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Permalink: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/448
Fulcrum Subject: Spirituality Other articles by John Watson are available from this site Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum See the 5 comments on this article The Playful Godby John Watson
Play! What a thought. Here is a an idea that might transform the world – the world is the playground of God – not in an old Greek Jason and the Argonauts way, where capricious gods play with human destiny aka a game of chess. The world is the playground of God in the sense that as children play, create, imagine, react, invite, laugh, run and become abandoned to the moment – so God is ‘working his purpose out’. Yet play can also be risky. In this playground we too run, trip, bruise our knees, bicker about which direction the game should go, let loose our passions and desires. Psalm 104:24-26 captures this playground How many are your works O God In wisdom you made them all the earth is full of your creatures There is the sea, vast and spacious teeming with creatures beyond number living things both large and small There ships go to and fro and the Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. (NIV) The Leviathan is often seen to be a dangerous beast, sometimes a symbol of enmity or even destruction; a creature renowned for its strength and danger. Like Moby Dick it is a beast charged with imagery and suspicion. Even more mischievously in the Talmud God is presented as playing with the Leviathan for part of the day! Avoda Zara (3b) says : "Rav Yehuda says, there are twelve hours in a day. ... the fourth three hour period God plays with the Leviathan as it is written: "the Leviathan which you have created to play with"" We should therefore banish any romantic notion that creation has a serene sense of order about it with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite playing in the background. Perhaps we should be playing ‘Wild Thing’ by The Troggs as the backing track! There is something powerful and profound in being able to see our relationship with God as playing. It catches our imaginations and it is when we start to imagine a new world – a new humanity in the words of Paul – that the new way of living begins. God calls us into his world to play – to imagine a new reality, his
John Watson is Vicar of St Paul's Tupsley with St Andrew's Hampton Bishop, he is also on the Fulcrum Leadership Team Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum Forum Posts About This Article:Posted by: User 234 Thursday 23 July 2009 - 05:28pm hi John, good to read your article, which reminded me of a book by Jean-Jaques Suurmond called Word and Spirit at play, which speaks about Jesus' playful approach to teaching, takes a look at the history of the relationship of the Word and the Spirit, and puts in a plea for the church to grow into the freedom of the Holy Spirit that will enable it to 'play the creative sabbath game' of God. I wonder how much a playful approach is characteristic of church today, other than, perhaps, in 'family' services? And as a colleague of mine notes, talking to young people, "Why don't people laugh in church?" Beren Hartless Posted by: Celinda Thursday 23 July 2009 - 04:17pm Maybe Aslan is like the Leviathan--definitely not tame, but tameness is not a required element in play. Fr. Watson's essay is wonderful, and Christian's poem with all the musical themes many of us can hear as he names them. Music is a way of making order out of play, I think--in a sense, beauty is tamed (anyway, there's that play of wildness + taming in classical music--I'm not sophisticated enough to see any taming in much contemporary symphonic music). --Fr. Watson's 6 year old's remark about "playing with God all day" was delightful. Made me think of a book (1965) and film (1991) title I've always liked, _At Play in the Fields of the Lord_, but have not seen or read. The book's author, Peter Matthiessen, is an explorer and travel writer (reading about explorers like Samuel de Champlain--the one I'm reading a book about now-- makes you think that exploration is a superbly wonderful way to play, definitely not tame). However, the book itself is not at all a happy book from what I read in "reader reviews." -- "Ludic" is a word I learned when taking courses in literary criticism, and comes from the Greek "play"--any kind of play at all. On the negative side, there's a 2007 book called _The Ludic Fallacy_, which is about "the misuse of games to model real life situations...to mistake the map (model) for the reality." Reality is more like Aslan. On the positive side, there's a 1938 book by Johan Huizinga called _Homo Ludens: Man the Player_. Huizinga (d. 1945) was a Dutch historian and cultural theorist. The book is about the importance of play as an element of (not in) culture and society. He thought play was "a primary and necessary (but not sufficient) condition of the generation of culture." He listed three characteristics of play: 1. Play is free, in fact freedom. 2. Play is not "ordinary" or "real" life. (Remember Aslan. Caution required). 3. Play is distinct from "ordinary life" both as to locality and duration." (Where I got some of all this, of course, was on Wikipedia, a wonderful source of play. Fulcrum itself can be thought of as a playing field. The name itself suggests play). Posted by: Christian Thursday 23 July 2009 - 02:03pm In response to the remark about Greig's Peer Gynt suite in the background my own experience of God's playing field is reflected below. The Voice of God in D Minor. (& 9 minutes 17 seconds) I was sitting in a corner doing some mending; not recommended for ham-handed efforts, however, someone must do it; or look like a tramp. To lower the tensions such employment arouses, I slid a compact disc into a handy computer: promising a medley of all the usual classics, designed for those with my truncated attention, and a sorely limited interest in loud noises by Wagner. First, I escorted Sheba’s bold queen in her entrance, baton in hand with Georg Frederich Handel: then I played the 21st C major piano concerto, with a youthful Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : and marched out with Slavic bravura and gusto, on a Russian campaign with P. I. Tchaikovsky. There were others, but I’d rather not bore you, so we’ll skip past the rest of this gambit, and get down to the matter at hand. No, not the mending; please pay attention, or at least make the attempt to pretend to. Chopin, I think, had just finished tuning his new pianoforte; there followed a pause for anticipation … Then, without any warning, a gathering rumble, followed by bellowing thunder, filled the air with its yawning vibrations. Someone had dragged open the Gates of Creation, and the roar of all Heaven came pouring over. The Bible’s opening phrases resounded quite clearly; full of tectonic vigour with all its majestic beginnings. Those mighty divisions of darkness from light, in the parting of the waters of Chaos: the sea from the heavens; the land from its oceans, and the day from the starlight of night; An elusive murmur then gently expanded, which lilted the air so lately ruffled by thunder. In this gathering quiet all living things were created, in the air, on the earth and under the waters. Then into these fading echoes of silence, all the angels of Heaven were gathered in choir to chorus the Creator’s perpetual glory, as God created man in his very own image. Male and female he then made them, to be fruitful and walk in the garden of Eden, in the stillness of the evening on the Sixth Day. God saw all that he had made and it was very good. Nobody knows, I suppose, what Johann Sebastian Bach might have been thinking, when he wrote his Fugue and Toccata in D Minor: one day I might happen ask him. But, God in his wisdom, created the genius of Bach, in granting those skills; that wrote all those notes; that pulled all those stops; that played those banked keys, of that 18th Century German church organ. God spoke. Bach heard. I listened. May you also be blessed with your own particular image. André Hattingh Posted by: Pageantmaster Thursday 23 July 2009 - 12:51pm Hmmm... Yes, I have felt a playful delightful and loving interest in us. There is a joyful lightness of touch coupled with enormous care for His creation. But there are also deadly serious issues at stake and a battle with evil going on. You don't have to look far to see it all around in the world. He is also powerful, awesome and determined. We should delight in the Lord but not get too comfortable or familiar. Aslan is NOT a tame lion. 
Posted by: Jody
Thursday 23 July 2009 - 12:09pm
We have just published 'The Playful God' by John Watson Please use this thread for any discussions on this article. every blessing Jody |
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