How Travis Kelce upped his game courting Taylor Swift

Certified romantic Tory Baucum is swept off his feet by how the celebrity romance unfolded.

Tory Baucum

Tory Baucum is the director of the Benedictine Center for Family Life, Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas.

A montage shows Taylor swift leaning and singing into a microphone. And, Travis Kelce in his team's kit.

Swift: Ronald S Woan Wikpedia; Kelce: All Pro Reels, Flickr.

If you live on planet earth, you no doubt have heard of our now famous local love story: Kansas City Chiefs tight end player Travis Kelce is courting pop sensation Taylor Swift. One can read multiple accounts of this special love story on the Internet. (One of my favorites was written by London's The Guardian.) I don’t intend to repeat this well-known narrative. Rather, I wish to add commentary from what my wife calls a certified “Catholic Romantic”, or what my students call me, “a lover of human love.”

From the outset, please don’t get me wrong. I do not mean to canonize Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce or propose that their relationship is the ideal. I merely want to notice some very healthy things about it.

I tip my hand in the opening sentence. I describe the relationship as “courtship” not “dating.” Courtship differs from dating in terms of its intention, methods and goal. A man courts a woman whenever he pursues her seriously for a romantic relationship that is opened to the exclusiveness of marriage. The intent (serious) and goal (exclusive) determines the methods.

They met on common turf with uncommon talent. But she first made him work “for the right to party.”

After Ms. Swift declined Mr. Kelce’s unimaginative “I’m just a good ole boy” friendship bracelet, he decided to up his game – or better – run his own route. He invited Swift to return to Arrowhead Stadium to watch him “light up the stage” just as she had done three months earlier. She accepted this time. They met on common turf with uncommon talent. But she first made him work “for the right to party.”

Courtship requires work, which brings clarity to the relationship. Ends determine methods.

Another difference between courtship and dating is that it’s a family affair. Persons are more than individuals; we are social creatures who live, move and have our being in webs of relationships. We cannot know each other truly or deeply apart from those webs that create and sustain us. At the first two Chiefs games Ms. Swift attended, she was seen cheering alongside Mr. Kelce’s mom. After those central relationships have been honored, the widening circle of friends are introduced. And good friends know their role: circle the couples relationship and then face the crowd.

Kelce’s teammate Patrick Mahomes, as usual, threaded the needle, saying:

“She’s good people. Now let’s let them alone.”

What Kelce recently told reporters was refreshing. “It feels like I was on top of the world after the Super Bowl and right now I’m even more on top of the world,” he said. And when asked about having to navigate so much public interest in his relationship, he said, “You’ve got a lot of people who care about Taylor, and for good reason.” Excellent answer.

Finally, not all courtships end in marriage. And if this one doesn’t it is not a failure. If the couple loves each other well they will leave the relationship better for having known each other. Courtship is always a growth in self-knowledge by way of self-donation. They will grow as they learn to give of themselves. May they give of themselves and by so doing learn to make their love work.

As others have already said, this is the best catch of Travis Kelce’s life. And I, for one, hope he never lets her go.

This article was first published as: The Kelce Courtship of Taylor Swift, on the Benedict College web site.

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25 September 2023

4 min read

The challenge of filling your blank page or keeping it empty

The start of a sabbatical sets Ian Hamlin thinking through the tension between contemplation and action.

Ian Hamlin

Ian Hamlin has been the minister of a Baptist church since 1994. He previously worked in financial services.

A notebook is open at two blank pages. a pen rests across the page.s.

Photo by Mike Tinnion on Unsplash

The famed anxiety inducing nemesis of any writer or creative, the ever-daunting blank page. Well, I’ve bought myself a new notebook, so I have a literal open page in front of me, but also something more.

I’m starting a three-month sabbatical from my role as a Baptist minister. Stepping down from my day-to-day responsibilities of work, but also, to a degree, away from the basic structures that define my life; the people, purpose and rhythm of, not only what I do, but who I am. It’s a weird sort of job like that.

