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Who or what is truly important in this life?

I recently received a copy of a newspaper published by a well-known religious organization. On the cover was a short story without pictures about a regional meeting of religious leaders. However, most of the space was dedicated to a long story with color pictures about the sports achievements of this organization.

I asked myself what was truly important for this organization: its leaders and beliefs, or sports. After reviewing the paper, the answer was clear: sports were more important than leadership or preaching.

I asked myself the same question once again just a few days ago, when I attended an “important” event, where “important” people listened to an “important” guest talking about “important” issues.

The meeting was attended by men wearing expensive business suits and women wearing designer’s dresses. All of them carried more than one cell phone, and name tag with their names, position in their companies, and name of the company.

Because I was surrounded by so many “important” people, I did the only reasonable thing I could do. I moved to a corner and began to observe around. And I observed two things. First, what it is “important” for “important” people is mostly to talk about them, with alcohol in second place.

Second, I noticed that these “important” people attend parties, meetings, galas, banquets, and awards ceremonies, but you will seldom see them at other places or community activities.

In fact, I don’t remember seeing any of them at a recent meeting with families affected by deportation, where more than 100 people asked local clergy for prayers, saying that was the only way they could find strength.

And I haven’t seen any of them either at a recent march to stop the deportation of people whose immigration paperwork is still being processed, including a mother and grandmother from Denver.

Certainly, I don’t recall seeing anybody wearing an expensive business suit or dress at the breakfast for the homeless in downtown Denver, where every other week more than 500 people, including young children and senior citizens, come to receive free food.

In the same way that for the religious newspaper I mentioned above sports were more important that religion, it seems that for these “important” people status is more important than the welfare of their own community.
I am not criticizing anybody. I am just describing what I saw. This is not an exercise in self-justification to show how “ethically superior” I am, or why I am not “important.” Quite the opposite: I don’t see myself as superior to anyone, ethically or in other aspects.
Whatever the case, the question remains: if “important” people don’t care about “less important” people, what then is truly important in this life?

As an answer, we can quote two inscriptions written more than 1,800 years on a tomb in Israel. The first one says, “No one is immortal,” indicating that one day all of us, important or not, will leave this planet. The second inscription simply says, “Good luck on your resurrection.”

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