Rhythm of Life: Fun as a Spiritual Practice

Luke 15:8-10

‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

When folks think of Christianity or perhaps more precisely church people and I mean church people past and present, fun does not leap to mind. We inherit these notions of faith as hard work and associate hard work with no fun at all. In fact is it work if you are having fun. We are much more familiar with joyless worship, restricted pleasure, restricted food, rigid prayers and even self-abuse as a practice of our historic faith. Church folks are famously dower and sour, mean and judgy. We are famously un-fun.

Movies show us how un-fun christianity can be. Church leaders are rarely fun and when they are it is a big deal. Occasionally someone fun comes along and shakes things up, like in Sister Act when everything comes to life with a new direction. The church always needs saving by someone delightful. Unfortunately, it never realizes how much fun is missing. Maybe that is why the Sound of Music literally has a song, “How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria” She is a delight and that is not a good fit at the convent. Eddie Izzard makes a hilarious point of how all the songs of the most powerful Christians on earth sound so terrible singing joyless songs in worship.

And while there is serious work at the heart of our faith, Jesus is the one shaking things up to save the faithful around him and he doesn't do it by telling folks to feel bad, restrict their food and pleasure and look really judgy at the kids running around the synagogue. In fact Jesus is always with folks, sharing big meals. Even his parables about the Kingdom of Heaven or the reign of God all end in a party. Where there is a search for a lost coin or a missing sheep, there is a party. Where there is a lost son, there is a father looking to the horizon and ready to kill the fatted calf. The Party is always out of proportion, it is extravagant. The party for the lost coin costs more than the coin. The party for the lost sheep is worth more than the sheep from a profit and loss standpoint. The party for the lost son, who squandered is money, offends the responsible older brother and the norms of the day but maybe that’s part of the point.

I think there is a lesson in his practice and in his stories. Jesus reminds folks of Divine Abundance and the need to pause and celebrate it. That this space of celebrating joy, naming joy, feasting around joy gives us resilience and wellness and is in fact a part of our faith. Jesus liked a party. He looked for wonder and delight, connection and celebration in the world around him. This is a part of his faithfulness.

So what if we imagined fun and delight as a part of our spiritual practice? What if we imagined it right there with communion and worship as a means of grace? What if we took fun seriously?

In Dr. Laurie Santos’ podcast, The Happiness Lab, author Cathrine Price invites Laurie for a Fun-tervention. This comes as an acknowledgment of her soul searching for fun and delight in a world of busyness, distractions and self critique. And they ask tuff questions; When was the last time you actually had fun? When was the last time you were delighted?

If you hear these questions and start to think about them and wonder to yourself, ummm I’m not sure. Then we probably have some work to do. In The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, Catherine Price finds ample research in how good fun is for us; reducing stress and increasing our happy hormones. Fun is good for our body and our brains; so it's even good for our work and our families and pretty much anything we might do with our day. Fun and delight also build resilience in the struggles we have with the world around us.

So what is fun, well Price found three main components of fun; Playfulness, Connection and Flow. Playfulness is this interior state that is open and the outcomes of the activity are not pressing; one is motivated intrinsically and it is good for our brains. This is why we play the most when our brains are growing the most…or at least we should be playing. The second is connection, this pace of being with others, even introverts named connection as a part of their fun. We crave connection even as we have trouble making it a priority and even as we get duped into time scrolling social media hoping to be social. Flow was the final state and this is not junk flow, where you realize you just blew through an hour zoned out on your phone. Flow is this deep engagement where you are so actively present.

So what stops us from having more fun? Price says Distractions and our own negative self-criticism. Actually she calls them FUN Killers. So the question is, how do we make more space for playfulness, connection and flow and not just in epic moments but in everyday life? For more help Laurie turned to Ross Gay, the author of a book I love called, The Book of Delights. In a world of distractions, busyness and harsh words, Gay started looking for delight. He wrote a small essay in thirty mins, on paper everyday for a year about something that delighted him. The more he looked, the more delight he encountered. He even puts hi finger in the air when he sees a delight and says delight out loud to celebrate and notice. The way folks interacted with him and a tomato plant in the airport, total delight. The laughing snort our bodies make, total delight. The purple flowers at the start of spring, total delight. Our eyes were made for delight and this gave him overwhelming gratitude.

