(Watch, I’ll start writing more, because I said that.)

Along the way, writing posts for Play Book has been a place for me to process my process, talk to folks about play and God at play, and work out ideas with your help and input.

At this point, I need to hide in a cave and write and edit. Every time I write something else to provide income or add folks to the conversation about the book, it’s time I trade in on writing the book at this point.

This fall, I’ve got a number of events and speaking engagements, which is fantastic.When I get to talk about Play Book, it gets better. But I can only write so many words, and they all need to be in the direction of the book getting finished now, because I want you to have it.

If you’ve supported me as a founding member, there will be a signed book with your name on it, one for each year you’ve subscribed. I am so, so thankful for you.

If you’ve got a monthly membership with me, you can pause or stop it, as I can’t promise to write monthly and have begun to be been WAY inconsistent in this season because I need to Just Write The Book. I am so, so thankful for you.

If you still want to support me as I keep going, you can mindfully neglect pausing your subscription. But, this is a heads up. I will be in a cave. I’m sure I’ll still post notes and generally chat with all of you. It’s great to hang out over here.

Once I’ve finished Play Book, I’m gonna be back here more, chatting and hanging out and hopefully kicking around ideas and enjoying how God is at play among us. Thank you for your ideas, your time, your encouragement, your financial support. Writing a book is so much more joy when you’ve got friends along the way.

Play on.

Where do I begin to catch up? So much has happened! Here’s the big thing: my editor rearranged my book.

It was a couple of weeks ago. He’s been rather busy because Malcolm Guite’s Galahad and the Grail, also with Rabbit Room Press, was #50 on the Amazon bestseller charts. Every time it comes in, they sell out. Also because of many other things, I’m sure. But that’s enough to do it.

So we got on a call, Pete and Sophie and I, and Pete proposed an entire re-arrangement of Play Book. And, by golly, he’s right. It works. Apparently he was pretty stressed about proposing the idea. But man, he nailed it.

Instead of a general arc going through redemptive history from before everything began to when everything is right again, to something more like a treasure hunt.

-Pre-amble

-The Game is Afoot

-Following the Breadcrumbs

-Playing in the Dark

-Hide & Seek

-The Most Playful One

-Conclusion.

So, practically, this means that I have been taking apart the entire book and re-arranging it. Pete did a fairly detailed job of rearranging subsections, but I’m going through and finding bits and choosing how best they fit into this new order. And then, it’s a question of creating the connective tissue. For Play Book, that’s both a literary and visual question. OH: and the couple of hundred comments that I’ve got in the original document all need to be pulled over individually. Getting there.

I mentioned that this felt very much like putting a puzzle together, which I’d just done with my mom and brother while visiting in Pennsylvania. While it’s time consuming, I also find it really soothing.

It was a really cool puzzle- you only got to see part of it, and when you solved it, you solved a murder mystery. So similar to re-arranging a book. When you solve it, the book falls into place…more. Then there’s all the little puzzles. It’s like getting the outline of the puzzle in place and then you start piecing together big satisfying chunks. By the way, that’s what Pete calls sections of the book, humoring me. “Chapters” doesn’t feel right, as the book kind of flows from one thing to another. So it’s Big Chunks and Small Chunks. Also “narrative” instead of “essay” because essays put me in a cold sweat and make me feel like I’m in school. Bless him, humoring this weirdo.

So, that’s what’s up. There’s so much more that’s up, and I repent of falling off here. This is my getting back on my Substackian horse. I’m going to stop here for the moment, and go with good enough over perfect. I’m just waving a white flag to let you know I am alive. The book is alive. It’s just enduring a deep adolescence.

Oh! Also exciting. We finally have actual dimensions for the book. Did you know when you are creating a book, your editor can get something called a dummy that lets you see and feel what your book will actually be like? This has been a long process for us. The last dummy was too floppy. Nobody wants a floppy dummy. Play Book is an artifact, and we want it to be beautiful. It’s also meant to be touchable and take along-able and manhandle-able, so it had to be sturdy enough to stand up to that. I’ll show you soon. Knowing the actual dimensions means that and Pete and I get to start having a lot of fun. Play happens within boundaries, you know.

Speaking of puzzles, I’ll leave you with a poem draft for the moment, from somewhere near the end of Play Book.

Poem: Will there be cubing?

Rounding the corner to the bus station,

My son says he is not so sure about God making everything perfect.

Perfect, he says, sounds like there are no more puzzles.

Like all of the Rubik’s cubes will be solved,

All the algorithms discovered.

Oh no way, I said.

That genius God put in Mr. Rubik will stay.

The thing, the Someone who got everything going

will keep unfolding wonders,

just minus the heartbreak.

We’ll keep discovering,

and it will get more amazing and amazinger

and we will grow into the wonder.

“All the time?” he asked,

“That sounds exhausting too.”

Then I told him our pastor said

it’ll be like music, really great music––

big when it needs to be,

twists when there needs to be,

space when there needs to be.

That seemed okay.

I mean, we can always say, “for God’s glory”. Which is true.

But that phrase, left there, can feel like a door shutting, like when adults tell children “Because I said so”. But, if we hang out in that question, what if “for God’s glory” is a door opening? What happens we stand on that threshold?

Hang on: Why do you want to know, anyway? And who are you to ask?

I’m asking because God made us to be creators, too. And something wondrous happens right there, between. I’m not trying to pin it down, or bottle it. But I do think it’s worth playing around with.

Why did God make the cosmos, Earth, and, us? Is that urge, that impetus, something we can understand? Granted, God exists outside of time–– God made time and space for us to dwell in. So, this is kind of a weird question, but I’ll ask it anyway: what happened in the space between when just God existed, and when God made everything?

It’s worth considering for lots of reasons. Mine is that it could make space in our souls. Here’s my new favorite idea: If you want to enter a mystery, play with it. So here we go.

Inception. And the inception of inception.

What do we have to work with when it comes to understand where all creating began? As a writer, that feeling I have when a poem gestates, when some inkling begins to burble into words––it’s my best understanding of creation, beginning. Of inception. When something ineffable begins to form in to hums, fricatives and strings of words.

Say you could stand inside of the heart of God. Before anything was made. (This requires some make-believe.) What did God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all together) look like, in perfect friendship together? Feel like? Sound like?

By artist

It is hard for us to try imagine God, before creation. Let’s do it anyway. We can wonder and explore with the clues we have, because God invites us to turn our imaginations in His direction. And, as my friend Jonathan Warren Pagán told me, “There are things we can’t know, but they are worthy of consideration.” So maybe we look for hints and clues.

My favorite clue so far is in Proverbs 8, where God brought forth Lady Wisdom:

The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old;
I was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.

When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.

I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.

Proverbs 8:22-31 (NIV)

by , imaginer extraordinaire

Playing with big mysteries

Well, there it is. Wisdom, personified, tells us what happened. She says, “I was there: this is how it happened.” Between the most ecstatic Be-ing and the making of everything else, there was wisdom, “Lady Wisdom”–– the first of God’s works, delighting in God and his creation. It is a very big mystery, too big for me. Should this stop me? Heck no.

In Psalm 139, David explores the mysteries of God, the way God made and knows him. He tells God, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” So, does David give up and go home? Heck no. He rolls on for a long time, exploring this mystery before the face of God, with everything he’s got. He wonders how far he can go to get away from God. He wonders what he was like in his mother’s womb. He plays, he wonders, he writes, and he does it before the face of God. This is the way.

There are aspects of this idea that I can get my head around a little. Flip it over, explore it, see what it can do and what it can’t. So, if I’m exploring God beginning to create, maybe I can try on smaller ideas where there is a B.C. (before creating) and an A.C.(after creating), and hang out in the in-between. It’s like trying to pause a film right at a moment of inception- where a firework happens, or a scene changes, or a character enter.

Play Time

Here are two smaller things to wonder about that could be stepping stones.

Your parents, before they were parents.

Imagine your parents before they had kids–– that mysterious, pre-you world.

What did they do when they weren’t making your world?

When they were people who just hung out and liked each other’s company?

Even the desire to play together in a way that meant that eventually you came along.

Maybe God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were somehow, someways like that.

An artist, beginning.

What is it like when an artist falls in love with their art? When they begin the first time, when they begin every time?

As a writer, that feeling I have when the poem gestates, when the feelings begin to burble into words––it’s my best understanding of inception. When something ineffable begins to form in to humming fricatives and strings of words.

Annie Dillard talks about a writer who asked an aspiring writer, “Do you love sentences?” and an artist who was asked why they started painting who said, “I loved the smell of paint.”

Anything else? Play with it however you play.

What is the something, the seed?

Why do we start drawing, painting, carving, cooking, writing, dancing, researching, singing?

What do you create that feels like playing? That thing you do for the delight of it, for the sheer sake of it?

What does it feel like when you make something, right before you begin? Did God feel that?

Update on all things Katy and Play Book

If you randomly happened upon this post, this is my forum for exploring ideas that I’m writing about in Play Book! So then. Play Book continues. Pieces are falling into place. I’m grateful for your ears and hearts, for letting us try stuff out here. It’s becoming. We try, we fail, we explore, we wonder, we play.

I’ll be signing and selling Now I Lay Me Down to Fight and Little Prayers for Ordinary Days at Landmark Booksellers this Saturday, April 25th from 9:30-11:00 during Main Street Festival. Come on out!

I’m really looking forward to doing a few midweek “May Play Day” talks at my church in partnership with my pastor, Father Andrew. I am so grateful to have pastors who are so helpful and supportive when it comes to exploring ideas about play and playing with God. It’s amazing- right here at home.

On June 19th I’ll be at Schaeffer House in St. Louis to talk theology of play. It’s open to the public. Y’all come.

- I stuck around town to spend more time writing and attend.Creative Arts Collective’s Summit this past week. I skipped the Calvin Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids to go, which is pretty much summer camp for writers, and prepared for all the FOMO. But guys, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Coffee hours for networking are not my natural element, but this was good. There were so many moments I could not have planned, but that God clearly did. Bits of story that knit together, some of which began decades ago. I feel like God lined up, intricately, the moments of the day. It was beautiful. I can’t wait to tell you about some cool things that are developing.

