Playtime

Creative work is play. That means when one is doing this work, it's serious fun. There is nothing frivolous about it, but it has freedom and joy and unexpected pleasure.
Free speculation - like the wondering questions of Godly Play. What is your favorite part of this story? What do you think this part of the story means? What part of the story could you take away and still have all the story you need?

Using the materials of one's chosen form - words, actions, dance, visuals, light, fabric, drama - a limitless range of materials with which to proclaim the word of God. Godself expanded the forms by sending the Word made flesh, dwelling among us. This is the heart of our speculation. Speculation has sort of a negative connotation in our vocabular these days. It implies that we don't KNOW what will happen with the use of these creative materials, but that we're just speculating, experimenting, playing and stepping back to allow the mystery of meaning to take over. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

For the mystics, the play-ers, and the creatives in this world, to speculate is often enough. There is no need for an answer, a truth, conclusive evidence or facts beyond a shadow of a doubt. The speculators are happy to keep such matters in court rooms and laboratories. There certainly is no need to put such proofing in our sanctuaries, chapels, or prayer gardens. Speculators are an odd bunch, even among our religious kindred. Our human friends want evidence, we want freedom. We say, "don't muddy the beauty with formulas and steps to follow. God is not there. God is between the lines, the spaces, the cracks, the crevices, the rests, the carved out stone, the before and after taste, and on and on. God is not so much the flame, but the air that moves and dances and flickers the flame, and God is the dimness that gives way to the light. God is not the answer to our prayer so much as God is the faith, despair and hope that calls out for an answer.

Perhaps you would say this limits God, but I say it makes God more real. Who can believe? Who can create? The one who waits is the one who sees and knows God. What have we missed when we think we already know God or have a picture or image of who God is? We miss the waiting, the wondering, the hoping, the expectancy. We cannot be among the found if we do not believe we are lost. May we always find ourselves hidden but waiting for God to seek us. Waiting for God to say, "Ready or not, here I am/come."