Another way to get past the fun-killers was to try something new, to learn a new skill: surfing, dancing, singing…anything really where you can say I’m new and I don’t have to be good at this because I am learning. It gives that deep state of focus in flow and it gives your brain a break from negative self talk, which may be a way to train your brain to see failure as learning. And just like you would be understating to a person learning from you, learning is a way of self-compassion, it is a way of remembering you are human and that you are always growing.

The world is full of fun killers, not just our self doubt and critique or the screens which are always demanding our attention with alerts and beeps and vibrations but also the heaviness of the world. The world is full of grief and heartbreak and when we look at the work of the world, fun can feel silly. Like we are neglecting our duties. Of course when we think of Jesus having wine at a party or feasting with his friends in Bethany, we don’t think he is neglecting the work of the world. We don’t think he is wasting his time at a party when he could be off pressing the political establishment or healing more people. He could be doing all of that, but he is not. He is with his friends, he is sharing a meal and probably having fun.

This year has been a new kind of practice for me. We have always received a little negative attention. When I was a new pastor, first church had a man come to the driveway weekly to hand out pamphlets about how he hoped the church would find two godly men to come and save them from the two witchy women that served the church. A website named rapture ready, called us out too and did a follow up on how I was a witch in charge of a ministry called Wesley Pub that let folks drink while they talked about faith. I once argued with folks like this and often felt defensive about my very vocation.

Last year things seemed to get even more intense after peaking up for inclusive, researched based sex education, reproductive rights and hosting drag story time, we started getting even more attention. It was a little more intense and scary. It was draining. So my friend Rev. Chris Jorgensen helped me turn it around. A man named Devon started emailing, over and over. He even messaged all of the partners on our website. So in a moment of wisdom, Chris helped me think though a new way and the “Devon, please stop bothering us” fund was born. And it worked. Devon stopped bothering us. But mostly it changed the way I experienced those emails and his protests outside on Palm Sunday. His efforts to make us feel shame or fear became a fundraiser and people invested. We reached 4,000 dollars in two weeks.

Last Christmas a woman didn’t like my sermons about Mary, how dare I make her so human and on the feast day of the immaculate conception no less. She rounded out her email shaming me for leading a church that has condoms. I was mad and hurt. And then I thought, thank you for noticing how our theology lives out. We can value bodies and want them to be healthy. And we can get folks connected for STD testing in a county where STD rates are shockingly high. Young people without information and resources to honor their body because Christian history as been so weird about bodies and sexuality, that’s the real abomination.

Folks have been sending some new messages about reproductive rights, how dare I believe a person and their doctor are the best at making their health decisions. I am heading straight to hell and taking you all with me. Folks think I’m a witch and this year, I decided sure, I’m a witch and I’m a good one. Last year, after a comment I said out loud to Joyce and Markos, next year I should come as a Glenda, just to prove them right. We laughed. It was hilarious. The little old church lady on my shoulder said that is not appropriate, you are making yourself a joke, you are making your work a joke. But Joyce made me a costume for next year.. And She did her homework. Glenda is all about transformation in the original stories. And being Glenda on this funny, silly delightful day is serious fun. It makes me feel like giggling just to look at it in the mirror. I feel so much delight.

So call me a witch, frankly it's a compliment and your old tricks don’t really work on making us feel small. Call us all witches or bitches or snowflakes or bleeding hearts or nasty women or liberals like its a bad word. We will meet your harm with a little bit of delight.

So yes, it might be a little silly to have a Sunday where we all dress in costumes. It might feel silly to learn to ski or write a song. It might feel silly to play in the leaves with your child or watch the clouds sweep the sky or join the child dancing through the Target like a sugarplum fairy or carry a tomato plant through an airport or have a party because you found your coin. It might all be silly. But if we don’t name that delight, I think we would miss out on some serious fun.

Resources:

https://www.happinesslab.fm/season-3/episode-7-laurie-gets-a-fun-tervention-part-one

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning by Tom Vanderbilt

The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price