A couple of weeks ago, at a retreat
of the Ranch Board of Directors we took time out to say good-bye to the
swimming pool. Or, at least this iteration of the pool. It is over 80 years
old! By next summer we’ll have a new pool in its place.
We gathered around the pool and
gave thanks for it as a place for playing. Kids and adults have gathered all
those years to play in this pool: to experience “time out of time” that comes
to us when we are playing. Oh, yes, serious people have swum laps there for
exercise and many adults have taught their children how to swim there. But
mostly it’s been a place for play. Kids jumping in to be the first to grab the
golf tee, kids seeing who can jump the furthest into the pool, who can find the
coin at the bottom, children playing imaginary games in the water—sharks,
submarines, mermaids, octopi—all of them playing. Teens rough-housing; some, we
heard, have jumped off the roof of the bath house to the pool. [They shall
remain nameless.] David Forbes told us that the pool house actually was built in
the 60s when Bishop Pike was leading the diocese—it was constructed out of his
concern for children, their education and their camps.
Play can happen almost anywhere,
but I’m thankful there are special places for playing at the Ranch. We need to play.
Especially these days: there is little room for play when so much of our every
day is so structured, both for adults and children. We need to be able to enjoy
activity that seems to have no purpose. I say, “seems to” because scholars tell us that play actually
does have purpose. It is very important in our development: in our learning
about our strengths and limits, and about cooperation and trust, and it’s vital
to our ability to solve problems and to relate to others with compassion. Play
tests our bodies and our skills, our imaginations and our capacity for joy and
surprise.
Play time is “out of time.” You are
so there that you don’t notice how much time is going by. Anyone who has ever
tried to get a child out of the pool by explaining that the allotted time has
gone by, knows that time in the pool is “time out of time.”In that sense, playtime is Sabbath time. It is time when we are
not responsible for the upkeep of the world. When we step out into a world
where we can relax, let the creative energies of the divine take care—where we
can just be and be alive. We can enjoy God’s creation and each other. It a way
of honoring the divine by taking time out. Sabbath.
Some of us adults have a hard time
playing, even if we played a lot as kids. Our work ethic is distorted so that
we feel guilty if we’re not “doing something productive.” Many parents know
that their children help them get back in touch with their playful selves.
Grandchildren can do the same. This is a note from quite awhile back that I keep near my
desk. My granddaughter wrote it to me when I was working “a bit,” one day when
she was visiting. I take it as a beautiful invitation from her, which I cherish.
It also represents the divine invitation we’re extended everyday to remember we’re
loved and to remember that we’re made to come out and play!
The pool isn’t the only place we
have for play at the Ranch. We have other play spots: there is the swing
outside the refectory and down the hill a bit. The basketball courts. There is
the art center. There is a place for a game of horse shoes, and one for bocce ball.
Over the years, the tree house was such an important “time out of time” center. We hope and pray that soon it, too,
will be built afresh and again ring with the sounds of children and adults at
play.
The pool at the Ranch was dug with
draft horses pulling the equipment—just imagine that. Think about all those years of play, all the
thousands of people who have enjoyed it. Now we are embarked on the
construction of a new pool in the same playful place, ready we expect by this
summer, and once again offering children and adults a place to play. A sabbath
place: the swimming pool. “Come on out!”
To learn more about play: there’s a rather serious talk by
Stuart Brown at http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html
or
visit the website of the National Institute for Play http://nifplay.org/index.html
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