Playing with God

I had lunch today with the Rector of a nearby church. We see eye-to-eye on many issues having to do with how to do ministry in our various contexts and find it mutually rewarding to share with each other. I know people that don't know how to have these kinds of conversations, and that makes me sad for them. How can you learn if you can't listen? Not that I'm always such a great listener, but at least I try.

I've been trying to understand some of the things that made the conference so exhilarating for me. It's not just that I learned some new techniques or listened to some interesting ideas. I think that what really, really turned me on was playing with God. My own spiritual temperament has always been keen on holy play, but somewhere in my training for ministry I learned that you're not supposed to be that way when you are leading worship. It's serious, life or death business that requires concentration and intentionality and focus. This sort of liturgical theology is closely tied, IMHO, with notions of worship-as-sacrifice. I know priests that say that the primary value of the saying the Office is that it is a sacrifice of time. They feel good about the fact that there are million things that they would rather be doing. That it be prayer is besides the point in this theology.

So lately I've been breaking that open by exploring play in my private devotional life. That is, I've been praying the Office in a manner that plays with God. I'm just messing around as I experiment with singing or by sitting in a different place or burning incense or whatever else might come to mind. The point here is that I am giving myself permission to be expressive. What could be more "correct" than that?

I'm not saying everyone should pray crazy--I'm just saying it's working for me this week!

-t