-Next week we have a video chat with , author of the brand new book Created to Play. Every time I meet a compatriot who is exploring theology of play, I get a little giddy, and Brianna’s book is a joy. We’ll be live at 12:30 pm Central next Thursday, April 30th. Subscribers are welcome to jump in and ask questions in the chat! We’ll post the recording afterwards.

Ok friends. Drop a line. I love to talk. Play on.

-Meister Eckhardt

This quote: doesn’t it sound like playing? Play happens in relationship. You and another person, you and an idea, you and a ball. You explore, you delight.

Before anything was made, God was in relationship, and God was playful. God, within God, was already in the most epic friendship ever, the friendship that started all of the other ones: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Adam Neder, theology professor at Belmont University, says it so well: God just is friendship. The loving, liking, joyful nature of God happens among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Cooperating entirely, needing nothing. Simply in it for utter love and joy, within the One True God.

Scholars use the word perichoresis to describe the way God plays- an inter-play, a dance. Do you hear “choreo” in there, like choreography? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are dancing.

We can’t comprehend God being three and one. Let’s try anyway.

About the God in Three Persons idea: Go ahead. Try and think about God being One and Three at the same time. Let it hurt your brain a bit. (The Athanasian Creed is a fun place to wrestle with it.) All of the metaphors-–shamrocks, apples, water, whatnot––fall short, although they might help us stretch closer. How can someone be three persons? Go ahead and try. Then maybe, instead of trying to comprehend something incomprehensible, play.

Playing can help us enter a mystery. Instead of pouncing and wrestling down ineffable things, go on a treasure hunt through hints God has given us.

Be an investigator: Where can you find God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit? Where in the world, where in scripture, where in history, where in your story? Do you see God show up? To enter this kind of mystery, you just might find that you need to play, because playing is a brillliant tool/toy for exploring. For making a mess, for getting vulnerable, for trying things that may or may not work. Play with the edges of your understanding.

Here are some starting questions:

Can you imagine God at play before God ever made anything? Can you think of anything that’s a little like that?

Where are places in Scripture where you can see more than one person of God show up? What are they like together?

The Father and the Son?

The Son and the Spirit?

The Father and the Spirit?

All Three?

In my last post, I explored where I first came to know God, in each of his three persons. Have you ever wondered about that, where you first ran into the Holy Spirit, God the Father, Jesus?

Sketch it. Write it. Wonder about it. Come up with questions, and then make space to play. Lay in a field. Take a walk. Put music on in a dark room. Get out your markers. Because God, Three in One, is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be entered, and God’s inviting us to play. God comes to us in so many ways and in three persons so we can come near to God, we can wonder at God, we can play with God.

Can I recommend Jon Guerra’s In the beginning as you wonder? It’s been in my ears a lot lately.

Updates on Play Book and All Things Play:

- I’m going to be talking a bit about Play Book ideas in the coming months! A series at church with my pastor, a couple of retreats and talks. Details forthcoming.

-’s drawn a very cool version of the Eckhardt quote at the top of the page here. Alas, it’s format is such it’ll have to wait for the book.

-Play Book is in play. At this point, my editor Pete and Sophie and I have begun to have bi-weekly meetings to check in. Every two weeks, we prep a new chunk of Play Book: text, illustrations, layout. It’s the kind of thing that works best if we do the whole process for each section, as the words and the illustrations and the layout are all so interwoven. I’m trying to remember if Pete said “this is a weird book” or “this is not like other books” in our meeting the other day… I think he’s said both. I’m really grateful that he’s all in for the weird. And that Sophie is––no shocker there. God bless them as they roll along with me on all of this. (Sophie just messaged me- she believes Pete’s quote was “It’s a strange book”.")

We’ve been messing with color palette:

Got thoughts? We’re going light on the pink, we think. I love it, but it might signal “Girl Book” and well, it’s not.

and text samples:

What I’m saying is, right now, Play Book is a lot of fun. Fun work. :) We’re all for your encouragement, your prayers, your thoughts, your comments. Thank you, thank you for your support over this long process. I can’t wait. It’s Becoming.

-Time for another interview, innit? BRB with that.

You knew me before the foundation of the world,

All Three of You.

But, I started to realize I knew you in 1989––

when I was twelve,

before The Wall came down.

Now, I know that You All have always existed.

Now I know that You All have always existed, all ways––

have always known me, all the ways, all the way.

It’s a game I like to play, though––

wondering how I first knew you,

you who knew me first.

I’d been wondering why

Jesus dying was beautiful, like they said.

I heard you whisper when I was ten––

I’d walk to choir or the PX then to spend my allowance

on Archie comics and Ritter Sports and gummi frogs.

I didn’t have a Walkman like my big brother.

I had my thoughts,

and generally a journal in my Katy Bag.

As the wind blew through clothes on the line

behind beige apartments

I’d hear you with not-quite-my-ears.

I was listening the way you listen when it’s really quiet––

when the AC units quit whirring

I discovered the quiet it was covering.

I heard you and found

I could hear with more than my ears.

There you were.

Realer than my thoughts,

Closer than my singing,

You were along when I was alone.

Spirit, You were already knowing me and nearing me.

Then, when I was twelve,

Kerry at camp told me

what was so beautiful about Jesus,

Right as I knew it was true.

God! I’d been walking in your world all this time.

I came across each of You––

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit––

separately, but You were in on this together.

As I walk on, I feel it:

the taut and slack and taut of your holding hands.

All of You have me,

All of You has me, is holding me––

I am always in the center of your Triune Oneness.

I am tethered to a tripled cat’s cradle,

Your loving fingers all gummy with space and time.

The magic circle of play.

Here’s how it works: When a person enters the circle of play, they agree to a new reality. The circle is a place made by the players. When you’re in it, the rules of the circle apply––it has its own culture, its own rules, its own boundaries. (If you break them, you’re a cheater or a spoilsport.) When people make them up, they’re temporary. The ones that God makes, however, are not. (I added that last part myself.)

When I hang out near my son’s Dungeons & Dragons campaign, I hear these kids suddenly become other people: this crew are in their own realm. Who knew Ian had a Scottish brogue in his back pocket, and that Marsden had the quick wits needed to stymie a wizard? Rob had to miss the campaign for a couple of weeks, and, unfortunately, he’s now stuck in another dimension. But at least he’s in the same universe. If I were to suddenly pop into the discussion, things would get real awkward: I am not in the circle. I don’t know the story, I don’t know the rules, and I don’t speak gnomish.

The word illusion has Latin roots: it means “in-play”. Play often happens in its own world, its own dimension, in a magic circle of play. Those who play–– whether alone, a couple together, or thousands––have drawn the borders of their world, established their laws, and thrown themselves, heart and soul, into the play at hand.

Here’s the wonder: even though the circle is temporary, the happenings that have changed you while inside the magic circle of play stay inside of you. When the play-world of the circle locks back into the space/time continuum and you hop back out into an existence that’s fraught with challenging relationships, difficult work, and too little time and space to do too much, the magic that happened stays with you.

Theologian N.T. Wright describes the kingdom of God as God’s dimension–– anywhere that God is present is God’s Kingdom, God’s dimension. His ways of being abide. Supposing we considered this dimension, the Kingdom, as God’s circle of play? It is where God, and those God invites in, are present, delighted, creating, relating. Sounds like play here.

Celtic mystics have described thin places: places where somehow it is easier to feel the breath of God on the wind. Thin spaces are a circle of play with God. We tend to think of them in breathtakingly beautiful places––remote places, places laden with stories and meaning. Fair enough.

Guess what, though–– thin spaces can happen anywhere. Thomas Merton got looped into one at the corner of 4th and Walnut in Louisville.We can be in morning traffic when an exquisite sunrise catches us off-guard and we realize we’re in some kind of fairy tale. Laughing over a good meal with friends, helping a stranger, reciting a creed in church and remembering the wonder of what we’re up to around here–– can all suddenly pull the carpet out from under us. It’s like the opposite of the Upside-Down in Stranger Things––the hair on our arms stands up and suddenly we’re in another dimension, and we catch a glimpse of heaven. We are present, caught up, open, and don’t want to be anywhere else.

This whole world is God’s circle of play, waiting to happen. It’s all God’s playground, imagined/evoked/spoken as a grand invitation to enjoy God. Everything that’s created is a gallery, displaying God’s amazing Self from a bajillion points of view.

From Albany to the Andromeda Galaxy, circles of play abound. This is God’s beautiful, broken playground, and God can be found at play anytime, anywhere. Christ plays in ten thousand places. Sometimes we find them. Sometimes they find us.

The cool thing is that because God made time and space, they have a way of being amenable to play with God: it is the actual purpose of the materials. Anywhere you draw a line around a pocket of time and claim it as a place to play with God, God is game.

And, to be clear, when we say a circle of play is magic, we aren’t “making God do something.” God says that when we really look for Him, He’ll show up––this is God’s idea. Scripture is, among other things, a treasure hunt for places God tells us he can be found. He’s there when people who are watching for him get together. His image is all over the people in front of you. In creation. When mercy happens, when justice happens. Near brokenhearted people. Near joyful people.

The point of time and space and everything is for you to come to know God and let your jaw drop and your eyes go starry and your heart race, to explore and delight and follow the threads of wonder to their Maker. The point is that God, the Most Playful One, loves you and is inviting you to play.

Updates:

• Next Wednesday at 8 am Central I’m having a chat about play with my new friend, painter Joel Schoon-Tanis. He was in town a few weeks ago for a truly stellar couple of talks and exhibit openings, and man, he knows a thing or two about God at play. Y’all, he’s a delight, and talking about play with him is…play. Paid subscribers can jump in the live chat and join the conversation, we’ll post it for everyone afterwards.

