Confession Time

I am irritated with SABC. They bought the rights to broadcast the Olympics, but are only showing a one-hour highlight each day. They "sold" that to DSTV, so you can also watch the highlights on several of the Super Sports channels.

I anxiously awaited the one hour highlight show so I could watch bits and pieces of the Opening Ceremony, but halfway through the programming switched to a documentary on the Albino Society of Tanzania (I am *not* making this up). So I only got to watch 35 minutes of Olympics... and they SKIPPED the lighting of the torch!

I scoured BBC news online, CNN, the Vancouver 2010 website, and even Al Jazeera for photos of the Opening Ceremony, but I only found one of the Olympic torch being lit (thank you Vancouver2010.com).

And now I am battling the guilt of caring more about the Olympics than the albinos of Tanzania. Those people are being killed for their lack of skin pigmentation... surely that trumps alpine skiing? And what does this say about me if I care more about one hour of entertainment than the cares of the world?

This brings up an interesting philosophical question: Must we constantly bear the weight of the world on our shoulders or can we allow ourselves to be entertained for a bit each day? Does our mental health require a daily dose of "down time", and does that include entertainment? Or must we work more diligently to share hope with a fallen world, caring more about the needs of others than our own petty desires for entertainment?

I work for an NPO in Africa and I still feel guilty. It's probably just my own hang-up, but still... I don't want to be on my deathbed someday and regret that I didn't do enough. I doubt I will regret that I didn't watch more Olympics. To be able to look back on my life and say, "I do not regret my journey"... that will be the mark of success for me. And quite frankly, that's better than an Olympic gold medal.

"The supreme desire of my life is to give myself in reckless abandon to Christ." - Ed McCully