As I write this, the Olympic Flame has just been lit opening the 29th Modern Olympic Games. The first Olympic flame was lit at the Amsterdam Olympics of 1928 and the Torch Relay was added to the ceremony in Berlin, 1936, at ‘Hitler’s Olympics’. It was not in the original vision of the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, in 1896, but he welcomed it as a powerful religious and artistic symbol that could be used to educate people in the ideals of the Olympic movement.

Image courtesy of Rick Sforza

These ideals, according to the Olympic Charter, are to

…contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

Nothing wrong with that, you would agree, but as the pro-Tibet demonstrators would have us remember, there is a huge gap between that ideal and the practise of the host nation in its occupied territory.

Double standards

This is in stark contrast to the myth that the Olympics are the one place where politics and war do not hold sway, where small and great nations compete as equals. Advocates will point to the 2000 Sydney Olympics where North and South Korea competed under one flag and the disputed nation of East Timor as an independent state. But while China crushes protests with one hand and lights the Flame with another, we should remember that double standards are no stranger to the Games. Think of sports fans cheering on the great black American sprinter, Jesse Owens, while Jews and Communists were being driven from their homes in the streets outside the Olympiastadion. Think of the banning of South Africa for 32 years for its abhorrent racial policies while Sudan and Zimbabwe are still allowed to send teams. Think of the tit-for-tat boycotts of America and the Soviets in ’80 and ’84 and the abandonment of the Games during two world wars – would the ancients be turning in their graves? I think not.

Wars and rumours of wars

The ancient Greeks never let war get in the way of a good athletic contest in nearly a thousand years. By and large the Greeks kept to the Olympic Truce whereby all wars were put on hold for the duration of the games, but ever so often they let it slip. In 364 BC, the city of Elis lost control of the games to Pisa and launched an attack during the wrestling event in the Pentathlon. But the games went on, with spectators keeping one eye on the wrestling and the other on the streets outside where thousands of allied troops defended against the invading Eleans. A day later Elis regained control of the Games and declared them null and void. Let’s hope Paris won’t do the same to London in 2012!

For glory or for gain?

Nationalism, commercialism, politicking and dirty tricks were just as much a part of the ancient Olympics as they are today, with a continuous struggle to cleanse the Festival of Zeus of its baser trappings. There were idealists then as now, and officially the athletic contests were for glory, not for gain, with only an olive wreath and adulation for reward. But olive wreaths do not put food on the table as the Persian general Tigranes commented:

Good heavens, Mardonius, what kind of men are these that you have pitted us against? It is not for money they contend, but for glory of achievement!
(Herodutus, ‘Histories’)

Herodotus does not record Mardonius’ response, but no doubt it was along the lines of: ‘if you believe that General, you’ll believe anything!’ Just like today’s athletes aren’t forced to flog their medallions to keep the wolves from the door (well most of them, I haven’t checked eBay yet), the Ancient Greeks had no currency in olive wreaths.

Appearance fees

Olympic victors were set for life. They were given free meals at public expense, front-row seats at the theatre and public festivals, tax breaks and guaranteed appointments to the public service. They even received ‘appearance fees’ at lesser athletic events and prizes such as tripods, cauldrons, precious metal, oxen and women. (Homer, ‘The Iliad’, Bk 23). Now don’t get me started on the exclusion of women from the Games, I’m writing a whole play about it!

Breaching the amateur code

Some would say payment in kind does not breach the amateur code, but cash certainly does. The Ancients had no such quibbles. According to the Roman author Plutarch, in 600BC an Athenian Olympic victor could expect to receive 500 drachmai from the city coffers, a fortune in ancient times.

And if one’s hometown was not forthcoming with the loot, one could always defect. Fidel Castro was not the first leader to lose his athletes at the Olympics. Take the Olympic victor from Crotona, who was offered a better deal by the Syracusians to represent them at the next Games. The good citizens of Crotona were so incensed they tore down his statue and turned his house into a prison.

Bribes

In 1999 the modern Olympic Games was hit by the worst scandal in its history, after it was discovered that six members of the IOC had been accepting ‘improper gifts’ from cities bidding to host the Games. There’s nothing new there either. Although the ancient games were held at Olympia, a holy site dedicated to Zeus, the patron-god of the contest, there was an ongoing battle between various cities as to who would have the privilege of actually running the Games.

Just like today, control of the Olympics had very lucrative commercial spin-offs for the host city. In 668 BC we hear of a dispute between Elis and Pisa. The city fathers hired the tyrant Pheidon to ‘secure the Sanctuary’ in the name of Pisa. With the help of a well-trained army, Pheidon took over Olympia and personally presided over the Games. But by 664, Elis was once again in control.

