Play, People. Just Play
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The innocent mistake that keeps us caught in our own particular style of ignorance, unkindness, and shut-downness is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead, there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy.
– Pema Chodron
Self-improvement is perhaps the most common shared UU value. It’s implicit in our mission statements. Our adult religious education programs are soaked in it. But what if self-improvement wasn’t a core value? What if we didn’t aim at better, best, perfection? What would be left?
Maybe enough would be left. Maybe enough would make way for play. The Webster’s Desk Dictionary of English Language cites over 30 meanings of play. A common definition used among childhood experts is “an activity done for its own sake, characterized by means rather than ends (the process is more important than any endpoint or goal).”
Imagine the possible fall-out of Play as Spiritual Practice. No goals, no ends. Just joy, surrender, humility. The very spiritual maturity we try to manufacture in our self-improvement would simply arise out of our practice of play for its own sake.
- Play, People. Just Play - September 1, 2019
- Saved - September 1, 2014
