Join the Tuesday Slice of Life
Children have an exquisite capacity to play, to imagine, to create stories, to connect with nature, art, and ritual. When children move into an imaginative space in their minds and spirits, a world of possibility and promise opens up for everyone. –Ed Bacon
This summer I have been responding to Ed Bacon’s book 8 Habits of Love. The 5th chapter is what I’ve been waiting for, the Habit of Play. What a boring world this would be without play!
This week I coordinated an art camp for kids. Each day we made something new. Rainsticks, cardboard self-portraits, and wood sculptures. We read The Dot by Peter Reynolds and made our unique dots. This was the 6th year for our art camp, and I finally had the brilliant idea to make a “Free Time Activity Box.” One little girl built a park scene using pink paper, pink tape, some wood scraps, sequins, etc. We put a sign next to it, “Do not touch.” It stayed up all week. Finally we transferred the scene to a scrap piece of foam board. I was fascinated to watch her play.
A sense of Play is essential to happiness and a feeling of safety in this world. Ed Bacon speaks of the difference between childlikeness and childishness. “Childlikeness makes room for everyone to play.”
Recently a friend of mine, a colleague and young mother, died in her sleep at 41 leaving three young children. As you can imagine, there were feelings of sadness,confusion,and helplessness. Following the service, I watched as my priest lifted up her 3-year-old son. He smiled and bounced the boy up and down. “I love you. We sure had fun today, didn’t we?” A sense of play in the midst of so much sorrow helped me see the hope that lives in love.
Love always wins. When we allow love to be in our nature, Play helps us relax and see the beauty in God’s gift of childlikeness to us all.
Instructions for Play
Leap in the green grass meadow.
Blow bubbles into the wind.
Twirl a girl in a swirling dress.
Open up the blossom of a flower.
Wave to everyone you see.
Smile, it’s always contagious.
Run through the sprinkler.
Climb a tree.
Make a bird out of an egg carton.
Create a space ship from a paper towel tube.
Laugh, giggle, belly guffaw.
Spend time with someone you love.
Praise the creator of Play.
–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
When we invite Play in to all areas of our lives, we turn away from our fearful natures and invite the loving self to reengage with the world and with the parts of our brains that imagine and create. –Ed Bacon
Thank you for the reminder of this most important habit of love. As adults, it is easy tor forget this one as we focus on working, cooking, cleaning…..caregiving…
I’m a total lover of play and what it offers us. It brings back the memories of FInland and what we can learn from them.
Thanks for this piece,
I’m grinning 🙂
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to play a few hours with a few young children. I had so much fun! It reminded me how simple it can be to spend a few moments playing. Thank you for being a voice that reminds us about things that are important in life.
Margaret,
This is a wonderful reminder of how important it is to find the joy of play in our daily life. Thanks so much for sharing!
Catherine
Play is vital. Play is what disappears from school, right about the time that love of learning seeps away from kids who couldn’t wait to get to school and now see it as a chore…
May our classrooms be full of play, even for those of us in super-serious high school. May we laugh together every time we congregate, even when we are doing serious work that day.
My visits to your writing space are always so rewarding. Thank you for your craft and your wisdom.
oh, so delightful! thanks for these good reminders and for giving us the “OK” to spend time at play!
[…] book 8 Habits of Love ends with this habit. All seven habits (Generosity, Stillness, Truth, Candor, Play, Forgiveness, and Compassion) lead to this final one. He begins the last chapter with the epigraph […]