Games Creatures Play

A Saguaro asking WHY?

Good Day, God!

I felt an immediate identification with this Saguaro which I “heard” saying “WHY, God? WHY! Or maybe it was “Help us, Please!”

Those, at least were a few of my thoughts as I gazed at its uplifted arms. I was out on a morning jog — or more precisely — my morning vitamin D intake and photo outing.

As I jogged and focused, jogged and focused — I was listening to the unedited cut of On Being for January 2, 2014. Author Marilynne Robinson and astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser were guest of Krista Tippet and talking on the Mysteries of Being. It is a Wonderful Thing to hear Creators Conversing, God!

Creators of Fictional Worlds . . . creators of scientific hypotheses . . .and Krista who is a Creator of Conversations. Hmm, well YES, God, we are ALL designed to be creators

And since I had begun my morning by listening to Stuart Brown’s TED talk on the functions and importance of PLAY I got to thinking about the Games Creatures Play on Planet Earth.

Let me list a few: 1) World Domination (ideas or political entities)  2) Protect and Defend 3) Status Advancement 4) Wars Against 5) Survival 6) Winning 7) Saving the Poor of various kinds 8) etc.

Only, all of those seem much too SERIOUS to be called games or play. Perhaps, we humans have wandered off the whole idea of games and play as fun? One has only to look at the Olympians to see that a focus on Winning the Gold severely reduces joy and a sense of play.

Ah, God, would that we could swing  back into engaging in True Play. Stuart Brown observed that in the Animal World creatures will voluntarily handicap themselves in order to extend the period of play. Play seems to have been designed for its own sake. It seems that Play, like Sleep, has positive functions that the Work Obsessed Mind cannot see.

The Saguaro and I are BOTH crying out, “PLEASE HELP US!”