I searched for perfection

Before I get into the nitty gritty stuff, this past week I had done 3 times what I had previously only done once ever in my lifetime: to go to the cinema for a motion picture by myself.

The first time happened in Halifax, when I felt so disgusted by the monotony of my job that I decided to call in sick to hangout by myself. It was “The Transformers” that I watched, what a mistake that was.

This week though, I watched “The Reader”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, and “Revolutionary Road”. The weirdest thing was that I literally watched “The Reader” in an empty theater. All by myself, as if I owned the place. It was a late Monday night showing though.

In fact during those 3 trips to the cinema, and while I was there, I was very scared that I would get spotted by someone I know. I purposely picked theaters that are slightly less popular, so I could do my best to avoid such a scary outcome. And what all that built up to was me finally deciding that I wanted a weekend where I got to spend all to myself, which is somewhat of a rare thing since I am used to having all these responsibilities penciled in on my Saturdays and Sundays.

So on Saturday morning, I basically ditched my friend last minute after agreeing a week ago that I would go to Seattle with him and his friends, and then I got into my car and drove up to a place I had always wanted to go visit: Burnaby Mountain Park.

The view indeed was beautiful. There was still snow on the drive up. I was anticipating perfection.

Instead, I was left with bitter disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong, like I said, the view was indeed gorgeous. The weather was just right. In fact there was even a blonde girl there, just standing there smoking. But remember, I was looking for perfection! And it wasn’t to be found!

I walked around hectically, hoping to find that perfect spot where I could sit down and enjoy the toasted sandwich I had bought from Subway while looking out to a beautiful view. But every spot I went, either the view was blocked by a tree or some other sort of obscure object, or there were families of immigrants who kept chatting away. Especially the annoying kids.

And so by the time I finally settled down on a bench, my sandwich was already cold.

Perfection was nowhere to be found.

As I sulked in my disappointment, I drove down slowly – only to spot a footy game happening at Kensington Park. The kids were about high school age. I pulled over, got out of the car, and joined the handful of parents who were there cheering for their kids.

God is great, isn’t He?

There I was, watching as the kids played out an exciting end to end game, realizing that perfection is found only in God – and football, the Beautiful Game, is where God manifests Himself here on earth.

And that is the reason why football is now my religion.