Sermons by Reverend Don Beaudreault


THE THEOLOGY OF PLAY
Rev. Don Beaudreault
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
June 12, 2005


OPENING WORDS: "There is a vitality."

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

Martha Graham


MEDITATION READING: "If I Had My Life to Live Over"

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax; I'd limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I had my moments, and if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after the other, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over again, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances; I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.

Nadine Stair (read by Esther Martin)


SERMON: "The Theology of Play"

I believe that most of us don't play enough in life. Why? Because either we fear doing so, or simply don't know how to do so.

One of the ways we don't play very well is caused by the fact that we are working at playing.

Consider the following story.

The novelist Maksim Gorki wrote books about the hardships of his growing up in 19th century Russia. In addition, his deprivations included two intervals in exile, totaling 14 years. So, it is rather surprising to consider his assessment of the day he spent at one of our own country's premier places of fun, Coney Island. On that particular day the amusement park was thronged with visitors, and Gorki and his American hosts sampled the sights. All seemed well until they were leaving the park. That is when his friends asked the writer what he had thought of the experience and he informed them: "What a sad people you must be."

Truly, Gorki is generalizing. There are people at amusement parks then and now that do genuinely appear to be having fun. But there are others who appear to be quite miserable. They just seem to be working so very had at trying to have fun, at playing, that they aren't having fun at all!

I would like to say that it is a post-modern dis-ease, this rush to recess brought on by all the stresses of our day, but then Gorki noted this back in his day. Nor is it merely an American phenomenon. The world seems to be working at playing. But then, is this really "play"?

It is not.

But then, why should we care about this at all? Because we don't realize that "playing" is a deeply spiritual quality, and when we don't play, we are less than fully alive.

Let us consider the deeper ramifications of the concept. "Play" is something that calls us to be more than we are; that tells us to wake up and not take our self so seriously; that allows us to discover the more profound sense of who we might be.

I cannot resist quoting Jesus when he said: "Allow the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven."

Now, scholars will not agree as to what Jesus meant by the "kingdom of heaven" but I want to believe that he was telling us all to be child-like at times - to realize that most children (at least the ones who feel safe and loved) know how to play. And that most of us were like that, too.

So the question we want to consider this morning is: How might we cultivate "The Theology of Play"?

Let's try to answer this by putting things into a philosophical perspective.

In describing humanity according to our actions, western philosophers categorize us into three areas, none of which has to be exclusive of the other, although we often don't let the two mix and match.

If we accept the fact that we are thinking human beings who are in the pursuit of knowledge, then we are in the category of Homo Sapien - literally translated as "wise man."

If we believe that we are active and industrious beings that must be about doing something constructive, then were are categorized as Homo Faber - "man the maker."

If we agree that we are in need of amusement, then we are put into the category of Homo Ludens - "man at play."

It is that third quality we want to talk about this morning, but in relationship to the other two. Unfortunately, Homo Ludens too often is considered an inferior way of being, compared to Homo Sapien and Homo Faber.

I personally believe that the complete human being has qualities of all three categories.

Let us expand our understanding of that word "play" by referring to the classic work on the subject by Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Here, in part, is what the author says in defining "play":

.it (is) a free activity standing quite consciously outside "ordinary" life as being "not serious," but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within it s own proper boundaries of time and space.

Getting back to the ideal human being, we can see that some people are very good at combining what appears to be "work" with "play" and even "knowledge."

"Creative" individuals are like that - and creativity transcends categories of activity. In common, such individuals are absorbed by what they do, so much so that what might appear to be "work" or pursuit of "knowledge" is really "play." Other less creative types can be about the very same activity, but if their heart and mind are not absorbed by what they are doing - then they are not, by definition, "playing." If there is no such awareness of the sense of a deeper quality within one's self that at the same time calls one outside of one's "self," a passion, a sense of universality, an oceanic feeling, an inter-connection with all of existence - then it is not "play" - theologically speaking.

The reality is, that most people are not good at combining knowledge, activity, and play. Our modern society has been smothered a great deal by all those things that deny an element of play in our lives. We have become trapped into thinking that we are merely Homo Sapien or Homo Faber - people of the rational brain and hard-driven manner with all our attendant rules and regulations, our committees and memos, our pecking orders and paperwork, our creeds and dogma, our "appropriate" attire and choice of acquaintances. We are so trapped by our reason and industry that the play element with us is struggling for survival. And because it is, we are not whole.

And let me venture to suggest that as a church community, we are not whole if we believe and act as merely Homo Sapien or Homo Faber. We most include Homo Ludens. We are more than a subset of humanity that is concerned about profit and loss; about fact and statistic - unless we think of ourselves as being in the business or as an educational institution that seeks to help each other become more fully evolved human beings, as beings in touch with our deeper selves.

We come here to find integration and congruence of being. Perhaps our minds and hearts and spirits have been thwarted by our everyday non-creative, non-playful, work-a-day world. But in this liberating place, we can be ourselves - or at least our principles call out to us to do so. In this regard, this is a special place; it is a "holy" place - the word "holy" coming from the Anglo-Saxon word "hal" - meaning "healthy" - the same root word for "whole" and "wholeness." Truly, do we not come here to be more "healthy" in mind and spirit?

Still this is an ideal! The philosopher J.C. F. Schiller created the phrase "the difficult art of living," meaning that no matter how much a person desires to live up to those ideals of love, truth, duty, God, beauty, s/he is forever doomed to failure.

