{"id":23566,"date":"2026-06-19T08:28:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/a-lifetime-cheering-for-the-knicks-taught-me-to-embrace-pilgrimage\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T08:28:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:58:56","slug":"a-lifetime-cheering-for-the-knicks-taught-me-to-embrace-pilgrimage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/a-lifetime-cheering-for-the-knicks-taught-me-to-embrace-pilgrimage\/","title":{"rendered":"A lifetime cheering for the Knicks taught me to embrace pilgrimage\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><iframe title=\"Everlit Audio Player\" src=\"https:\/\/everlit.audio\/embeds\/artl_mabyJHjkbNK?ui_title_intro=Listen+now%3A&amp;client=wp&amp;client_version=3.2.3\" width=\"100%\" height=\"136px\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(RNS) \u2014 As the Knicks faithful thronged Manhattan for the team\u2019s championship parade Thursday (June 18), I marveled at the crowd \u2014 exultant, thankful, awestruck \u2014 and the many ways the Knicks title run feels like something sacred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have my own confession to make. I haven\u2019t been to Lourdes. I haven\u2019t circled the Kaaba. I haven\u2019t walked the El Camino. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But as of June 8, in the year 2026, I have been to Madison Square Garden for an NBA Finals game. Does a visit to the \u201cmecca of basketball\u201d make me a pilgrim?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m a New York native, and for as long as I can remember, I\u2019ve been a Knicks fan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I didn\u2019t grow up feeling connected to religion. In the absence of sacred ceremony and identity, I filled the gaps with sports. The closest I came to seeing somebody walk on water was Christmas night in 1984 when, at the age of 10, I was there, at the Garden, witnessing Knicks great Bernard King score 60 points (40 in the first half alone). For much of my early childhood, my crayon illustration of a dunking King stayed taped to the wall next to my pillow. Over the past two decades, I\u2019ve transmitted this allegiance to my kids, even though we live in the land of our longtime tormentors, the Chicago Bulls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over that same span of time, the Knicks, and their fans, wandered through the basketball wilderness. Moribund. Hopeless. More than once, my son (the next-generation diehard of our kids) asked why we rooted for such a sad-sack franchise. Faith is belief in things unseen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the past few years, the Knicks did improve. Yes, breaking hearts remained an annual occurrence, but at least we were no longer an NBA punch line.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then, quite unexpectedly, came this spring\u2019s serendipitous, gleeful Knicks playoff run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4263740\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 750px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4263740\" src=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-427x284.jpg 427w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-807x538.jpg 807w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-NBA-Knicks-Spurs1-380x253.jpg 380w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text edd-enabled\"><span class=\"caption\">New York Knicks fans celebrate during a watch party inside Central Park during Game 4 of the NBA Finals basketball series between the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, June 10, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo\/Heather Khalifa)<\/span><span class=\"credit\"\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After some soul-searching, I bought two tickets for Game 3 for my son and me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At a recent dinner, talking with parents of our daughter\u2019s classmate about their recent journey to visit Islam\u2019s sacred sites in Saudi Arabia, it struck me \u2014 maybe this MSG trip was more like a pilgrimage than just another (significant) purchase.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just what makes a pilgrimage? How and why does travel turn sacred?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pilgrimage has long been historically and typically religious. Millennia ago, Jews journeyed to celebrate annual pilgrimage festivals at Jerusalem\u2019s sacred center. The Gospels record Jesus\u2019 own pilgrimages to Jerusalem, as a tween and then again as a young man. Over the centuries to come, Christian believers would make their way there to retrace his steps. Coptics and Armenians would get tattooed to memorialize their pilgrimages. Literally hundreds of millions of devoted Hindus convene for the Kumbh Mela every dozen years. Buddhist practitioners flock to the Buddha\u2019s birthplace, the site of his enlightenment, where he gave his first sermon and shared the Four Noble Truths.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We live in an age where religious commitment has declined significantly. Yet pilgrimage survives. Graceland, the Grand Canyon, Ellis Island. Once-in-a-lifetime trips. Journeys of personal exploration and collective meaning-making. A tribe of believers, motivated by shared history, seeking an avenue toward transcendence, a deeper connection to someone or something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sacred, secular or somewhere in between, pilgrimages are journeys of intention. And they have some common traits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pilgrimages require time, commitment and fidelity to something beyond ourselves. Pilgrimages are usually crowded. They require patience and planning. They offer an experience of community and camaraderie, spectacle and celebration. And they\u2019re often multigenerational family affairs, a way to meaningfully connect past and present, to walk in the footsteps of ancestors, to feel their presence, gone but not forgotten.