The Company of the Saints 3 comments

By Jessica Mesman Griffith

As I write this, two events are fast approaching: a major winter storm and the Saints-Colts Superbowl. I’m not sure which is making me more nervous. Snowstorms were par for the course when we lived in Pittsburgh and Northern Indiana, but in rural Virginia, even a few inches of snow brings with it the real threat of being marooned for several days. Do we have enough milk, toilet paper, beer, and patience to make it through another week indoors with an antsy four year old? I sent Dave out to our ransacked grocery store at eleven last night so we could at least be sure of the first three.

But I have to admit, I’m hoping we’ll be unable to leave the house on Sunday. Our friends are hosting a Superbowl party, and any other year it would be a great reprieve from the loneliness of these last few weeks of snow days, spinning wheels, and winter drear.

But I’d so much rather watch this game alone, even if it means another night of seclusion.

These Saints are carrying an awful lot for the people of New Orleans. People like my dad, who has been watching for 40 years, who endured the paper-bag-on-the-head years and kept going back to the Superdome on Sundays. When Reggie Bush partied on Tuesday night in Miami and appeared, from reports, to have stayed out until 3:30 am and had too much to drink, the fan response ranged from wounded to enraged. Doesn’t he know what’s at stake here?

What exactly is at stake here? There are obvious answers to that question, and by the time you read this, you’ll be tired of hearing them, especially if they win.

Katrina and all that was lost is certainly part of the power of this story, and I don’t mean to minimize it. But for each fan and New Orleans native, there will be something more, something intensely personal, a memory of watching those games as a little girl and then standing out into the front yard with your dad, who tried, with endless reserves of patience, to teach you to put a perfect spiral on your pass.

And something deeper still—a feeling of unexpected reprieve from long-suffering resignation. An excessive, jazz-funereal happiness. It’s a resurrection, and it all speaks so resonantly to the religious imagination of the place.

In New Orleans, even the smallest actions are infused with a sacramental quality, and the traditions of the city—especially at this time of year, with its carnival, king cakes, St. Joseph's Altars—may have traveled far from their Catholic roots, but they’re still tethered somewhere.

Baptized or not, native or not, when you live there, you take in religion with the wet air you breathe. You’re taught by example the importance of ritual, symbol, and paradox. You’re constantly tracking from sacred to profane and back again. You see the fleur de lys, rich old Christian symbol of the trinity, of the Virgin Mary, of St. Joan of Arc, emblazoned on a gold football helmet.

For me and for so many others, it’s a powerful symbol of home, a totem that provokes a deep, irrational feeling of clannish protectiveness and pride—in short, the feeling of a sports fan.

This football game, too, will get stirred into the religious stew, whether they win or lose (and by time you read this, we’ll know if it’s Lent or Mardi Gras that’s coming early to New Orleans this year).

Maybe that’s why, when I imagine myself watching this Sunday, my anxiety isn’t so much about the outcome. I feel, instead, a desire for a certain measure of religious experience—for reverence, respect for tradition, even for solitude, or at least the company of believers. Any unwitting cheer for the Colts will be blasphemy.