What would you do with three months off? From work, family commitments, whatever it is that defines your day to day ordinarily? Well, buy a notebook, obviously, but after that?

I’m conscious, of course, that this is a rare privilege, a consequence, I guess, of the strange link between a professionalised clergy and academia from days past, but also, a recognition of the all-encompassing nature of the role. Maybe, because of that, it’s also a real challenge, a true ‘blank page’.

The first instinct, I guess, is to take a break, to stop, to breathe. That’s undeniably good, but how long for? Is that it? At what point does stopping and breathing become lazy indulgence? I’ve been reading quite a lot lately, perhaps subconsciously preparing for these months, about taking time out, resting, slowing down. Often, these thoughts have been expressed as an exploration of the notion of ‘Sabbath’ that Judeo-Christian notion of keeping a period of time, a day a week, special, sacred even. This, of course, is the route from which ‘sabbaticals’ have grown, not so much the ivory towers and quadrangles after all, but more the Hebrew prophets and itinerant Jewish preachers of ancient days, seeking to find the rhythms of a fulfilled life There’s John Mark Comer’s ubiquitous The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which seems to have touched a cultural nerve, but also Ruth Haley Barton’s Invitation to Solitude and Silence. Then, out of the blue, I was invited to reflect again on Walter Brueggemann’s sense of Sabbath as:

‘the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption, and the endless pursuit of private well-being’.

He also observed that, recognizing just how we, like multiple generations before us, each in their own way, are utterly enmeshed in systems and structures designed, not so much for our well-being but rather the benefit of others,

‘the departure into restfulness is both urgent and difficult, for our motors are set to run at brick-making speed.’

(A reference to one of those earliest structures, highlighted in the Bible, where Egypt’s Pharaoh had Hebrew slaves building ever larger structures, to assuage their growing thoughts of freedom.)

Most recently of all, I’ve been struck, by following Pete Grieg’s pilgrimage walk from Iona to Lindisfarne, and the passing comment that the original Celtic monks, in making the same journey, eschewed the offer of horses to ride, preferring to walk, fearing that the increased pace of travel might cause them to miss something.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots, I’m convinced I’m caught up in a whole range of hectic, consumerist structures, and I’m often tired, so rest, gets a big tick from me. At least I think it does, but barely do I sit down, and I’m feeling restless again. How long can/should I keep this up? There are so many things to do, opportunities to explore, people to please. I need to justify this privilege of time and space.

His speaking, his marching, his campaigning and protesting, even his sitting, was driven with a passion and an urgency that was infectious, and effective.

And then there’s that ever-present sense within me, my natural instinct if you will, true, I’m sure, of many. That I like the idea of contemplation, the need for it even, but, actually, I’m more driven by activism, by getting stuff done. The focal point of my whole break, planned for quite a while now, is a trip to the USA to follow the life of one of my spiritual heroes, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Now, there’s an activist if ever there was one. His speaking, his marching, his campaigning and protesting, even his sitting, was driven with a passion and an urgency that was infectious, and effective. His consistent rage against injustice has been a call to arms, both to his immediate contemporaries, and generations subsequently, to get up, go out and do. Ultimately, of course, he poured out his whole life in the cause. It’s taking me an age to read a few preparatory biographies of him, stimulated as I am from every page, challenged to act, to never let injustice rule while I have voice and agency.

So, there we have it, another paradox, in the complicated business of being the person I’m meant to be, realizing the best of God’s investment in me. The conflict between rest and exploration, being and doing, contemplation and activism. I imagine we are all drawn to a certain place on that spectrum.

Blank pages, freed up days and diaries, only serve to underline what we already are. But, I suspect, we can all also hear the call to either end of the range; to be stirred to action by the things that break the heart of God, and to lay down our burdens, take upon ourselves the easier yoke, and live increasingly in ‘the unforced rhythms of grace’. Maybe, to start with at least, listening to that call, recognizing the tension, while not allowing it to create pressure in us, is enough. Hearing, praying, scribbling my first, semi coherent, thoughts on that vast empty page, making myself another coffee, and wondering what I might do next.