Last Friday night at the football game, I was overwhelmed with the actual beauty of everything surrounding the game. The football field itself was green and beautiful with the painted white stripes and numbers. The colors of the two opposing team’s uniforms and helmets were like a picture painted on that field of green.

The stadium seating on both sides of the field were full of fans in all their school colors. The seating areas were full and many fans were standing on both sides of the field up and down the sidelines. You could hear the band playing their music. You could smell the popcorn and the hamburgers being cooked. There was a slight breeze and the flags around the stadium were flipping lightly in the wind.

Clouds covered about ninety percent of the sky as the sun was setting which added an orange hue to the clouds adding to the colorful and beautiful evening.

Even if you didn’t know a thing about high school football you could have just enjoyed the atmosphere, the beauty and the excitement of the situation.

In our religious life, I think we sometimes focus too much on the rules and laws of that religious life. What we need to focus more on is the beauty of our religious life. Many of us go to churches that are some of the biggest and most beautiful buildings in our town that have beautiful stained glass windows that tell the story of our Christian faith. We have music that is hopefully inspiring in both word and sound.

When the pastor or priest bless the bread and wine or juice have you ever just watched that part of the service and thought back to when Jesus actually started that tradition over 2,000 years ago? It is beautiful to watch it today.

At some point to really understand what is going on in a football game we need to know the rules of the game. Our religious lives are the same, but to start with focus on the beauty of our worship services and on the beauty of the life lived by Jesus in the four gospels.