Playing Games

Today, I was faced with a dilemma. As you are probably aware, I try to live my life by the standard of living set forth in the Bible, and specifically, the New Testament. Thus, if put to the question, I would affirm that I believe the following command to be from God Himself:

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." (Col. 3:1-2)

On the face of it, this statement may appear to express a fairly innocuous and straightforward religious statement: spiritual things are more significant than physical ones. Nonetheless, it contains a principle that goes beyond this point, both in its scope and in its range of applicability -- namely, godliness is to be pursued before all earthly things. Thus, any activity is meaningless unless it somehow benefits one spiritually.

As someone who loves to play games, I find myself resisting this particular command. Yes, certainly discipline with godliness as the end result is a valuable thing to pursue, but what about the joy of planning one's strategy? The pleasure in playing one's cards in the best possible configuration? The thrill that comes with a hard-earned victory? Surely there must be some value in these things.

What, then? Should Christians eliminate from their lives every recreation and pastime except spiritual disciplines like fasting, silence, and prayer? Should I stop playing Spades and instead memorize Psalms so that I can recite a Psalm every four hours throughout the day? (I am not being overdramatic; some people actually do this.)

I think what I have established above is a false dichotomy of the physical in conflict with the spiritual. For those of us who must live real, everyday lives on earth, there can be no true separation of the two. Somehow, we must learn to live in a way that meets our physical obligations and needs as well as our spiritual ones. The balance is a fine one, but I believe it can be attained.

Instead of giving games up completely (which, in some ways, would be the easy way out), I am under the conviction that God wants me to use gaming to strengthen His hold on my life and to advance His kingdom. So what does that look like in practical terms?

Before answering that, I should probably address the question of what it means to play games. In a nutshell, I think it means to suspend one's disbelief and accept the rules of the game as absolute. There can be no transgression of them, regardless of how arbitrary they are (or seem to be). Moreover, a gamer must maintain a balance between realizing that the game is "just a game" and treating the gameplay as a vitally important activity (even though its importance springs solely from the fact that all the other players accept this seemingly arbitrary activity as important, too).

A game, then, provides the Christian with several valuable opportunities for spiritual discipline. Firstly, as with all human activities, it is a place to cultivate the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Just as there is no law against these qualities, no game contains rules preventing the exercise of these attributes in word or deed. In some ways, a game is a better place than others to practice these things, because the risk is lower and the expectation of receiving these things is also lower (depending on who one's gaming partners are, of course). Regardless of the risk, though, gamers can clearly see when their counterparts are exercising grace, so games are an ideal place to practice these disciplines.

Secondly, games are a good place to learn how to place oneself in a position of humility. James tells us that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. When we play games, we learn important lessons, such as the fact that there are always more losers than winners and that winning is often a very artificial construction, and these facts can aid us in seeing that the vast majority of temporal successes are ultimately meaningless. Consequently, our success in these temporal matters is equally unimportant. Therefore, rather than exalting ourselves because we have gained ephemeral triumphs, we learn to diminish our own importance in light of our relative insignificance in the cosmos.

Thirdly, games help us to understand our own agency. We have choices about how we act and what we choose to do, but we are also at the mercy of other people's decisions, as well as circumstances outside our control. Games help us to gain a healthier view of reality, and for Christians, this should translate into a healthy respect for God's sovereignty and our own inability to make everything right by ourselves.

Games, then, should be more than just a waste of time for those who follow Christ. They provide a forum to grow, to discipline oneself, and, ultimately, to live out one's convictions. For those of us who have committed ourselves to setting our hearts on things above, they are a wonderful proving ground and a place to improve our spiritual conditions while simultaneously enjoying an aspect of our physical existences here on earth.

What do you think? I'd love to hear. :-)

Conversation with Marshwiggle

Sometimes, we have funny IM conversations at work.

Marshwiggle [3:47 PM]:
Did you hear about Blagojevich?

Marshwiggle [3:47 PM]:
it appears they finally got him for asking for money/jobs/something for appointing whoever to teh now vacant Obama seat.

Luaphacim [3:55 PM]:
yeah

Luaphacim [3:55 PM]:
I heard about that...

Luaphacim [3:56 PM]:
I think he should repent and appoint a scoutmaster to the seat

Luaphacim [3:56 PM]:
and then the scoutmaster can reform American politics with his boyish charm and populist ideals

Luaphacim [3:56 PM]:
while nearly falling prey to the wiles of a worldly-wise female journalist

Luaphacim [3:57 PM]:
but triumphing in the end and going on to become George Bailey, the richest man in town

Marshwiggle [4:00 PM]:
hmm.. naw, there's some weird religious aspect to that dude.. sees angels and bunnies.

