Invited to play

As a child, adults were a constant source of confusion. When I announced that I going to marry my kindergarten boyfriend Paulo, my parents laughed. ‘Why wouldn’t they believe me?’ I thought, holding righteous anger in my heart. ‘I’ll show them.’

Whenever we stopped at the Taihape tearooms on our way to visit nana and grandpa, I promised myself that I would never, ever order coffee instead of fizzy. And one thing I could never understand is how much adults talked. They would sit around talking and talking, while we played. I distinctly remember promising that no matter how old I got, I was never going to stop playing.

I’m sad to say that I never kept any of these resolves. Sorry Paulo. Nowadays, I even sit around talking while drinking coffee.

But I wonder, when did we stop playing? I was intrigued to read an article recently by psychologists Jane R. Hirshmann and Carol Munter, who argue we’ve replaced the concept of ‘play’ and exchanged it for ‘exercise’. We don’t have playtime, we workout. We have sapped all the joy, energy and fun out of moving our bodies, and turned it into a chore. They encourage us to return to the concept of play, which is free, unforced and fun.

I love this idea, because while exercise may be good for our body, playing is wonderful for our mind, body and soul. When we play, all the elements of our self are infused with joy.

In our Christian culture, we have often elevated the things that we think of as spiritual, and given less priority to the physical. We think of mind, body and soul as separate, but (according to Michele Guinness, a Jewish-Christian theologian) in Jewish thought, the three existed together without separation or hierarchy.

God created us with a soul that cries out to him, with emotions and thoughts that connect us to others, and with a body that belongs to God’s physical creation. It’s so like God to want to connect with us in every space and every way that he has given us.

I never thought God had anything to say about my body, so I was mystified several years ago when I felt God leading me to give up my gym membership. Instead, I just started walking to work, but not with any regime. God revealed to me that I had turned exercise in to the worship of self—striving for the body beautiful. But God wanted to commune with me in a way that helped me enjoy my body and brought me true freedom.

People who snowboard or mountain bike or enjoy a beautiful view understand what it means to play—they are using their bodies to glorify God in his creation.

It’s natural to grow up and leave behind childhood toys, but God is always inviting us to play.

By Ingrid Barratt (abridged from War Cry 13 July 2013, p3)