A sacred pause in the carnage
As the Winter Olympics open in Milan/Cortina, an acquaintance reminded me that this would be a good time for humans to push pause on war.
That’s what happened in ancient Greece. The bi-annual Olympic Games were such a big deal that all the warring city-states called a truce: everyone downed swords and went to watch the young athletes put their bodies to much better use. The ritual became tradition – called the Ekecheiria, or “staying of hands” – and it lasted for more than 1,200 years.
It’s hard to believe today’s Olympics, popular as they are, could ever summon our better angels in that way. This is actually a good measure of how important an event or a day is within a culture: Could it stop war?
In the West, the only calendar day that’s been able to do that is Christmas. And it did it twice.
In 1871, on Christmas Eve during the Franco-Prussian War, an unarmed French soldier climbed out of his trench and started walking forward singing a hymn then called “Midnight Christians.” A German soldier emerged and joined in. That was it: the sacred call-and-response swamped the soldiers’ baser instincts, and everyone got a reprieve for 24 hours. (I think that’s why that song, now better known as “O Holy Night,” is such a stirring Christmas carol: it’s somehow imbued with this little piece of history.)
The second time Christmas stopped war was in 1914. Five months into one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, on the front line in Belgium, some German soldiers placed lit candles on their trenches, raised a makeshift Christmas tree and hollered “Frohe Weihnachten!” (Merry Christmas). The Germans began singing. This time the carol was “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night.) The British knew that one too and responded in kind. Both sides poured out into no-man’s land unarmed. Someone had a soccer ball. The rest is history.
It’s wild to think “Stay Alive and Don’t Kill Some Other Human” could ever be knocked off off the top perch our mortal to-do list. Even wilder is the idea that, once it’s happened, a mere diversion could stop the carnage, however briefly.
Makes you wonder whether creating that diversion – whether it’s sport or art or music or writing – isn’t just about the noblest thing we could ever get up to.
End of warm fuzziness. Go Canada. Kick American butt.
