Good sports: Damian Entwistle’s Thought for the Week

‘I find this message breathtaking.’

In 1936, at the Berlin Olympics, there was an encounter between two people that so far surpassed the constraints that each operated under, that it speaks to us of something ineffable. Jesse Owens, grandson of enslaved Alabamans, who went on to win four gold medals, formed a deep and abiding friendship with Carl ‘Luz’ Long, Aryan poster boy for Hitler’s Reich.

The two met as rivals in the long jump. The competition between them was fierce, each spurring the other to attain new heights. In the end, the gold went to Owens, and silver to Long. Perhaps the respect of each for the athleticism and skill of the other afforded them the opportunity to connect, but this simple door opened onto a landscape far more expansive than that, and more expansive, perhaps, than they themselves might have first realised. Jesse and Luz each risked something in this relationship. Each quit their safe zone. Each extended a hand, seeking an encounter with the other. They ventured this under the full glare of the camera lights, and the baneful stare of Adolf Hitler, 150 yards away.

After the games, the two cemented and maintained their friendship by correspondence. This reached its apogee in Luz’s last letter to Jesse. It was written in North Africa, in 1942/3. Luz had a clear (and sadly accurate) presentiment that he would not survive the war. He was also confident, however unrealistic it might appear that a letter between two combatant nations would ever be delivered, that Owens would read what he wrote. In the letter, he said that he had come to realise that when the two friends first locked eyes, Jesse had been praying. Luz had come to believe this, and perhaps also in God, out of a recognition that some agency, some nexus, had intended their friendship, and charted its arc. He made one request of Jesse: that he find his son, Karl, after the war, and bring him a message from his dad. Jesse was to tell the son ‘how things can be between men on this earth’ when not separated by war. 

I find this message breathtaking in its humility and audacity. After the war ended, Jesse went to Germany, met with Karl, and conveyed his dad’s message. Karl and Jesse themselves went on to develop an independent friendship: Jesse was best man at Karl’s wedding. 

This is an inspiring coda, but what imposes itself, for me – what is absolutely compelling – is the courage of the two older men. Luz offered his friendship in flagrante, stepping out of the racist paradigm that framed the Berlin games, and risking the ire of the Nazi hierarchy. Equally bravely, Jesse, an African American forged in racist and segregationist Alabama, went joyfully to meet him. 

The two refused to be constrained by expectations. A meeting on the athletic field, which was prompted by mutual respect, became a counter-cultural efflorescence – an authentic and powerful flowering of genuine encounter; heart speaking to heart.

For me, this, surely, is what Fox commends to Friends. Unhindered, uninhibited, motivated purely by the spirit (literally ‘enthous’, possessed by God), we are free to walk cheerfully and bravely – to run the very real risk of encountering the ‘other’, person to person.

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Comments

Thank you for reminding us of our calling: ‘enthous’,  to be possessed by God, or to be Spirit led.

By bigbooks1963@gmail.com on 2024 09 12

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It is indeed inspiring. When humans lift their eyes above the parapit of race and prejudice amazing things can happen.

By Keith Rycroft on 2024 09 14

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