Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord,because they have broken my covenant, and transgressed my law. Israel cries to me, ‘My God, we—Israel—know you!’ Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him. They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. (Hosea 8: 1-4)

When I was a little boy my cousins, friends, and I would play house. We would play army. We would play law court. We would create our own realities.

When I was in junior high school the play became considerably more elaborate. Along with a group of eight to twelve other boys, I was a citizen of the Kingdom of Rome.

My role in the Kingdom of Rome was to act as the religious leader: the Cardinal Bishop of New Wittenberg. In this role I wore a (cardboard) miter, flowing robes, and carried a tall walking stick surmounted with a cross.

At the beginning of every hike to our kingdom (unrestored mining land near town) I would intone "Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi."

The religious impulse was not exactly false, but it was almost entirely self-absorbed. We built a chapel for the fun of it. We sang strange songs for the mystery of it. We practiced unusual rituals to reinforce our own hopes and desires.

Play is a great gift. I perceive that playfulness is a big part of God's intent for us. God's full reality is so far beyond us that playful exploration is a much more promising path than a false certainty in knowing the will of God.

But our playfulness should be focused outside ourselves. We play to become what we are not. We play to prepare ourselves for a life beyond our current experience.

Too often I still play at reinforcing my self-definition. Much better for me to play at imagining God's intent.

Above is an engraving from a Phoenician bronze bowl showing a ritual dance around divine representations of sun and moon (courtey of The Dance).