Sunday, February 28, 2010

Peace active in Olympics

Many of us saw the 2010 Olympic champions stand on those podiums and receive their medals: gold, silver, and bronze. The medals honored these athletes for their a level of commitment and determination that we all can admire. Certainly they make their parents, coaches, and country proud, but perhaps more importantly they make the world proud. There would be no Olympics without the thousands of competitors. There would be no Olympics if the competitors did not train and make sacrifices to be in the best shape of their life for these two weeks. And there would be no Olympics without the sportsmanship that transcends cultural and language differences. To see so many different nations represented on those podiums cheering each other on and listening to the many national anthems of the world was inspiring.

When I was young I had that dream of becoming an Olympic athlete. I thought maybe someday I would be sprinting like Jesse Owens around the track in Berlin or speed skating so fast like Dan Jansen that tears would stream from my eyes. Though my time has come and I am no where near those podiums, it makes me proud to see the young people of the world getting together to compete; to share the universal language of athletic competition. The vigor, defeat, victory, and pure emotion that sport demands. I think these athletes help us remember how very much we all share in common. Ice skaters in the small country of Slovakia trained for four years to compete against the hockey stars of Canada, and they lost. South Korean teenagers carried high hopes for their 19 year figure skating "Queen," Kim Yu-Na, and she set a world record score with her gold medal performance. And the country of Georgia remembered the courageous and fierce competitor in Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died hours before the Olympics started during a training run on the Skeleton slide.

So the world comes to relate to each other through these different stories. Perhaps at first when the games begin we are inclined to focus solely on the successes of our own country men (our "ambassadors"). However, as the competition progresses we begin to realize their would be no competitive spirit in the Olympics without all the different athletes from all over the world. It is here where the meaning of the Olympics expands beyond the gold, silver, and bronze. We realize that competiton forces everyone to best their own mark and thus produce a higher level of excellence. This excellence is the same energy that drives peace. My desire to succeed and your desire to succeed are mutual because we can not alone be pushed to greater levels of excellence... for we need our fellow competitors. In fact we need the best in the world.

So my personal dream to run along side the likes of Jesse Owens in an Olympic setting may not be fully realized, but my dream for peace is seen in events like the Olympics.

Find ways to make Peace active,

Jared