Elis was usually in control and provided all the judges. But this didn’t stop Elean athletes from competing. Although writers from the time tell us that the Eleans had a reputation for fairness and it would have been a shock to other Greeks if they had been caught cheating. Bribery, however, was not unheard of, and Pausanius records with horror that ‘one of the Eleans themselves had fallen so low’ (Pausanius 5.21.16ff). The dirty judge was one Damonicus, who received a pay-off from Sosander of Smyrna to make sure Sosander Junior won in the wrestling contest.

Bad winds and cowardice

The punishment for such a crime was not death, as the purists of today would like to believe, but a simple fine. In fact fines were imposed for all sorts of things. One athlete claimed that bad winds had kept his ship from arriving in time to join the pre-games training session, but it was later discovered that he had been travelling around Greece winning prize money in other competitions instead. He was liberated of his earnings. Another poor chap, when during a warm-up session saw the form of his rivals in the notoriously brutal wrestling contest (where only biting and the genital hold were outlawed, but breaking your opponent’s fingers was well within the rules) decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew from the contest. He was fined for cowardice.

Tainted gold

So from the olive wreaths of the ancient games to the gold medals of the modern, we see that this showpiece of human idealism fails to live up to its own standards. And yet, I’m still a fan. It would be hypocritical of me not to be. In the same way that the Christian faith sets up an ideal of human co-operation and personal fulfilment that it frequently fails to deliver, the Olympic movement is still a noble idea: if you aim for the stars you can always fall on the tree tops.

This side of heaven

The difference between the Christian faith’s ‘failings’ and those of the Olympic movement are that the former’s imperfections will be made perfect in eternity. For the Olympics, this side of heaven is all that it’s got. And though it fails, it also succeeds, wonderously. Like many of you I will be glued to the television screen this August, marvelling at the diversity of human talent from around the world and the awesome achievements of people who strive to make the most of their physical talents. I will be moved by the strength of character of many of these athletes, in particular the paralympians, and will rise to my feet and applaud every gold, silver and bronze won with sweat and blood.

As a Christian I can learn what it means to make the most of the gifts God has given me. And though I lack in sporting prowess, I am reminded that my artistic, relational and spiritual gifts should not be neglected. And though millions today watching the Olympics may not acknowledge God as the creator and designer of the human form, it is still a testimony to His greatness.

Eternal flame

While the Olympic flame burns in Beijing, may it be a lasting symbol of the flame of God’s Spirit within us. The symbolism of fire was not lost on Pierre de Coubertin, Adolf Hitler or even the ancient Greeks – fire purifies, fire ignites, fire illuminates, fire nurtures and, if not handled with care, fire burns. The torch was not part of the original games, but is based on the idea that young athletes would race to win the privilege of lighting the altar fire at the Temple of Zeus.

Sport as religion

In ancient times sporting and cultural festivals would be staged in honour of the gods. In this newly secular world, these festivals are now held to the honour of Man as God. Yet they cannot get away from religious symbolism in the staging of their spectacles. Nor can we get away from sport as a religious metaphor, as the New Testament writers remind us:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? (there were no silver and gold places in those days!) Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
(1 Cor 9:24)

To the glory of God

Sports stadia and theatres were once the temples of the ancient world. Some would say they still are. But rather than bemoaning the secularisation of sport and culture let us make every effort to reintegrate them into a Christian world view. Many of the new and growing churches around the world aim to meet in sports stadia; it is aligning Christianity with one of the world’s most successful religions: sport. The Olympian Eric Liddle famously said: ‘when I run I feel God’s pleasure’; let us remember that when we watch the Olympics this summer, and whatever we do, whether sporting or otherwise, let us do it all to the Glory of God.

A version of this article first appeared in SA Sports Illustrated as ‘For Glory and for Gain’ for the Athens Games, and more recently in The Plain Truth as ‘Olympic Spirit’ on the eve of the Beijing celebration.

A Gardener’s Gospel – Week 20

I learnt gardening from my dad. When I was three we moved into a newly built house, or, as they say in these days of poor grammar, a ‘new-build’. Like most new-builds, the patch of ground attached to the house was more a builder’s dump than a garden, with broken bricks, cement powder and general rubble thinly covered by a layer of poor quality top-soil. Undeterred, or at least that’s how it appeared to my three-year-old mind, my dad set about turning the wasteland into a place where flowers could grow.

