To the Editor:
A recent edition of the Daily Sun had an AP article identifying that at least 56 spectators were killed at a soccer game in Guinea when a stampede resulted from spectators protesting a referee’s call. This is an example of our human condition that exhibits excessive identity with and commitment to idols and heroes. Although this is an example of a sports team, the same fanaticism is evident with individual sports heroes, political parties, politicians, pseudo-science and Hollywood and religious celebrities.
In one sense our lives can be lived in an unreal, fantasy realm where we elevate the unreal above the real and make temporary things very important that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. In our real lives, we should elevate our identity with and commitment to family, friends, civic and religious community, and ideologies that are beneficial to others as well as ourselves.
When a Pharisee asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law,” He stated the following in Matthew 22:37-49.
“‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Bill Nitardy
Village of Sunset Pointe
