This is supposed to be fun

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

I make no claims of being a scripture scholar, or even an especially pious person. But as I've been doing a lot of thinking about the college sports industry, my role in it, and other big-picture issues, and a particular scripture has repeatedly come to mind...and not completely because it was one of the first ones I ever memorized as a kid.

In the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi, 2:25 reads:

I share this not because I want to launch into a theological discussion about the unique perspective Latter-Day Saint theology has on the concept of Original Sin or the story of Adam and Eve. I share this not because I want to do the youth Sunday School bit about riffing into the theological differences between 'Joy' and 'Happiness". I am a pretty average Sunday School teacher myself, and given that I know multiple actual priests or people with divinity degrees read this newsletter, I'm not here to launch into a discourse about agency or redemption or anything else discussed in this particular chapter.

It's the later part of this verse that has been stuck in my head for...honestly most of the last year. According to the theological tradition in which I was raised, and one that I at least try to uphold now, we were not put on this earth to break rocks in sorrow and drudgery. We were not put on this earth to chase dopamine hits on ChartMogul, or have our sense of self smashed to smithereens on Twitter.

We are that we might have joy.

And if we're here to have joy, well, we ought to be looking for joy in the things where we spent the majority of our time and energy, no?

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