I’ve always been an avid sports fan, although not a fanatic. Swimming, football, and martial arts are some of my favorite sports to play. Some I compete in, like darts, while others are just for fun.

I am especially excited about the 2010 football (soccer) World Cup, where I am supporting my favorite team, Brazil. I first rallied behind them during the 2006 World Cup when my country, Kenya, was not represented. Brazil has won the most victories of any team in the history of the World Cup, which made me have faith in them and a strong conviction that they would win again. Cheering for Brazil led me to a valuable spiritual lesson about humility, teamwork, and the importance of having a spiritual sense in everything I engage in.

That year, Brazil consistently won all their matches up to the quarter finals when the French national team beat them hands down. When the whistle to end the match was blown, I could not believe we had lost. I was emotionally in pain, even though I was watching the game on TV from home over 1,000 miles away. Fellow fans in the stadium broke into tears at the end of the match. It was not the first time I’d observed such a stunning loss, but it was my very first experience to personally grieve a team’s loss.

Watching fans and players of France’s team celebrate their victory, and seeing their winning goal replayed on TV, blotted my mind with envy and disappointment. For minutes I sat and sank into the couch, my mind racing with regrets. What didn’t our players do right? Then I unconsciously began blaming people: The referee was unfair; the coach should have replaced so-and-so at the right time; the players should have been more aggressive. The chain of regrets was endless.

After a while I decided to halt these waves of thoughts. It was hard at first, but I began to pray about the outcome of the match. Two of Mary Baker Eddy’s statements were of great help to me. The first is from page 130 of Science and Health: “Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth. You cannot add to the contents of a vessel already full.” The second appears later in the same book: “If God, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of God, is unreal” (p. 470).

Though I could not remember these passages verbatim as they appear in the book, as I prayed I could hear them ringing in my mind. True, I needed to empty the moody waves of emotion from my mind in order for thoughts of good and calmness to reign. The turbulent thoughts and impulses I was feeling were unlike good, God; therefore, they weren’t real.

I earnestly desired to see the truth of all players as children of one God, and not as mortals driven by patriotism warring to put the ball inside the net. I wanted to see the truth of the World Cup as showcasing the unity of all countries. As I prayed, I gradually progressed in this line of thought despite the forceful impressions on TV that night.

Later, I phoned my high school French and sports teacher (a prayerful man) and explained that I felt disappointed that my team had lost. Though he supported France, he stated in a brotherly tone the importance of being resilient and learning to let go. The mental turmoil came to a standstill. I noticed how he didn’t jeer nor boast to me about how skillful France was, which was quite unusual for a fan of the opposing team.

My teacher’s input boosted my ascent in gaining a spiritual view in sports. I was able to appreciate the many spiritual qualities—like cheerfulness, strength, precision, and fair play—the players had expressed during the game. And I noticed that many of Brazil’s players were always joyful during matches (which was one of the reasons I had chosen them as my favorite team). Endeavoring to express God in sports does not compromise victory; to the contrary, it heightens us to the true spiritual sense of victory.

Sometime later, one of the players from the Brazilian team, who is also a staunch Christian, commented in an interview that football is not war. He was referencing the aggressiveness of some players on the pitch which at times results in physical confrontation. I was delighted by his remark. God isn’t in “the wind” nor in any material manifestations of force, but in the “still small voice”—the message which Love sends to the listening ear (see I Kings 19:12). Christian Science clearly differentiates between what is real and what is apparent or seeming.

Now, in the course of a match, I’ll still cheer when my team scores, but when the final whistle blows and if it happens that we’ve “lost,” I won’t mourn at all because what appears as a loss is no loss at all; in truth, the players’ identity cannot be tagged with any form of loss. I am vigilant not to allow error, or negative thinking, to “score” over my thought. It is with this larger view that I am watching the World Cup.

Blind patriotism and fanatical team loyalty can be replaced with a sense of unity and universality; jitters and agitation can give way to calm resilience and confidence. With this spiritual understanding of World Cup, my heart is buoyant with high expectations. I am looking at it as a season of spiritual enrichment!