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This post is mostly football analysis, so if you’re not interested in theology, read something else.

I was having this interesting conversation about magic the other day. In the Firkin, of all places, which is an English theme pub I dislike except for the big screen. For some reason I kept coming back to that Tolstoy essay at the end of War and Peace where he basically says that what we call ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ freedoms – or ‘freedom-of’ and ‘freedom-from’ are the same deal, it’s a matter of form vs. content. I always liked this idea, particularly now when freedom is such a poor, harangued word. Rather than a commodity (or a big stick wielded by trigger-happy troops), liberty is a pattern, a shape – a balance. And Tolstoy, Russia’s own little bodhisattva, reckoned no-one was free until we all were.

Magic, which I will always associate with poetic justice, natural balance, and the Way, is the same kind of power as freedom. It’s never a power over another being. When it tries to be, it backfires. Just look at the Netherlands-Portugal match. The atrophy of dignity that went on was totally a matter of losing balance, perspective, and a grip on the gentleman’s agreement that is the world cup. It was about dominance, not flow. As Ursula Le Guin says, it is when we lose our connection to one another and the tao that we end up in the alienated relationship of master-slave. (I'm paraphrasing from a line in City of Illusions).

Magic, or whatever you want to call it, is a context – a form. It is a shape in which we move freely. Claiming this is a restriction on freedom is nonsensical. It’s like saying you’re not free cause you can’t grow another head, or invent your own unique language, or deny your past. The universal order is another level of ‘how,’ far above culture. It’s not about getting permission, or about will.

So where does faith come in? Well, what magic acknowledges is that we are a part of that universal order (the Tao, or whatever). A prayer is not about begging a celestial parent for mercy. It is about understanding that we are a part of a big network of interconnections; what in facilitation circles we call ‘power-with’. I can’t ask for something from the stars/gods because I *am* the stars and the gods. This kind of understanding is so overwhelming that it is referred to by the Sufi poets as ‘being drunk,’ which, unfortunately, is an analogy. But it can make you high, a bit like football.

In football, and life itself, there is always suffering, which is the clincher for most of these hokey spiritual-balance notions. Probably cause there’s a lot of it about, which makes you think twice about the universe having any kind of order. There’s a lot of people working on injustice, though, quietly helping each other. I don’t know if this is any more natural than competing with each other. I would like to think so, but the evidence is against it. Some argue that suffering is necessary to know god, but some would like you to tie them to a post and flog them. Football, unlike many sports, has no respect for the martyr. What it does respect is groupness.

Football at this level is an art and a magic: it is a collective process which seeks beauty and flow. When you watch a great game, there is a feeling of participation not replicated by any other sport. I mentioned in my last post the way that people have a stake in my creative process, and I feel like that about Australia and the World Cup generally. It’s not nationalism, it’s a natural sense of involvement in that search for beauty and flow which makes life meaningful.

What I particularly like about the Australian team is their grasp of football as a narrative. They have such an awareness of the story of the game. The wronged feeling in the first half. The struggle for justice. The goal in the last ten minutes, all of which is replicated on the bigger scale of the last 32 years. It’s a great story, and I care about what happens. I heard the Belgians voted on who to support since they’re not in the running, and came up with us, so at least one other country thinks it’s a good story too.

Our loss on Monday night was in keeping with this narrative, and that’s why I’m okay with it, even though I did shed a tear at first. We can return home with no loss of dignity. We are able to forget that we failed to score, despite having many chances and Italy being a man down. We can forget our shortcomings, our missed opportunities, because there was no way that was a penalty. The story says we were robbed, and the story saves us from losing.

Stories don’t fix suffering in the world, which is probably my biggest issue with writing them. Neither does football. But what they do at the very least is distract us from our suffering, even when these illusions of globalism are really just polished imperial trinkets. I wish it was all true, though. I wish Liberia and Palestine had as much of a shot as Brazil. I wish this collective art form was more important than money and national pride. Sometimes, just the possibility of this is enough. It expands that pattern in which we move, expands our potential. It's a great story. It’s magic.

I am switching my allegiance to the Ukraine, in anticipation of another heartbreak.