Seriously, y'all...

Friedman's Fables begins with four illusions in need of shattering, among them "that seriousness is deeper than playfulness."

Growing up, we quickly get the playfulness shoved out of us. Life is deadly serious, we're told. 

And yes, there is plenty horrible in the world. 

And there is always work to do, but dilligence need not be humorless. 

Heck, with a little whimsy and creativity, our productivity can surge, and we can break through to new understandings.

Some days I take myself far too seriously, and the items on my to-do list seem like a precarious stack of heavy rough stones. I accomplish things with a certain relief, but little joy.

When I enter in a spirit of play, everything feels lighter and so much more

For better or for worse, I do not have this
basket of llama heads in my office.Yet.

possible. I take things a little less personally, and with something of a "try, try, try again" attitude. If I fail, it's an amusing pratfall, where I dust myself off, take a bow, and carry on.

Getting to playful is not entirely natural or even comfortable for me. In my more cynical moments I roll my eyes at the mere idea of an attitude adjustment, considering it an unwelcome detour from nose to the grindstone. 

What does help me make the shift?

• Goofy playlists
• Amusing articles and webcomics
• Joking with my coworkers.
• Little whimsical objects in my office-my timer is a little blue penguin, my magnets are geometric shapes in bright colors.
• When I head to a meeting, I have pens in a variety of pretty colors and I get to change the ink color every few lines.
• A quick walking break, especially to take a picture of something amusing

What helps you to lighten your mood and your load?

Hourly Math

Back when unions were fighting for the forty-hour work week, Welsh reformer Robert Owen used the math of "Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest"--this was a really big deal!

It was a welcome change from the 10 or 12 or 16 hour days many worked, and created real leisure time for the industrial society.

Very few of us work twelve or sixteen hour days as a matter of course, though for many of us there might be twelve (or even sixteen) hours when we're checking work email or considering some ponderous wrinkle we couldn't quite leave at the office.

Add in the commute and 'recreation' seems a much diminished chunk of time.

And while it certainly would be lovely to spend eight hours a day playing, we might have a hard time considering errands and chores and arguing with our kids (and arguing with our kids about chores) as recreation. 

When was the last time you did something recreational?
And are you getting your eight hours of sleep?

Recalculating Your Route

Given as the Story for All Ages at Emerson UU Church, Houston, Aug. 3, 2014

I was on a road trip last week, and the planning process goes so easily these days--instead of flipping through maps and watching the weather report and listening to the radio for interstate construction reports... I can use my phone to pull up all the information and within a few minutes, I set my route.

What a wonderful tool! I made it through Wisconsin and Illinois and Missouri with ease, and told my sons that we'd stop for lunch as soon as we got to the divided highway in Arkansas.

Only we weren't getting to the divided highway. Instead there were these tiny little towns, one after another. I asked my navigator how this could be possible and he was adamant that we were following precisely the route on the phone.

And then I started seeing signs directing me to the road I knew we were supposed to be on.

But no, that's not what the phone indicated. So I kept driving.

As it turned out, we'd been going parallel to the highway, just out of sight. It added about an hour to our journey.

WHY didn't I just pull over and look at the screen, maybe reference the paper map also in my car? Because I trusted the program and because I was stubbornly holding to the path I was on, assuming that somehow or another, it would all work out.

I had no way of knowing that at some point in a hundred twists and turns and construction areas, the GPS decided we had left the planned route--and so it recalculated a new one.

We saw new sights on this journey, with markers for our history of rock and roll, the Civil War, and the Trail of Tears. We got plenty of experience identifying not just fields of corn and soybeans, and corn and soybeans, and soybeans and corn, but also sorghum and rice. 

But really, we just wanted some LUNCH, and to get closer to our stopping point for the day.

This adventure was over in a matter of hours, but sometimes our journeys and detours can last years... and then there's the overall journey of our lives. The route we choose, or that others choose for us? Sometimes it needs to change. And sometimes we just need to pull over and take a good hard look at the map, to figure out where we will go next. 

And we must always keep our eyes and our minds wide open-or as my mother would warn us, if the nice lady on your phone told you to drive straight into a lake, would you?

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Slothful...

I spent much of the day today reading The Golem and The Jinni, getting lost in 1899-1900 New York City.

Most of the decisions in the day involved where I should read--bed, couch, and even on an idyllic blanket in the shade.  Because it was only ninety-four degrees this afternoon.

I'm storing up some sweet ahhh moments as I head into the wacky start-up time of the church year. (Perhaps there will be fewer stressed ahhh moments to come?)

And now I'll get back to the hundred pages left to read.

Fear

I'm watching Iron Man 3--I won't spoil it for a the six of you who are still planning to see it, but at its core is an investigation of fear.

How can others manipulate us, pulling us from our logic to our base terror?

Do we fear the things that actually hurt us?
How can we overcome fear, or at least keep it from paralyzing us?

And what hope is there for those of us without a fancy metal suit?

The Neglected Garden

Oh, I have not been in the garden for a long time--spending my time on other things (and in other states...) -there are actually saplings growing up through my rose bushes. It's really something, and the heavy prune can't happen until winter.

And since I haven't been deadheading the roses, there aren't many blooms. At the same time, however,the flat of a spent bloom seems to make an excellent landing pad for a dragonfly. So I can keep my usual battle cry of "We are creating a healthy ecosystem!"

Perhaps I'll refer to the yard as a dragonfly refuge. 

Slowly, slowly

Yum, dried apple rings.

My parents put these up last fall. My father spent hours at the apple slicer, cutting countless spirals of fruit. My mother sat nearby, carefully arranging the slices on sheets for the dehydrator or the oven. There the fruit sat at low-heat for twelve to twenty hours for the proper drying, then the trays were set out to cool off before portioning these treats into jars.

My son and I are having a hard time not racing through the whole jar.

See, a quart jar might hold the equivalent of ten or twelve fresh apples, reduced to tart chewy treats.

It's an abundance of deliciousness. And a lot of fiber.

Pacing ourselves is not necessarily a valued trait in this culture--it is far more common to rush and grab and devour and move on to the next thing.  But we can stand to learn a little restraint.