Life is serious business. We know this because we see the headlines, watch the nightly news, try to take in the acts of violence and injustice present in our world. We have friends and family who are suffering from depression, illness, loneliness, any manner of dis-ease .Life is, indeed, serious business.
But life….to be life….is also filled with playful times, times for fun, relaxation, the sheer act of idleness, laughter, silly jokes…..’goofiness‘ as one friend of mine says. "So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people to do in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them.", the writer of Ecclesiastes(8:15) proclaims. No wonder we refer to this book as "wisdom literature."!
Church people can be particularly serious, charged with ‘saving the world’, it is very easy to take oneself quite seriously. So I was particularly taken with this quote from the most recent Alive Now! magazine in an article written by Dan Benedict. "The liturgy is God’s playground, and, by the Spirit, God calls us to ‘come out and play."
When was the last time you thought of getting up on a Sunday morning….driving to church….to play? Wow! Benedict goes on to describe this kind of play as those acts that help us "feel at home in the world", as a way of "finding our home and center", as something that helps us know "where we belong in the immensity of the universe."
As children, we all pretended to be Superman, Wonderwoman, a cowboy, a clown, a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a mother, a father. We imagined ourselves being able to fly, we built castles, created bold and colorful pieces of art, we ran races, jumped rope……..we played. All of this playing helped us grow into who we are, who we are becoming, find our place in the ‘immensity of the world.’ How is the way you play as an adult different from how you played as a child?
A very important teacher once said:"Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kin-dom of heaven."(Matthew 18:1-3)
Seems pretty clear to me…….Come out and play!