A female spectator
was hit in the face by the shards from a broken baseball bat at a Major League Baseball game in Boston on Friday, creating a bloody and jarring scene. She was reported to have life-threatening injuries.
Tonya Carpenter is now expected to survive but in the immediate aftermath of the gruesome injury, news reports revealed that the Boston Red Sox would offer a moment before Saturday's game vs. the Oakland Athletics on her behalf.
A moment of prayer? That has dwindled from the public scene in the decades since the Supreme Court banned official school prayer
in 1962.
A moment of silence? This terminology also seems to be being pushed out of the public lexicon of late, replaced by new wording.
As ESPN.com reports, "there was a 'moment of reflection' for Carpenter at Fenway Park before Saturday's game ... "
A cursory examination of recent media and institutional accounts of public observations of somber events shows the ballclub's gesture is far from unique. "Moment of reflection" is becoming something of a go-to phrase today:
- After last month's Amtrak derailment that killed eight people and injured close to 200, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter led what the local ABC affiliate reported was a "moment of reflection service" to remember those lost in the crash.
- The city of Irving, Texas, announced its Memorial Day observances as including "special speeches, a moment of reflection, presentation of colors, and a special performance of 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'"
- After a deadly crane collapse at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2012, the university announced that "UT Dallas student leaders are organizing a Moment of Reflection … on the campus mall to honor two construction workers who were killed July 7 in a crane collapse on campus."
The grisly accident at Friday's Red Sox game does not mark the first time the MLB franchise has been inspired to use the "r" word to mark a terrible event. In April, to note the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing,
Yahoo News reported that "Fenway Park was again the site for a powerful moment of reflection and unification."
The team released a tweet at the time noting:
Other sports organizations are using the phrasing as well.
The New York Times reported in February that the International Olympic Committee "would create a mourning area in the Olympic Village at next year’s Rio de Janeiro Games where participants could remember family or friends during a moment of reflection at the closing ceremony."
The Times reports IOC President Thomas Bach "said that a 'solemn moment of reflection' would recall events such as the deaths of 11 Israelis killed when Palestinian gunmen invaded the athletes’ village at the 1972 Munich Games."
And after the December 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings,
the National Football League announced that it "has asked home teams to observe a moment of silent reflection prior to the national anthem before this weekend's games."
Exactly when "moment of reflection" began replacing "moment of silence" in the public vernacular is uncertain, though the wording seems to have its roots in
school-prayer battles of more recent vintage, with "reflection" falling somewhere between the emotional neutrality of "silence" and the overt religiosity of "prayer."
While the phrase has not garnered much notice as it has grown in usage in the U.S., it has become a source of argument and even bemused perplexity north of the border in the wake of April's
Canadian Supreme Court ruling banning prayer before civic meetings.
The Court ruled on a case involving a Quebec city council that opened its meetings with a prayer.
The CBC reports the Ottawa City Council quickly moved to comply with the ruling by canceling its traditional opening prayer and replacing it with "a moment of personal reflection."
The city of Cornwall, Ontario, also moved to replace its opening prayer in like manner.
However, council members were having a hard time getting comfortable with the new vocabulary,
the Cornwall Standard Freeholder reports.
To replace the traditional opening prayer, City Clerk Helen Finn suggested the oath of office be recited, followed by "three 'deep calming breaths,'" the newspaper reports.
Council members didn't care for the idea, so Councillor Bernadette Clement urged that a "moment of reflection" be adapted.
The Standard Freeholder reports "this didn't completely satisfy council, as it was pointed out that the vagueness might lead someone to assume that reflection is time being used to ask guidance from a spiritual being."
Mayor Leslie O'Shaughnessy opined that "[a] moment of reflection could mean a lot of things
— how do you discipline your son when you get home?"
Councillor Elaine MacDonald, who favored the oath of office recitation, noted that a person might spend a moment of reflection reflecting "on their golf game."
"In the end," the paper reports, "it was suggested to add 'personal' to allow the reflection to take on a more individual connotation."
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