Peace-ful Competition

Tonight was the opening ceremony for the 2005 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. You gotta admit, they know how to do some good fanfare.

A few facts:
-Eighty countries are competing.
-Ethiopia has over 70 million people, but only 2 competitors. Selah.
-Germany has 20 million people, and 161 are competing (the third largest showing, I believe).

Yoko Ono (John Lennon's widow) spoke about peace and gave the first few lines of his song, Imagine. Peter Gabriel then sang the song. It is very universalist. It was also very ambiguous ... and somewhat pointless. I know it was more of a political/idealogical "can't we all just be nice to each other" thought, but it really is futile when you think about it.

It's also ironic that, besides war, the talk of peace happened at the most polarizing competition of every four years. Everyone is there to win for themselves, to kick the other's nether-regions while making them cry, to get the gold, not coddle the weak link from the other country "until we all get a fancy gold medal". They are there to be the winner and create a loser, not see how level they can make the playing field. That's what competition is.

It kind of goes with this old joke/observation. "Two men observed a down-trodden person. 'Communism or Capitalism (use whichever you prefer) can put a new suit on that man,' said the first man. The second man replied, 'Yes, but Christianity can put a new man in that suit.'"

The issue with this supposed peace is that it is more about outwardly hiding your true self ... well-wishing with your mouth in the 1% of your public presence while cursing them with the 99% of your private thoughts and intentions. Being nice-ish has never been the isssue; becoming new has. While being nice is definitely a decent step in the right direction, becoming new is the only answer to True Peace*. And that has to happen from the inside out.




*Except for Theocratic Dictatorship (when Jesus rules the world, no questions asked), which will happen in the Millenial Kingdom, but that's another discussion. And it still is primarily concerned with happening from the inside out.