  

• I had the loveliest talk with . I’m still culling through notes, but look forward to sharing with you all.

• Play Book rolls along! and I are creating the visual element, one idea at a time. Right now Play Book feels like a puzzle. I’ve never been one of those writers who said, “I really like editing” but this time, I really do. Prayers please as I choose how to spend my time well every day. I’m picking up some substitute teaching and small side creative projects to help our family out. At times, doing family life and writing Play Book feels like a high wire act. We’re in the third act of creating this work, in my mind, and I want Play Book to be exactly what it’s supposed to be and get into the hands and hearts of exactly who it should belong to.

• I think I’m going to be using folks at my church as Play Book guinea pigs. :) I’m looking forward to this.

• Did you see Alysa Liu skate? Talk about play, man.

  I’m so glad for all of you. Thanks for being here. :)

1. Sorry I’m late, Nashville froze.

Hello all! Apologies for being out of pocket this past week. Here in Nashville, we had a lovely snow day last week, followed by a week of absolute ice. Much of the city is still without power––friends are in hotels, staying with other friends, finding ways to hold on while their houses are freezing cold. So many are still hunkered down in their cold houses, trying to keep their pipes from freezing and their homes safe. One friend just spent more than our car cost having a broken tree removed that threatened to smash their house.

At our house, thankfully we kept power the whole time. However, I can see our AT&T cable hanging from a frozen limb lying in the front yard.

Sigh. The poor trees.

I’ve written here and there, but have been keeping the home fires burning, literally. Much of my time has been occupied with resetting the hotspot, feeding people, whacking the ice off of the heat pump, checking in on friends, and keeping the cold at bay. You know how I’ve written about how in order to play, you have to be safe? It is hard to go into play mode when you feel unsafe. Mind you, it happens. But things have to happen first.

I am so, so grateful that we were safe and pretty warm in our own home. And, I got some editing done. It was difficult to find moments of flow, though, when my eleven year old would snuggle up next to me on the couch and tell me his latest findings about cubing algorithms mid-thought. I’m a bit stressed about being behind this week. I also wouldn’t trade the week I’ve had with the kiddos. Kenny largely had to stay at work across town to help and keep things safe where he works on Belmont’s campus, sleeping in a sleeping bag for five days. We have practice at this from all of his years of touring. And yet.

2. Where Play Book is.

Last week, I gave my editor what I’ve got so far. As I stated in a note that day, turning in a draft feels like going to the gynecologist without taking a shower. A bit vulnerable. But: I did it. And now, it’s time to start making the pieces make sense. And also….Sophie Killingley and I get to play together again!

If you recall, Sophie is illustrating Play Book. She lives in Woking, England, but she and I had a glorious time making some stuff, getting to know each other in person and sharing what we’re up to at Hutchmoot this past October. And then, we both went into our tunnels for a while. I put my head down and got a lot more writing done toward Play Book, so she’d have something to illustrate. And Sophie’s just turned in her manuscript for Blessed are the Neurodivergent (IVP UK) which is going to be such a gift for church folks who want to love their neurodivergent brothers and sisters, and learn more about how they are a beautiful part of the body of Christ.

Now, as Nashville sorts itself out and Sophie and I have gotten a bit more work done, she and I get to play again. We’re about to start knitting together ideas and images. The visual element of Play Book is so important to me. Ideas and words have so much scope for play, but having Sophie brings so many possibilities to the page. February is for fun.

Figuring out what to to share with you right now is a bit tricky. This space is an amazing sounding board. For the purposes of Play Book, it’s been a place for me to “verbally process” ideas as I explore and build them. From here, thoughts that have emerged are finding their way into the draft. Perhaps more Sophie sparkles will embellish and enliven things here soon.

One more update. Guess what? The interviews really are returning. Next week, I’ll tell you about it. Making up for lost time & necessary re-scheduling from folks. (Lost time, what even is that?)

And, a poem.

For now, another poem about eyelids. This one actually came before this one.

Eyelids are right before your eyes

This gray November morning at 8:30 or so

I had my sneakers on, my second cup of coffee in my radius.

I was swirling, tidying, pushing against the gray morning.

The air was onion-stained from dinner last night, so

I threw open the doors, letting the fall freeze in to freshen the air.

I hauled out the recycling and the trash to the bins,

Then the compost: out through the tall wet grass behind the chicken coop

And the old swing set, feeding eggshells and orange rinds to the dirt.

Out went wastebaskets brimming with bits of unnecessary yesterday.

Out went a box of papers:

Envelopes from bills, credit card statements, credit card offers,

Grocery receipts, poems that didn’t print perfectly.

I put them in the firepit out back, lit a match and fanned the flame.

The box blazed, and as I turned back toward the house

The sun came out. The sun!

I stopped– I was stopped– I stopped–

in my damp sneakers and sweatpants

and closed my eyes, feeling the bright heat on my face.

There, then, I remembered- was reminded- remembered

that the space between my eyelids and my eyes is holy

A space where God plays, displaying His heart

And galaxies and worlds

Blue streaks, pulsing angel spots,

Wonder-worlds right there, red and alive,

My skin and blood an illumined kaleidoscope.

I was there, with two peepholes into God’s realms.

Still, I heard the sounds of this world:

Dry leaves shimmering in my ears, the whirling wind rushing through them––

Crows calling and warning.

When I opened my eyes this world was wondrous

And the million pieces of gravel under my feet were smashed remnants of eons ago

And the heavy drop of water held by a grass-blade was more radiant than the Hope Diamond

And all the nostalgic ache I have for my childhood wanderings across Europe,

For God’s kingdom someday coming,

pulled together right there in my backyard.

Everything around me and the crows knew we were in a magic realm.

And I was well, and I was alive, and I did not want anything else but to be right there.

A miracle.

What more of an invitation do I need?

God has put heaven right in front of my eyes.

When God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, how close was God to them?

When the Angel of the Lord wrestled with God, did the Angel sweat?

Could Jacob feel the pressing of angelic skin and muscle against his own?

When the Angel touched Jacob’s hip and put it out of joint, was it a “magic” touch? Was it like when I pop a roasted chicken thigh out of joint?

How close did Jesus stand to people?

When he was a kid, was he a kid who touched a lot, a kid who kept a little space?

Did he jump into his mother’s lap?

How close did he stand to Simon when he said, “Follow me”? Could Simon smell his breath? How long did they hold eye contact? Did Jesus touch him?

When he healed a demon-possessed boy, did he touch the boy?

Did the boy feel his touch? What did it feel like?

Did the demon feel his touch? What did it feel like?

When a man with leprosy knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean,” Jesus touched him and healed him. What did it feel like while his body was transforming from ravaged to healthy?

When Jesus hugged people, who let go first?

Bodies are supposed to regulate one another just by being near one another…how did bodies regulate around Jesus?

How was Jesus’s body regulated by others?

By his mom?

When the devil came to Jesus in the desert and tempted him, was he near?

Did he sit right beside him, did he crouch warily from a distance?

When the devil took Jesus to the top of a very high mountain, was it in Jesus’s head?

Did they climb a mountain, did the devil have a holograph, did they have (and use) teleporting abilities?

When you walk and talk with God, how close does God feel?

Does God feel bodily next to you?

Does God feel around you, above you?

A voice in your head, a divine teletype tapping into your nervous system?

Who does Jesus’s voice sound like in your head? Name the closest voice you can think of. A friend, an actor, a pastor, a parent?

What do you think he really sounded like when he spoke with his lips, teeth, tongue, lungs and larynx?

If Jesus showed up in your living room, where would you both be? Across the room, on the couch, on the floor? Would you sit, stand, fall on your face?

How close would Jesus stand to you?

How close is the Holy Spirit to you? In, around, beside, above, across the room?

Some questions for one day––that day––when everything is right and nothing is wrong:

How close will Jesus stand to us when we meet him face to face?

Will we ever talk side by side, looking in the same direction?

Will we ever just parallel play?

How close will we all stand to each other?

What will touching be like? Hugging?

Will there be any shyness, awkwardness?

What will Jesus being nearby feel like?

Will your heart rate go up or down?

Dear subscribers, look for the complete Unabridged Happy List in a separate email, a thank you gift. All new subscribers will also receive the Happy List.

In high school there were, of course, hard things. Off the top of my head: a friend committed suicide in eighth grade. My dad, a soldier, suddenly wasn’t home, and then I got a postcard from Saudi Arabia, where he was en route to set up communications for Desert Shield, the operation that preceded Desert Storm. My dear friend’s mother died in a terrible crash. There were unrealized crushes and audition angst and friend drama.

But also, there were all of the things about coming of age that were amazing. I loved Jesus and knew Jesus loved me, and had a community to explore and express this. Heck, I was president of Fellowship of Christian Athletes because I was really into Jesus and qualified for leadership because I had one season of varsity high jumping to my credit. I was doing lots of singing and dancing and acting and writing and church stuff. So much show choir, so much youth group.

I was developing a pretty strong bead on who I was. I often tell people about a watershed day where my artsy upperclassmen friend said, in effect, “Get in loser. We’re going to be poets.” Laura drove me to Borders bookstore (which was still kind of indie in the early 90s), popping in Over the Rhine’s first tape Till We Have Faces on the way. She showed me around the poetry section, and I splurged on an Everyman Christina Rossetti collection. We went to the cafe in the bookstore and I had a mocha, my gateway drug into the world of caffeine. I was never the same. Now I had Jesus and words and music and good coffee and well, that’s pretty much how it’s been ever since.

Laura (who is now a poetry professor and co-editor of The American Sonnet) also got me into writing and journaling regularly. Somewhere in there, I began a document (on a floppy disk somewhere) that became The Revered, Hallowed, Unabridged Happy List.

(Any Gen X folks remember what this font is called? )

It included things like

shadow boxes

shadow boxing

glow in the dark stickers

“I love you” in Swahili

I kept a running list of things that made me happy on our family’s Apple IIe desktop computer.

