c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) I am waiting my turn for a haircut. The Twins are pasting the Yankees. All is well. Over crowd fervor on his television, the barber asks a 10-year-old customer, “So, are you a baseball fan?”

“Nah,” he replies. “I like basketball.”

I can’t believe my ears. So, here’s my plan:

The Boston Red Sox confound skeptical fans and win the American League title. End-of-season blaming along the Fenway is delayed another week. In the National League, the Chicago Cubs bring joy to their long-suffering faithful. Their miserly owner forgets to harass fans watching games from nearby rooftops.

Now two of baseball’s earliest teams are playing the World Series in its two oldest surviving ballparks. It is a replay of 1918. Forget the expansion to California. Forget Florida’s brash assumption of summertime ball.

Sound good? Well, my plan goes farther.

First, baseball’s Grand Poobahs move all World Series games to daytime to prevent frostbite. Second, the president declares national holidays, so that all Americans can enjoy the “national pastime.” Forget Iraq. Forget layoffs.

Why stop there? A daytime Series played under clouds of war and joblessness is like the 1930s. So men rush to buy fedoras, rescuing the hat industry. Women bob their hair and stay home, thus restoring nature’s perfect balance, at least as enshrined in faux-religious nostalgia.

In the spirit of turning back the clock, Hispanic players adopt Anglo names like Cobb and Johnson, and dark-skinned players wear white-face. City and suburban men take their sons out to the countryside to find Philco radios playing on front porches. Girls play with dolls.

My plan doesn’t include resurrecting Blatz beer or Oertels 92. But for sure, plastic bottles will need to be hidden, as will computers, televisions, microwaves, cell phones, credit cards, hot tubs and weed whackers.

For seven days _ make that 12, to allow for travel by railroad _ America will be restored to that pre-modern state which many consider divinely inspired. No alternative lifestyles, no uppity minorities, no prickliness about industrial effluent or Christian prayers in school or Mosaic tablets in courthouses, no rock music, no divorce, no skirts in the pulpit _ and no little boys in barber chairs preferring basketball.

The economy, of course, will collapse. With the move back to one-car households, auto sales will tank. Home mortgages requiring two incomes will go into foreclosure. The Dow will drop 98 percent to 149.42, its 1935 high. Hospitals will lose half of their physicians. Courtrooms will clog, as people like Justices Ginsburg, O’Connor and Thomas get back where women and blacks belong. Labor strife will resume. Closets will be full of people hiding who they are.

Nostalgia buffs will be pleased at this denial of reality. But will God be pleased? Now, there’s an interesting question. Was 1935 closer to God’s ideal? Many seem to think so, in their projection of nostalgia ethics onto God. Or would God say, “Forget about the 1930s, keep going backward. Back before slaves were emancipated, back before explorers, back before literacy and movable type, back before science and medicine, back before clean water.”

How far back? Could be a problem. Not back to the beginning, because that pair turned out poorly. Not to the era of Moses, for God left those ingrates in Sinai. Not to David, that adulterer. In fact, there’s no safe place to hide. Everywhere God looks, God sees hardness of heart, and not a single law, commandment, statute or doctrine has succeeded in preventing it.

As happened to daytime baseball played east of the Mississippi, life has moved on from every former era, both the ones we cherish and the ones we regret. Humanity’s restless journey is always onward, and so is God’s.

Every new day sees hardness of heart, like warclouds and economic injustice. Every new day sees signs of grace, like a black pitcher blowing 97 mph fastballs past an Hispanic batter in today’s Yankee Stadium, where fans worry about terrorists but show up anyway.

God is alive, humanity is alive, hopes are alive, failures are alive, people are connecting to each other in new ways, and God continues to surprise us, because life and God never stand still.

DEA END EHRICH