Hare Krishna! Football, Friction and Faith in the Holy Name
They wear special cloth, prepare foods only eaten on these rare days, and congregate in mass around a few exceptional people that are taking part in a ceremony lasting over 3 hours. All the while they chant two and three word phrases together in cadence, which creates and encourages a collectively desired experience. I remember 4 years ago, when we first began regular harinama’s at the football games. A rag/tag group of us led by me, a 2 year old bhakta at the time, were chanting with some regularity on campus with little regard from the ‘local’s.’ Ann Arbor Michigan, home of the University of Michigan, is considered the ‘smartest town in America’ according to recent studies on such useless things. So smart these folks were, that they had no regard or respect for the sankirtan party we would feebly and yet faithfully assemble. Our party would look even more pathetic amid the wash of Maize and Blue on Saturdays outside ‘The Big House’, the temple where pig skin is worshipped by 100,000+ of America’s best and brightest on fall Saturdays in Ann Arbor.
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