What are you a fan of?

I've always been a big Notre Dame football fan. I watch every game, keep up with recruiting in the offseason, and ride the peaks and valleys of the wins and losses that come with being a sports fan.

The word FAN became popular in reference to baseball enthusiats. It's a shortened version of the word FANATIC. The meaning of fanatic is where things get interesting:

"marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion"

Sunday morning I was reading social media where Notre Dame football fans were sharing their thoughts about the loss to Stanford the night before. And wow, talk about uncritical devotion. Many Notre Dame fans were expressing their enthusiasm for the team through vicious attacks on the Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, and the administration that continues to employ him. Reading them I could feel the raw emotions behind their words:

hate, anger, ill will, furor....

Here's an even deeper look at the word fan - the origin of the word fanatic is the Latin word Fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired." It originally pertained to a temple or sacred place.

I got to thinking about that irony this morning. How many things are we fans of - fanatic about - that take us away from things we are divinely inspired to do? Or, asked another way, what would happen if we took the emotions we pour into our fanaticism for our sports teams and applied it to our love for God?

I've come a long way with my sports fanaticism. My wife would likely suggest I could be even more critical about my devotion there. So I'll definitely keep the questions in mind as we enter college bowl and NFL playoff and Super Bowl season.

What we are fans of, and how we express our fanaticism, says a lot about who we are.