I
am at a major turning
point in my six- (almost seven-) decades-old life, and as I put
together
the content for the 2009 sixth annual Hungry Souls
24-Hour Advent Retreat of Silence, I am aware that this will be the
last Advent Retreat I plan. Hopefully, others will step forward to take
up the responsibility of this lovely gift joyfully given to others, but
if not, I am content to say, “We did a good job introducing many to
their first taste of communal silence.”
My creative
life is
calling me; it hums in the night. I can see it in flashpoints during my
days. The unborn works I have not brought to nativity wait patiently
for me to give them birth.
How fortunate to have these days where I am still in good health and of
sound mind. But the ubiquitous question—how long will they last?—always
rises.
During
the last session of the current cycle of Listening Groups (eight months
of listening to each other), one of the women graciously extended words
of appreciation to each member. When my turn came, she said this: “I
have a friend who knows that I am in a Listening Group with Karen
Mains. She loves your writing and asked me what you were like. I told
her that you were an absolute free spirit!”
I was amazed. I
used to be a free spirit (as Julie Andrews once sang as Maria,
“Somewhere in my wicked childhood …”), but it has become painfully
clear to me over the last three years that I have a play deprivation.
Creativity oozes, and laughter, fortunately, has become a companion
again—but a free spirit?—something must be showing without my knowing.
I suspect my “free spirit” is always hedged about by my heightened
sense of responsibility and peeks out at moments when I am not aware of
it.
So for
whatever of life is left to me, I want to
dedicate that to learning how to play. In order to be content that I
have
lived well the life given to me, I am determined to go dancing, singing
and scribing into heaven—with nothing undone that was meant to be done.
I do not want to spend the last days of my life with an overwrought
sense of
obligation. I want to free the closet renegade within me and say,
“Okay, your turn…”
Stuart Brown, M.D., in his fascinating book Play: How It Shapes the Brain,
Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul,
writes that humans are genetically programmed for play. Brown has spent
his career conducting more than 6000 play histories with people from
all walks of life; serial killers (who displayed one startling
commonality—a childhood play-deprivation) to Nobel Prize winners, to
celebrities, to public servants, and to those who represent the rest of
us, the common folk.
Brown writes,
“When we get play right,
all areas of our lives go better. When we ignore play, we start having
problems. When someone doesn’t keep an element of play in their life,
their core being will not be light. Play gives us the irony to deal
with paradox, ambiguity, and fatalism. Without that, we are like the
Woody Allen character in Annie
Hall,
who says, “What’s the use? The sun’s going to blow up in five billion
years anyway.”
Here is a list of what he recommends to restore play to the
play-deprived.
1. Take
your play history.
For
a long time I couldn’t remember how I played as a child, or what kind
of toys I had, but this exercise helped me remember that I loved
playing field hockey (high school and college); that my father’s exiled
(to Des Moines, Iowa) Southern family loved family sing-fests; that as
a grade-schooler I loved gardening with my father and canning with my
mom and grandmother. Reading, reading, reading was always high on the
list, and I remember the pleasure of riding a bicycle (purchased
secondhand
when I was in 4th grade). There’s a long way to go, I know—I’m a little
deficient in the early-years play history—but it’s a start.
2. Expose
yourself to play.
My
friend Natalie Lombard and I have been experimenting with painting with
brooms in her heated garage. (It is good to have a playful friend with
a heated garage.) I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to choose
people for these last decades of my life who know how to play and who
make a way for the free spirit dwelling within me that wants OUT!
Natalie and I are building a living metaphor on the Prepare Ye!
theme for the opening of this year’s Advent Retreat of Silence. We are
becoming really good at spreading paint with a turkey baster—another
painting tool—though I am amazed that working with the same consistency
of watered-down pastels and the same turkey baster, our hands
nevertheless produce totally different lines!
3. Give
yourself permission to be playful, to be a beginner.
OK.
OK. I’m here already. I’m seeking out people whom life has not beaten
into seriousness. In one conversation recently with the team of gals
who are designing training for Retreat of Silence leaders, we discussed
the importance of recapturing a sense of play. One woman mentioned her
“fun dates.” Consequently, right now I am thinking about beginning
establishing outrageously ridiculous Play Days once a month for the
purpose of giving myself permission to be playful, to be a beginner and
get this play thing down right.
For the rest of Stuart Brown’s list, I recommend you read the book and
check out your own capacity for play.
For my whole
life, I’ve visited Christ’s words, “Truly
I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, NRSV). What
did He mean?
David
Steindl-Rast writes about the “child-like” concept, “The child within
us stays alive. And the child within us never loses the talent to look
with the eyes of the heart, to combine concentration with wonderment,
and so to pray without ceasing. The more we allow the child within us
to come into its own, the more we become mature in our prayer life.
This is surely one meaning of the saying that we must ‘become like
children.’ There is no childishness suggested here. … A truly mature
person has not rejected childlikeness, but rather achieved it on a
higher level. As we progress in that direction, everything in our daily
life becomes prayer. The childlike heart divines springs of refreshing
water at every turn.
What I want to concentrate on in the
years left to me is not to let work overtake wonderment; indeed, I want
to learn how to launch wonderment and let the work go hand in hand with
it. I no longer need to develop the discipline of doing tasks I really
don’t like or am not good at doing. That discipline has revealed that
I’m pretty good at a lot of things—surprise! From now on, as much as
possible, I want my work to become play.
Stuart Brown again:
“Far from standing in opposition to each other, play and work are
mutually supportive. They are not poles at opposite ends of our world.