Laying the lawn

He started with the lawn because that would provide the ‘architecture’ that the rest of the garden would be built around. In the early 70’s one did not simply hire a JCB or mechanised tiller as they do now; it was shovel and spade and good, old-fashioned elbow-grease. Listen to me! I sound like my parents. Well, I suppose that’s not always a bad thing …

But back to the lawn. So while my older brother and I set out with dogged determination to dig down to Australia, my dad dug out the rubble and waste and prepared the soil for lawn-seed. I don’t remember how he managed to convince us to give up our expedition, but he did. He filled in the hole and got ready for the next step of his vision – a circular lawn. I was thrilled. No one else in the neighbourhood had a circle in their square of land, but my dad did. He stuck a stake into ‘Australia’ and tied some string around it. He then took another set of stakes and proceeded to mark out a circle.

Assigning dominion

By the next year, the 360˚ lawn was well established. (Note to self: ask Dad how he managed to keep two dogs and two kids off the lawn – I struggle with one of each!). The next step was to plant out the flower beds. Again my brother and I were involved in the process and we were each given ‘dominion’ over one corner bed. My brother never did much with his – and my dad finally took it over – but in mine he helped me plant daffodils and crocuses and tulips (yes, it was a very 70’s garden!).

Growing out of it

Once our garden was established, my dad then took on an allotment and I started to learn about growing vegetables. But a few years later, a couple of weeks after my tenth birthday, we moved to South Africa and both gardens were left behind. In South Africa my dad frequently worked away from home and for long hours so he abandoned his gardening hobby. Instead, when he could afford to, he paid for a ‘garden service’ to come in once a month to give the yard a good tidy. So my teenage years were spent without gardening.

You’ll be pleased to know that when my dad took an early retirement at 55 he returned to England and took up gardening again. He’s recently acquired an allotment too, but has had to stop digging because he’s just found a section of Hadrian’s Wall! Well, that’s what he thinks it is, and he’s waiting for English Heritage to come along and confirm it.

Growing back into it

When I got married at 25 I yearned to start my own garden. Something had been planted in me many years before, and though it had been lying dormant, it finally started to grow. But for the next seven years we lived in rented accommodation. Eventually we could afford to buy our own place and six years ago I started my own floral kingdom. It wasn’t a ‘new-build’ so I didn’t have to start from scratch, but let’s just say it wasn’t quite to my taste – the garden gnomes for a start! I joke now that I’m a secret Agnostic – a member of the Anti Garden gNome Society.

Now the three-year-old following the gardener is my daughter Megan. She loves digging and weeding and planting. Usually, I have to ‘undo’ her efforts when she’s finished her work, but she’s learning. Even if she goes her own way when she’s a teenager, I hope that the seeds of gardening have been planted in her as she watches and learns.

Setting an example

Of course, I hope that the spiritual seeds I plant in her will bear fruit too. I’m not always the best example of a gardener or a Christian and when I see Megan copying some of my negative behaviour I fall to my knees and repent – not just for her sake, but my own. But then, at times, I overhear her saying things to her teddies that tell me I’m doing something right. Like the other night when she told them: ‘we must share our money with the poor people’. And when she prays alone in her room, not realising I’m listening at the door, and thanks God for ‘everything in the whole world’. To some of us, God has entrusted children. We should be mindful of what we pass on to them.

Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Proverbs 22:6

‘Mr Mum’ has finally come out of the broom closet and doesn’t give two hoots what you think of him. And neither, for that matter, does his wife. Once the butt of jokes, the stay-at-home dad is an increasingly common feature of British life with seven out of ten fathers saying they would be happy to look after baby if given the choice (YouGov survey for Mothercare, January 2004).

Although 70% say they would, only around 5% actually do (Home Dad UK survey, 2001). But that doesn’t include the dads who work part-time so they can take a more active role in parenting – this has more than tripled in the last decade.

Fathers Direct CEO Duncan Fisher realises that despite the increase, home fathering is still the exception rather than the rule. ‘It can be quite frightening stepping out of the mould and staying at home. But then I discovered what it is like to know the intimate rhythms of your children’s lives and I realised this would all be over in a few years – while I have decades more to work. But staying at home – whether mum or dad – is not celebrated as an achievement even though, when you get to the end of some days, you know it is one of the hardest jobs ever.’

Nick Cavender, a former Local Government Officer, has been a stay-at-home dad since 1999. He and his wife Kristin have two children, Phoebe (8) and Ben (3). Nick set up HomeDad UK to provide support and information for dads at home.

Government help

He says: ‘The government has done a lot to help. Dads now have a right to paid paternity leave, and can ask for flexible working. It’s become more acceptable for men to work from home, or go into the office later, so they can take their kids to school. That’s a really positive step, for both dads and their kids.

‘Sure Start has made a big difference too in raising awareness of the needs of dads. At HomeDad UK we’re getting more approaches from people working with children asking how they can make their services more inclusive and dad-friendly. That’s real progress.’

I decided it was time to meet some of these home dads face-to-face. We approached three families and asked them why they had chosen this parenting arrangement and what they felt they had lost or gained.