Guinea pigs

Scottie dogs

teddy bears with one eye and matted fur

sealing wax

I was learning to watch and wonder before internet reels were telling me to. I just did it because I preferred finding the things that made me happy. It came to me fairly naturally, and I was also rather determined to look for the things that pinged happiness in me. It was a treasure hunt.

Babies who still have long belly buttons

Volksmarches (we lived in Germany some)

Oxymorons

Books with gold engraving

As I write Play Book, I’m still doing the same thing: treasure hunting.

Many more scars, many more wonders. I know more about the lay of the playground. There have been songs, stories, travels, struggles, projects, friendships, cancer, amputations, marriage, death, children, church life.

I’ve climbed some steeper hills, so I can see a little farther around the playground, and see how more about how God is at play. Christ plays in ten thousand places, right?

Same Treasure. Same hunt.

Updates:

-Guys, I took a break over the holidays. From Substack, from Play Book writing. I walked, I read, I made marshmallows, I played with my family. To my subscribers in particular, I apologize for not checking in. But man, I don’t apologize for taking a break. Now I am ready to keep going.

-I’m sorry the interviews fell off! At the end of the year, lotsa folks needed to circle back. Watch out, here they come!

-I’m in the middle of big writing. All of a sudden, the shape of Play Book is locking in. Connective tissue is starting to make sense. Did I already tell you that I changed my method of outlining, saving me an extraordinary amount of executive function? Prayers and encouragement are so welcome. This feels like where it’s all starting to make sense. Then I’m gonna give it to my editor at the end of January and see if he agrees. Also prayers, please, as I listen and receive all the ideas that will make Play Book better.

-Sophie Killingley (who is illustrating Play Book!) and I have been on a bit of creative hiatus as she completes Blessed are the Neurodivergent for IVP UK and I get some sturdy pages for she and I to visually play with. I really, really can’t wait to play with Sophie again and make stuff. In February, it’s on.

God became a baby. He took on flesh and dwelt among us. Skin in the game.

Do you know this catechism question? The first time that I read this out loud in the middle of a worship service, I laughed after the first clause:

Q. Wherein did Christ’s humiliation exist?

A. Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born

Christ’s humiliation consisted in being born. It makes me think of the angsty teenage trope: “ I didn’t ask to be born!”

In Jesus’s case, he totally chose to be born. In fact, God is the only person who ever chose to be born. He chose the humiliating path of being born and becoming human.

In our cultural usage, humiliation as a bad thing. Generally, we think of humbling as a good one. I suspect the tone of the word humiliation in the catechism is more intended to be the noun form of humbling––there’s no scorn in being born. Nothing could be more humble, though, than God taking on the limits of humanity.

When we play, there are constraints: sonnets have a form, tennis courts have lines, hide and seek has rules. As Johan Huizinga described it, they delineate the circle of play. God made an entire world, a playground for exploring the wonders of his love, a circle of play with limits and freedoms.

And then, God the Son took on its constraints. He jumped into the circle of play and limited himself to our boundaries. He becoming a human being with a human body, susceptible to our world, in a vulnerable body. He lived and played and worked. He felt what it was like to have a body that has goosebumps and a tongue that can taste sweet and salty things, savory and crunchy things. A body that felt pleasure. A body that got bruised, smelly, hungry and sore. Jesus had skin in the game.

There is so much more to say. I’ll leave it right here for now, with some wondering questions.

What gave Jesus goosebumps?

What would Jesus’s medical history have said?

Did Jesus ever have baby skin problems? Eczema? Rashes?

Did Jesus have any scars? (Before his final days?)

What did Jesus smell like when he got sweaty?

Did Jesus’s human brain ever get distracted?

What was Jesus like when his blood sugar was low?

What foods did Jesus crave?

Did Jesus’s heart rate regulate when he cuddled with his mom and (earthly) dad?

Did Jesus deal with acne?

What was Jesus’s pain tolerance like?

***********************************************

Friends, enjoy this season of wonder. God the Most Playful one came to get close to us and love us.

We’ve all got things to do, to finish, to wrap up. There are so many expectations. May you be able to be present right now, do some wondering, and drop some things off of your checklist if they don’t have to happen.

All I want for Christmas is for you to subscribe. Join me as I write Play Book!

Rewinding a bit… I’m writing Play Book, a book about play, and about how God plays. My job is twofold. First, my job is to explore what play actually is. Then, hopefully, my readers can believe me when I call out play in action. Secondly, my job is to show ways that God is playful. If I can invite my readers into these notions, maybe they can see what it means for them.

As for God being playful, I’m wending my way through scripture, exploring where God might be at play. For starters: before we were ever on the scene, God was at play within God. Delighted, loving, for the very sake of the joy of God.

When it comes to creation, that’s easy. Galaxies! Tardigrades and Roseate Spoonbills! The untold wonders of the universe, all just waiting to be turned over and considered. God’s given us an endless cabinet of curiosities, an endless treasure hunt of the trivial and the titanic.

When it comes to God naming and calling a people, I can make the case that God is inviting us into a circle of play. God drew Abraham and Sarah away from what they knew. Away from their community, away from the life-giving river, into the desert and a glorious unknown. (I cannot get Elsa’s Frozen II song out of my head now…the Panic at the Disco version.) God draws us out past our comfort zone, invites us into vulnerability and risk, and makes us a kind of safe we didn’t know we could be.

When it comes to the Psalms, I see an emotional playground–– a spacious place to explore how God meets us in the heights, in the depths, in certainty, in confusion.

In the prophets, I see how God deftly stands our understanding and longings on their heads. The use of performance art to make a point is top-notch, with dress-up and play-acting ratchet up the theater.

Then. Then! The incarnation. What’s more playful than God coming among us, like us, in one of these glorious and finite and ridiculous and embarrassing and miraculous bodies? God physically enters in- vulnerably- to the circle of play He’s made. He makes friends and enemies. He tells stories. He appropriates. He supercedes physics.

Jesus’s life can be described and understood from endless vantages- I love Brian Zahnd’s description of the character of God as kaleidoscopic. I am exploring through the lens of play. From here, the fingerprints of play are all over Jesus as he spreads mercy and healing through touch, through riddles, through miracles, through appropriation–– taking back what is his own. “You have heard it said…but I say to you…”

We can’t skip over the crucifixion, though. If these ideas about God at play are true, we can’t say, “Yes, we can see moments of God at play. But not here. There is nothing like play here.” Who could find any mirth, any lightness in the darkest day? The thing is, though, that play is not a thing we do. In The Crucifixion as Play, Robert E. Neale reminds us that play is not a mood: “It is a condition which can encompass many moods, including the “negative” ones of fear, anger, and grief.” Funny thing: we use the word agony to describe an aspect of play and what happened at the cross.

Many kinds of play have agonistic aspects. There is suffering involved. People who run marathons love them, I hear––and they are willing to do it even though their bodies ache and bleed. Heck, people write books, wearing their brains out in the process of getting lost in their favorite kind of play. Adventure hits the mark better than game when it comes to framing agony in play. This isn’t sadism. To the contrary, there are things we are willing to endure for the sake of play.

Is crucifixion playful? Hell no. Did Jesus enjoy torture, drinking down the world’s death? Of course not. Jesus is not a sadist, he is the opposite. He is the death-slayer, the life of the world. My pastor reminds me of something critical when it comes to thinking about what happens at the cross: the crucifixion is always bound up with the resurrection.

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 12:2

While Jesus was on the cross, he was in agony. But: he knew why he was there: for the joy set before him. On purpose.

Was Jesus at play? Yes. He was even at play at the cross, as much as ever. I love the resistance––the feist!–– of Jesus scorning the cross’s shame. Jesus was appropriating and subverting. He took something his enemies meant for death and flipped it over and turned it into life. You know, like Aslan says: Deeper magic. You meant this for death? Funny, that. I mean it for life––time to flip the script. This is play.

The cross is not an intermission in the play story. It’s a coup, a triumph, an inversion, a quest accomplished. It’s checkmate.

I find it amazing and comforting that Jesus, while drinking down all of the death in the world, had the presence of mind to fulfill prophesies with his final words. My friend Jeremy is a spiritual director, and he told me something that made it even more wonderful yesterday.

Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 when he cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I knew that part already. But Jeremy pointed out that when he called out the first line of the Psalm, God’s people would have known the song. What very well may have happened, then, was that they would have taken up the song. A song that begins in agony, describing Jesus’s agony, ends in hope:

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it!

Can you imagine? Jesus gives them clues on the cross. He puts the puzzle pieces together. Psst: this is that. Have hope. And then he turns the tables on death.

God has always been in a posture of play, and always will be, even as he died on a cross: inviting, creating, loving to the absolute edges, up-ending everything that’s topsy-turvy. Especially on the cross.

Updates

-If you pray or like to send words of encouragement, now is a good time. I’m gonna give my editor Pete what I have of Play Book at the end of January.

I’m grateful for you guys. Thank you for joining me as I write Play Book!

In the early 2000s, I read a lot of Madeleine L’Engle. The Time Quintet, the Austin Family books, but also every out of print novel and project that I could dig up in used book stores. In the summer of 2002, back when I was mostly a singer/songriter, I flew to Orcas Island to sing at a wonderful music and arts event called Woodsong Festival. I had just finished Walking on Water, and felt, like so many people, a closeness to Madeleine.

On my first flight, I felt this pinging notion in my head that I might meet, might run into Madeleine somewhere. I felt it so much so that I looked around the plane for her when we landed, so much so that I wandered around the airport during my layover with my eyes open for her, that I watched for her on the ferry out to the island.

When I arrived at the festival the next day, I wandered around, taking in the music in the bandshell and the mostly naked babies and their beautiful Jesus People hippie parents wandering around. I ran into Barbara, one of the festival’s founders. We caught up, and after a bit, I asked, “Hey, Madeleine L’Engle isn’t at the festival, by chance, is she?”

“She’s not, but that’s one of her best friends right there, Luci Shaw. She just finished a reading.”

