I watched a few moments of the Winter Olympics the other evening, and caught an event where the athletes would ski down a steep slope to get as much speed as they needed before hitting a large jump, at which point they would then manipulate their bodies through a series of flips, twists, and turns before then trying to land without falling over. Some even seemed to purposefully land facing backwards! The skill, strength, and sheer athleticism that was required, not to mention the degree of fearlessness, left no doubt in my mind that these are truly elite people doing truly elite things.
What surprised me the most was the difference between the tricks done in the air by the athlete who was given the gold medal versus the tricks done by those who did not win. The silver medal winner did more rotations and twists in the air than I could count, and the announcers were using phrases like “never been done in competition” – precisely the sort of things that you would expect from an Olympic medalist. By comparison, the gold winning performance was more controlled, seemingly less complicated. Mind you, it was a routine that still took your breath away, and those particular tricks may well have been every bit as difficult, but the announcers didn’t use the same sort of adjectives to describe the complexity of what that athlete had done. Instead, their adjectives were focused on how that athlete had done it.
For a viewer like me who doesn’t know the details of the sport, I was easily impressed by the obvious, and the “never been done” routine was an in-your-face sort of obviousness. It cried out as a winning routine – at least in my eyes. However, the winner was able to make the complex look simple, adding gracefulness to power that demonstrated a level of artistry that smoothed out the performance. Whereas the other performers left you expecting some spectacular crash at the bottom of the hill, the winner seemed to be in control throughout the flight, with a rather nonchalant landing that made it all seem easy.
We are easily impressed by the biggest, the toughest, the most complicated, and I don’t want to marginalize those things. However, for those who really know about a particular field of endeavor, there’s a recognition of the subtle that can cause things to stand out. Those Olympic judges weren’t just judging based upon the degree of difficulty, they were also judging the style, to give credit to how something was done, so that it wasn’t simply about brute force. Those judges had enough knowledge to see when someone had made something extremely difficult look easy.
Friends, avoid the trap of thinking that just because someone makes something look easy, that it must then actually be easy. Whether it is an Olympic athlete or a carpenter or a chef, there are years of practice that went into doing something challenging with ease. What we see doesn’t reflect everything that went into making the final product. So appreciate the talent that others have, perhaps with a dose of humility, because there are many in our community with Olympic-type skills in their own field. They just make it look like we could do it ourselves.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron