Athletes of god

The Olympics are on, in case you haven’t noticed. Once again we are awed into submission to our television sets and webcasts by bodies—the bodies of these women and men—reaching, twisting, bending, spinning, flipping, thrusting, hurling, heaving, kicking, rowing, and running. We are impressed and again amazed by the concentration focused, the effort expended, the will to win demonstrated time and again in extraordinary bodily movements.

Close, yet so far. On the one hand, these bodies are just that—bodies like ours. Their movements are ordinary, basic to the workings of nearly every healthy human on the planet. On the other hand, we can hardly imagine making such extreme versions of those movements. We come away strangely rapt, somewhat inspired, giddy, determined, and humbled all at once.

Yet what rivets us in the end, what we celebrate and cheer, is not the particular accomplishments, as great as they are. It is the human power to become: the basic capacity of bodies to become something other than what they once were, whether swimmer, gymnast, runner, shooter, equestrian, fencer—someone who can empty his or herself, mind, heart, and soul, into a split-second breathtaking bodily act of extraordinary precision and grace.

What we celebrate and cheer is the power of bodily becoming. You might call it the spirituality of sports.
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Inhaling. Exhaling. The movements of breathing, the basic rhythm accompanying and enabling every moment, every movement, of our lives. Inhaling, we take in the possibilities that await us—the resources that may become us. Exhaling we release what we were, to become something new.

Inhaling. Exhaling. Present in this basic oscillating rhythm is a moment where we are not—a moment between who we were and who we now are. It is a moment of transcendence—a moment when we are transcending ourselves, becoming other to ourselves, moving beyond ourselves, and becoming something else. Someone else.

Are you breathing?
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It is tempting to think of sports and spirituality as two distinct realms of life. We tend to think that in sports, we use the power of our minds and wills to push the limits of our physical bodies, whereas, in our religious and spiritual paths, we plumb the heights and depths of our spirit or soul, expanding our horizons beyond our finite bodies, bound as they are by time and space.

The distinction is a false one. For our spirituality is itself an expression of our bodily becoming. Our bodies our infinite, not our minds, and they are infinite in the range of movements they can potentially make—movements that include believing, breathing, and bounding over a pole.

Spirituality, like sports, involves a rigorous education of the senses to certain possibilities of experience.

A gymnast learns to notice the give of a parallel bar, the spring of the mat, the curve of the ring, the tilt of the horse, and spontaneously make the micro adjustments needed to align his intention and action.

A member of a religious group learns to move with the melody of a song, the cadence of a chant, the names and images of god. A member learns to make the gestures of prayer, think with the arc of repeated narratives, pay attention for the anticipated length of a ritual, and so too, learn to make spontaneous micro adjustments that align her heart and mind and body with the beliefs and intentions expressed.

In each case the apparatus—whether material or conceptual—provides the one who practices with an ability to develop an acute awareness of a given sensory range, and devote himself or herself to the perfection of certain virtues, the completion of desired tasks. Each offers a particular course and context, a training ground and goal for our bodily becoming.
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Nevertheless, there is a difference, and one worth noting. What distinguishes sport from spiritual is the moment in the rhythm of bodily becoming that each values as worthy of sustained attention.

In our spiritual lives, we are drawn to various tests and challenges that exercise that moment of our bodily becoming when we become other to ourselves—that moment when we move beyond who we are, expanding beyond our myriad fears and insecurities, troubles and ill—to connect with a source or presence or energy or whole that is greater than we are. We inhale and absorb visions of who we are and what we can be. Doing so, we strengthen our capacity to transcend.

In pursuing excellence in sports, we exercise that moment of our bodily becoming where we become other, realizing, in our physical actions, what we desire. Making the goal. Winning the prize. Overcoming all obstacles.

The two are not mutually exclusive. At the extremes of practice in either case, the difference is negligible. Our sensory and spiritual selves, inhaling and exhaling, are fully entwined in the pure presence of awareness—the action of the moment.

It is this entwining, really, that we celebrate. It is what we yearn for in everything we do. It is what makes anything satisfying to do. Finding it, realizing it, is what gives us the sense of vitality, direction, and belonging that will satisfy our desire for spirit. We become, in the words of one faith, "athletes of god."

Next week: Why and how this model of spirituality can help us in a world torn by religious conflict.