I heard someone recently refer to all team sports as combat rituals between neighboring cities seeking dominance.
I am not a big sports fan. My wife is. My favorite sport is the one my grandchildren are playing. And then it is only for the team they are on and only on days they have games. But this is not my wife. Any sport that has a player connected to the state of Tennessee is always in her view. Add to that the rivalry between Alabama and Tennessee, and you tap into her passion. Tennessee doesn’t just have to win that contest; they need to dominate that heathen “crimson” opponent. That seldom ever happens in football which just makes the competition more intense for her. (I don’t think Alabama feels the same toward Tennessee, which makes the whole annual gridiron war much more humiliating, and that much more exhilarating with the occasional win.)
The Olympics, an international gathering of athletes, could be viewed as a civilized form of warfare, a mock world war. This past summer, the Olympics, which took place in Tokyo, was different than most. Because of the COVID pandemic concerns, the opening festivities were altered. Few people were in the giant stadium as spectators. When it came time for the parade of nations, each participating country’s team should have entered behind their flag. With the customary dignity, the participating nations’ flags entered the mock battlefield alphabetically. However, in 2021 only the standard-bearer and a couple of representatives paraded in.
From my leather recliner, this was the most significant deviation from the norm. There had always been a sense of great pride in my heart as the Stars and Stripes entered the arena, followed by the whole U.S. team. Those athletes represented me and my country. We were going to war against all the other nations of the world to show them that my (our) people were the best in the world. National pride and bragging rights were on the line. The accomplishments of the USA athletes were my (our) accomplishments.
The Olympic Games are a quadrennial mock war of the nations. The U.S.A. would prove its rightful place as a world leader and socially superior by bringing home the most medals, mainly the most gold medals. We win, “they” lose, is how my old human nature evaluates the outcome.
Yes, there are significant flaws in my evaluation of victories of these mock war games. But that is a “feeling” rising up from my own pride issues. In my assessment, I do not consider the number of medals won by a country compared to the number of athletes that the nation sends to compete. A nation with one athlete winning one medal is much more successful than a country with two hundred athletes winning one hundred and fifty medals. Nor does it take into account the social and economic issues of the nation from which the athlete hales.
Ever since Cain and Able met in a field after church services, pride has pushed humans to prove their superiority over their neighbors. Tragically, it is almost the norm for humans to rise up and forcibly remove or dominate other humans to establish their own doctrine of superiority.
Sports may indeed be a mock expression of the wars that wreck our hopes, families, careers, nations, and, God forbid, even our home planet. However, longings for peace are actually the announcement of God to restore all creation to Himself. His goal for waring humanity is to gather those who are willing into the refreshed Garden of Eden.
There is a warning to be sounded here, If the desire for deep peace ever ceases to cry out from our heart’s better places, God has left us altogether.
What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. James 4:1-2
Photo -On of the chessboards I made for my grandsons. The girls got jewelry chest.
Baldwin Heirlooms 