Olympic Dreams

My son, who is eight, told me the Olympics are about dreams coming true.
In our church sanctuary we have a mosaic map of the world so we can individually and discretely light candles and pray for the pain of the world. Last week I asked what people were going to pray for. Someone said, “The North and South Koreans marched into the opening ceremonies of the Olympics as one Korea. We can hope for peace."
I smiled, because I’m running for king of the cynics. You don’t have to tell me the Olympic ideals of internationalism and fairness have been hammered by cheating and racism and terrorists and boycotts. Still, there’s something in the air for those couple of weeks that smells like peace and possibility. It reminds me of what the nineteenth century newspaperman G.K. Chesterton called “the problem of pleasure”.
The problem of pleasure was his antithesis to the problem of pain. The non-theist asks, “If God is real, why is there pain in the world?” Chesterton turned the question around, asking, if there is no God, why pleasure? Why does food taste good, why does sex function as recreation and procreation, and why are humans among the few creatures who continue to play into adulthood?
The highest species of play revels in fairness and delights in the greatness of an opponent. Winning isn’t everything, the only thing, or even the most important thing. All the good coaches talk about the love of the game. They lecture their athletes with words like “even playing field” and “fair” and “hustle” and “decent”. Can we hope that the camaraderie of rivalry will lead to mercy and generosity and peace in more places than the sports arena?
Sure, it’ll take a lot more than playing together to build peace, in families or between nations. But genuine play is a small part of what the Hebrews called shalom – fairness, equity, peace, and justice. Shalom can even include athletic violence, which is never about the domination of the weak by the strong, but the joy of life. Shalom is the presence of pleasure and balance. It is the presence of God.
Can we manufacture shalom? Doubtful. But we can pray it will outlast our candles and those two short weeks. And we can recognize it, and name it, and cooperate with it whenever we see it, even in a dream