Coming Down

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WHOOH OLYPMICS!!! GO CANADA!! YEAaah..... What?!? They're over? Already?

I mentioned at the end of 'I Am Canadian' that I was beginning to feel like I was coming down. I'm there now. The clincher for me was driving to work this week. During the Olympics it was like rush hour had disappeared, at least on my route. Its back, as big and bad as ever :(

Have you ever been to an amazing week, or weekend, somewhere? An event that rallied your mind, uplifted your soul, and set your heart on fire? I think that for many people the 2010 Olympics was just such an event. For some people, depending on their age and past experiences, it may have been the first such major event.

For myself, it is one more in a string of them; a string of lights by which you can almost see my entire life. The Olympics were, as far as my experience goes, odd and powerful to be sure, filled with completely different images and themes than all the others, but the flow and structure are very similar. So similar, in fact, that before the Olympics were over I already knew how I would feel this week. Melancholic, sad, and searching for somewhere to reach those heights again. The search is ever brief; it never takes long for me to accept that such experiences are beyond my control. I can't plan them, nor make them happen, so I move on with life. Its like a vacation; we all love it, but we all know that normal life must go on.

One of the comments to the initial experience of the Olympics was:
"If Christianity can have the same contagious effect that would be so awesome!"

Here's the thing. All other experiences similar to this that I have had were at Christian events and conferences. What we experience with something like the Olympics is a large scale contagious excitement, yes. And no, no Christian event I have ever been a part of has been able to seize the attention of an entire nation the way the Olympics has, but there is good reason for that difference. If nothing else, the Olympics are designed for national attention in a way no Christian event could be. More to the point, regardless of return on the investment, there was over $6 Billion put into this event (including infrastructure improvements; just under $2 billion if we take those out). That is an enormous amount of money, and frankly, we darn well better get something good out of it!

Scale aside, however, the experience, as I already said, fits the same model. It begs a few questions: how much meaning is there in this hype? More importantly, what do we do with this experience?

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