Rest a while

The occasion was the 2016 Summer Olympics, also known as Rio 2016, an international multi-sport event held in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The event is a heat of the women’s 5,000-metres.

The incident occurred about 3,000 metres (yards) into the race, when Abbey D’Agostino of the US and New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin collided, and both went down.

Hamblin fell heavily and just lay there, appearing to be in tears.

Instead of continuing the race to catch up, the American put her hands under the New Zealander’s shoulders to help her up, telling her not to give up.

As they continued the race, it became clear that D’Agostino’s injury was the more serious and her ankle had been badly hurt.

So, it was Hamblin’s turn to be the helper, hanging back to encourage her rival.

“She helped me first,” said Hamblin after the race. “I tried to help her. She was pretty bad.”

She eventually had to leave D’Agostino behind and thought the American would have to give up.

She waited at the finish line where they shared a hug.

This time, it was D’Agostino who was in tears, and she was taken out of the stadium in a wheelchair.

“That girl is the Olympic spirit right there,” said Hamblin.

The organisers reinstated the two runners as finalists if they were fit enough to race in the final.

D’Agostino did not race in the final.

Their sportsmanship in helping one another up and to the finish line saw the pair presented with the International Fair Play Committee Award at those Olympics.

The image of that moment of sportsmanship was beamed throughout the world.

Only those with encyclopaedic memories will know who won the final. However, the entire world remembers who didn’t!

The last did indeed come first.

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela writes about his long years of imprisonment on Robben Island.

He recalls how, one day, he was called to the main office. Mandela had been chosen by the prisoners as their spokesperson.

General Steyn was visiting the island and wanted to know from Mandela whether the prisoners had any complaints.

Badenhorst, the officer in command of the prison, was also present. He was feared and hated by the prisoners.

In a calm, forceful and truthful manner, Mandela informed the visitor of the prisoners’ chief complaints, doing so without bitterness or recrimination.

The general duly noted what Mandela had to say, which amounted to a damning indictment of Badenhorst’s regime.

The following day, Badenhorst approached Mandela and said, “I am leaving the island. I just want to wish you people good luck.”

The remark left Mandela dumbfounded, and he thought about the incident for a long time afterwards. Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer they had had on the island.

Yet the incident showed there was another side to his nature. As Mandela concludes: “It goes to show that even the most seemingly cold-blooded have a core of decency, and that if their hearts are touched, they are capable of changing.”

Reflecting on these words, and considering today’s Gospel from St Matthew (18:15–20) — which, in my Bible, follows the heading “Reproving Another Who Sins” — I am left thinking: it may not be so much what you say, but the way in which you say it, that matters.

Lewis Carroll, the English author, wrote a sequel to his much-admired novel Alice in Wonderland.

The sequel, titled Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, sees Alice walk through a large mirror — the looking glass — only to discover that on the other side, life runs back-to-front.

Examples include:

• Walking away from something brings you closer to it
• Running helps you stay in the same place
• You remember events and feel pain before the cause actually happens
• Cake is shared by passing it around first and cutting it afterwards

To read the poem Jabberwocky, Alice needs to hold the text up to a mirror.

In today’s Gospel (Mt. 16: 21–27), Jesus, I suggest, is daring us to walk through the looking glass — to be audacious, and indeed courageous, enough to live back-to-front.

Jesus says:

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

P.S. Be cautious around full-length mirrors — who knows what might happen!