Surely play is part of the Via Positiva. Yesterday we discussed the importance that the lack of play has in the making of murderers…including mass murderers. And how science is underscoring the importance of play.
Neotony is a scientific term expressing our capacity to stay young and stay playing. Meister Eckhart says “I am younger today than I was yesterday and if I’m not younger tomorrow than I am today I would be ashamed of myself.” Ashley Montagu, in his study on Growing Young, reveals that of all the animal species we know, the human is unique in its capacity to continue play throughout adulthood. An insect never plays; a chimpanzee plays hard as a youngster but loses play as an adult; an adult human can play right up to death…and with death.
To recover the erotic is to recover play and the child in ourselves and in all creation, including the Creator. Perhaps the time has come to play with God more than to pray to God, and in our play true prayer will emerge. And we will emerge younger, fresher, greener.
Eckhart’s term for play—“to live without a why, to work without a why, to love without a why”—speaks to the heart of erotic celebration. Play can be a substitute for aggression. But our culture, which does not value playfulness or Eros, has forgotten that, and so we lock ourselves into trillion-dollar military budgets, and imagine we can buy security.
Play is circular, curved, Sara-circle-like among children, and wherever adult ritual has not lost is celebrative and erotic energy. It is where people come together to meet eye to eye, which means with feeling or vulnerability. Interestingly, the Jewish word for celebration, kagiyaah, is related to kag, to draw a circle or go round; to kagur, to be girded; to kug, a circle….
Thomas Aquinas, mystic and theologian, likes to compare contemplation to playing. He says: “Two features of play make it appropriate to compare the contemplation of wisdom to playing. First, we enjoy playing, and there is the greatest enjoyment of all to be had in the contemplation of wisdom, as Wisdom says “My spirit is sweeter than honey.” (Eccl 24:27) Second, playing has no purpose beyond itself. What we do in play is done for its own sake. The same applies to the enjoyment of wisdom…Divine Wisdom compares her enjoyment to playing is Proverbs 8:30: ‘I delighted God day after day, ever at play in God’s presence.’ Furthermore, contemplation concerns ends that serve no ulterior purpose. Play, too, is concerned with ends when you play ‘for the fun of it.’” This is altered slightly however when one “takes exercise in order to stay fit.”
Adapted from: Matthew Fox, Original Blessings, pp. 283f.
And Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, 79f.
Banner Image: “Children’s Smiles, Cao Lãnh, Vietnam” Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
We are told in Scripture that “Wisdom plays.” Do we?
How adept are we at working, loving, and living “without a why”? Can we develop that whylessness more regularly and deeply—to “live in order to live” and “love in order to love” as Eckhart puts it. In this way we might be finding ourselves playing a lot more than we do currently.
Recommended Reading
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
In this book Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology). Here Fox lays out the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way. The result is exciting!
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.
5 thoughts on “The Mystics on Play”
Thank you Matthew Fox.
I am just breaking up with my 60 year old pattern of Roman Catholic Church habit. It has been in process since 1987. I finally cut the last tie this summer. These daily readings have buoyed me as I move forward seeking the Divine within.
I am so grateful.
Dear Josephine,
Congratulations on your courageous break with your church of 60 years. Moving away from others’ directions to your own sense of the Divine within your is an enormous, and important step. Please stay with to build your strength and understanding. We wish you many authentic encounters with the Divine within and around you.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditations Team
I love to explore, not for the why, but to experience awe and wonder. Is that what play is all about?
Dear Annie,
It would seem from Matthew’s meditation today that your explorations of awe and wonder unattached to purpose would be play. i suppose the final test would be if these explorations are joyful. Do they quicken your delight and fill you with the thrill of your own existence.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditations Team
Dear Mr. Fox,
Our male ginger tabby, eight years old, seems to delight in pursuing plastic bottle caps. Especially it seems, when it disturbs me the most. I can only imagine he sees a viscous bubonic plagued rat, and he’s trying gallantly to save his feeders. Is this play? Of course, everyone knows, that cats have no soul.
With love and thanks, glynn.