Let’s Play
Dear Friends,
Even with housemates and a revolving door of lovely humans coming in and out, my home is a place of refuge and rest for me. During this pandemic where everything went online, including my faith community, my home didn’t become a burden of hustle or rushed chaos. It seemed to settle into its sacredness—a place where a bit of heaven resided.
The last five months have been really hard for me, though. My son has been sick with severe and debilitating stomach pain where his pain is all our family has been able to see, in many ways. For a few months, a deep seriousness fell over our home. I couldn’t see it at first because I was living it, but this seriousness became a weighty, impossible burden I couldn’t release as it slowly crushed me. I’m an adaptable person where not much encumbers me, but this had taken it’s toll.
At the end of April, I was talking to my therapist about this level of seriousness—my son’s sickness, seminary classwork piling up, children home for school, new building for my church, and the daily tasks. She gently asked, “When was the last time you played?”
When was the last time I played? I hadn’t thought about intentionally playing for years, truthfully, and I’ve been okay with that. I’m a lighthearted person who tends to find joy in most situations that “play” hasn’t been missing from my life. But I had been so weighed down in the seriousness of my home that, not only did play not exist, it wasn’t welcomed or invited.
I couldn’t recognize the lack in my life because I was suffocated by it. It was all around me, pressing against me, like I was straining against forceful wind and unable to move forward.
There’s this story in Mark 5 where the disciples are in a boat, alone, in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. The wind had picked up so much that they were stuck out there, straining against a kind of wall, pressed on every side. It was getting darker and they were getting tired when Jesus shows up walking on the water. The text tells us that he was about to pass them by when they saw him.
Friends, in the boat that once held rest and refuge for them, they were now stressed, overwhelmed, tired out, and irritated in that place. Instead of rest, they felt weighty seriousness and Jesus just strolls up and WAS GOING TO PASS THEM BY like he’s some jokester pulling a prank on his buddies who are having a really hard time.
Sometimes we’re not rescued out of a situation in the ways we want, but a little play and joking can be the right disruption needed to break us out of the seriousness and to remember everything will be okay.
Not perfect. Not healed. Not rescued. But okay.
So, tickle your kids. Chase the wind through a field. Find a pool or river to swim in. Dye your hair pink. Put on loud 80’s music and dance until you can’t breathe. Race up a hill and roll down it. Turn your table into a huge nacho plate. Make a trough of banana splits. Play basketball in the dark.
May you find ways to play today and may you know it’s going to be okay.
With (love),
Bethany