The answer for Schiller was to combine the dichotomies of "life as play" and "life as seriousness." He gave the example of a child who instinctively was able to be integrative about living life. Said Schiller:

When a two-year-old boy is asked to wash his hands for supper, he embarks on a ten-minute adventure of splashing water and letting the soap slip through his hands, finger-painting the slimy suds all over the bathroom tiles. He has no purpose in mind; he does not yet know that the point of the game is to win. He plays freely. His work is no different from his play; nor is his play different from his work. Play is the name of the unification of seriousness and non-seriousness of the child.

Let us now turn to religion and try to answer the question of why religion has become so lacking in "play." It is ironic that it has become this way, given the fact that "playing" is a deeply spiritual side of being human.

But religion today for many people is splintered, compartmentalized, and separated from life. And it is hardly "play."

The "religious" impulse, or "spiritual quest" was not always this way. The followers of Socrates spoke of the unity of being human. They even had a word for it: "spoudogeloios." "Spoude" meant "serious" and "geloios" meant "mirth-provoking." And together, the words formed a highly complimentary phrase, which was reserved for such greats as Socrates, who believed in "playing serious" and "seriously playing."

But then came Plato, who started dividing things up into a dualistic world. Aristotle, following Plato, continued this process and landed on the maxim: "Play, so that you may be serious." That is to say, according to Aristotle, the ultimate aim of playing when one is a child is to get it out of your system so that the serious business of being an adult can come.

Truly, Aristotle and Plato before him seduced the western mind (including much of Christian thought) into viewing the world as a place of distinct polarization - where humanity lives out its existence between the points of good and evil, sacred and secular, God and humanity, work and play.

Think about St. Ambrose of the 4th century who was so very much in love with the quote "attributed" to Jesus: "Woe to you who laugh, for you shall weep."

Indeed, the church's dealing with the concept of joy or play can be compared to the remark Samuel Johnson made about his dog's managing to walk on its hind legs: "It doesn't do it very well, but you are surprised to see it done at all."

To be fair, however, there were those few church spokespersons that desired to combine the dualistic aspects of human existence. Many of these were the Unitarian Universalist types. And among the early church fathers was Clement of Alexandria who spoke of the Christian life as a "divine children's game" and life as "mystical play."

Even Martin Luther could be warm and fuzzy after a few beers and say such things as "All creatures are God's masks and mummeries."

Hinduism has taken "play" into its philosophical construct much farther than Christianity. According to its teachings, that which is "divine" plays; the world as we know it, is a result of God's amusement, or what in Sanskrit is called "lila." Therefore, we should not be deluded into believing in the seriousness of finite reality - for that is merely illusion, or in Sanskrit, "maya."

Taoists traditions, too, point to this concept when it says "He who possesses virtue in abundance may be compared to an infant."

And, according to one Greek source, the god Dionysus is illustrated as a small child playing with toys and thought of as the "motivating power of human creativity."

And, there is Alan Watts, who sought to bridge Eastern and Western thinking. In applying the Hindu notion of "play" to the understanding of religious consciousness, he spoke of God the player, suggesting:

It does not seem to have occurred to most Christians that the means of grace might include trickery - that in his cure of souls, the Lord might use placebos, jokes, shocks, deceptions, and all kinds of indirect and surprising methods of outwitting man's wonderfully defended egocentricity.

Like others, Watt suggests that we move to the effortless measures of a heavenly dance - that we view all of life with an attitude of "play."

Truly, it is a spiritual thing we are about, in attempting to embrace "The Theology of Play."

Reconsider the child at play, again, and his/her connection with the sense of spirituality. In Eleanor Morison's book Leisure, Worship and Play she affirms:

Life is whole and good for children. Play seems native to them.and unless our worship bears connection with what we know to be native to children, it will tend to be sterile, stereotyped, and alien. Look well to the meanings of play; for you may discover the seeds of worship.

Let me remind you that "worship" comes from a word that simply means "to find worth in something" and may or may not refer to a formal religious service; "worship" can mean simply to exist in mystery and in awe of creation, and to enjoy, indeed, to play at what this can mean.

So, my hope for us is to realize the wholeness of our lives, by finding worth wherever we might, and in doing this might we discover again and again, "The Theology of Play."

CLOSING READING: "The creation of something new."

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Carl Jung


ADDITIONAL READING: "At the Zoo"

It only takes a few hours at the zoo to convince me that the last thing that God had in mind was humankind. I think that whatever God created this universe, He or She did it out of pure fun; that He or She tired after making birds black and tried a parrot, or a flamingo. I think that He or She fell over in hysterics when He or She made the flaming rear ends of the baboons; that He or She delighted in the ponderous elephant, and wanted something to look big and cuddly so He or She made Kodiak bears; and wanted something sleek, so He or She created the cheetah. But when He or She came to human, I expect it was out of a need for utter amusement. Impressed by the work on the ape, He or She thought, "Let's evolve something that walks upright and has a little more brain, and fingers to manipulate the world with. Let them think they are a little higher than the animals. When things get dull looking at the parrot's colors or the antics of baboons, they will be fun to watch."

.The one sin God will not forgive is being boring...The evidence of the world around us is one of beauty and novelty. I believe that God, He or She, is the evolving part of life itself, its course and being; and to whatever degree He or She has consciousness, I'll wager God laughs. I do.

John Robinson