“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

A friend wrote this reflection on her experience at the Paralympics this week… It was very touching so I thought I would share it with you….

Last week I saw glory. It wasn’t on the program, not officially anyway. Seated up high in the temporary wing of the London Aquatic Centre we had come to watch and marvel at Paralympians in the pool. And marvel we did, many times over. Race after race was a celebration of the human spirit, of tenacity, of dedication, of the miracle of life and a belief beyond borders. Each one of us took home our share of viewing incredible feats and national, ceremonious moments. But of the seventeen and a half thousand folk present that evening, most of us will remember a moment that took place out of the water and out of the ordinary. The swimmer’s nationality I can’t recall and the particular stroke escapes me, but she broke early and as the starting horn blared a false start, she made her way over to the edge.

Like many swimmers that night she had come in a wheelchair and like a few others, with a trainer to assist her in entering the pool. Her trainer quickly retrieved her wheelchair and drew it nearside. The crowd waited. A false start usually results in disqualification and the judges took some time to declare that the noise of the crowd had impacted her race start. She would swim again. What happened next took us all by surprise. The trainer bent beside the girl in the water. The crowd grew silent. Then scooping into the pool with two strong arms he lifted her out and carried her back to the starting blocks. This tender moment captured us all and with one accord every pair of hands in that swimming stadium clapped and clapped and clapped.

If the Paralympic Games have taught us anything, it is that perfect is not everything. Leonard Cohen did not perform in the ceremony, though as it happens he was in concert in London at the very same time. One of his songs would have fitted neatly as an anthem for the Paralympic ideal, for it is a hymn to imperfection. “Forget your perfect offering,” he sings. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”