Dungy and Daniel

I'm a widow but not a football widow. Things NFL are arcane to me, and I'd never heard of Tony Dungy. Then one day recently I was washing dishes to the drone of NPR and he was being interviewed. The occasion was his unexpected retirement (he's only 55) as a head football coach. There was talk of his Indianapolis Colts' Super Bowl win against the Chicago Bears in 2007, and of his 10-straight playoff appearances.

Something was different enough in the coach's manner to arrest my attention in the midst of soap bubbles. I leaned in. Then I heard it, in response to a question about his reason for stepping down. He answered---but not ostentatiously, just as natural as you please---that "the Lord" had signaled this career move.

I suddenly had a new insight into Daniel of lion den fame:

"When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously" (Daniel 6:10).

Natural, not ostentatious. Daniel didn't change a thing. It's not as if he decided to start praying at an open window in flagrant defiance of the king's decree against it; he had always done that so he just kept doing it. The man he was in normal times outside the glaring spotlight is the same man he was in times of persecution or public scrutiny. No need to turn on proselytizing like a faucet. Just as natural as you please.

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