Without Reimer Reason

"Pray in one hand and piss in the other and see which one fills up first."--Gary Jennings

James Reimer is a 23-year old NHL rookie goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs. His big-league career to date has been an unqualified success; his first start was this past New Year's Day, and since then he has compiled a 20-8-4 record, with a 2.54 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage. (For non-hockey fans: those stats are pretty good. As of this writing, Reimer's save percentage ranks him seventh out of forty-three goalies.)

To hear Leaf fans tell it, those stats are more than "pretty good". "Optimus Reim" is touted as the second coming of Johnny Bower, or at least Eddie Belfour. As with most musings of Leaf fans, this one should be taken with a few ice shavings. NHL history is positively littered with goaltenders who exploded on to the scene in their rookie season with stats as good or better than Reimer's, only to fall off, often precipitously, in following seasons. Two of the names in that desecrated pantheon should be familiar to fans of the Blue and White: Andrew Raycroft and Vesa Toskala.

No matter. Reimer has been anointed the starting goalie for the Leafs next year, and unless and until he falters, it's only fair to keep the faith, as Leaf fans have been doing since 1967.

Speaking of faith...

James Reimer is a devout Mennonite...a man of faith. He looks skyward and thanks God after every victory; what he does and says after defeat is not documented for public consumption, but he appears unflappable. A bad goal--and every goalie, no matter how storied his career, has let in some stinkers--does not appear to faze Reimer one bit. He attributes his composure to his religion:

“It’s a big reason why I’m calm out there,” he says. “I mean, I don’t have any fear of what’s going to happen. The way I see it, or tell myself, if I let in zero or six, it’s His call up there. It’s whatever He wants in my life. It helps to calm it down and put everything in perspective.”

There's something about that quote that rubs me entirely the wrong way. Suppose that on some night, God decides Reimer's going to let in six goals. What does he tell his teammates, afterwards? "Sorry, everyone, the Big Guy didn't want me to play well tonight. Yeah, I know, He should have said something to me, at least by the first intermission. Yeah, if He had, I could have told you that we were gonna have to score seven tonight. But hey, this is what God wants in my life."

I'm sure he doesn't mean to say it's just his life that matters, but it kind of comes out that way, doesn't it? I mean, Reimer plays for a team, in a game where one person can NEVER win a game on his own. "What God wants" for Reimer's life has a direct impact on twenty two team mates, his coaches, and untold legions of fans. But hey, tonight God wanted Reimer to let in six goals.

Truth be told, I'm not even all that comfortable with Reimer attributing his successes to God, if only because his success means another team's failure. Then it's that other team's goalie trying to explain to his teammates that hey. it's what God wants for his life.

I'm curious: does Reimer pray for victory. Seems pointless, even by his own logic. After all, it's what God wants, not what Reimer might want, right?

This idea of God wanting intrigues me. What could an omnipotent Being possibly want? He's omnipotent. Whatever He truly wants, He gets. If He doesn't get it, it's pretty obvious He didn't really want it.

Christians invoke all sorts of hoodoo to get around this uncomfortable truth. Many of them of them posit the existence of a Being called Satan, a Being almost as powerful as God Himself...indeed, temporarily and under limited circumstances more powerful that God Himself. Satan is a very convenient Being to have around: "the Devil made me do it" doesn't exactly excuse any transgression, but it's a damn sight easier to blame "the Devil" than it is to blame yourself.

Then there's the whole "free will" thing. The idea here is that God has gifted us with this ability to defy Him should we choose to (and then, of course, suffer the consequences, which are said to be rather...warm.) This struck me as total bunkum the first time I heard it, and still does. If you're free to do what you want, except that "what you want" is going to result in eternal hellfire--how "free' is your will, anyway? It's the old "this hurts Me more than it hurts you" argument, to which I always respond "Oh, yeah? Well, let's change places, then."

I wonder if Reimer has ever considered that he is at cause in his own victories and defeats. To a certain breed of Christian, that's a blasphemy. It's easily ameliorated by making the person and God co-creators: "God within you" is responsible for your trials and triumphs. Many Christians are acutely uncomfortable with the notion of God within them, despite what their Bible says. Again, if God is actually within you, it's much harder to justify ungodly thoughts, words, or deeds.

Maybe, in a moment of weakness, Reimer has let the most rabid fan's worship go to his head--if only for a second--and thought that perhaps he was God. THAT notion is a blasphemy in every sect of Christianity I've run across. Yet that concept, expanded greatly to include you, me, and everyone/everything--is much, much older than Christianity. Hinduism phrases it Tat Tvam Asi, "You are that", that being Brahman, transcendant reality, or "God"...and Hinduism is the oldest organized faith going. I find it perversely easier to believe in an all-inclusive Deity than in one that restricts Its ministrations to a chosen few. Such a Deity, if it could be said to have any "wants" at all, would have wants that mirror our own. And what do we want? To experience. To experience life in all its complexities and flavours. To taste the bitter, that we might cherish the sweet that much more. To let in six goals on occasion, so that our shutouts don't go to our heads...