One of the livelier kitchen table debates in our house is around team vs. individual.

In the real world (not the kitchen), of course, both are important — the team and the individual.

But in the spiritual world, it may be that sports teams have much less lasting influence than individual musical pursuits for children.

1. The obvious Sunday problem.  A great part of the secularization and disappearance of the Sabbath in suburban culture is the scheduling of team sports on Sundays.  Nothing new here — we all know that.
2. Musical practice re-wire the brain.  Now that’s something new.  Recent studies in brain science indicate that musical practice actually re-wires the brain.  In “Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning,” Gary Marcus writes: “Musical expertise is … ‘deliberate practice,’ a constant sense of self-evaluation, of focusing on one’s weaknesses rather than simply fooling around and playing to one’s strengths.”   The step from musical practice to spiritual practice, while apparent, isn’t guaranteed of course.  But it does create a predisposition.
3. Music imprints a connection to a spiritual community.  Our early childhood experiences are lasting impressions. A child’s remembrance of Sunday can be of shagging flies in left field or singing in the choir.

This isn’t a case against sports.  I drove by Baker Field in West Roxbury the other night — where I played Little League as a kid.  And I could feel the ache of longing for those times playing under the lights on a Friday night, the grass so perfectly green, the bases so perfectly white, the infield so perfectly groomed.

This was on my way to the Green Briar in Brighton to play music.  If I tried to throw a ball from the outfield now, I’d end up in the hospital.  But music has never left.  It’s still the hotwire to God.