Football?

I was at church last Sunday and a man from France was speaking.

He had moved to Senegal to work with the Senegalese people. He wanted to start a grassroots movement for sustainable agriculture.

When he first arrived in Senegal he built a fence around his house. The Senegalese people called him "the crazy white man". They couldn't understand why he would build a fence around nothing.

You must realize that Senegal is a dessert. To the Senegalese people, all they see is the dessert, they couldn't understand why a fence would be built in the middle of the dessert, but there was a reason.

The crazy white man knew he needed a fence before he could start a garden, he knew nature was not always going to be his best friend. And the crazy white man started teaching these things to the Senegalese people.

He has a passion and he is living to fulfill it.

So you might be wondering why I am rambling about this crazy white man in Senegal.

And it is only going to get more random.

So we all know Super Bowl is this Sunday.

I don't really understand or care about football, so I may have a skewed perspective on this but here is what I am thinking:

If people spent this much time, money, emotion, and planning on something that actually mattered to the world, that could actually better the world, what would our world look like?

I mean I am kind of amazed at how much is done for the Super Bowl and other various sporting events.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why we have sports, I understand the uniting factors sports can have on a society but really in the big picture of things will the Super Bowl do us any good?

After Sunday passes, what good has come from a day of football except eating and drinking too much and getting hyped up on football plays?

How can we create that kind of excitement and commitment to things that actually matter?

I mean we are totally the crazy white men/women. We spend millions of dollars on one day, we get overly excited for commercials, we scream at a TV because some dudes threw the ball right or wrong.

I realize football is mind-numbing, it is something we can put emotion into but it doesn't actually effect our life. On this Sunday most people will forget what is bothering them and live vicariously through football.

But just think if we could put that emotion, energy and money into something that could change the world....

Just try and picture it.

Remember this idea on Super Bowl Sunday and try to reach out and do a little good in midst of the football chaos!

We have the potential to be like the crazy white man that moved to Senegal and lived for something bigger than himself.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. -Ralph Waldo Emerson