Everyone loves a parade, the saying goes, and people have been lined up for hours to watch the victory procession through the streets of Toronto for the basketball Raptors. After years of moving toward respectability as a team the Raps finally won a championship and the city went wild. Officials have closed down much of the downtown to traffic so that the parade can wend it's way from the CNE to Nathan Phillips Square. How many people will attend -- a million, more? One of our daughters works for the real estate arm of the Tannebaum family empire which owns a big stake in the Raptors, so she will have an excellent viewing site with co-workers and I hope she has a lot of fun. Our six-year-old grandson is a bit jealous of his aunt.
I followed the Raptors faithfully all year, often staying up late to follow games from the West Coast. Then, during the final game in Toronto fans cheered the injury to Warriors star Kevin Durant and I turned off the TV. I didn't watch the title-clinching game a few nights later. Suddenly it all felt like gladiators in the ring of the Roman coliseum and I no longer had the heart for it.
Parades can be wonderful celebrations of change and hard-won achievement, and they seem to be intrinsically part of the human condition. We love to gather for many reasons, including worship, and the more the merrier -- literally.
Parades can also be used to manipulate people or demonstrate power. Those on the sidelines, beware. Strangely, I think of Palm Sunday with the imperial Roman parade into Jerusalem from the west and Jesus' ragtag procession from the east. Pilate on a military charger, Jesus on the colt of a donkey. Sometimes we need the counter-cultural parades to remind us that "all that glisters is not gold," that what we assume is permanent is fleeting, and that there is always a cost to victory.
I'll probably tune in for a few minutes to watch the festivities, being retired and all. Go Raptors!?
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