Crossing the Threshold

You have to step in to play.

One attribute of play that I’m exploring in Play Book is that it has boundaries. Rules, edges, things that have to happen. Which means that at some point, you have to cross a threshold and enter in.

Have you heard of Godly Play? I spent a couple of years beginning a Godly Play program for children I love at a church. It’s a Montessori-based methodology created by Jerome Berryman for learning and entering into God’s big story. The stories of God, crafted out natural materials for small hands, fill the child-level shelves around the edge of the room, organized in light of their position in scripture. Children (most often) are invited into a circle in the middle of a calm, prepared space.

The children sit in a circle on the floor, their wiggles (usually) relatively suppressed because a storyteller is going to tell them a story, orally and visually, that they’ve prepared deeply and know well. They are patient (more often than not) because they know there will be a time where they get to touch the story pieces. They (try to) hold their comments until after the story, because they know they will get to join the conversation.. After the story there are “wondering questions” about the story, and then work time, where the children are free to choose to work with the story materials, or paint, or draw… it’s lovely. And amazing to be in the middle of. It’s kind of like a little church, and kind of like walking into a Bible.

In a Godly Play room, there are two adults. One, the aforementioned storyteller. No less important, there’s the doorkeeper.

Inviting the children in is a crucial component of Godly Play. The doorkeeper meets each child at the threshold, greets them and asks if they are ready to come in. This is no small thing. There are entire day-long trainings on how to be a doorkeeper. It’s a question of looking a child in the eye, matching their energy, and really seeing them. Done well, it’s an absolute art. A moment where a child settles in the presence of a safe, calm adult, a person who is going to guard and support this circle of play. Once a child shows and tells the doorkeeper that they are ready, they are invited into the circle, and they cross the threshold.

One of my favorite Godly Play stories is The Great Family, not least because it’s one of the stories that occurs in a sandbox, which serves as the desert. The desert stories always begin:

The desert is a dangerous place.

As the storyteller sets the stage with the little wooden people and animals, we learn that after the Flood, the creatures and people began to fill the world with life again, and that many headed for water and began a city called Ur, where

The people believed that there were many gods. There was a god for every tree, every rock, and every flower. There was a god of the sky, the clouds, the water and the land. The world was alive with gods.

And then, we meet Abram and Sarai:

But there was one family that believed that all of God was in every place. They did not know that, but that is what they believed.

Before long, it was time for Abram and Sarai and their people to move. The storyteller marches the little wooden family and their animals and their entourage through the sand- holding them by their little wooden bodies, never by their heads, rude- to Haran, along the river, where there was always plenty of water for everyone. Abram and Sarai’s hunch about one God everywhere continued. He was listening with more than his ears, had his antennae up:

Sometimes Abram would go out to the edge of the desert and look out across the sand and into the sky. Then God came so close to Abram, and Abram came so close to God, that he knew what God wanted him to do. God wanted Abram and Sarai to move on again to another new place. And God said, “I will make of you a Great Family. I will bless you and you will be a blessing.”

God told Abram and Sarai to walk into the desert. To take their sheep, their tents and their helpers- away from the water, toward Canaan, wherever that was.

This time there was no river to show the way or to give them water to drink.

Seeing the story in the desert box has a way of making you realize what was happening here. God’s invitation meant risk. God was inviting them into the desert, away from the people they knew, away from everything they knew.

But there was one family that believed that all of God was in every place. They did not know that, but that is what they believed.

This is what they had believed. And then, God had met them, and they knew, undeniably. Who could say no? When God invited them on an adventure into the utter unknown, they knew (enough) of Who was inviting them to play, and there was no question that this invitation–– this Inviter––was better than water and safety and grandparents and comfort and everything else Abram and Sarai every knew. God invited Abram and Sarai to play, and they crossed the threshold.

So, why do I say that God invited them to play? Not to follow, not to obey? Yes, those words work too. But not as well. The more I see of the character of God, the more I believe that before we even existed, God was at play. And, when God made a world and gave it to us, it was a playground. Look closely, or just take a glance with your eyes wide open––you don’t even have to try very hard: this world is shot through with the DNA of Someone Very Playful.