There was Luci Shaw (who first published Walking on Water), standing by a group of picnic tables, just wrapping up a talk and reading. Did I misunderstand my divine memo? I mean, it wasn’t written down. It was more like kything, like in A Wrinkle in Time. This wasn’t Madeleine, but it was her dear friend. Maybe I had some kind of cosmic aphasia, and could only interpret the nearest name I knew.

I was too shy and awkward to introduce myself. Also, what would I say? “Hello Luci! I haven’t read your writing, but I’ve also had this weird feeling all weekend that I might run into your friend Madeleine. Did you also happen to receive a divine message, and can you set me straight?”

I never got clear closure on my strange impulse, but I did what I tend to do when God seems to speak, and started doing research, and keeping my eyes and ears open for the breadcrumbs.

I started to find Luci’s poetry, and was struck by her wonder, her perfectly chosen words, her precision and care with both words and ideas and form. Careful, gentle, elegant, playful.

In 2010, I got up the gumption to send her a friend request on Facebook.

She replied, “Katy, how are we connected?”

Well, in 2003 I nearly said hello to you at a festival after a strong impulse that I should look out for Madeleine L’Engle and it felt like I was in the ballpark. Then I didn’t have the guts.

I didn’t say that. I told her how much I enjoyed and admired her work and dropped a bunch of mutual names: Karin and Linford, Ned Bustard, Louise Tucker, , Jeffrey Overstreet. She accepted my request.

On February 29th of 2020, I was reviewing my cancer poems for the InterVarsity Press edition of Now I Lay Me Down to Fight, and hoping for some expert eyes to look them over. I took a deep breath, and dropped Luci a line.

When Luci did reply, it was with warmth, kindness and straightforward advice for my craft.

It was excellent critique from a master, and kindness from a fellow pilgrim. Is there a better, more affirming gift for a writer? A great writer who takes the time to help you become better. To borrow a word from my English friends, I was chuffed. Luci helped me believe that I was a poet, could be a better poet.

A couple of weeks later, two weeks into the isolation of the pandemic, I started a new ritual to keep my sanity. I would hike out to the woods on some nearby farmland and hang up a hammock by the big felled tree. I’d get out a treat and the thermos of tea Kenny had made for me and write. It was my outdoor sanctuary and respite from stir-crazy kids while we waited to find out more about this scary and unknown new virus.

On those walks, I wrote poems in the notes on my phone for the first time. Now, I had a little guts from Luci’s encouragement a couple of weeks before. And her email address. I fired off a poem to Luci, a draft I had written ten minutes before.

Luci was also quarantined, and wrote back eleven minutes later. The thrill!

I still hear Luci in my head when I make punctuation choices. I watch my punctuation. If I make a choice to defy punctuation, it’s a choice.

At this point, I was getting gutsy. Luci was up for playing with me. I Imagined her tucked up by a fire, reading and writing, maybe doing some dishes, also stuck at home. I wrote back with a poem I’d written twenty minutes before.

Her reply was succinct, but she made my day:

For one chilly pandemic afternoon, I played with Luci! I took a risks. She took the time and made the space. It was one of my favorite afternoons, sending letters with Luci while we all waited for the next roll of the world,

After that, I stopped sending Luci poems. She was still the eminent Luci Shaw, and so many people had higher claims on her time. And at ninety one, I was not going to impinge on the precious days that would yield more of her treasures. I continued to love when she posted her new poems on Facebook, and got a thrill when she pressed like on mine.

Eventually, she did read all of the Now I Lay Me Down to Fight poems, and wrote a really beautiful endorsement for the InterVarsity edition. (Yes, I did just read it again.)

I still think––regularly–– about that nudge on the plane to Orcas Island, where the Holy Spirit invited me on a wild hare. Twenty years or so later, it feels as though that Hare is akin to a white rabbit, inviting me into a game of hide and seek, a treasure hunt into words and wisdom and and wonder. I was being steered toward Luci as one of my best guides, a poet who has forged through the wilds along the way, making footpaths and leaving breadcrumbs of beauty for those of us coming along after.

Luci Shaw, I am so thankful for you. We poets will keep at it, bearing witness to the truth and beauty. I’ll keep letting God into the writing.

Advent’s just begun, and I’ve still been casting about for my ways of entering in. It’ll be Luci Shaw now, with her incarnation poems, her Advent poems, her good waiting and wondering.

From her Poems of the Incarnation:

Descent

Down he came from up,
and in from out,
and here from there.
A long leap,
an incandescent fall
from magnificent
to naked, frail, small,
through space,
between stars,
into our chill night air,
shrunk, in infant grace,
to our damp, cramped
earthy place
among all
the shivering sheep.

And now, after all,
there he lies,
fast asleep.

has a wonderful interview with Luci in his new collection of interviews with poets, An Axe for the Frozen Sea––that’s a great place to begin learning more from her.

Updates

-Guess what. I tried using my ADHD meds again this morning. Makes writing smoother. Who knew? I have a back-and-forth relationship with that medication. It makes the birds in my head fly along in the same direction. Sometimes, though, the birds need to be geese. One goose needs to drop from formation, and then a friend needs to go along with it until it dies or heals. I’m a bit of a goose.

-The interview with , Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter, will be happening in January. She’s a bit busy right now, just possibly because A Wrinkle in Time features heavily in season five of Stranger Things. I am agog. My Stranger Things-loving daughter is also agog. The threads continue, the footpaths continue to be trod… I’m digging up some other interviews in the meanwhile. I’ve met some cool people lately. :)

Story (my daughter) and I took a side quest over Thanksgiving to a Stranger Things filming location in Rome, Georgia: Vecna’s house. IYKYK.

-Play Book rolls along. One more possible grant- pray and cross your fingers for me! I’m substitute teaching at a dear Montessori school, and it’s a wonderful fit while writing, and providing some helpful income. And, whenever I’m doing other work, I’m not writing Play Book.

-As it’s Advent, I’m focusing on the portion of the book about the incarnation, about the wild reality of the Maker coming to be like us. One thing that is true of much play is that it requires “skin in the game”––what a notion to consider, the Son of God, the Son of Man having skin in the game. Did anybody ever go all in like Jesus? Next week, more on that. And maybe beforehand a bit. I’m back from the kids being home for a week, back from a sinus infection that dragged me down incrementally until I couldn’t figure I why I couldn’t think and my abs were sore from coughing. I am BACK and WRITING. All prayers and encouragement as we head into the deep dark of winter. In my experience, a glorious place to write.

Dream On by Ben Rector and Marc Scibilia

Your eyelids are a playground.

It is not an accident that the patterns we see on the back of our eyelids echo the universe, the deeps of the sea, the inner wonders of our body.

When you close your eyes, the back of your eyelids are a red curtain,

The backdrop of some kind of personal galaxy, a bodily kabuki theater.

God made them like this on purpose––

They are a thin place.

They aren’t your brain, they are in front of it.

They are the veil between you and everything else,

always available.

When you go to sleep at night, do you ever look at the back of your eyelids?

Really look at them?

When you were a child, did you lay on a blanket and close your eyes and just look at the patterns on the back of your eyelids?

When I was a kid, I stopped and noticed. I really saw.

The lines, the bright spots, the streaks of light.

Try it.

You have a third place, a holy place, a thin space, right there in front of you.

A little wonder-world that’s open 24/7.

You can close your eyes and just…wonder. Any time.

Updates

-The interviews. They are coming. :) I got a cold that apparently ramped into a sinus infection and just kind of slowly slid down into brainless exhaustion until I realized that something was amiss. Hallelujah, I am three days into antibiotics.

-I have one more grant proposal out there. I’d take any prayers that it happens. It would sure make this last stretch of writing Play Book less stressful, and give me more margin to, well, play. Play well. Better. Time for poems, for edits, for explorations, to up the game.

Attic CD Sale

-Did you know I have made music for most of my adult life? We aren’t out there touring and hawking CDs now, but we hear that CDs are popular again––If you’d like to explore my previous ways of playing, my husband Kenny and I are having an attic sale. We will send you:

-1 CD for $5 plus $5 shipping

-5 CDs for $20, shipping included. You could get to know our music pretty well for an absolute steal, help make room in our attic and support Play Book, all in one fell swoop! Venmo me at @Katy-Hutson-1 with your selections and mailing address!

Hymns that used to be in German.

Kenny, playing gorgeous instrumental hymns. He always promised his mama he would.

The album I made after I busked on the street for a summer and a drummer friend said, “What are you doing? Let’s get in the studio.”

My first album, fresh out of college.

The first album from my pretty fantastic jazz for kids album with bassist and songwriter extraordinaire Chris Donohue. When I wasn’t touring or babysitting, I made these albums with a bunch of Motown OGs and Grammy winners and Nashville legends. What is life?

This summer, I spoke at a writing salon with two other writers who had also had breast cancer. The discussion was rich, informed and personal as it was. One fellow panelist was a breast cancer surgeon and well-known patient advocate. There is pushback in the survivor community against using battle language to describe the experience of cancer and treatment, and she took exception to the title of my poetry collection, Now I Lay Me Down to Fight, and my intermittent battle language therein. The objection makes sense––fight language can imply that if one has “lost their battle” with cancer, that they did not try hard enough, that they were not tough enough.

Thankfully, we were given our questions beforehand and I’d had some time to mull on this thought. I told my co-panelist that I understood. As a poet, though, my title was meant as something of a paradox. How is laying down fighting?

Cancer treatment is in many ways, for the patient, passive. My oncology team knew better than I did when it came to treatment for my very rare cancer, although I learned everything I could. I could not make my chemo more effective, except perhaps by conserving my strength, by resting my body. Sometimes the way to fight is to accept and allow. I had to trust and rest and let people take care of me. Often I didn’t have the strength to go on a walk, could hardly even to make it to the bathroom. I had to explain to well-meaning people that I was living on carbs like kettle chips and gummy bears because my body would accept them. The nutrient-packed kale salads and salmon that were delivered twice a week would not stay in my body, and all manners of evacuating them were painful and exhausting. No self-care made sense except rest, when I could get it. So, laying down was my fighting. That was my “contribution” to “fighting”. Cancer is a real but impersonal, ruthless enemy. One I could not fight, really.

