Celebrate the Trivial Bullshit

Two weeks ago, I attended my first live pro wrestling event, WWE Extreme Rules at the Wells Fargo Center in my home city of Philadelphia. I somewhat facetiously told friends afterwards that it was a spiritual experience. But honestly, the longer I think about that evening, the more I realize that it very well may have been exactly that.

I’ve heard friends refer to things they find joyous in a similarly flippant way. Things friends have somewhat sarcastically labeled “spiritual experiences” include: a Lizzo concert, going to a newly opened ice cream shop, finally going to a haunted house they’ve always wanted to attend, and being in the stadium of their favorite sports team on a day they won a key game.

As I write this, I am sitting in my Center City apartment with the windows open on a beautiful 60 degree autumn afternoon. In about 15 minutes, the Phillies will be facing the Padres in game 5 of the National League Championship Series. If the Phillies win today, they will be going to the World Series. A few weeks ago this seemed impossible. The road they have traveled to this point has been full of unlikely comebacks fueled by a deep sense of almost desperate hope amongst lifelong fans.

This particular circumstance means that our poles are being greased as I type. And no, that is not a euphemism. You see, if you weren’t already aware, here in Philly we tend to let loose in a big way when we’re celebrating. A long-standing Philly tradition involves climbing the lamp posts lining our streets after a major victory. In an effort to deter people from this practice and prevent falls to serious or potentially fatal injury, our city officials literally coat the poles in grease (most famously, Crisco). Does it stop people from climbing? Not really. More often, we - as a city - grin and say, “challenge accepted!” We are a community that thrives on chaos. And the anticipation of a chaotic release is building. It's palpable. Right now, at this moment, I can hear classic rock music and revelry coming from the sports bar down the block. There is an atmosphere of communal camaraderie throughout the entire city. Several people wore Phillies jerseys to church this morning, and nobody batted an eyelash.

And yet, I move through many circles in which this joy is looked down upon and tut-tutted, people crossing their arms and rolling their eyes. Many friends of mine openly question how it is that people can care about something like a baseball game when there is so much suffering happening in the world. I’ve seen accusations all over social media that this is just a distraction, with people noting that an election is coming up and that’s what we should really be talking about. Natural contrarians from all walks of life have been quick to point to crime rates as a jarring attempt to return people to “reality.” (But is a reality that focuses exclusively on suffering any more real than one that ignores pain entirely?) One thing they conveniently fail to address is that in the past three weeks, as the Eagles and Phillies have both risen to new heights of success, the violent crime rate in Philly has dropped by nearly 10%. I highly doubt this is a coincidence.

I can absolutely understand how people think it’s dumb, selfish, or even irresponsible to revel in excitement over a sports team’s success. I completely get why most of my friends kind of laughed and said, “Really? You went to a WWE event? And spent how much for those tickets?” I find myself in the shoes of a cynical skeptic often enough to fully get where they’re coming from. I just can't stay in that place 100% of the time anymore, having directly experienced the grace-filled, beautiful, dare I say holy atmosphere that is created when people celebrate a common joy.

On the night of WWE Extreme Rules, I sat shotgun in my friend’s car as we navigated the stressful bumper-to-bumper traffic to get into the parking lot. Now, this particular friend has no problem openly and loudly expressing frustration with other drivers while behind the wheel. Road rage is something that I find especially triggering, and being in a car with a driver who is leaning into it instantly spikes my anxiety. There was a lot of yelling in the car during the drive up to the stadium’s parking lot, and I completely shut down. Although I’m sure I politely engaged in small talk during the calmer moments, I could not begin to tell you what any of those conversations were about.

But then we got closer to the stadium, and people had their windows rolled down. We rolled down our windows also, and as we sat next to people in the traffic jam, strangers headed to the same place we were began calling out to us.

“You going to Extreme Rules?!”

“Sure are!”

“Wooooooo!! Who you got???”

“Gotta go with my girl Rousey!”

“Oh, shit! Rowdy Ronda Rouseyyyyyy! Yeahhhhh buddy!”

And then one line of cars would shift and a new car would be lined up with us.

“EXTREME RULLLLLLEEES!!!”

“WOOOOOO!!!!”

“LET’S GOOOOOOOO!!!”

And then one line of cars would shift and we’d repeat the same excited, celebratory chat with yet another carload of strangers who became brief but beautiful friends.

Suddenly, because we were connecting with those around us, the traffic jam became a point of levity rather than frustration and fear. The entire atmosphere in our car changed, and that seemed to be the case for every single car around us. The angry honking stopped. The merging became a group effort rather than a competition. And everyone ultimately got to where we were going.

