Play — by Lucky

“One of the results of having lived a regime of regularly scheduled days for almost our entire life is that we can easily lose the spirit of play. Not only do our bodys age, but our spirits can mildew a bit, too. Whether we know it or not, Life has lost some of its possibility of abandon, over the years. More importantly, the sense of play, the quality in us, that really keeps us young, after years of having been largely ignored, has been sapped of its electric edge. It may take awhile to retrieve it. But retrieve it we must if we are to let age have free rein in us.

Age is for the revival of the spirit. Age is meant to allow us to play — with ideas, with projects, with friends, with life.”— Joan Chittister from The Gift of Years.

There is a possibility that resides in old age, like never before. Play. The innocence and wonder of childhood flares up again. Old eyes, hearts and spirits experience the world with the same kind of creative reverence and incandescent wonder that graces the very young.

In so doing, the old one’s experience aids Creation. Newness burns brighter, near the end, where an educated experienced light shines forth. Slowly elders, the reborn old, are coming to realize that life still surges in their blood, and that the magnificent miracle has not forsaken them.

Maybe this culture has, mistakenly, but Life hasn’t. Strangely, now at this seemingly broken hour, it calls out of us our true uniqueness, and guides us toward discovering our belonging. The elderly are seedpods, they hold something that cannot be gotten to without the heartbreak and surprise of life-experience. They aren’t the used up ones, instead they are the well-used ones. To release the wisdom, and creative energy of ripeness, inherent in the lives of the old, Nature has provided fun, laughter, comraderie and play.

Play equals fun, and fun equals creative engagement, and that enlivens everything it touches. In fact, there is a continuum that extends from Creation to human play. What is happening at the largest scale we can barely imagine, is also happening locally, when the attitude of play breaks out in someone’s laughing delight. Getting older brings this into perspective. What once belonged only in childhood, suddenly is a gift that graces even the doddering. Some fun takes a lifetime to unfold!

Play isn’t just fun, it is educative.  Creation dances with energy, so do we. Creation plays with form, so do we. Creation explores the non-obvious, ill informed, irrational missteps, so do we. All along we learn, so does the force that animates us. It could be that one of humanity’s highest art forms is play, a creative imaginative engagement with what is. The active edge of the expanding Universe might be right here, in the spirits of those living right now within the dilemmas of Creation, and playing their hearts out.

Play is kind of a secret, a secret that doesn’t comport with our puritanical heritage, so it has kind of a bad name. The idea of it is much worse than the experience. So it, like old folks, is kind of pushed into the shadows. They are immigrants, still looking for a way to be taken in, still looking for the kind of recognition that frees their gifts. They are finding each other, there in the shadows, and something unforeseen is emerging, a new more playful way of being grey.

This is a development that has Evolution buzzing. Like all truly good things, this development is full of paradox. The most frivolous and nonsensical of pursuits contain some of the most mysterious and binding meaning. What appears, and must be held, as an unproductive act, produces the unexpected. The old are suddenly fountains of youth. Creation doesn’t rest, it doesn’t even pause to celebrate its achievements, but from this moment in time, play and ageing are wonderful building blocks for a future worth having.