Almost every day at work, I hear one of my life’s favorite sounds–recess at the elementary school across the street–hundreds of kids having all kinds of fun. Then I hear one of the saddest sounds–the bell that calls them all back to class. Why did we ever let them take recess away from us? I think it’s time to bring it back.

Seriously, how much fun was that? Sure, I know there are bullies and fights and not getting picked to be on the team you want, but that stuff happens off the playground too. Drama and trauma aren’t the exclusive realm of the playground. But man, there’s a lot of fun stuff that never happens unless you have some regularly set-aside time to play with others.

The other Sunday, a bunch of folks from the church went over to carol at the Northaven Retirement Community. From two years old to over seventy, that group had fun, especially singing to the 80-plus crowd who will always show up to hear a choir.

Honestly we were a somewhat unruly bunch. Not that everyone at Northaven likes to color inside the lines, but we had kids roaming ALL around, wanting to be held, then not, then deciding to go help Harumi play the piano, then deciding not to sing. My favorite was to see several of our youngsters helping Rob direct the singing.

Some adults get cranky amid such antics, but not our group and not Northaven either. On this day, it was grace abounding. Unless I was missing something, it seemed like every one of us was just enjoying ourselves.

I wish more of my life was like that. I mean, haven’t we all wanted to direct the choir and play electric guitar and drums at one time or another–so much that we just acted like we were, even though we didn’t really know how to, or didn’t have anyone that would actually let us do it for real?

I’m glad that Solomon and Griffin got to direct their hearts out. Where else will they get to do that? Caroling was beginning to feel like recess, something I’ve really missed.

I’m not the first to call play a sacred activity. If you want to go all in, try googling ‘play theory.’ Play is at once both a ritual and a quality of mind. Through play, we explore and experiment with our view of the world. Play engages the imagination and often constructs new patterns of social interaction. Play cultivates creativity and is a common ingredient of instruction in the arts.

It has been said that one of the surest signs of health, in children or in pets is their inclination to play. As intuitively true as this seems, why wouldn’t this be equally true for adult humans? Somewhere along the line, we get taught that playing is childish. We learn that productivity, not creativity is the way to judge the fulfillment of human potential.

In one dimension, that picture of the ‘laughing Jesus’ is kind of cheesy. But surely Jesus knew how to laugh like only the son of all humanity could laugh. If laughing is good for nothing else, at least it tends to give us a glimpse of a person’s soul. Yes, you can fake a laugh, but one needn’t be a genius to detect it. Bottom line, I think you can learn more from playing, laughing, and being creative with others than all the classroom time in the world.

Even when someone is coloring outside the lines, it’s hard to complain when you can see how good of a time they are having. To me, that’s what Jesus is all about. In Jesus’ life we celebrate the divine become flesh. We see the creative impulse find complete expression in human form. The God who longed to be fully known and fully loved and was willing to do anything that humanity would be filled with that love too, came to dwell WITH US.

The ancient world had lots of different ways of looking at life. They had all different kinds of gods and even people who were somewhere in between human and divine. But Yahweh, the one God used Christmas to color outside the lines of humanity’s expectations. Our Christ tried out his own hand at conducting the heavenly chorus. And in this, the season of Epiphany, of God’s revealing ,we have the chance to imagine heaven’s realm anew, only now fulfilled on THIS earth.

To play is to RE-create. The Lord of the sabbath did it. Jesus did it. Within us, Christ can do it still. I think it may be time to put down the books and take a recess.

God’s creation shows the way. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God. It is the organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual, and strives to lead back the individual to it. (Nature)

And he offered a critique: We can never see Christianity from the catechism*–from the pastures, from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds, we possibly may. (Circles)

It’s not that I’m anti-school, I just think a lot of our learning happens outside the classroom and I’m with God, Jesus, Emerson, and the children. I think it’s time to bring recess back.

* religious instruction