“Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.”
— Henri Fredric Amiel
As Alex Bilodeau stood on his skis, poised at the pinnacle about to come bumping and soaring down and become Canada’s first Olympic gold medalist on home snow, he inhaled and talked to himself.
“I have no regrets over what I’ve done in the last four years.”
Whether he won a medal or not, he believed that four years of training was worth the sacrifice.
Something becomes sacred because you give it away. Out of fear maybe, or devotion. A lamb to appease the anger of the Almighty, a bunt for the team.
Sport, not unlike the gods, demands a sacrifice. Money of course. (Including the money of dedicated parents), time sacrificed to train.
With apologies to Saint Paul, the athlete becomes a living sacrifice if the body breaks and has to heal.
Such sacrifice runs counter to the modern mantra. You want it? You got it, or you go and get it. Can’t pay now? Plastic will cover the bill. Delay gratification? Hardly.
Goaded to ever-escalating levels of consumption, voluntary self-denial seems like a radical concept.
While we might pause during the events of Vancouver 2010 and marvel at the sacrifice of Bilodeau et al, sacrifice steps to the podium in the arena of life in the annual drama of Lent.
Forty — a popular biblical number, right up there with seven and three — is associated with Jesus’ 40-day wilderness sojourn to figure out what it meant to be Jesus and to do some big time wrestling with the devil.
Forty is also the number of years the Israelites spent wandering the desert, while as a nation they wrestled with their relationship with God.
Christianity offers Lent as a forty-day run to Easter when the faithful can get their spiritual act together, facing their own demons and addictions and in the process come out of the wilderness stronger.
The frequent sacrifice of sweets for Lent is not going to reverse our obesity epidemic.
But that, along with the sacrifices of a tough economic climate, can expose the evidence of our manic consumption, put the finger on our inconsistencies and return us to right values.
Once the pre-Easter retreat of high-church Catholics and Anglicans, Lent has caught on as a form of spiritual training for those who know of the race to be run or moguls to negotiate.
May its popularity increase. What better way to counter soul-starving excess than with a smidgen of sacrifice even if it’s just a token?
At the end, there probably won’t be any gold medal. Some hold to the wishful thinking which anticipates a crown of life and heavenly, endless bliss. A reward for putting yourself on the altar of sacrifice.
At the very least, going without something you enjoy is a powerful reminder of the soul’s hunger no smorgasbord can satisfy.
As Alex Bilodeau thought to himself at the edge of his great accomplishment this week, even if no medal waited for him at the end of the run, he could feast on a life without regret.
Bob Ripley is a retired minister, and a syndicated religion columnist.