A play-full life is lived at the right speed...

"A play-full life," writes Jaco Hamman, "is lived at the right speed."  Brilliant ~ amen ~ and all the rest is commentary, yes?

It is to have enough time to live with joy and in community with others. Slowness encourages you to slow down, to savor the relationships, tastes, smells, sights and sounds of life; to touch life gently. Slowing down in a world that is racing ahead is a challenge, but so freeing! (pg. 86)

Today at Eucharist we spoke of Christ's baptism ~ and will do so again on Sunday ~ in which God called Jesus "the Beloved" simply because he showed up.  He didn't DO anything before being baptized, he didn't confess his sins to John the Baptist (according to the texts) nor did he fast and pray and challenge the status quo.  That all came AFTER his baptism ~ after being anointed with the blessing of being God's beloved ~ after sensing a calling born from above.

Don't get me wrong, there is work to be done ~ there are people to visit, evil to be challenged, prayers to be shared, food to be cooked and all the rest ~ but THIS is not what inspires God to love us and call us "beloved."  No, that comes from God's own heart that is very different from the way most of us have been trained.  Isaiah 55 puts it like this:

I don't think the way you think.
The way you work isn't the way I work.
         God's Decree.
For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don't go back until they've watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They'll do the work I sent them to do,
they'll complete the assignment I gave them.
So you'll go out in joy,
you'll be led into a whole and complete life.
The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
no more thornbushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
living and lasting evidence of God.

"A play-full life..." ~ a faith-full life ~ an authentic and compassionate life ~ "is lived at the right speed... (where we) have enough time to live with joy and in community with others."  Here's my prayer and commitment for the New Year.