"Playing the Game"

It has been over a year since I left my previous position at Northern Seminary to explore new directions in my life, seeking out the doors God is inviting me through. It has been quite an adventure and as I reflect back -- through this journey is still scary at times -- it is one of the best decisions I have made -- No regrets!

I recently heard of a comment a former colleague made concerning my supposed "inability" to make it at Northern. He made it to another colleague of mine when they met at a conference this summer. He mentioned that he had become aware of some of the issues I had voiced regarding my time at Northern, to which he stated, "Roland did not know how to play the game."

My friend passed on my former colleague's greeting, as well as this comment he made. I remember my immediate retort -- "Well who wants to play the game?"

I have come to realize that life is too short to playing games when there is life to be lived. Game playing is okay when you are sitting around a table with friends playing cards, Monopoly, or whatever other game provides an excuse for friends to get together just to be with one another.

But when "game playing" becomes a technique we engage in to make sense out of our contexts, be they relationships, family, work, church, etc., then we miss the point of living in ways that not only sets us free, but enables others to be free around us as well. Now I know freedom involves responsibility, but responsibility need not require ways of being, ways of acting -- "game playing" if you will -- that necessitate the enslavement of ourselves in order to have an existence within a context.

Also "game playing" is often associated with "playing politics." As a mentor of mine once expressed, "Politics is all around us. The point is to know how to respond with integrity." Politics is not always a four-letter word, because what "being political" means is "being intentional." In that sense of the word, political action is intentional action -- and I believe all our actions ought to be filled with intentionality and with purpose. However, "game-playing" is also a form of intentional action or politics, yet it thrives on maneuvering and manipulation so that one finds their way through the maze. And if one person is "game-playing," others have to as well.

Game-playing also needs to be distinguished from being discerning and tactful. Game-playing requires persons to put on different personas, to hide behind masks, to create facades, which protect us from the game overwhelming us -- by hiding who we are, we learn to play the game. However, we can refuse to play the game, and yet still be discerning. We can read situations, the powers that seek to direct situations in certain directions, and we can navigate such "waters" by speaking truth and naming life. Now one does not need to be boorish in doing so, but the truth-speaker is one who refuses to play the game and yet seeks to reveal a different way of being grounded in a different reality.

"Game-playing" also is a distrustful activity -- one relies only upon themselves. Game-playing does not lend itself well to trusting others. To get ahead in game-playing one has to know how to manipulate the situation so as to gain the advantage over others.

Contexts which require "game-playing" hinder us from being persons of integrity. When contexts require us to play games to survive, we create facades -- to be persons who we really do not want to be. Such contexts stifle our humanity, diminish a sensitivity to the Spirit of God, and force us to be people who fear to be open, to be transparent.

Life is too short not to be playing the kind of games that enable us to enjoy one another's company.

For me I am discovering that seeking to live out the Gospel as I follow after Jesus Christ -- is a life that is contrary to "game-playing." Following Jesus and living in the way of Jesus calls for an integrity, a transparency, a trusting in God, rather than ourselves, an attitude of servantship, rather than one of gaining an upper hand. Now it may not seem to be the way to win in this life, but it reveals a different reality to live in this way -- which in the long run enables persons to be more humane with one another, and enables us to be in community with one another, rather than in competition.

Yes, by refusing to not play the game, I may never win, in fact I am sure never to win, BUT that is okay with me. I am discovering its not about my winning, its not about me, watching out for myself, gaining an advantage over another, etc. Such an attitude is the root of broken relationships and mistrust.

I am coming to discover that its about what I can contribute to what God is doing in this world as I love the Lord my God with my whole being and love my neighbor as myself. In taking the focus off of how I need to play the game, I am set free to live this life, to have a sensitivity to life all around me -- and by demonstrating a different way to be with others -- indeed the way Jesus was with others (and by identifying with him I am enabled to live in this same way), others can begin to see, to discover that there indeed is another way to live and be in this world.