Math

I read where the USA is ranked first in the world in Sports and twenty-fifth in Math.  I am not surprised.  You get what you pay for.  You pay for priorities.  We are obsessed with sports and winning.  Universities, and lower level schools spend lots on facilities and programs.  They say it makes money and gets alumni enthused.  What is the money then spent for?  Apparently, not to get us better at math.  Other countries that are not so terrific in sports are better than us in math.  Very few of the people who spend time at amateur sports, if they are amateur, ever go on to make a living at playing a game.

I suppose the person from MIT who walks into a bar and says the school has a great math department and all the students are getting good jobs/careers in math-based areas, would not create much interest.  For that matter, the MIT person would not bother going to a bar.  We think that the government is supposed to create jobs, or business create jobs.  For whom?  The problem starts way early in one's life.  We have plenty of people who could do well in Math.  Who pays?  Who encourages?  Math has become counter cultural to TV, videos, mindless texting, and, yes, sports.

Is it not the same in religion?  If you don't start early with that little soul, you won't get much help from the institutional church when the child is grown up.  If soccer becomes your Sunday focus, you have chosen the wider, easier road in today's culture.  I was lucky.  As a child, we had no organized sports, much less sports complexes, and no TV to speak of.  We did homework.  We said our prayers, as a family.