Wrestling with my Opponent

Cancer can save you thousands in therapy (and give you thousands more for new reasons…tradeoffs). Deferred hopes and numbed fears jump to the front of the line and stamp their feet for attention. I wrestled with God over my hopes for living, my curiosity about what happens after I die, my frustrations with the state of my body, my finiteness, my lack of control, what I could have done, what I should do. The way that God and I related during cancer probably could be described with fighting words. I certainly came ready for a fight. I wrestled with God.

That sounds a bit grand, doesn’t it? I wrestled with God. Herculean? Incredibly arrogant? I wrestled with God. Who do I think I am? And yet.

If God were my enemy, the whole struggle would be pointless. I am unspeakably outmatched. God has all the power, all the knowledge, all the everything. I am…me, who cannot cure cancer in my own body, who does not really understand how my heart keeps beating or how black holes work, let alone coming up with and implementing a universe and everything in it. If God were my enemy, there wouldn’t be a point in engaging.

When we wrestle with God, though, we are wrestling with an opponent, not an enemy. And an opponent can be for you.

Wrestling can be fighting. Wrestling can also be playing. It is intimate––we sometimes even use “wrestling” to describe sex. It is personal, it is strong. It can be deeply enjoyable and involve sore muscles and sweat. It can be a lot of fun. Comparisons abound.

In wrestling, a strong opponent can make you better. They can expose your weakness. But maybe, for good. When Jacob wrestled with God, he came out with a displaced hip. But, he also saw God Almighty face to face and everything changed. His strong opponent was for him.

Rembrandt’s Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

Millenia later, Jesus had a wrestling match at Jacob’s Well, right where Jacob, after his wrestling match with the Angel of the Lord, finds his wife. In The God Who Plays, Dr. Brian Edgar shows how this scene, set up by Jesus, intentionally echoes a trope that Hebrew readers would immediately recognize: When the story happens at a well, the story is a romance. Jesus knew exactly what he was playing at. This is a romance. But first it’s a sparring match.

Jesus –– who had just been proclaimed the Bridegroom by John the Baptist–– set up a verbal joust with a Samaritan woman who comes to the well in the midday heat. As with Jacob, God the Son held all the cards. Jesus and the woman went round after round, parsing out the nature of life, the universe, and everything. He drew out her identity, her fears, her longings, leaving her vulnerable. Then Jesus clinched the match––he gave her everything she ever hoped for. Match and game. Jesus: 1, Woman: 1. Her opponent was never her enemy. He was always the one who loved her best.

When I wrestled during cancer, I wrestled with the same God. The God who wrestled with Jacob, the God who wrestled with the woman at the well. My opponent was not my enemy, though I did not always know that. I learned it better in the wrestling, understood more while leaning into the hard play of hand-to-hand combat while drugged up and scarred. I learned that God was up for my raging, my crying, my exasperation, my laughter, my delirium. I ended up exhausted and sore, spent and certain of my kind Opponent. And more alive, and in the arms of a love that will not let me go.

It’s almost like we were on the same side.

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Updates:

-I have one more grant proposal out there that just might happen. It would be such a help, would give me more freedom to write with all my heart and mind and more of my time. Here’s hoping. I don’t think I can spend much more time writing grant proposals and still get a book written!

I’m on a roll right now. Ideas and pieces are falling into place more now that I’ve changed up how I’m organizing and outlining. I can feel that mental challenge easing. I’m using a lot less of my limited executive function for getting back to the main idea when some Shiny Idea comes along. I just go *boop* and put it right where it will get knit later and pop right back over to the main work at hand. God bless it.

-I am so, so grateful for the encouragement and patronage I’ve received in the last couple of weeks. A laptop, dollars, words of encouragement, hugs. It all keeps me going. Thank you.

Sooo excited. I’ve been doing my research for our next guest :

That’ll do for now, eh? Bless you all.

And now, my regularly scheduled meditation on art and patronage.

Here’s my favorite example of patronage: did you know that Harper Lee’s friends gave her a year’s pay for Christmas one year so that she could write? Because of that act of generous faith, we have To Kill A Mockingbird.

I don’t know if I have any one friend who can do that exactly–– although, if you’re out there, welcome! But in order to put this deliver this book to my publisher and then send it flying out into the world, I do need two things:

1. You. Your very presence. One of my favorite things I’ve learned about play is that play can take risks and be vulnerable because it is safe. Play makes mistakes, tries things out, improvises. This space is that. This is where I want to show you my work in progress, invite you into conversations on play, hear what you think work, what doesn’t, and what I could do better.

2. Income. I would so love for this to be my day job while I complete Play Book.

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What happened after I felt apart a week ago

Friends, I can’t believe how much has happened this week. Do you remember last week, when I just crashed? I didn’t know how I was going to do this, how I am going to afford to finish writing this book, whether I was under some kind of massive delusion about whether this book is a good, responsible, non-foolish use of my time when I’m also raising a family? I railed, and then I opened my ears and opened my heart.

Here are things that happened next:

-A friend showed up at McDonald’s, where I was getting a snack with my kiddo Del before he went to Ultimate Frisbee. She walked in with a brand new MacBook Air she’d just picked up for me and told me she f***ing believed in me and I was f***ing amazing and I needed to f***ing write the book. Del’s jaw was on the floor, amazed by the idea that someone could just show up in McDonald’s and hand you a new MacBook and that my friend had just used the F word three times to excellent effect. It was a seminal childhood moment where he saw the grace of God expressed, lavishly, through friendship.

-Somebody I’d met at a writing event Venmoed me $500 and told me to write the book.

-A fellow writer Venmoed me $500 and told me to write the book.

-Multiple emails and texts came in from people who don’t seem to have read my Substack, telling me in heartfelt and detailed ways what my writing has meant to them. If you’ve ever thought of writing

-I got a bit of (non-writing) work! I’ve started substitute teaching at a sweet little Montessori school, which provides some income while I write.

Between the financial and verbal encouragement, I felt my little boat began to float again. I felt the Holy Spirit at work in one of the ways that seems the most usual and most wonderful: people who live and move and have their being in God’s nearness, who have their antennae tuned to His signal. I am really thankful, and still writing. I can’t wait to share Play Book with you.

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Field Research

Back to the substitute teaching. One of the beautiful things about the last couple of days is that I spent the afternoons outside, watching children play for hours. Field research. And, it reminded me that these things I am trying to convince adults of, for their own adult playing, are self-evident in the playing of children. For teachers and folks spend their days with kids all the time, these things are, I’m sure, blindingly obvious. But, here’s what I’ve noticed after a season of stepping back, thinking about play and jumping back into the fray for a couple of days with Actual Human Children:

Playing isn’t always easy. As Dr. Spock (child psychology Spock not Star Trek Spock) said, “Children love their play, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.” Kids try things that look really difficult for them. Like stacking a pile of logs to make an angled roof on a kid-made cabin. As an adult, it’s easy to think, “That’s not going to work.” And sometimes it’s doesn’t. But sometimes it does, and kids amaze us. And moreover, it’s how they grow, how we grow. We try stuff and we don’t know if it will work.

Kids don’t always get along when they play. There’s struggle. They have freedom on the playground, and figuring out where your freedom ends and my freedom begins and whether those can overlap and we can do something together––it’s a dance. It’s messy, it’s intricate, it’s tricky. Sometimes they appeal to the adults, but at a cost. A kid has to decide whether an adult is going to enhance or inhibit the kid freedom if they step in.

Playing is exhausting. And exhilarating. Playtime’s after lunch on purpose, once we’re fueled up. The kids have used their brains and controlled their bodies and voices all morning, and now they get to fling their brains and bodies around and scream and yell and sing. In some ways, it’s a release and relaxing. In other ways, it’s even bigger and harder than the work the grownups have delineated. The playground has a lot more freedom, the boundaries are looser and more malleable.

Pain and play can go together. Bonks, bruises, running into one another, overstepping, hurting your friend’s feelings or body. There’s a reason we take the first-aid kit out to the playground, and remind the kids not to eat berries they can’t identify, and not to pick up an injured wasp.

So, I watched actual kids play, after spending lo, these many months thinking about playing, playing in my grown-up way. I watched the naturals do their thing. At one point earlier in writing Play Book, I called children play experts. But that’s not it, they’re naturals. It’s how they do it, it’s what they do, brave young explorers that they are. Watch and learn, grownups. Watch and remember.

A digression/progression/sidequest: Playground Rules.

And now, because this Substack is for processing and sharing my progress as I write, we’re going to play a quick round of Katy Just Thought of Something As She Wrote:

“Playground rules”. This means two different things, at least.

1.When grownups tell kids what the playground rules, are, they mean one thing. No hitting. No pushing or shoving. No jumping off the slide from the top.

2.When grownups say “playground rules” to each other, they mean another thing. I went and looked it up in the Urban Dictionary. Its definition: “The act of justifying ones actions using childish rules commonly seen on a playground.” It mean the rules that kids make among themselves, and that we all remember, and that we’ve all learned. “Playground rules” means that we’re not abiding by adult niceties, it’s not going to be polite and considerate. Finders keepers. No takebacks. I was first. Funny, huh? It’s swift and effective kid justice that gets it done so we can keep playing. Is it fair, is it nice? It’s debatable.

Questions for discussion, if you’re so inclined:

What “playground rule” do you remember/have you seen among kids? Was it good? Bad? Did it just get the job done, morally neutral?

Do you have grownup “playground rules” in your world/work/play?

Are there “playground rules” when it comes to playing with God?