Luaphacim [4:00 PM]:
hehe

Luaphacim [4:00 PM]:
yeah

Luaphacim [4:00 PM]:
that could be a PR nightmare

Happy New Year to you, dear readers... IN JAIL!

Meme Meme Meme

No time for substance!

The meme is via the Eavesdrop Writer Blog, which normally doesn't contain memes. Nonetheless, it must have caught the Vivienne's fancy as it has caught mine. (Incidentally, it's a pretty interesting blog and you should go there sometime.)

Here's the deal:
(1) Grab the nearest book
(2) open the book to page 56
(3) find the fifth sentence
(4) post the text of the next two to five sentences
(5) don’t dig for your favorite book. Pick the closest
(6) tag five people to do the same

Note that if you dig around for your favorite book, it ruins the whole point of the thing. It must be the book that is spacially closest to you.

The nearest book is The Art of the Essay, edited by Lydia Fakundiny. I was recently re-reading this with fond memories of my non-fiction creative writing class at KU.

The essay is Benjamin Franklin's "The Ephemera". [This is the conclusion of the ephemera's soliloquy. I have linked to the full text above in case you want to read the rest of this short but insightful essay.]

"To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemera and now and then a kind smile, and a tune from the ever-amiable Brillante."

How very Franklinian. Happy weekend, dear readers! I figure that five people will read this, if I am lucky, so I tag you all.

I Shall Wear the Bottoms of My Trousers Rolled

As you may have noticed in my last few posts, I am beginning to come to grips with my mortality. This is especially true because the news of my high cholesterol came as I was fighting the tail end of a vicious cold. The next week, my foot swelled up for no apparent reason, causing me quite a bit of pain for a few days. In a word, I felt like I was falling apart.

Considering my mortality has been a difficult thing for me, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost is that, in many ways, I still feel like a child. I like riding in the folded-down backseat of a station wagon at night while someone else drives and I go to sleep. I like ice cream. I like having as little responsibility as possible. I am surrounded by wondrous things, and I like not knowing how they all work (because as soon as the knowledge comes, the wonder dissipates).

Children, however, do not need to worry about cholesterol or cardiovascular disease. When children stub a toe or bruise a knee, they do not need a week to recover enough to go up and down the stairs without grunting. Most children seem not to get sickness that lasts for much longer than a weekend, and very few of them continue to hack and cough for the next month.

Secondly, I have always felt reasonably healthy. You know, like the kind of healthy that doesn't need angioplasty or a Rascal scooter. It is, therefore, disappointing to learn that my poor lifestyle choices have had negative consequences. Who knew that a lifetime of eating fats, carbs, and other delicious things could have such negative consequences? (Answer: me, but I didn't really know-know until the doctor told me I could die from doing this.)

Thirdly, I find that the idea of death bothers me. Not because I fear death, but because I would be leaving behind the woman I love and a large family of brothers, sisters, and parents who would presumably mourn my passing. It hurts to think that they might be in emotional pain and I would not be in any position to provide them with comfort -- or, indeed, with anything other than stiffness, decay and possibly diseases, at that point.

For all these reasons, I have been thinking a lot about my mortality and how I should act in light of it. And, of course, these lines from Dylan Thomas came to mind:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

So here is what I have done today in an effort to rage against the dying of the light:

1.) Listened to rock instead of classical while cutting coupons this afternoon
2.) Felt my foot beginning to swell up again and determined that I would give it a reason to swell up, so went to the gym
3.) Lifted weights entirely too much while at the gym, despite my knowledge that my whole chest will be throbbing all day tomorrow as a result
4.) Stacked the pillows differently while making my bed
5.) Wore my slippers out of the house
6.) Pushed my Toyota Camry's 4-cylinder engine up past 3,000 RPMs while getting on the highway (normally, I don't like taking it up much past 2,500)
7.) Choreographed an especially daring "chair dance" to do tomorrow, in case my foot becomes too swollen up to go for a run
8.) Didn't wear a belt with my jeans tonight

How is that for daring to disturb the universe? (Or at least daring to eat a peach?)

Sometimes, the Song Stuck in Your Head Isn't a Real Song

Q. What do you get when you cross this


with this?



A. The song that was going through my head all day long yesterday. No, I don't really know why. Yes, I am a little frightened.