TheBanyanTree: Reflecting on Field of Dreams

[A. Christopher Hammon]

I found myself spending a bit of time this morning reflecting on the 
movie, The Field of Dreams, as part of a seminar in which I am 
participating -- a seminar exploring the journey of mid-life. As I let 
the story unfold I found myself thinking back on a story I had started 
to write for the purpose of sharing it with the Spoon, but it never came 
together. Knowing that I am long overdue for being more of a participant 
within this community, it seems appropriate some years later to share a 
bit of story that wrapped around the story that didn't come to be. So 
here is my reflection from this morning:


I have a baseball sitting on my desk that I enjoy picking up and holding 
in my hand every so often. Feeling the weight of the ball in my hand and 
rotating through various grips is a spiritual experience for me ... 
carrying me back to the joy of many summer days as a youth, back to 
learning lessons of risk and courage as a young person and discovering 
that failing only 7 times out of 10 when you step into the batter's box 
will land you in the Hall of Fame, and back to learning lessons of 
balance in life and the value of passing a summer evening doing nothing 
more than watching a ball game with a friend. As my fingers slide over 
the horsehide and caress the stitches, moving from fastball to curve to 
split-finger, dreams and visions seem to tumble forth in  stories, 
memories, and whispers of imagination.

When I first saw the film, Field of Dreams, it was on the big screen and 
I was in the midst of putting in the long hours and taking the 
entrepreneurial risks of a video project called The Waters of Mount 
Desert Island. At that time I was really caught up in the theme of going 
the distance to recognize one's dreams ... no matter how far fetched 
they may seem. When I started receiving phone calls related to the video 
project I thought I had built my field of dreams ... hospitals ordered 
it ...  including  Mayo Clinic, Walter Reed, Massachusetts General, 
Scott and White, Cleveland Clinic. I had "bet the family farm," so to 
speak, to make this thing and people were coming. And then L.L. Bean 
called and invited me to do several screenings and video signing there; 
which, by the way, was a real ego rush and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, 
in the end not enough people came and we did lose the farm.
 
In the ensuing mid-life crisis this film continued to haunt me as it 
wove in and out of the ghosts of my past, especially as I faced my own 
"good enough" issues and a growing anger over the abandonment by my dad 
during my childhood years. It was a difficult journey to discover that I 
needed to look within rather than everywhere else.
 
Bicycles and baseball were a way of life for me as a child growing up 
out in the southwest. In the part of Phoenix where I grew up we did not 
have Little League or any other forms of adult-organized sports. 
Instead, we had a bunch of us that were always ready to bicycle out to 
the open spaces that surrounded us then to play ball. How many of us 
turned up there at any given time determined what we played; catch, 
three flies up, work-up, ball games with ghost runners. And when no one 
else was around, I would throw a ball against the carport wall to play 
catch with myself. Not a day went by that didn't include baseball - 
winter, summer, it didn't matter.
 
Unlike Ray Kinsella's experience in the story, however, my dad never did 
come out into the yard to have a catch. Mostly, he was never around, but 
this was a big deal for me because it most symbolized his absence from 
being part of my life.
 
In the later part of the 1990's, still in the midst of mid-life crisis, 
my anger with my dad boiled over and I set out to write a story on, "I 
Never Played Catch With My Father." It was a time in my life that I was 
doing a lot of storytelling (and some of those stories are still hanging 
around out on the Web). This story was full of hurt and bitterness and 
feelings of being unblessed. It was a story fully intended to hurt even 
though I never expected him to read it, but it was everything I wanted 
to say to him if our paths should ever cross -- even though I didn't 
even know whether he was still alive. But it is a story I could never 
finish. There was too much stuff connected to it, and in the midst of 
trying to write this expression of refusing to forgive, I discovered 
that forgiving someone isn't something you do for him or her but 
something you do for yourself. I set the attempted manuscript off to the 
side of the road, along with a lot of other baggage, and moved on.
 
A year later an incredible journey began. I was in the midst of building 
another field of dreams awash in the blessings of another father-figure 
who had himself grown up without a father. Two days after Wayne Oates' 
memorial service, I drove over to Illinois for the memorial service of a 
beloved aunt. I had arranged to meet my sister at a restaurant in 
Champaign before driving on down to spend the night at a friend's. My 
siblings and I had all gone our separate ways as we each left home, and 
generally we only crossed paths for funerals. I was working on building 
some bridges, though, and had started meeting my sister for dinner any 
time I was in the area and I had flown my youngest brother back the year 
before so the four of us could get together up at my sister's.
 
My sister walked into the restaurant that evening accompanied by an old 
man in a beat up bomber jacket and baseball cap. My dad spent his life 
fighting forest fires by converting and flying old World War II bombers 
as air tankers (if you have seen the film, Always, you've got the 
picture). And there I was face to face with my dad again for the first 
time in 20 years and only the second in more than 30. He had heard that 
I was planning to go up for my aunt's memorial and he caught a flight 
back to Illinois with a friend of his out in Phoenix.  The question that 
flashed through my mind was, "Had I left enough stuff by the road over 
the past few years?"
 
I discovered that I had and I was able to just be with him without 
having to deal with all of the stuff of the past. Then as we got 
together over brunch at the end of the weekend, he mentioned that he had 
watched the story on Wayne's obituary on CBS Sunday Morning before 
coming to meet us. He was the only person in my family to be aware of 
his death and the significance of that for me. And as we talked on I 
discovered that he had read every story I had published over the 
previous ten years.
 
It was a first step and the next spring I decided I was ready to go the 
next. I made arrangements to go visit my brother who was still out in 
Phoenix and called my dad to see if I could join him for breakfast at 
the airport when I got there (my dad had breakfast every morning at the 
café at the airport where his hanger was located - it's a pilot thing).
 
I never did play catch with my dad but along with sharing a lot of other 
stories,we talked a lot of baseball over the last few years and took in 
a few games together at his hometown Diamondback Stadium. He is gone 
now, but when I pick up a baseball I still hear the whisper in the wind, 
"if you build it, he will come."

Cheers,
Chris



_________________________________________
A. Christopher Hammon, D.Min.
Wayne E. Oates Institute
A Learning Community Advancing Care for the Whole Person
http://www.oates.org