Updates

-I almost gave this bit of news a whole post, because it’s game-changing to me and the progress of Play Book. However, probably rather a snooze to describe right now. Of all things I’ve figured out that outlining the entire book in one document is WAY more effective for me than organizing and jumping between multiple documents. When I suddenly think, “ooh! playground rules makes me think of Kipling’s brillant The Law of the Jungle, I just pop open the most fitting tab on the outline menu on the left side of the screen instead of opening another document. It’s like playing hopscotch while writing…la la la, you go here…instead of doing parkour across the National Archives to find and organize what I need.

-That next interview is still forthcoming. Getting that ready is the very next thing I’m doing after I press send here.

-Tomorrow’s Halloween. Prime time to watch kids play. And play. ;) Have fun, friends.

And now, my regular meditation on art and patronage:

Here’s my favorite example of patronage: did you know that Harper Lee’s friends gave her a year’s pay for Christmas one year so that she could write? Because of that act of generous faith, we have To Kill A Mockingbird.

I don’t know if I have any one friend who can do that exactly–– although, if you’re out there, welcome! But in order to put this deliver this book to my publisher and then send it flying out into the world, I do need two things:

1. You. Your very presence. One of my favorite things I’ve learned about play is that play can take risks and be vulnerable because it is safe. Play makes mistakes, tries things out, improvises. This space is that. This is where I want to show you my work in progress, invite you into conversations on play, hear what you think work, what doesn’t, and what I could do better.

2. Income. I would so love for this to be my day job while I complete Play Book.

You can subscribe for free or at $5/month, $50/year, or $100 for Founding Members. Founding Members will receive an early, signed copy of Play Book when it arrives in the world as a huge thank you for your support.

Subscribe now

Yesterday, I had a writing breakthrough, I think. At the very least, a big, brave, playful, “what if I try this?'“ moment. What if, I thought, instead of structuring play ideas around moments where they happen in scripture, I flip it? What if I foreground the attributes of play?

The reason isn’t to diminish God at play in scripture, but to highlight and explore it. I do not want to show one moment where God calls us into brave, delightful and vulnerable relationship, I want to show a number of them, to show that God does this consistently: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all over the place. I don’t want to share one moment where God appropriates and upends our idea of what’s going on around here, I want to show a trend. So, while there will be a general arc of God’s big story, it’ll be a bit more jazz: themes and callbacks and improvisations in the general neighborhood of an idea. So yesterday, I pulled my binder apart, and began to re-build.

This morning, I was all kinds of ready to go. Coffee, binder, laptop, mise en place. Fresh vision, fresh curiosity, new ideas around this re-imagined vibe. I was in a flow. Ready to get cracking afresh at topical explorations. I had begun. Things were happening.

My screen went black.

No big thing. It’s kind of old. Once in a while the battery just goes if it’s not plugged in. I switched plugs in case the after-market charger wasn’t getting good contact.

On again. Five, four, three, two, one…back to black.

Not good.

I took a breath, and started to pack up. Dead laptop. Dead laptop. Dead laptop.

I do not have two thousand dollars for a new laptop. I thought. For crying out loud, we are already walking a tightrope so that I can write this book. What am I doing, anyway? This is totally irresponsible. I could have a job right now. Starbucks. Something.

I got in the car to drive back home, as I suspected it was time to face the underlying stress full on. And that could be loud.

The wrestle began in the car, just me and my thoughts. Fully aware of God’s presence, I did not invite God into the conversation. I listened, heard nothing. It seemed that God was giving me space to say what I’m thinking. And so I did.

Why are you doing this? Writing this book?

Because I feel called to.

Really? There have never been more books in the world. Somebody’s got it covered.

They don’t have this one covered.

But will it really matter? You could have a job right now. You could be taking stress of of your family. You are adding to it. Over your passion project.

And I let it land there. And I started crying. I only yelled once in the car. And I wondered if this was spiritual warfare, or just the right moment to get me to this spot that’s been a long time coming. All right then, I thought. Let’s do this like we mean it.

When I got home, I yelled more. And cried a lot. And invited God into it. And asked God a lot of questions.

Can you just tell me what to do? I asked, I begged, I demanded.

Is this whole book just my idea? Do you want me to write it? Are you for it?

Should I stop? Am I being irresponsible? Can you help us? I really need to help our family. What can I do?

I feel useless. I feel useless. I feel useless.

And I let myself sit there, on that rock-bottom, dreaded thought, in front of God.

God, I feel useless.

I let myself keep crying, and crying, and crying. I let myself get really honest about the fear. What in the world am I doing with my days?

Because dammit, you know what? These things I’ve learned about play, about God, they let me go there. I love when play thoughts and talk go to the really immediately delightful places. But sometimes it’s a long game.

I’ve read enough stories about God meeting us at the end of ourselves. Abram, Jacob, Ruth, Rahab, the woman at the well, Peter, the woman who was bleeding. God has met me at the end of myself before, and that’s where things got interesting.(See: cancer) Play happens when we feel safe, and play takes risks and gets vulnerable. When I got really honest, I felt the relief of remembering that my boundaries are no worry to God: I am tethered in the heart of God, forever in unbroken friendship. And also, God put skin in the game–– Jesus who jumped in with us and felt the weight of being a human here. He know what it’s like when it all feels like too much and like we have too little.

I’m already afraid that I won’t do this book well enough with the time I have. Will it be enough, will we get it locked in by September? So when I thought, “maybe I’ll try to get a job again”, I remembered that play thrives with constraints. If I do have to get a (paid, hourly) job on top of taking care of our family and writing this book, Play Book could get stronger for it. Time or money, something will always be a constraint.

I bottomed out today, got scraped up on the rocks when the daily thoughts that buoy me gave way. I felt my limits, and felt them get tighter. Then I went and applied for a few jobs, and now I’m going to keep writing, and I’m listening. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Your move, Most Playful One. Because it seems that today I was the only one wrestling, and it’s hard to fight with someone who just keeps listening and loving. He’s just been letting me wear myself out. But my ears are open, and I am getting curious, because this is not my first rodeo. And I have spent a lot of time (humanly speaking) exploring the character of God at the edge of things. It’s where things get interesting. So I’ll keep writing, I’ll look for work, I’ll listen. I don’t know what to do next, I don’t know what’s right. I’m going to love my family and try to help us financially and write. And in the meantime, I don’t believe that He wasn’t listening, or isn’t loving me. God heard me yell a lot and cry a lot today, and I do believe He’s been waiting for it. Maybe waiting for me to listen. I’ll keep listening.

The laptop didn’t die, by the way. hahahahaha…….ha. I found a reliable cord at home, and now it’s working. So there’s that. But apparently the function of that other stupid cord was to wrap around my leg and drag me down to the crying ground.

Sometimes we play a long game. Play is absolutely for delight, but play is not always fun, not the whole time. There’s tension, there’s confusion, there’s curiosity, there’s fear, there’s awakening. Sometimes the God who is always friendship is getting us good and honest before we can play. Another thing about play: when we play, we get lost in it, and we are who really are. Sometimes to get there, we have to remember first. You can’t play if you’re only playing at playing.

Thanks for listening, you guys.

***************************************

Updates, then:

-I flipped the book inside out.

-I had a total breakdown today.

-I’m listening.

-Interview with Charlotte Jones Voiklis soon.

my regular meditation on art and patronage:

Here’s my favorite example of patronage: did you know that Harper Lee’s friends gave her a year’s pay for Christmas one year so that she could write? Because of that act of generous faith, we have To Kill A Mockingbird.

I don’t know if I have any one friend who can do that exactly–– although, if you’re out there, welcome! But in order to put this deliver this book to my publisher and then send it flying out into the world, I do need two things:

1. You. Your very presence. One of my favorite things I’ve learned about play is that play can take risks and be vulnerable because it is safe. Play makes mistakes, tries things out, improvises. This space is that. This is where I want to show you my work in progress, invite you into conversations on play, hear what you think work, what doesn’t, and what I could do better.

2. Income. I would so love for this to be my day job while I complete Play Book.

You can subscribe for free or at $5/month, $50/year, or $100 for Founding Members. Founding Members will receive an early, signed copy of Play Book when it arrives in the world as a huge thank you for your support.

Ok. I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s play.

Hey everyone. I’m back.

80% of October’s efforts thus far have been unto the happenings at Hutchmoot, and the Hutch has been Mooted.

Quick note: a BUNCH of you are new! I recommend going here or here to get the big picture of what we’re up to- this site is where I share the process of Play Book and bring you all in on it. You are the wind beneath my literary wings.

Hutchmoot

So much goodness happened this week. I got to share at Hutchmoot in a few ways. and I gave a look into our work thus far–– I shared with words, Sophie shared with words and live graphic illustration as we went along. Look at the loveliness she came up with! If you’d like to look into any of these more, wander around the Substack––a lot of these are pondered on more deeply.

We gave a bit of a fly-over on the nature of play- those are the rainbow of thoughts numbered 1-9 on the left. If you’d like to look into them more, wander around my other posts- most of them have a deep dive somewhere. Or hang on, I’ll get there there soon.

We spent a fair bit of time in our talk hanging out around the idea that play has boundaries, and play explores them. Hutchmoot is a gathering of folks who celebrate or are exploring the Christ-made world, especially through the arts, widely defined. So, we talked about the nature of boundaries in creating art, which is one of the most. And, we talked about how God plays. A few highlights, among a bajillion others: within the Trinity (votes on the proper preposition for relation in the Trinity? within? among? ), at creation, the incarnation, and at Pentecost. Oh! And in the life of Jesus, especially when Jesus walks on water, and then Peter hops in on the situation. Thank you, Sophie, for “Hi drowning, I’m Jesus!”

Moot Ball

For extra fun at Hutchmoot, Sophie and I created the game of Moot Ball. Somebody just asked what it is, exactly, on socials, and said they hope it’s like Calvin Ball. I like Sophie’s take. She said, “It’s definitely a frame of reference, think Calvin Ball but with the instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” There you go.

