The Paralympics are a tribute to many individuals, organisers, administrators, athletes and not least host city decision makers.
This piece is not about any one athlete, or any one administrator, or indeed any one host city.
This article celebrates the Paralympics as an entity, a thought, a determent, a heartache, a tear, a galvanisation.
This article celebrates that we collectively recognise the value of human life, human achievement, human determination, human submission,
It is to the last of these ‘human submission’ this article highlights. There is a greater surrounding with the Paralympics – that is the unseen Spirit of God that justifies and celebrates the incapacitated, the paralysed, the mame, the one born without limbs, the deaf, the stutter’r, paraplegic involved in a swimming or work related or traffic accident or other such capacities.
Human beings in the Paralympic world are valuable, they are fully human, they are full of emotion and heart. God loves them. Jesus died for them on the Cross.
Human beings in the Paralympic world celebrate life as it is, they find themselves in situations that “are” and many find themselves rejoicing in this clarity.
Christian theology is replete with stories of those not whole in body - some from birth, others babies being accidentally dropped, born with withered body parts, accident, and the like. All are celebrated as fully human in essence. I stutter. My wife is 80% low tone deafness.
The Paralympics highlight these people are treasured and loved by family, celebrated when engaging in sports, academia, raising a marriage, the work place … normal people.
I know a seminary principal who is a paraplegic (swimming accident). Let none of us put into disrepute any person in such a situation . Christians thru their churches and missions maintain such as a commission. Let us rejoice.
Dr Mark Tronson - a 4 min video
Chairman – Well-Being Australia
Baptist Minister 45 years
- 1984 - Australian cricket team chaplain 17 years (Ret)
- 2001 - Life After Cricket (18 years Ret)
- 2009 - Olympic Ministry Medal – presented by Carl Lewis
- 2019 - The Gutenberg - (ARPA Christian Media premier award)
Gutenberg video - 2min 14sec
Married to Delma for 45 years with 4 children and 6 grand children