Kudos to the French Daring a New Olympic Opening Ceremony

Speaking of creativity that should mark the spirituality and value system of a post-mechanistic universe based on “cosmogenesis,” I wish to cheer the courage and creativity on display in the opening ceremonies of the French-designed Olympic Games of 2024.

Instead of athletes entering a stadium under their national flag, the French offered up the city of Paris and the river Seine as the preferred locale.  Each team appeared in a caravan of 85 boats.  Along the way were dancers of all kinds and music that ranged from opera, to rappers, to Lady Gaga, to Celine Dion coming back from a serious disease.

Instead of lighting a fire in a cauldron in a stadium, the Olympic flame also came by boat and was lit in the Tuileries Gardens in a ceremony that launched a hot air balloon that then hung over the Gardens.  The historical context surprised many—the French invented the hot air balloon in 1783, 241 years ago. 

I confess that I hold a warm spot for Paris and the French as I lived and studied there for three years (1967-1970).  I remain indebted to them for the quality of education I received from thinkers like my mentor, Pere Chenu, OP, who named the creation spirituality tradition for me and many others with whom I studied. 

I salute the French for their commitment to creativity including brilliant philosophers like Gabriel Marcel and Gaston Bachelard, author of Poetics of Space to name just two.  And Paris being the landing spot for the brilliant psychologist Otto Rank, after being effectively expelled from Vienna and his Freudian brothers.  In Paris he authored the iconic study on Art and Artist for which Anaïs Nin, a former client of his, wrote a memorable Foreword.

The French designers of the Olympics wrapped the Sports of the Olympic Games in the arms of Art, and in my opinion the result was a brilliant and memorable experience—indeed a spiritual experience—that reminded us of the brilliance and diversity of our multi-gifted species.  Both Sports and Art bring out the glory of our species, our excellence and our talent.  They unite us as a species.  Beauty does that.  Creativity and the striving for excellence do that. 

Let us acknowledge too the immense courage it took to propose a whole new paradigm for the Olympic Games such as France served up.

To be continued.

See Matthew Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.

And Fox, “The Paris Years: A Culture in Revolution—1967-1970)”, in  Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, pp. 70-98.

Banner Image: Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower, Paris 2024. Photo by Ibex73 on Wikimedia Commons.

Queries for Contemplation

Did you watch the opening Olympic ceremonies?  What was your response to the French daring to move it out of a traditional stadium to the city and the river Seine?

Recommended Reading

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet

Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow.  Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)

Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self