The One with the Emotional Olympics

Hi friends,

right now I am extremely emotional. I have just finished watching the closing ceremony of the summer Olympic held in Athens, Greece. I did not catch the event from the beginning, but caught it 20 mins late. I saw the part where they were going to honor the winners of the men's marathon. The winners were Italian, American and Brazilian. I have no affiliation with these countries, but when the winners were given the medals and the laurel wreath placed on their heads, I joined in with the immense joy they had in their lives. When the Italian was standing on the pedestal, and the Italian national anthem was playing, the tears in the winner's eyes got me emotional. I was so happy for him. I was not looking at him as an Italian, but as a human being, someone like me and you.

I was emotional throughout the ceremony. The Olympics ceremony touched me in a way it never has done so before. I think it is because it gave me a glimmer of hope that people can be peace loving, and that violence is not prevalent everywhere. To see so many nations come together on one platform, with no apparent differences and no hatred as such, I felt so much joy and happiness to see so much peace and inter-connectedness between people from all nations: men and women, whites and blacks, tall and short, people of all kinds! There was no racism, no religious strife, no hatred, no violence that seems to be plaguing the world. Gosh, why can't this kind of peace and harmony exist in this world?

The music, the songs, the people, the joy, the jubilant faces, the fireworks, the electric atmosphere captured my spirit and stole my breath away. I so much wanted to be a part of this kind of world. I wanted to be so much a part of that gathering where everyone co-exists with one another in harmony, even if its for a day. In fact, I was so deeply moved and touched, I told my dad that I am going to go and watch the closing ceremony in Beijing, China in Summer 2008! That is definitely on my "Life's To-Do List!"

I was thinking so much throughout the ceremony if God had intended for the world to be like this. I think God would! It is in fact man who brought "sin" into this world and corrupted it. I am still thankful to God that there are opportunities in this world for events like the Olympics, where as the President of the Olympic Committee said, "sports transcends all borders!" To me, the gathering at the closing ceremony is but an earlier Heaven!

Imagine my disappointment and sadness, when I changed the channel to BBC News, where I had to listen about the bomb explosion in Kabul by the Talibans and the killing of the Iraqis in Mosul by the American forces.

When will this world ever see peace?

Signing off optimistically,

Mansur