Work and play are more like the timbers that keep our house from
collapsing down on top of us. Though we have been taught that play and
work are each the other’s enemy, what I have found is that neither one
can thrive without the other. We need the newness of play, its sense of
flow, and being in the moment. We need the sense of discovery and
liveliness that it provides. We also need the purpose of work, the
economic stability it offers, the sense that we are doing service for
others, that we are needed and integrated into our world.”
So here are
the questions I’m beginning to ask of myself:
1. How
am I incorporating play into my week—each week? 2. What
outrageously ridiculous Play Day am I going to orchestrate this month? 3. Who
are the people who know how to laugh and play, and how can I make them
my friends? 4. How
will I take this sense of wonder and marry it to the work I choose to
do? 5. How
am I going to find joy in the effort of simply being a little kid in
God’s Presence—running toward the Kingdom of Heaven on happy feet (you
saw the film Happy
Feet,
didn’t you? Yep, that’s exactly what I mean).
So, I hope to see you at this
year’s 6th annual Advent Retreat of Silence. Let us meet each other in
the silence and listen together to see what God has to teach us about
being prepared. I am bringing my painting brooms and my turkey baster.
Karen Mains
ADVENT-RETREAT ANNOUNCEMENT
One of the reasons we give a discount is to
encourage
retreatants who know they are coming to sign up early. This way we have
some feel as to whether there will be funds to provide scholarships for
those who want to come but just can’t swing it financially. If you know
you are coming but still haven’t registered, please do so soon. That
will be a help to us as we seek to include others. Note that the date for
final registration is November
25.
We also will have a table with the Global
Bag Project African-made kanga-cloth bags. They are
gorgeous! Think about these for Christmas gifts.
Karen Mains is offering an
eight-month, twice-monthly teleconference training for people who have
always wanted to write, have written before but are now stalled. We
will begin in February 2010 and go through October. The conference
calls will be one hour long. This will be a personal mentoring
opportunity with no more than 12 people per training team.
During these eight months, Karen will walk Wannabe (Better) Writers
through the principles of writing personal memoirs—this is a form that
Karen’s writing has taken in many of her articles, blogs,
e-newsletters, and in some of her 24 published books. The cost will be
$40 a month ($20 per conference call) or $320 for the eight months (16
sessions) of coaching.
For an e-mail copy of the prerequisites required to attend this course,
the goal of the telementoring process, the curriculum for the 16
conference calls, and more details about payments, e-mail Karen at:
(Karen ran a test
teleconference session last year, was amazed by the process, and is
jazzed by sharing her learning and experience as a published writer
with people who are serious about their work.)
Global
Bag Project Report
Since October we have been
testing how the
kanga-cloth bags sell in small presentations. So far, the parties have
been successful beyond our estimations. Here are some initial reports:
Winnetka
Covenant Church Women’s Bible Study Breakfast
40 women present. Donations worth $840 in bag sales; $680 for sewing
machines.
Home
Bag-Party in Lake Villa, IL
28 women present. Donations worth $2400 in bag sales.
Home
Bag-Party in Green Bay, WI
18 people present. Donations worth $1800 in bag sales and $680 for
sewing machines.
Home
Bag-Party in Winfield, IL
8 people present. Donations worth $740 in bag sales.
As you can see, this obviously
is worth the time and effort. Consequently, we are putting together a
“BAG PARTY IN A BOX” concept so we can ship bags to hosts and hostesses
across the country. The parties only take an hour and 15 minutes!
People are greeted, a light supper or simple refreshments are served,
the video is shown, people choose and make donations for bags, and
folks are happily out the door without having spent a whole afternoon
or evening of their precious time. We have five more Bag Parties before
Christmas, two corporate presentations, one church Christmas fair and
then we’re going to take a little time to reconnoiter.
But
if you are in the Chicago area and want to sign up for a Home Bag-Party
for next year 2010, let us know at
. If you are out of the
Chicago area and will be a willing participant to test the “BAG PARTY
IN A BOX” concept and give us feedback, also contact us at the above
e-mail address.
Reminder!
The Soulish Food e-mails are
being
posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web
site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to
register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might
want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.
Karen Mains
"The child within us never loses the
talent to look
with the eyes of the heart, to combine concentration with wonderment,
and so to pray without ceasing. The more we allow the child within us
to come into its own, the more we become mature in our prayer life.
This is surely one meaning of the saying that we must ‘become like
children."
— David Steindl-Rast
Book Corner
Play: How It Shapes the Brain,
Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul By Stuart
Brown, M.D.
Summary
from Publishers Weekly:
Brown,
a physician, psychiatrist, clinical researcher and the founder of the
National Institute for Play, has made a career of studying the effects
of play on people and animals. His conclusion is that play is no less
important than oxygen, and that it's a powerful force in nature that
helps determine the likelihood of the very survival of the human race.
Having studied thousands of people's play histories, from murderers to
Nobel Prize winners, Brown reveals that play is an essential way humans
learn to socialize. Beginning with the very first play interactions
between mother and child, and working up to adult relationships between
couples and co-workers, Brown describes how play helps brain
development and promotes fairness, justice and empathy. Work and play
are mutually supportive, he argues, noting that play increases
efficiency and productivity (playful folks, he claims, are also
healthier). Sprinkled with anecdotes demonstrating the play habits of
subjects as diverse as polar bears and corporate CEOs, Brown and
co-writer Vaughan (The
Promise of Sleep)
present a compelling case for promoting play at every age. The authors
include helpful tips for bringing play back into grownup lives,
including being active, spending time with others who are playful and
rethinking the misguided notion that adult play is silly or undignified.
