Week Two Theme: Games: a Celebration of our Most Human Pastime
Friend of the week 2023 Week 2
Theme: Games: A Celebration of our Most Human Pastime
Melinda is the Director of Programs at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting; Godly Play/Faith and Play Trainer
We were at the Monday morning chapel service when two little girls caught my eye. They came into the Amphitheater with a group of children, but broke from the crowd and came all the way down the many stairs to the main floor. Purposefully, they confidently walked their seven or eight year old selves to seats in the front row – literally front and center, they listened with faces turned up to the preacher. Eventually, one of them went back up the steps – she seemed to be encouraging another child to join them, but was taken in hand by a parent. The other child eventually followed, and they both ended up on a parent’s lap for the rest of the service. But for a few minutes that seemed filled with purpose and belonging, they took up space right in front of the Reverend Dr. Zina Jacque, and they listened.
The morning before, during meeting for worship in Quaker House, the line from Isiaiah 11:6, “and a little child shall lead them” kept rising for me. Just starting the week, thinking about the theme and preparing both to learn and to share about my work and ministry, that line would not let me go. (I was also worrying a bit about our three teen/young adult children at home fending for themselves for a week – they were fine!) The line from Isaiah is part of a radical vision – the peaceable kingdom, where things just do not follow the laws of nature, but the lion and lamb lie together. And into that vision, a little child shall lead them. In my work, I encourage adults who work with children to teach and mentor in a way that respects children’s spirituality and offers them spaces to explore ideas and wonder. One way we do this is through play.
The Week 2 theme, Games: A Celebration of Our Most Human Pastimes, opened the possibility to think about play in relationship with spirituality and religious life – connections we adults do not always make. Children can show us how to expand our adult sense of what play is, in ways that encourage being in relationship to Spirit. The four pillars of the Chautauqua experience – Religion, the Arts, Education, and Recreation – are present in the work I do with Godly Play and its Quaker companion, Faith & Play Stories. They are stories from the Bible and liturgical lessons, shared with beautiful materials, to wonder about and explore meaning. But there is also the element of play – which is defined as voluntary, pleasurable, done for itself, absorbing, and connected with creativity. Play and stories are the “native languages” of children; through play we learn language, about social roles and identity, and how to problem solve. So much of this was evident in the speakers and programs at Chautauqua.
Themes emerged during the week, including in talks about games and sports where speakers reflected on the tensions between the needs of individuals and the team/community. This is a tension I’ve encountered in Quaker meetings, too. At brown bag lunches at Quaker House we explored, “Where in our spiritual lives do adults play?” and there was both yearning and hopefulness – perhaps there are new ways to look at this question and what play means. Speaker Colleen Macklin in her talk said, “Being playful means thinking deeply about the world,” and I know this to be true with children. She also shared, “When we play together, we learn about each other.” One of my hopes for Quaker communities, and a response to that tension between individual and the body, is that we will find ways to play together more – learning about each other, deepening relationships across generations and experiences.
The theme of interconnection also echoed through the week, and our human search for meaning and identity that too often feels disconnected from community. How are our individual gifts something we have been given to share in community? Rex Lyons, a member of the Eel Clan of the Onondaga Nation who serves on the Board of Trustees for the Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse team, shared the story of being a gifted young lacrosse player who was told: “These gifts have been given to you by the Creator, they are not for you, but are to be respected and cared for as part of the community.” Rev. Dr. Jacque in one of her sermons asked us to consider: “What is keeping you from sharing your gifts? What is keeping you from sharing your light?” I remembered a saying that I posted on the wall of classrooms where I taught – There is no they, only us. How do we need all of our gifts to be one body/community? How is playfulness one of the gifts we could value more as part of spiritual community, and how could play itself expand our knowing of each other, the“us,” and God?
As a woman in ministry, the week was a huge gift to me –The opportunity to soak up incredible preaching each morning, wonderful speakers and conversations, and meeting fellow seekers and Friends in Quaker House who are letting their lives speak of commitment to service and community, beauty and truth. And I still think about those two little girls who took up their places at the chapel service for a few minutes, confident that it was a place for them, too.