Hand of God

(blog by Stan)

The big news shifted this week, from our daily doses of what the Cuban news labels the "Interminable US Election", to at least a couple of days focused on the death of Maradona. Everyone has a Maradona story. Here's mine: I am not a soccer fan, never have been. So four years ago, when Fidel Castro died, I was here in Cuba guiding a church group from Charlotte. We were with some friends in Varadero, Nashla and Joel, and they were talking about all the various world dignitaries/presidents who were arriving in Cuba for the funeral. Joel said, "Maradona flew in from Argentina today." I (mis)translated: "The president of Argentina arrived today." Both Joel and Nashla quickly corrected me, "No, not the president, Maradona. Diego Maradona." I translated the correction, and asked them, "who is Maradona?" Both they and my Charlotte friends stared at me in disbelief. Joel said, "You, know, the hand of God!" I did not know, and was finally given a sports history lesson about who they consider to be one of the greatest soccer players ever, and how his hand-ball that got by the refs in a World Cup ended up giving Argentina the victory. 

Nashla then told about Fidel's friendship with the sports star. When Maradona retired, he fell into cocaine addiction, and when Fidel heard about it, he called him up and told him he was going to bring him to Cuba for recovery. Nashla was working in the hospital where Maradona went through treatment, and she said that Fidel was at his bedside offering encouragement almost every day. This led to discussions about Fidel, and the intensity of people's feelings about the historic leader, both positive and negative. The grieving among those here who adored him and saw him as an iconic father figure was balanced out, at least on social media, by the Miami-Cuban version of "ding-dong the witch is dead" and dancing in the streets. 

And so it is somehow fitting that Maradona died on the fourth anniversary of his friend Fidel Castro's death. It makes me think about the connections in our psyches between sports enthusiasm and political enthusiasm (and with the "hand of God" reference, religious enthusiasm). Just as there were people who loved Maradona and his Argentinian team, there were those who loathed them. I can understand this, or at least resonate with it. I remember the intensity of emotion in my cheering on Randolph Childress or Timmy Duncan with the Demon Deacons, and an equal intensity of emotion in my loathing of Christian Laettner and all things Blue Devil (note the religious symbolism in these names). It's the same intensity of emotion I sense whenever people talk about Fidel Castro. Or Donald Trump. Or Barak Obama. Cheering and booing. Loving and hating. 

From what I hear about Maradona, I imagine that had I been a soccer fan, I would have been rooting for him. He was not only a friend of Fidel, he was a friend of Cuba, visiting the island many times. I learned today that he even spent a lot of time here in Matanzas, visiting his girlfriend and son in the Versalles neighborhood. Our Kairos Center cook, Marlén, lived on the same block as this girlfriend. She talks about how Maradona would come out and play soccer with kids from the neighborhood, including her son Alejandro, and the superstar would sign soccer balls and other paraphernalia for all the kids. As we continue to play out what often feels like a big game in our politics and religion, with all the accompanying enthusiasm and fanaticism these competitions bring, may we have the wherewith- all to put some of our emotion into this kind of activity, stopping every once in a while to play with some kids in the street.