To play
For every meeting and gathering in the main building of the church, the route from my office takes me through the halls of the preschool, often multiple times a day. When I first started as the new pastoral resident in January, the corridor was alive with giggling preschoolers, parents conversing, or teachers giving instructions. The walls were adorned with beautiful artwork from our preschool artists and motivational quotes also hung from them.
Now it is August, and the halls are quiet for only a few more weeks, but it is still a pleasant walk. There are more cleaning supplies than toys and the classroom doors are closed with the lights off. Yet, over the summer, while I lamented the magnificent artwork on the walls, my eyes kept finding this quote, printed on a hot pink piece of paper.
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Emerson was a prolific poet and writer before and during the American Civil War, one of the bloodiest, most destructive, and horrifying periods in American history. While there are degrees of separation between Emerson’s time and ours, we also experience our own troubling times, whether in the world, in our personal lives, or when our lives are momentarily dictated by lists, tasks, hypothetical situations, and worries. Maybe there are times where we forget to remember how to play.
I find Emerson’s quote on this hot pink sign to be a helpful reminder to play, especially in times when I’m consumed by to-do lists or by the scary headlines that pop up on my phone. I also remember in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ insistence to his disciples, to “let the children come” to him because “the kingdom of God belongs,” to them (Mk. 10:14).
As children, we learned about the world through play which opened our talents of imagination, creativity, and exploration. Playfulness then also becomes a source of joy for all that God has given to us and is part of our responsibilities as stewards of God’s creation when we dig into the earth to plant new flowers, trees, or cultivate new gardens. The ability to play is essential through our cultivation of relationships with one another and our relationship with God.
Even though we are no longer preschoolers in a classroom, there is still so much of the world to question and explore and still so much more room for imagination and creativity to continue to cultivate and steward in God’s creation.
There is always time to know how to play.
