The Serious Business of Play.

When was the last time you lost yourself in a personal interest project, got stuck into a board game, skipped just for fun, or joked with a friend?

It is tempting to believe that we outgrow play, perhaps when we graduate from compulsory education, or that it is somehow a 'nice to have' activity in life, as a rare reward for making it through the week with some energy left over. Yet theologians from St Thomas Aquinas to the present day have repeatedly underscored the importance of play in building healthy relationships with others and with God, as well as acknowledging play's virtuous role in providing rest and restoration for weary souls.

When we play our nervous system is recalibrated, our horizons widen, we learn new things, and our ability to negotiate, co-create and build intimacy in relationships improves. We would readily affirm the importance of play in the life of children. We even offer discipleship models such as Godly Play to foster encounter with God through children's natural sense of wonder, but as adults we often forget the benefits of play and become bogged-down with household, work, or financial pressures which demand greatly of us.

I wonder, though, how it might re-shape our understanding and priorities if we reminded ourselves that God is playful too? Creation itself is gratuitously glorious, we are told God 'delights' in us, Jesus uses irony and wit in his conversations, and let's not forget the book of Numbers even has a talking donkey! Play can feel like the last thing we have the resources for when the backdrop to daily life feels bleak or relentless, but perhaps this is exactly when we need to allow ourselves to be indulgently, joyfully, vivaciously human; to remind ourselves that play is, in fact, a serious business that demands our attention too.