The Vittys (Newcastle upon Tyne)
Dad: Richard
Mum: Leslie
The Kids: Caitlin (10) Erin (5)

Richard has been a stay-at-home dad or, in his own words, a ‘house husband’ for the last 10 years. When Leslie’s six-month maternity leave came to an end they were faced with a choice: putting the baby in childcare or one parent staying at home. ‘We looked at childcare costs,’ says Leslie, ‘and they were just too high. Also, even if we could afford it financially, we would still have the problem of neither of us having the flexibility to stay off work if Caitlin was sick.’

So the only question for the Vittys was: which parent would stay home and which would go to work? At the time Richard was unhappy in his job as a leisure centre manager and wanted a change. Leslie, on the other hand, really enjoyed her job as an area manager for a bank and would have been sad to give it up.

At first, it was just an experiment. ‘If Richard was unhappy we would have looked at it again,’ says Leslie. But ten years and another child later, it’s working for everyone.

‘I like the flexibility it gives me,’ says Richard. ‘Now that the kids are at school I’m asked when I’m going back to work. But most people are just joking. I do a bit of part-time squash coaching now and will pick up more as the kids get older. Leslie wouldn’t have been able to get where she is now if she’d had to stay at home. It works for all of us.’

However, some financial sacrifices have been made. ‘We don’t have an extravagant lifestyle,’ says Leslie,’and anyone thinking of doing what we’re doing will have to be prepared to cut back on some things. On the other hand, if Richard had been working, nearly all of his salary would have gone on childcare anyway.’

And what about other sacrifices? Does Leslie feel she’s missed out on anything? ‘I worried at the beginning that the kids would be more for Richard and that I would get pushed out. But it’s been the opposite. The girls are very much for me when I come home. And they have all of me on a weekend. It’s enriched my relationship with them. There are times when I wish I could do the school run and that, but it works best for us this way as a family.’

The Scarrs (Whitley Bay)
Dad: Colin
Mum: Debbie
The Kids: Rebecca (7) Paul (5)

Colin, an accountant, has been at home since his son was 18 months old. Debbie is an occupational therapist but had not worked since her daughter Rebecca was born. However, because she had been off work for nearly five years, she would have had to retrain to work in her profession again. At the same time, Colin was unhappy at work and wanted a chance to do something different.

So Debbie and Colin swapped roles. But it wasn’t as easy as Colin thought it would be. ‘I had the idea that being a full-time dad would be great, that it would be easy, but it wasn’t. The most difficult thing was the repetition – the same routine every day. It’s just you and a child, who, at that stage, can’t really communicate. Then getting my daughter ready for school and the anxiety connected with that.

‘Many men think that childcare just happens like clockwork. When they come home from work, everything’s done. That’s not how it is.’

After six months Colin decided that he’d had enough. But he didn’t want to give up on home parenting completely. Fortunately, an opportunity arose for Colin to work two days a week while Debbie worked three. They feel it’s the perfect parenting balance.

‘We’re fortunate that we are both able to spend quality time with the children,’ says Debbie. ‘Colin is a role model, particularly for Paul. We both have different approaches, so the children get a greater range of experiences. It’s nice, as a mother, to be able to come in to my tea on the table on days when I work. And we share the domestic chores. Then there’s the thrill of opening my lunch box and finding the occasional love letter!’

The Hudsons (Morpeth)
Dad: Tom
Mum: Mira
The kids: Rebekah (3) Alice (18 months)

Tom is a teacher by profession but chose to stay home with the children so that Mira could finish training as a GP. ‘We didn’t want the kids to spend all their time in a nursery,’ says Tom, ‘and it didn’t make financial sense either. So we decided that one of us needed to stay at home.’

Tom has been using his time to study for a Masters in Theology but intends to go back to full-time work when Mira is qualified. She will then work part-time.

Tom and Mira feel there are pros and cons to their parenting arrangement. ‘Mira has missed the kids a lot and at times has felt guilty for not being around for them more. I have sometimes felt a bit isolated because there is not a lot of provision for dads with toddlers. I’ve attended a few toddler groups but they are not that dad-friendly. Perhaps there should be groups just for dads with bacon sandwiches and outside activities.

‘On the plus side though I’ve been able to develop a close bond with the kids which will last into the future. Hopefully they will grow to understand that parenthood is a shared calling and shouldn’t be narrowly stereotyped in an increasingly complicated world.’

Help for Home Dads

Thinking of having dad at home either full or part-time? Contact Home Dad UK or Fathers Direct for advice on everything from how to change nappies to how to ask your employer for time off.

Appeared in Woman Alive as ‘Partners in Parenting’, June 2007