Monday, February 10, 2014

Sochi

         In theory the Olympics are a wonderful thing, putting away all tensions for two weeks to let athletes run their races and throw their shot puts, fly down the slopes on skis and move more gracefully on skates than most of us can do in tennis shoes. Thomas Jefferson once said, "The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor the theory," But governments often will not simply let the games be played.
         Chariots Of Fire is listed first on "favorite movies" in my profile and not by chance. I saw that Academy Award winning film (Best Picture) as God was moving upon my heart. I hadn't seen my sin yet but I did get a glimpse of His Glory and I wanted more! Eric Liddel was everything that I was not, particularly honorable. I didn't see a relationship that he had with God. I saw the awe he was in of God.
          I would not have watched the opening ceremonies from Sochi on the Black Sea except our son and daughter-in-law had it on while we visited. The entrance of the teams brought back a little bit of that film. I felt a chill as our team entered and thought about the plight and the pride of the Russian people as their team appeared.
          The showcase of the ceremony was a choreographed classical and ballet themed history of Russia that was beautiful even to this untrained mind. The very newest technologies transformed the floor into an optical stage that could appear as a turbulent sea at one moment and a computer's motherboard the next.
          The choreography was remarkable not only in its technical perfection but its beauty. Huge stage props floated by, each with a meaning from Russia's past. It was a spectacle of dance and classical music done to perfection apart from one miscue, that being an Olympic ring that failed to open, and that miscue was what grabbed American headlines.
          Having given these artists and performers their due let me comment on the historical theme itself. There was a 2002 film directed by Alexander Sokurov titled Russian Ark that was a precursor of sorts to this Olympic ceremony. I highly recommend this film to you and it also is listed in my profile. It also was a marvelous drama/musical adaptation of Russian history through the centuries. Filmed entirely in one non-stop film sequence, the narrator whom you never see might be at an Imperial Ball with full orchestra or listening to Peter the Great or watching Anastasia and her sisters frolic in the Winter Palace.
          Russian Ark ends, as I recall, in an indeterminate state of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed and Gorbachev came on the scene. Vladimir Putin was President of the Russian Federation at the time but the yoke of Communism was seemingly broken.
          Putin watched from on high at the newly built Fisht Olympic Stadium that will someday host soccer games. My thought at the conclusion of the ceremony was that it was a triumphant day for him. In one respect, the world was shown what artistic gratification is in Russia, at least to many, beauty and precision. But in another respect, Communism was glorified. Stalin's era was depicted in black and blood red where the dark figures were the people toiling and moiling in an industrial age simply waiting for death, then suddenly the hues brightened as the Soviet age of Sputnik, sports and strength in every aspect of modernization gave life to the Communist state.
          How was this going to end....Putin was in attendance? What message could the producers of this artistically pleasing presentation possibly give to satisfy him? They couldn't end it as the director did in Russian Ark for much had happened since 2002. Putin's original term as president had ended but he miraculously returned and Russia was acting more and more like the old Soviet state.
         Well, that is exactly how it ended. A young girl released a bright red balloon of light that signified the passing of the Soviet era...but to what? It wasn't a submissive ending as in Russian Ark but merely a pause in Russian history. That would satisfy Vladimir Putin! Perhaps he himself choreographed the message?
         I suspect that the world interpreted it as melancholy for that was the script, the Soviet Union was no more. The Russian powers that be would see it differently.. ..the Soviet Union did indeed pass away but only to make room for something very similar and even more glorious!
                The Apostle Paul used athletic metaphors in describing the Christian life. One would be 1 Corinthians 9:24-26 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable." He may have been alluding to the Isthmian Games of ancient Corinth. Eric Liddell ran two notable races and won them both, one with a perishable gold medal and the other a crown of life.