We finally reached our seats 10 minutes before the event went live on the air. Armed with fries and sodas from Chickie's & Pete’s, we sat down to commune with our fellow wrestling fanatics. During the final moments of the pre-show the company did a small ceremonial reveal of the Wrestlemania 40 logo since it’s going to be in Philly. As they brought out various Philly sports team mascots the stadium sang the entirety of “Fly Eagles Fly,” belting it out as a joyous hymn, beaming with pride for our (still as of this writing) undefeated season. When the action got under way, the whole arena delivered our call and response lines right on cue. It felt liturgical, in the same way some sections of church services have been repeated by groups of people in pews for generations. We diligently raised the same chants the fans at these events raised 40 and 50 years ago. We cheered where we were meant to. We booed at all the right times. Even as matches of controversy arose, each group of fans got into a friendly rivalry of chanting their support for their man or woman, grinning in sibling rivalry at the opposing fans around us.

While there are no set “intermissions” during these events, it’s pretty much universally understood that the time between matches is your chance to go grab a refill of refreshments or use the restroom. During these breaks I went to stretch my legs and had so many delightful conversations with strangers. We passed the peace in our own frenzied way, sharing in the beauty of being among our people.

All of this was lovely, but it might still sound unimportant. Sure, it amounts to a nice night out, but isn't it a little audacious to label it as "spiritual?" I don't think so. The reason I believe that this was a truly spiritual experience is because in that stadium, my heart was opened to the strangers around me in a way that it almost never is. This became very apparent to me during one particular interaction.

About two hours into the nearly four hour event, I booked it to the nearest concession stand. Although I got there pretty quickly, I still had a bit of a wait. I got to the front, ordered some nachos and waters, and stood for what seemed like an unreasonably long time while the worker went to get the nachos prepared. But while I was waiting as patiently as my personality will allow, I overheard the burly bearded man at the register next to me talking with the cashier. He had ordered a few drinks and snacks - clearly the chosen runner for his group as I was for mine - and pulled out a small wad of bills to pay. “We can’t take cash, only cards.” He looked super bummed, and was about to walk away empty handed. As this was happening my cashier returned with the nachos, and I stopped him before he left. The last thing I’d heard him order was a Twisted Tea.

“Hey, dude, hold up!” I turned to my cashier. “Can you add a Twisted Tea to my order?” She nodded and rang it up.

He looked over, a little stunned and sheepish and said, “Well, there was more to the order.”

I shrugged. “I’ve already got my card out. We can square up afterward if you’ve got cash. What else did you get?”

He looked at me. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Um.... Okay.” He gave the rest of his order, and in a gesture of true generosity for an overworked food service employee, his original cashier simultaneously rang up his total so we could separate it out from my own order easily, while my cashier rang it up on my tab to take the payment. His total came to just over $40 and he had three $20 bills in his hand.

“Let’s just call it $40,” I said as we sorted out our items on the counter.

He gave me the $40, and said “You are truly fucking awesome! Last time I was at one of these events was two years ago, and that time they only took cash. So I just figured it’d be the same.”

We laughed about the absurdity of how payments have changed over the years with technology. We prepared our condiments at the station together, and then we went our separate ways. I never got his name or gave him mine, but that didn’t matter. Our names were more trivial than the shared desire to have an absolute blast at this event.

Now, here’s the thing. That person who so effortlessly extended the offer of adding his items to my tab? Well, that person isn't me. It goes against everything in my normal nature. My normal nature is to mind my own business and think, “damn, that sucks for him,” but say and do nothing to intervene. But, somehow, two hours of (allegedly meaningless) celebration in a stadium of 15,000 people changed my heart just enough that extending kindness was effortlessly reflexive. It allowed me to connect with a stranger who I would have almost certainly judged as “not my people” had we passed each other on the street. And it allowed me to pay forward the generosity of spirit that the friendly people in the gridlocked cars extended to me in my moment of need earlier that night.

While there are certainly times in my life where I feel deeply connected to God and Spirit alone in a silent breath, it's rare that I experience Spirit in isolation. I experience it in community with others. And this “trivial” event that served as an escape from the heaviness of the world around me was like a wave of Spirit connection to the beating, screaming, adrenaline fueled hearts of thousands. This is why I maintain that this was a genuinely spiritual experience.

So, in a few minutes, I will be shamelessly tuning into the Phillies game. I’ll do my best to let my cheering for them become a prayer of hope for my city and community. And if they win, you can bet your ass that I’ll be cheering right along with the rest of the 1.5 million people who live in this city and beyond as we celebrate this unlikely victory.

These rallying points of communal celebration may seem pointless in a world where suffering feels so dominant. But nothing - I mean nothing - changes and softens my heart more than sharing a common joy with the people around me. And a changed and softened heart, well, that’s far from meaningless in my book. So, yes. I will continue to celebrate the trivial bullshit. And I hope you do, too.