For the purposes of Play Book, Moot Ball was a chance to put some of what we’ve been thinking about in to action. Play is for its own sake. Play happens in relationship. And especially, our talk focus: play has boundaries, and it pushes them. Moot Ball has rules and boundaries and quests. And also, there is space for interpretation of the rules. And also, you can add your own quests. And also, you can play as little or much as you want. The playing, the connecting is the point. Although we did have an inaugural Moot Ball Champion and her name, indelibly engraved in Sharpie on a Mini Moot Ball, shall be shared unto fame and glory at North Wind Manor.

There is so much more to share from Hutchmoot, and it’ll all come out. I have to let the sediment settle awhile, I’m swirling.

SophieKatyPalooza

So, to rewind, for the sake of Play Book: Sophie was here before Hutchmoot! I think we will be laughing for a long time about how it took us a bit of time to find our bearings when it came to working in person. After all, we’ve created nearly everything thus far over WhatsApp, as she lives in Woking, England, and I live in Nashville, Tennessee. For an entire day, Sophie and I pretty much talked with laser beam intensity and unwavering eye contact about our souls and lives and stories and ideas. And it was totally awesome. And absolutely necessary. And we made nothing, except for connection and laughter and understanding and memories.

The next day, we eventually plunked down on a couch beside one another and parallel played. Then we started to make stuff. Both of us have some ADHD going on and can hyperfocus like no one’s business, we were like a pair of earth magnets. Once we got wedged apart and both started messing around with our own ideas a bit and tossing them back and forth, we got to work.

Onward

And now, we get back to it. Sophie’s back in the UK, I’m on fall break with family. Hutchmoot and SophieKatypalooza helped me out with what’s next. What pieces to make, where to focus, how to proceed with the next phase of Play Book. My deadline’s not a year away anymore, it’s more like ten months. And the way to go is one piece at a time.

While I’m dumping all of this, I made a massive and ridiculous revelation right before Hutchmoot.

I confessed to Kate Gaston, and then to Women Who Write: I don’t like essays. At least, I don’t like the word. Play Book is structured on essays. And, it’s not that I don’t like stringing sentences together to make ideas. I just have a rather fraught relationship with the “supposed to"s implied in essay writing. It sounds like homework, and it makes me not want to do them. So, I am renaming the prose portions of the book. There will be no essays. Kate asked me to please not call them narrative chunks. Then I texted Pete, my editor:

A man of few words, but just the right ones. Topical explorations it is. I will be topically exploring moments of play in scripture, and aspects of what makes play play. I feel as though I could write topical explorations all day. I am open to another names for Bits of Insightful Prose. Meanwhile, Sophie started going through my Big Green Binder and started to cross out “essay” on all of my indexes and wrote “TE” instead. I will take any and all encouragement as I head into fall and winter. The play, the work, all of it, all woven together.

For now, friends, I leave you with A Liturgy for Moot Ball:

Coming up:

-Charlotte Jones Voiklis and I are working out a time to have a talk about play in Madeleine L’Engle’s life and writing. Charlotte is the author of Becoming Madeleine and A Book, Too, Can Be A Star. Details forthcoming.

And, my regular meditation on art and patronage:

Here’s my favorite example of patronage: did you know that Harper Lee’s friends gave her a year’s pay for Christmas one year so that she could write? Because of that act of generous faith, we have To Kill A Mockingbird.

I don’t know if I have any one friend who can do that exactly–– although, if you’re out there, welcome! But in order to put this deliver this book to my publisher and then send it flying out into the world, I do need two things:

1. You. Your very presence. One of my favorite things I’ve learned about play is that play can take risks and be vulnerable because it is safe. Play makes mistakes, tries things out, improvises. This space is that. This is where I want to show you my work in progress, invite you into conversations on play, hear what you think work, what doesn’t, and what I could do better.

2. Income. I would so love for this to be my day job while I complete Play Book.

You can subscribe for free or at $5/month, $50/year, or $100 for Founding Members. Founding Members will receive an early, signed copy of Play Book when it arrives in the world as a huge thank you for your support.

Ok. I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s play.

I laid out the pages of my talk-in-progress on a long table last night, and did some literal cutting and pasting and decided to start reading it out loud to see how it sounded.

“Play is the big idea.”

The big idea? I read it, I questioned it. I kept going.

“Play is what we were made from. It’s what we are made for. It’s where we are going.”

That, I was good with.

Do I walk it back? I thought. Tone it down a little?

I find myself hesitating to say “play is the big idea” because I’m just waiting for someone- a Christian who knows a lot, most likely- to say, “No, it’s not.” I have heard the Westminster Catechism enough times to know that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I really, really, believe that. The thing is, I think that one of the things that is the most glorifying to God is when we enjoy Him, because this world is absolutely packed with signs of God at play. It’s like God is saying, “How many ways can I show you who I am? Look at this!” It’s a question of changing the accent some.

Last week, I wrote about how play is resistance. Someone I respect opined that my book concept was going to be a hard sell in this fraught moment in our culture, in our country. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, turning that thought around and over. Last night, as I fell asleep, I rolled over and wrote this in my notes app:

Foregrounding play is an act of resistance because it makes more clear how terrible everything is.

Seriously. When we are playing, things feel right, and sometimes it aches, because we realize how often things are not. One of the best way to really feel and know that things are wrong is to know what it feels like when things are right. The way we spot a counterfeit is by knowing the real thing. Right?

I celebrate and explore the magic of play because it inoculates us against apathy. We need to feel what it’s like to come alive, and we should have a visceral reaction to the horrors because we know life can be better. Because we still have a stamp on our hand from the dance party last night, because our abs are still sore from laughing with friends, because our hearts still ache with joy.

When we remember what we are here for, it keeps us from believing that all the other things that are slowly cooking, seducing, or drowning us are okay in any way at all. Play is a wake-up call. A taste of joy, a taste of freedom, a flexing of our muscles. It is a question of having vision. You know, so that we don’t perish.

In Tolkien’s The Two Towers, when King Theoden has been drawn from under the poisonous influence of Wormtongue and Saruman he begins to wake up and remember himself. (Thanks for the dialogue, IMDB. )

• Theoden: [upon being exorcised] Gandalf...

• Gandalf: Breathe the free air again, my friend.

• Theoden: [stands up from the throne] Dark have been my dreams of late.

• [looks at his hands]

• Gandalf: Your fingers would remember their old strength better... if they grasped your sword.

When we play, we remember our old strength better. Like Theoden, we remember who we are.

Or, maybe like Chuck, the careworn accountant in Life of Chuck. In an instantly iconic movie moment, Taylor sets up her drums to busk for passersby in a town square. People walk by in their daily rhythms, paying her no attention. Then Taylor spots Chuck, an accountant, and zeroes in on him. She finds her groove, and hits a beat that’s an invitation. Chuck listens, remembers, and accepts. Chuck sees a young lady in the crowd who’s picked up the rhythm He invites her to dance. The play between drummer and dancers as they dare each other on is mesmerizing, and the world is re-enchanted.

(I learned how to embed things just for this scene. You’re welcome.)

When it comes to glorifying God, it’s just possible that a heart at play might resonate with the source of all of the wonders, the Most Playful One. God has made a world that vibrates with marvels. We are meant to be on a treasure hunt, listening for his voice and looking for his fingerprints.

When we say God is holy, I can’t even begin to think of everything that word encompasses- see my post on semantic satiation. Among other multitudinous superlatives, God is perfect, God is all-loving, God knows everything, God is full of powerful. It is okay that we can’t comprehend all of these things about God. It is a really fitting response to say nothing, or to say wow, to fall on your knees. God is more than you can know.

And God is playful, and that is an invitation. Yes, and Jesus’s first miracle was saving a party by making wine. Yes, and Jesus gave the fish a wink and they filled Simon’s nets. Yes, and God made purple frogs. Yes, and Wisdom was with the Lord at creation, filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world, and delighting in mankind. And Jesus popping up here and there and walking through walls after his resurrection in his new glorified human supersuit. When Jesus gave the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit arrived as tongues of fire and people suddenly spoke different languages. C’mon, that’s playful. And a pretty fun long game, after the Tower of Babel situation. Maybe we had to be there.

When we play we become fully present, even if just for a little bit, and that is no small thing. The things we try on when we are playing deeply–– curiosity, vulnerability, presence––they make us quicker to notice when God is at play, and that is a miracle. The noticing, I mean. the responding to the invite. make us more human, and the point of a human is to glorify God. And enjoy Him.

Updates:

-Hutchmoot is in two weeks! I’ll be speaking on play, with drawing and sharing along with me. Most of my attention will be spent preparing for the conference until then. The really exciting bonus of this is that Play Book’s illustrator , who lives in England, comes to Nashville next week! We’ll be hanging out and putting our heads together and making Play Book come to life. Man, there’s nothing like working and playing in person. We’ll take all the prayers and encouragement!

I am delighted that I’ll be speaking with Charlotte Jones Voiklis and sharing that talk here soon! Charlotte is a wonderful writer, Madeleine L’Engle’s grandaughter and curator of her estate. Paid subscribers, drop me a line with thoughts and questions you might have on all things Madeleine and play.

I put the thoughts below on my very first post, I’m going to add it to all of them. If you’re already here for the ride, thanks so much!

Here’s my favorite example of patronage: did you know that Harper Lee’s friends gave her a year’s pay for Christmas one year so that she could write? Because of that act of generous faith, we have To Kill A Mockingbird.

I don’t know if I have any one friend who can do that exactly–– although, if you’re out there, welcome! But in order to put this deliver this book to my publisher and then send it flying out into the world, I do need two things:

1. You. Your very presence. One of my favorite things I’ve learned about play is that play can take risks and be vulnerable because it is safe. Play makes mistakes, tries things out, improvises. This space is that. This is where I want to show you my work in progress, invite you into conversations on play, hear what you think work, what doesn’t, and what I could do better.

2. Income. I would so love for this to be my day job while I complete Play Book.

You can subscribe for free or at $5/month, $50/year, or $100 for Founding Members. Founding Members will receive an early, signed copy of Play Book when it arrives in the world as a huge thank you for your support.

Ok. I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s play.