Play-by-Pray

There I was in the steamed-up van with six kids on Super Bowl Sunday. I'd taken my daughter and a neighbor to their hockey game, then stopped with them at the grocery store to collect provisions for The Game, and picked up my two sons and two of their friends from an afternoon of basketball. We were a bulging vehicle, but a happy one – anticipating the comforts of home and the exciting evening to come. My husband, however, was not home waiting for us with fires burning. He was at his usual Sunday evening location: church.

My husband is the rector of an Episcopal church. His job is multifaceted and rewarding; it also regularly conflicts with the sports schedules of the rest of the family. He has evening meetings a couple of times a week, appointments and sermon writing on Saturdays, and, of course, Sundays are booked. Rob is also a fine athlete. He rowed crew in college and continues to be a sculler, a cyclist, and a cross-country skier. He's in much better shape than most men his age. To him, though, athletics are a part of a much larger spiritual life. Competitive sports are fine in their place, but they ought not to squeeze out the little time for reflection, or for doing simply nothing, that we might have if we claimed it – especially on the Sabbath. Looking at the broader culture, he sees families dashing from one essential event to the next, and he's concerned about the health of all of our souls.

I am one of the ones doing the dashing. Believing in the many benefits of sports and not being religious myself, I sign the kids up for the teams, do most of the driving, and hope for as few collisions with church as possible. Baseball, basketball, and football have been very cooperative, with hardly ever a Sunday morning intrusion. Soccer and ice hockey, on the other hand, tread on holy ground regularly. Our daughter is sometimes able to make it back in time for Sunday school after a 7 a.m. game, but too often she either faces off or sits in the pew – not both.

Clearly, my husband and I ought to agree on a policy and stick with it, so that each weekend doesn't present another wave of conflicts. But a firm policy is proving to be frustratingly elusive.

Rob has said in no uncertain terms that he would like the kids to be in church every single Sunday. Period. At the same time, he recognizes that team loyalty is important, too. In particular, he sees that playing hockey has been good for our daughter as she heads into her teenage years, and he wants her to continue. Even though I never went to church as a child, I respect the role religion plays in our children's lives. Going to a service gives them time to be still, to listen to sermons that result from their father's deep thinking, to hear music that's different from what's on the radio, and to be part of a community.

And I recall discussing this very issue of church attendance in our premarital counseling sessions. Yes, of course, I would be willing to raise our children in his faith, I said. Back then, I didn't anticipate that our 12-year-old son would feel that his life depended on going to basketball tryouts on Palm Sunday morning. (He didn't, and he lived.) So I will go on cramming balls and pucks into the liturgical calendar, and Rob will continue to pray for a national moratorium on sports on Sunday. It may be that this is something you can't learn in premarital counseling, but only in a marriage: how to stay true to your individual natures without being too rigid. Rob can see how much our kids gain from their dedication to their sports, and I can see that we do, in fact, need quiet pockets of time together – to acknowledge the power of the transcendent as well as just to be a family. It's a little bit like what my brothers used to teach me about catching a football: You have to learn how to give with it a little.

Polly Ingraham lives in Amherst. E-mail comments to coupling@globe.com.