Playing Games

The Roberts clan (my mom's side of the family) is a family that gets together often and when we do we play. Day long games of monopoly, bingo complete with prizes, jeopardy, wheel of fortune, texas hold'um, you name it, as long as it's a game that you have to think for, we play it (games of chance are not allowed). The point is we like games and more importantly we love each other, which makes playing together that much better. As a kid growing up my family used to go out to our cabin on Dow Mountain and the four of us would play games until the wee hours of the night. On road trips criss-crossing the country we seldom went to bed without a game of cards. My daughter is learning the family passion already as we play game after game of Candyland, Lady Bugs, Memory, Chutes and Ladders and Go Fish. This love of games extends beyond just the times when the whole family gets together too and every member just seems to have it in their DNA. I wasn't surprised when I learned one cousin has a regular bridge night and whenever I gather like I did this week with my colleagues I make sure that one night at least is a game night.

There is something very special for me about getting friends together to eat snacks that we rarely indulge in and to play. It has become a tradition each time we descend upon Wenatchee that one afternoon will be devoted to playing one of the nearby putting courses. A few years ago when I first attended the event, which brings together three hundred United Methodist clergy from Washington and Idaho, I didn't know a lot of people. I was newly returned from graduate school and was just getting to know my colleagues and make a few friends. There wasn't much time on the schedule that allowed for getting to know each other either, so we improvised. They had given us a tourist map of Wenatchee and there was an arrow on it that pointed to a "putting

course" somewhere off the map. At that point we weren't sure what the difference was between

a putting course and mini-golf, but I managed to convince a few people to grab lunch to-go and use our precious little amount of free time to go try it out. The few I knew got a few more and I think eight of us went that first year. We ended up loving it so much we missed a session that I think talked about our retirement plan so we could play the entire course. It was and is a par 70 course of natural grass complete with water hazards and sand traps.

By the second year there were eleven of us and after seeing some of us having such a good time at lunch the Bishop had canceled the evening session so that we would have more time to do things like having fun together. Last year we even got the Bishop to come with us. This year 14 clergy played the course together including a number of new folks who were immediately hooked. Later that night many went out and had great fellowship at restaurants and such, but true to my DNA

I managed to get six to come and play games around a card table in the basement of my hotel that I had scoped out for that very purpose.

The beauty of playing games with people you don't know all that well and people you enjoy being around is that time gets lost, you get to know each other in a different and I think more genuine way, and you laugh no matter how competitive you are. We played two games that were new for me, which makes it even better, and before we knew it we had been playing for four hours and it was almost 1am.

I believe that there are times which connect us. When a group of people works together, studies together, lives together and argues together, I don't think the connection can be complete without playing together too and it makes all those other things better. When I was in Geneva a year and a half ago there were some awkward getting to know you moments that in their structured way started to open us up to each other, but it wasn't until we started playing ping-pong, volley ball and UNO (which I was moved by that inner force in me to buy for the institute) that you got a sense we were finally connecting and building community. Maybe it's about letting yourself be silly a little or maybe it's getting in touch with some inner child in all of us, but whatever it is playing together is the root of joy. Even for those who don't like board games and such it's really just about playing and letting yourself play together. When we do, something real and I think beautiful comes out. It's good to play.

Hard Days-there is a next

This past Sunday I gave a sermon about faith as the hope that those things we desire are still possible even in the midst of our deepest despair. I talked about the rainy days we have quoting Longfellow's poem "Rainy Days,"and about how easy it can be to slip into a form of despair where everything seems bad and we can't seem to see good.

the day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary."

Little did I know how much I needed to hear that sermon myself. These past few days have been some of the hardest in my life. I am a very private person and I pride myself on being able to deal with stress, but we all have limits. I found out today that my mother has cancer that has reached stage 4. We will know more in the coming weeks and days, but you are never really ready to hear something like this. You want to be strong and you have to be, but there is nothing easy about it. There is a part of you that kind of has to disassociate, to compartmentalize things and focus either on other things or on only the facts as if they aren't really happening to this person that you love. It's easy to feel like it just isn't fair, but that doesn't help so you try to deal with things as best you can. You ask as many questions as you can think of knowing that you won't like many of the answers, but knowing also that you need to hear them. Life as you knew it before has changed, but it must also still go on. One of my favorite shows of all time was the show "West Wing" and President Bartlett has this ability that no matter what was going on or how hectic things seem the question we have to ask is, "what's next?" We can't change what has happened, so we figure out what's next. It's not like asking the question makes the answers come easier, but asking the question is a refusal to just freeze and not do anything acknowledging that there is a next. Maybe that's part of it; no matter what it is there is a next and once we face that there is another next and so on. There is a next.

Sweat

I have had the privilege of being invited to participate in a sweat on the Northern Cheyenne reservation near Coalstrip MT., the Monument Valley Navaho reservation in southern Utah and the Yakima reservation in Yakima, WA. Each time I was honored by the invitation to participate in something so rich in tradition and sacred for each tribe. The sweat can be a place of intense religious meaning where sacred moments and visions occur and it can also be a place to simply relax and share a time together. The other day I went into a hotel sauna just expecting to release some tension and do some cleansing, but what I ended up with was a sweat experience with a man from the Makah peoples of Neah Bay. Something about the atmosphere with the tension releasing steam and the mind clearing heat and sweat turns even a hotel sauna into that special place where sharing can occur. It's funny because my experiences have all been in native american settings, but my mind also went to the ancient Roman baths with their steam rooms in which social barriers could be broken down, strangers could be friends and all manner of gossip could be heard. I confess that I didn't do much sharing, but for the man I was with it was clear that the heat triggered something in him as he shared about the sweat he used regularly up in Neah Bay. He told me about his work since May on boats in the Gulf cleaning up oil and how he was glad to be home with his kids. His work took him away for months at a time and even now, with at least his part in the clean up done, he would be going off again soon to California or Alaska to work on other boats. He told me several times how he missed his kids as he boasted about their sports talent and told me about his wife's art and how proud he is of her as well. He was clear that he needed to take these jobs to support his family and that a part of him loved it and felt like he formed new versions of family in every place and on each boat he worked, but you could hear some of the struggle in his voice. In the sweat he unburdened himself a bit and shared his pride in his family. In the sweat a sacred moment happened in the sharing. You never know what might happen in the sweat but you have to respect it. It's good to sweat.