hamlin had a positive outcome from this incident, it will be interesting to check in a year or two from not to see how this experience shapes his life, but thats his individual story…
It was interesting to notice how one person, an event, mobilized a community of people around commonalities; for example, fans who support opposing teams or simply different ones- unified. then players from different organizations NBA, NHL stepped in and become one in the world of sports;
"We join the sports world in keeping Damar Hamlin and his family, friends and teammates in our thoughts", the Bruins said on twitter.
The football player JJ Watt suggested we reframe our priorities- a game is just a game, health comes first;
JJ Watt the defensive end for the Arizona cardinal said on Twitter that after Hamlin’s collapse the game was "not important."
Robert Griffin, a former NFL player suggested we circumvent drama and choose an uplifting position;
Griffin Asked his followers not to share the video of the moment of Hamlin's collision and collapse. Instead Griffin asked others to share a photo in which a group of players knelt on the field to pray for Hamlin.
This next movement struck me as one of the most powerful aspects of this event- fans from opposing sides came together as one to express their care via a peaceful action - prayer. I'm not reading this as an expression of religion, but more so a practice of concentrated compassion, maybe even call it reaction in spirit, and curiously prayer is an ancient approach to healing (if we put our anthropological hats on);
Some fans stepped away from social media to pray for the player. A group of several fans in Bills and Bengals gear gathered outside the hospital where Hamlin was being treated to pray for him, a moment that was captured by a photojournalist at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Stories like this give me some hope, we still have it in us to care and connect. There were different ways the fans and public could have responded, they chose to unify and share compassion, both strengths in our humanity.
Thank you for listening. This post is public, please share it with anyone it might uplift.
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