After being explicitly invited to cross the threshold (a very playful thing) and embark on an adventure by Someone Very Playful, they entered into the good, wild, unknown of following God who made them, who made everything. God gave them new names. God showed them the stars and whispered his delightful intention. God showed up incognito at their tent. (Why did he do it this way? I don’t know, but I’ve been delighted by it since I was a kid.) God gave them a baby in their old age and they named him Laughter, a running joke for millennia. The stories continue of God coming near and causing laughter and consternation and amazement and turning the tables. It’s a long game.

But first, they had to step across the threshold. Like Bilbo following Gandalf. It was safer, it was better to step into the wild on an adventure with God than to stay where they had always been.

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So, I’ve been messing with a poem. It’s not done. It’s largely why this post was not posted on Thursday morning, the usual: I fought the poem, the poem won. Round two.

It starts in a rhyming, sing-song kind of pattern, like a children’s catechism. And I like it that way. A catechism is a good and helpful tool to remind us of the things we know: these are the boundaries of play, the things we know, the latticework upon which we grow.

But when it comes to things we don’t know, we can’t speak in certainties. We wonder. We reach, we get curious. So, for the sake of my poem-in-progress, my meter’s broken down for the moment. I’m still finding its rhythm.

Maybe I’ll write about mysterious things in some form that’s closer to jazz, throw the beat around and rely on the melody of alliteration.

Maybe I will in fact lock the wild unknowns into the sing-song pattern of a children’s catechism.

Welcome to the wild ride of sorting this all out, folks. Some days, it’s the Dumbo ride. Some days, it’s Space Mountain.

So, here’s what I’ve got. So far.:

It’s not a catechesis, it’s a riddle.

What did Abraham and Sarah do?

They left everything they knew.

How is leaving everything play?

When it’s running toward, not running away.

How did Abram hear him? Was he near Him?

With his ears? In his heart?

I cannot tell you with what part.

With I cannot tell you, this catechism ends––

Didactics end, feet in the sand.

No rhymes, no riddles, no catechism,

Into mystery and abysm.

(psst: this part especially. This transition is getting to me.)

Sarai and Abram stepped out of the boxes of hopscotch

to daringly dive into Marco Polo with the Mysterious Certainty.

At which point, more meaning can be read from riddles.

So:

Who gave his people a flame-thrower

for a night-light as they outran Egypt,

Fire that barbecued and carmelized bull,

That melts and burnishes faith to silver-shine,

flames that licks the wounded hearts of sad saints,

Searing new language into their brains

Who plays with fire?

What nomad deserts the life-giving river?

No mad one: the one who hears a voice that laughs like water.

We turn the page, the story shows the nomad was right:

The Laughing One can hit a rock and make water.

He can make water do the splits.

He can hush water that’s having a tantrum.

Well, in fact: he can give a woman living water.

That’s what I’ve got. I’m gonna lay it down for a bit, and pick it up again.

Updates:

-My first draft of this post was Writing as Chicken Wrangling and I just couldn’t do it. Thanks for your patience. The kids go back to school on Tuesday, and we are in that weird last but of summer and I lost my groove. I’ll take all prayers and cheering and encouragement as we begin middle school for one, high school for one, and How to Finish a Book in Thirteen Months for me. Today, I laid all of the sections out and took pieces that I’ve been creating and tucked them into their respective chapters. Welcome to my brain on a bed.

-I have the joy of being interviewed by a friend and writer I really enjoy,

Russell Smith

of Solvitur Ambulando. on August 8th at 10 am Central Time. We’re going to be talking about Play Book, and I’m already looking forward to it- Russell’s given me some great questions!

-Yesterday, I found out I didn’t get a grant. I got low for a bit. Of course, any and all wins are wonderful while writing a. book. I kind of feel like an adolescent as I write this project, maybe because the feelings are so close to the surface and it is so much constant learning and growing and because it matters so much to me. Maybe Inside Out 5 should be about Riley writing a book. After college (3) and getting through her twenties (4).

-I’m working on September’s live chat! I really, really liked these. I’m so glad we’re doing them. I cannot tell you how deeply digging through play with

Troy Cady

last week. Go listen.

As ever, I am so grateful for you all. Having you here to share the process of writing Play Book- the good, the bad, the bonkers- spurs me on. Peace and joy and curiosity and hope to you.