Want to Play?
I know a planet where there is a certain
red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a
flower. He has never looked at a star. He has
never loved any one. He has never done
anything in his life but add up figures. And
all day he says over and over, just like you:
'I am busy with matters of consequence!' And
that makes him swell up with pride. But he is
not a man--he is a mushroom!
The Little Prince
I just couldn't help myself. The gates
were open and the hills were beckoning...I
can't seem to stop singing wherever I am.
Maria (The Sound of Music)
We need to play so that we can rediscover
the magical world around us. Flora
Colao
Mr. Magorium hires Henry Weston, an accountant, to adjust the accounts of the Emporium.
Henry is a very serious and humorless man. Henry is working behind a window, intent on his work, when Eric approaches the window with a request, written on a piece of paper, held up to window for Henry to see.
Do you want to play checkers? It reads.
I did when I was a kid. Henry writes his response.
(Eric) Want to play?
(Henry) When I quite working.
(Eric) How about after work?
(Henry) I never quit working.
This is not just a story about work.
(I have friends, including Sabbath Moment friends, who have lost jobs and would be grateful for the opportunity to work.) But this isn't about jobs. It is a story about how our work-or activity or distraction-absorbs us. And in the end we see our value tied only to our busyness. We are, after all, "busy with matters of consequence."
As a result, we lose our sense of play.
And we lose our sense of rest and restoration.
And we lose our sense of wonder.
Here's the problem. Without wonder we approach life as a self-help project," writes Eugene Peterson, "We employ techniques; we analyze gifts and penalties; we set goals and assess progress. Spiritual formation is reduced to cosmetics."
It hit me the other day, standing at the Self-Help table in a Barnes and Noble. (I'll 'fess up. I needed to see what these books are promising in order to know what I need to imitate.)
The first book I picked up got my attention. It boasted, "This is the one book we've all been waiting for!" (With a promise like that I opened it just to see if it included a tube of some mind-boggling anti-aging cream, or a least a sexy picture picture of Heidi Klum.)
The other books offered instruction, assured to transform my life.
One, in nine ways.
Another, in nine days.
Still another, in nine steps.
Which made me wonder what even happened to seven?
Until I saw a book that offered results in three steps.
And then I saw the book that told me I couldn't "just live" my life, I needed to "overcome" my life.
That was enough to make me dizzy, so I left the store without buying a single book. And sat in the courtyard soaking up the afternoon sun. (Yep. Seattle sun.)
I decided that Eric had the right idea: Today I don't need to overcome. I need to play. So. Do you want to play checkers?
Remember the scene in The Sound of Music, when Frau Schmidt delivers bolts of fabric material to Maria (that the Captain had ordered from town to make new dresses)? When Maira asks for more material to make play clothes for the children, Frau Schmidt curtly lectures, "The von Trapp children don't play. They march."
Eugene Peterson again, "Without wonder the motivational energies for living well get dominated by anxiety and guilt. Anxiety and guilt restrict; they close us in on ourselves; they isolate us in feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness; they reduce us to ourselves at our worst. Instead of being formed by the Spirit that hovered over the waters and raised Jesus from the dead, we are malformed into lives of moral workaholism or pious athleticism."
Where is the play in your life?
Where is the rest?
Where is the wonder?
Play is not so much an activity, as a suspending of control. Or as Henri Nouwen observes, "Love is not something you have. Love is something that has you. You do not have the wind, the stars, and the rain. You don't possess these things; you surrender to them. And surrender occurs when you are aware of your illusions, when you are aware of your addictions, when you are aware of your desire and fears."
Today we played. Zach fished tadpoles out of the pond, just. . .well, I guess just because. I started weeding the lower garden bed, chocked with salmon berry and elderberry, but that seemed like work, so I stopped to pick a bouquet of roses and delphinium. The scent and color made me giddy. And picking flowers after the week I've had, restored something that was missing. It felt (in the words of Seamus Henry) "like well water far down." So I dozed contented on the back deck, listening to my son marvel at tadpoles and spend his afternoon in amazement.
The One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks--Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it--because it does. (First Book of Corinthians)
Loosen up. Don't you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss?...Someday you are going to retire; why not today? Not retire from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it?
Let someone else run the world for a while.
Max Lucado
Be aware of wonder.
Live a balanced life -
learn some
and think some
and draw
and paint
and sing
and dance
and play
and work
every day some.
Robert Fulghum
Lord, the air smells good today,
straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in
being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.
Rumi-- Lord, the Air Smells Good Today (13th Century)
All that you have is our soul, Emmylou Harris youtube.com
From last week: Sabbath Moment friend Sarah Stone sent this wonderful blog link, about embracing the sacred in the ordinary.
macstonephoto.blogspot
Another friend sent these, hard to believe pictures from the Hubble.
google.com/gview
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