Traveling to the Mets home opener this season, I was grateful for the immense efforts that went into providing a safe venue for 45,000 people to come together and enjoy America’s pastime in New York City. Included in my thoughts was the notion that our Pray4Mets team had the liberty to move freely, assemble, and fully embrace the day in our own special way without limitation. It was a somber start; feelings of quiet security were reinforced as my husband and I walked past pleasantly-countenanced mounted police and the K-9 patrol toward our joyous win against St. Louis.

Yesterday, one of my go-to spiritual advisors offered a prayer for Memorial Day, recognizing his church members’ ability to freely assemble and worship, and the sacrifices that have defended these rights, not dissimilar to those behind our assemblies at CitiField. ‘May I steal your prayer for Pray4Mets,’ I asked? ‘Of course,’ he said.

(It’s nice to have reached a point in brand awareness where grown men take in stride that people pray for the Mets; that’s quite a change in just three years.)

A Mets fan  friend often stops by for dinner when he come home from his work in Rwanda. ‘How are things since the genocide?’ I asked on Thursday night. ‘It’s illegal to talk about it there,’ he replied. Each time he comes home, he makes some similar, simple statement that prompts a pause and a deep breath before the conversation resumes.

Let’s recognize this American holiday, how it’s woven into our culture, and give thanks, in our own ways, for what we’ve got. Focus with me and say with intention: Let’s Go Mets.

Send your thoughts, prayers, hopes, wishes and incantations to pray4mets@gmail.com.

Maureen Edelson

Montclair, New Jersey  USA