Today (Sunday) marks the end of the Paris Olympic Games. By the time you read this, many people will have seen the final ceremony, heard the count of gold, silver and bronze awards and all the rest, and have your opinion of what moved you most, or whether you participated in watching them or not.
I would like to offer a few observations as a spiritual theologian and observer. Which is sort of my job, as I said in launching the Daily Meditations six years ago, that we ought to pray the news and not just watch the news. One way of understanding prayer is to recognize the Via Positiva, the Via Negativa, the Via Creativa and the Via Transformativa in everyday events and in our everyday lives.
Some people will criticize the games for costing lots of money or being beholden to corporate sponsors and media conglomerates, or the coverage being too nation-based, etc., and such criticisms are worth considering. But they are far from the totality of what we are witnesses to when we watch the Games.
I recall a story I learned years ago that in the Inuit tradition of old, when a war was to break out between tribes, the elders of each tribe called for a poetry contest. A jury that included people from both tribes was assembled and the best poet from each tribe was chosen and the two poets went at it for a week.
At the end of the week, the jury voted on the best poet and that tribe won the war. War over.
Now that is a very advanced civilization, in my opinion. A recognition that humans invariably have conflicts but that we also have options as to how to deal with those conflicts. Humans have choices about what modes we choose to compete—and whether they need to be wars to the death or poetry contests is a matter of choice.
Sport invites people into competition and the competition can be demanding—very hard work goes into preparing for all the contests of the Olympic games, effort that brings out the best in oneself amidst practice, practice, practice.
The fruits of that practice are on display in competition. We who participate by attending (whether as TV watchers or with tickets on the spot) are treated to watching excellence at work. Beauty happens. Joy happen. Connecting happens. To be continued.
See Matthew Fox, Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: Toward a Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality
And Fox, Original Blessing
And Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet
To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner image: “Diyora Keldiyorova at the 2024 Summer Olympics” kissing her medal. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you find sport and games and sometimes competition to be a spiritual experience, whether playing them or watching them? Why do you think that is so?
Recommended Reading
Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality
Years ahead of its time when first published in 1976, this book is still bold and relevant today. Perfect for anyone who thinks mysticism needs to get out of the head and into the body. Matthew Fox begins the Preface to this book by stating, “This is a practical book about waking up and returning to a biblical, justice-oriented spirituality. Such a spirituality is a way of passion that leads to compassion. Such a way is necessarily one of coming to our senses in every meaning of that phrase.” One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, this title explores the importance of ecstasy in the spiritual life. Fox considers the distinction between “natural” ecstasies (including nature, sex, friendship, music, art) and “tactical” ecstasies (like meditation, fasting, chanting); he goes on to consider that a truly authentic mysticism must be sensuous in its orientation, so to cultivate the maximum amount of ecstasy for the maximum amount of people.
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
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
5 thoughts on “Olympic Games Ended: A Meditation on Sport & Competition”
I was fortunate to participate in the 2002 Winter Olympics in several ways beginning being with John Denver when he performed a concert for the Olympic Committee to secure the Salt Lake Committee bid and then planning together how we planned to bring the message John and I brought to the Earth Summit to the Olympics. I then participated in many ways including co-founding the SLC Interfaith round table with Alan Barnes, serving on the Olympic Chaplain Committee, hosting a conference in the Olympic Village, working with Deborah Moldow on the Olympic Peace Pole project, being contracted to put on environmental events, providing a Leadership Development training in collaboration with UNEP that won an Olympic Award and more. I was also fortunate to attend a number of Olympics events such as the the Olympic Truce event at the White House, the Opening Ceremonies and several athletic events In the process I learned a little about the issues of corporate sponsorship and Olympic Committee politics. Through all of this though, it was just as Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox says, an opportunity for celebration and connection. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to participate in the Olympics.
Thank you Matthew for helping us understand on a deeper spiritual level our recent human experience of the Paris Olympics 2024 (and all competitive sports), through the four aspects of Creation Spirituality in all areas of human daily life on Our spiritual journeys as a human species. Competitive sports can also be a spiritual and physically constructive way of channeling our reptilian brain and energies in our human evolution, which includes universal meditation.
My favorite experiences of the Paris Olympics was the beauty of the competitive human spirit
and sports(hu)manship in all the sports that I watched, and the Beauty and artistic Creativity of the Opening Ceremony with the blessing of Mother Nature’s rain…
Self-actualization is a beautiful experience. In some sports there are no direct competitors ie. golf where it is just golfer versus the course itself, shooting, etc. And when top tier athletes get older and lose their ‘edge’, the next mental, physical, phycological and spiritual challenge becomes one of identifying where ‘the next venue’ of self-actualization for them will occur. — BB.
Once in a while I’m in a conversation with others about the money spent on sports events or on the space program, and I pretty much always end up taking the side of “money well spent.” I’m a female and a fairly competitive one. In fact, my former husband eventually refused to play Monopoly with me, alone or in a group, because he said I was too ruthless. (I no longer agree with the ethics of the game anyway.) I’m fairly sure I’m not as competitive as many men though, nor do I claim to understand male motives or hankerings. Having considered men however for some 70 years, I do think most of them (animal life included–I just watched elephant seals on a San Simeon beach) need competitive endeavors to decide who the alpha males are. It’s my belief that if males of the species don’t have safe competitive games, they will inevitably create reasons to go to war to see who’s on top! By the same token, if we offer males of the species ways to use machismo and creativity to create space vehicles and plan expeditions (or cheer for others on their “team” who do so), they are less likely to use the same tendencies and abilities to engage in wars. Thanks for the question.
Thank you for your meditation on sports. It caused me to think of sports in a new way!