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers who study \u201cthe psycho-social impacts\u201d of the Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, spotlight <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.spiritualinnovation.org\/spiritual-innovation-briefing-pilgrimage\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the ways pilgrimage creates<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u201ca sense of achievement and satisfaction; a desire for cooperative inter-group relationships; a deeper sense of unity with other [adherents]; and feelings of spiritual resilience and renewal. They also report increases in charitable giving and community involvement upon return.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Undergirding the whole process is a kind of inevitable, essential sacrifice: physical, emotional, time, and let\u2019s face it \u2014 especially with Knicks final tickets \u2014 financial!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research on the motivations of pilgrims reveals a desire for belonging and community, an opportunity for gratitude, a hoped-for healing, a sense of peace \u2014 and shopping. Sometimes walking, sometimes crawling on their knees, over horseback and rail, boat and plane, there\u2019s an age-old history of spiritual tourism. People have long spent some portion of their accumulated resources to fulfill holy obligations, and pilgrimage has long been an economic engine for the community surrounding the destination \u2014 and on the way there, and on the way back home, a chance to trade, barter, experiment and explore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New York was a sea of Knicks\u2019 blue and orange when my son and I arrived. Strangers were fist-bumping. The city was buzzing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On most nearby streets and inside the arena, fans were foaming at the mouth. Generations of deprivation, decades of ineptitude \u2014 all percolating to a rapid boil that evening. Geeked up, hollering, I\u2019d teleported to a sports fan\u2019s \u201cKnirvana.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Knicks lost Game 3. Still, I\u2019m happy to report that my son and I had an absolute blast. Neither outcome nor expense impacted our enjoyment. Though 50-odd rows above the court, we yelled like we were courtside. We shared a few exorbitantly priced beers in souvenir cups. And, once the buzzer sounded, we commiserated hoarsely with our fellow fans across urinal partitions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, I\u2019m not the only fan who\u2019s felt something approaching the sacred around sports. As author Erin McKeown has written, \u201cLike places of worship, fields \u2026 have community, ritual, and tradition. Standing for decades, they offer consistency and stability while our lives change around them. \u2026 (And) sports venues offer a type of diversity of camaraderie you don\u2019t find anywhere else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So often, sports can seem to be in competition with matters of the spirit: Sunday mornings spent tailgating rather than praising; kids\u2019 travel sports taking precedent over the most solemn days on our sacred calendars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But sometimes, once in a long while, the two converge \u2014 and one can say, with a mix of humility and pride, joy and thanksgiving, that they serve a shared purpose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Knicks staged an improbable comeback to win Game 4. And they closed out the series with a gritty road win in Game 5.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New York erupted. Strangers embraced. There was dancing in the streets. Adults wept. That goes, too, for me, watching a basement TV in Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the Knicks won it all this past Saturday night, my experience was less jubilation than calm. A soaking-in of the moment. Memories flooded back. The anxious, drunken energy of the Garden in the mid-<span>\u2019<\/span>80s. The catchphrases \u2014 \u201cYes! And it counts!\u201d \u2014 of long-gone announcers. Time spent shooting hoops on busted rims with old friends. We were all, for a moment, kids again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In his reflections on pilgrimage, Father Richard Rohr invites us pilgrims to \u201cbe like a child who can approach everything with an attitude of wonder and awe and faith.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The biblical Hebrews spent 40 years wandering the wilderness of Sinai. The Knicks took 53 years to get back to the promised land of an NBA title.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So \u2014 am I a pilgrim? Yeah, I guess so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think what I learned about pilgrimage \u2014 all the anticipation and heartache, the travel and expense, the myth-transmission and community-building \u2014 is that it\u2019s the journey, as much as the destination, that makes us pilgrims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>(Tom Levinson helps families explore the intersections of money and meaning. He is the creator and co-host of the award-winning podcast \u201cMoney, Meet Meaning.\u201d The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n        <\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2026\/06\/18\/a-lifetime-cheering-for-the-knicks-taught-me-to-embrace-pilgrimage\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) \u2014 As the Knicks faithful thronged Manhattan for the team\u2019s championship parade Thursday (June 18), I marveled at the crowd \u2014 exultant, thankful, awestruck \u2014 and the many ways the Knicks title run feels like something sacred.\u00a0 I have my own confession to make. I haven\u2019t been to Lourdes. I haven\u2019t circled the Kaaba. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}