I can see myself as a child standing in the center of a merry-go-round, as my brother begins to push the great circle so that it is spinning. As the centripetal force builds, I can feel the force pushing me outward yet I struggle to remain poised in the center. One step outward and the dizziness can overtake me. The world is spinning around, as I try to stay focused. It is exhilarating, dizzying, and frightening. One false move and I could be slung outward and off the merry-go-round. Yet it is challenging to try to stay centered, with all this movement about.
It is a feeling of being held in a mysterious force that is moving all about me, while at the same time I am moving with or being carried by the movement. I have fallen many times and suffered bruises and humiliation, but it was fun and daring, and foolish and reckless. As with all things that suffer delight, there is always some level of abandonment involved.
“When the Lord established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep; when he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth; when he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command; then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race.” (Prv 8:22-31)
Today, we hear scriptural attempts to convey the beautiful mystery of how our God is in relationship and IS a relationship of love, creation, and re-creation (Trinity). I am struck by the wonderful passage from Proverbs, that goes beyond space and time to that mysterious “when” wherein God created or, perhaps re-created or played within the Love of Life itself. It is so striking to me that God is never alone! There is always relating going on. But how wonderful of an image to have our God “playing on the surface of his earth.” And even moreso, to have “found delight in the human race.”
“Who are YOU?,” and “Who am I?” Those questions kept St Francis of Assisi in all-night vigil many times. More than mental questions, for Francis it was a deep contemplative expression of the heart full of wonderment and gratitude for all the delightful engagement that he found in God’s creation. Nothing was left out. Everything belonged and in as much as it was broken and frail, it was so beautiful and whole! This engagement of God in creation is “playing.” This is not the picture of a God, as some claim, that has set the world in motion and backed away to make sport of us as we struggle and suffer the vicissitudes of life and death. No! This is a God, who never left us, who has been with us all the while and even humanized Divinity in the Person of Jesus.
God’s playground is our lives, the life of the world and all within it. And the playfulness of God is characterized by the delight He (She) takes in the tiniest piece of each of our lives. There is nothing without interest to God. No boring detail or irrelevant aspect. It is as if God is playing IN us, in all creation! And this playfulness is Love. The effectiveness of this playfulness, which is the life of God, rests upon us, oddly enough. To the extent that we participate and allow God as love and mercy to play out in our lives is the extent to which we can realize and bring to awareness just how close God is to us and how close we are in God! We take our breaths in God’s own breath – Spirit must be holy!
IT may seem inappropriate to speak of God as dependent upon us, but I believe it has to do with just what is at stake in our relationship with each other in God. If our journey in this life is inescapably caught up in the relationship that God has with God’s self, this world and with us, then our task in this life includes a growing awareness that God is right here right now, next to you, within the person you are speaking with, shining forth in the open blooms of a smiling daylily, everywhere! Could God really be that close? And if so, God depends or relies on us noticing this and living accordingly.
I understand from my parents, that as a child, I had a very vivid imagination, and as part of this, I had imaginary friends! I wonder if this could be like God “playing before him(self) all the while, playing on the surface of his earth?” With the difference being that God’s imagination is the very structure of reality – Love itself! Created in the imagination of God, we are more real than we can even imagine! And because God takes such delight in us, we have the great and mysterious honor and responsibility to play with God and with each other striving always to act with the mindfulness of the rules of the playground – Love, Compassion and Mercy!
Peace
Thomas
(originally published May 22, 2016)