Sharing in God's Eternal Play

Let us continue to contemplate the mystery of play, of the gratuity of love and intimacy. If we are honest with ourselves, we all long for this mystery of playfulness and intimacy, for the intimacy of play, more than for anything else—and if we truly love, we desire it not only for ourselves but for all persons. For play is defined precisely as that reality that is sought and embraced, not in pursuit of another end or out of necessity, but simply for its own sake, because it is in itself supremely desirable; it is in itself beautiful, good, and true. It is, therefore, by definition beatitude. That is: heaven.

But it is also not any kind of play in the sense that it is identical with entertainment. In fact, play and entertainment are very different, almost on opposite ends of the spectrum. For I experience entertainment whenever I am doing or receiving something that merely feels good and relaxing on the sensible and emotional level of my being, something that in a sense limits me and distracts me from the deeper dimensions of myself and of the world. Such at least is its meaning in common parlance. Authentic play and playfulness of course integrate these good elements into something higher, deeper, and purer, more rich and more full. In this respect, the word “entertainment” could just as well refer to something more akin to play, though we would need to re-evangelize the word so that it could again mean what is implied in the text from Hebrews 13:2: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” To entertain is thus to open myself to welcome what approaches me from the outside, to allow it to enter into myself and to enrich me, and just as importantly to be a good host to it that it may find fitting reception. This is true for “entertaining guests,” and thus is primal hospitality of heart, and it is also true for our receptivity to the beauty and meaning of reality itself and of every moment of life.

In this respect, play and entertainment are the same at their root, though play goes farther and stretches wider, for it is what blossoms in the fullness with which we entertain reality, namely, the abundance of meaningful living: it is the activity which is also contemplation and the contemplation that is also action, the rest that is also attentiveness and the leisure that is re-creation, the work which manifests gratuity and the gratuity that stirs us to work, the striving that is held in the certainty of already-having-been-found and the sense of having been found that stirs us to generous response, the compassion that suffers with the beloved and seeks their welfare and the peace of God that allows us to experience and bear such compassion without the disturbance that makes us bereft of light.

Play is therefore both an activity and a disposition. It is a disposition that can manifest in every activity, a way of being and of seeing, which is capable of pervading, sanctifying, setting free, and transfiguring all of life, in its every aspect; it is capable of transforming the most burdensome of responsibilities and the most difficult of struggles to the most fragile and transient of joys, giving them all the savor of God’s eternity and granting us the sure and certain hope that all our struggle is meaningful, is indeed held by loving hands that assure the victory, and that all we desire, all we taste of happiness and joy in this life, of love and communion, will exist forever—utterly fulfilled—in the home of the Trinity’s everlasting embrace.

In a very mysterious way, in a transformed heart love and play become identical. For love is the responsiveness to be moved by what is beautiful, good, and true, to offer my heart and my life as a home for who and what I love, that I may be moved by it, and that, with utmost tenderness and attunement, I may dance around it in cherishing care, in delight, and in reverent esteem. It is also the acceptance of being loved, cherished, and delighted in by the one who loves me, and who thus welcomes me into the dance of his love. And if God loves us in such a manner, we are truly his playmates. We have been created, beyond everything else and in everything else, to be his eternal playmates, sharing in the joy of his own intimacy. And our whole journey through this life, with all of its loss and its finding, its darkness and its light, its fears and its hopes, is really just cradled in that short moment after mother hides her face until, at the end of life, she reveals herself and says “Peek-a-boo!” and we cannot help but laugh in utter delight. Indeed, this very mystery is woven throughout every moment and drama of our life, if only we have the eyes to see it and the hearts to embrace it.

All of our sins and struggles, as long as we are willing to continue seeking God, are nothing in comparison with his love and his providence, which weaves all together for our good. It does not matter how great this is or how much we feel mired and stuck in our brokenness and sin, for in fact the more we live the more we realize, with the deep knowledge of the heart, the depth and extent of our sinfulness, of our poverty and woundedness. But this awareness itself grows from the soil of God’s mercy, cradled in his grace, and so too he makes water flow from the rock, and confidence in him springs from our very poverty. Therefore, the best thing for us to do is not to get uptight and fearful, rigid and forceful, and preoccupied with ourselves, but to let our hearts be enraptured by God’s beauty and love, which comes to us without ceasing, and which gradually sets us free from ourselves and into ourselves, into Christ, for it sets us free for love.

To play, in this regard, means both 1) to live gratuitously, to gaze upon God in self-forgetfulness, captured by his beauty and goodness both in himself and in all that he has made, and also 2) to strive for holiness with humor, taking ourselves lightly and never being surprised by our sins and foolishness, but rather welcoming every moment as an opportunity to encounter his sweet mercy anew and more deeply. It also means 3) devoting ourselves to listening to and responding to the unique word of God spoken in every created reality and in every single person, living our whole life as a “dance” of attunement, in sensitivity and wonder, to all that approaches us in our poverty, ready to say always anew: “So this is what you are about here, my God!” Play is therefore intrinsically generous, or oblative, if it is truly alive. It is the creativity and inventiveness of love that responds with wholehearted generosity and lighthearted wonder in every moment. And this is why the saints are the most playful of creatures, for they lived lives of total and radical love for God and others, a love buoyed up by ravishing beauty, a love born of the certainty of having been loved first, and always, with God’s infinite and eternal Love.
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As we come to know such love, and the confidence that it generates, we can be like Thérèse who delighted to be too little to confront the spiritual warfare with demons head-on, but instead “ducked under” temptation as she once, as a small child, went under a horse’s legs into the house of her father. Then we can be like John of the Cross who said that the surest way of conquering any temptation is not to fight it, but simply to turn to God and to make an act of faith, hope, and love, to look upon the One before whom the demons flee, and before whom indeed all that is broken and disordered within us eventually dissolves like dew melting in the blazing sun. All evil, in the end, is conquered best and most effectively not by all of our efforts or our self-preoccupation, all of our practices and resolutions and goals, but simply by a bridal love for Jesus. Or even better: by his love for us. “Not I, but Christ my Lord.” And all of life, the good and the bad, can be subsumed into glory through our Abba’s utter and sure goodness, his incredible and world-conquering mercy, and the childlike confidence that this births within us. It can all be subsumed into the wonder-filled and lighthearted beauty of authentic play—his play in us and our play in him—for whether we acknowledge it or not, we are already held right in the heart of God’s own eternal Play, which is identical with his Love, with the everlasting, playful intimacy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.