Play Power

While the world is busily involved in its power plays, I like to pon­der the bless­ings of play power. These two are oppo­sites. The sec­ond is more pow­er­ful than the first. Power plays are manip­u­la­tive and self-serving. Play power is hon­est and cre­ative. Sal­va­tion is found in return­ing to a child’s world of life as ther­a­peu­tic play. It is no acci­dent that Jesus praised small chil­dren and scolded adults. Our key error is more than just los­ing our way. It vio­lates the basic premise of cre­ation: that we are to have domin­ion over cre­ation but not each other. Chil­dren play with each other. Adults play on each other. There is a world of dif­fer­ence between the two.
Cul­ture wars are never won either. They are merely “one-up” games that are forms of imma­ture bick­er­ing. Blame and shame were the first symp­toms of the Bib­li­cal Fall. They are re-enacted through insti­tu­tions and com­pet­ing view­points. While we adults seek to clothe our­selves in cre­den­tials and suc­cesses, chil­dren are busy play­ing dress up. They are hav­ing a lot more fun. Their world is not yet divided. They may not always get along, but they have a way of return­ing to the world of fan­tasy hand-in-hand.
Adults that con­tinue to play, as Walt Dis­ney did, have a bet­ter han­dle on life. The more your work is like your play, the longer and bet­ter you live. Pro­fes­sional golfers come to mind. The same seems to be true for pro­fes­sional fish­er­men. When work and play are the same, the soul finds pro­duc­tive cre­ativ­ity and appro­pri­ate rest. It is not pit­ted against itself. It goes about each day as an adven­ture. Inter­rup­tions and com­mon annoy­ances are worked into the game.
Time becomes your friend instead of your enemy. Get­ting older makes the game more intrigu­ing. Prob­lems become chal­lenges with­out ever becom­ing impos­si­bil­i­ties. I remem­ber play­ing as a child, and how we would toss in new ele­ments to the game. We would make the game more dif­fi­cult and more inter­est­ing at the same time. We for­get that this is how God gives us our adult lives too. About the time we mas­ter one level, the drama takes a new twist.
My ego would like to think that it is in con­trol of life, but my soul knows that I am just play­ing at it. I dare not take myself too seri­ously. My role in life is just a form of play­ing dress up. I am here for the fun of it and to learn a lit­tle along the way.