Friday, March 30, 2012
Lenten Writing Prompt #38
On Wednesday night services during Lent, we have been reading Dan Erlander's "The Tales of The Pointless People" - a book about how we don't need to accumulate points (for wealth, knowledge, etc.) and we have gotten away from God's original vision of an Eden where people had fun and frolicked in God's name. How do you frolic and have fun in an Eden-ish way? What would you like to do?
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I can think of a bunch of ways. I like to play with the grand kids with no agenda. Just help them do what they want to do. It is a source of primal delight. I like to travel and go places just to be there and see what it has to offer. Being in touch with where I am is a kind of worship. Doug Millar
ReplyDelete"like" button! : )
Deleteby Pat Mason
ReplyDelete...where people had fun and frolicked in God's name.
How far we have come from that and how much fun it would...no, WILL be to return to it.
Does putting 'having fun' on your To-Do list cancel out the fun aspect?
In reading “The Tales of the Pointless People” by Dan Erlander, we hear of God’s original vision of an Eden where people romp and frolic having fun together until the “Snake” comes along and tells them to keep points (score). When I read that God said, "Let us make human beings in our image…," one of the first things I think of is that God created us to be creative.
ReplyDeleteSo what would Eden be like if we were still there, not keeping points but simply enjoying being who we are meant to be, having fun? What would I want to be doing there?
As I imagine being in Eden, in that spectacular, beautiful and perfect garden, I want to begin to identify the colorful birds, butterflies and plants. Perhaps I will draw or paint them, and label them in some way, so I can remember them better. I will find berries of various colors, a sharp twig from a tree, and a large dried leaf upon which to write.
(If this is Eden, will twigs fall from the trees? Will leaves drop from their stems? Am I harming the berries to pick them for ink juice?) (Will drawing and labeling the birds and flowers lead to keeping score of how many I have identified?)
As I work on my drawings, I invent and create words for labels. Somewhere within me there wells up an idea of language. I begin to write stories. I search for ways to create larger leaves upon which to write.
(I seem to be making a mess as I creatively work, dropping unneeded parts of leave and twigs, tossing away the squeezed berry bits, and dripping sticky juice, which causes flies to gather round. Who will clean up this mess?) What mess? Isn’t this paradise?
When I feel the need for a change of activity, I look around and see several dear friends. We walk to a sweetly secluded alcove in the garden, where we sit and talk about our ideas and what fun we are having in our various creative ways. We decide to stroll over the hill to see what’s on the other side. Along the way, God joins us in our walk, and commends us for our creativity.
Later, I feel myself getting drowsy, and I find a soft spot for some sleep. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think to myself that if this is really Paradise, I would want a book to read. I hope someone invents books soon. Humming softly to myself in a tune which Beethoven will recognize, I fall asleep.
So visual and lovely! Makes me want to read Mark Twain's "Diary of Adam and Eve"...again : )
ReplyDeleteLast year I rode my bike a lot. A friend and I were getting in shape to ride the STP, Seattle to Portland bike Ride. The best rides, the ones we still talk about from time to time, are the ones where we just got on our bikes and rode with no plan. We just hit the rode for 50-60 miles, went to places we hadn't been and had a blast. We found some interesting places, saw some beautiful areas and the exploration was wonderful frolicking! I still smile when I think about it!
ReplyDeleteFlash Dances
ReplyDeleteby Marlene Obie
Being here in the party of the living
is not always fun and games,
But if we look for the good, the uplifting,
the humorous, we can find it
in whatever we're doing.
How can one help but start moving,
dancing around, singing along with
the music of nature, children,
friends, all loved ones.
The roof, reverberating from
joy ringing against confinement
lifts off and laughter,
even unto silliness purifies
stuffy atmospheres.
The creative Sprit of God,
wherever there we gather,
boogies with us--barefooted
on the beaches, struck green
in the forests, nakedmindedly
discovering refreshment
in the deserts, testing recognition
with echoes across canyons,
sending dreams on eagles
to mountaintops.
Ah, the highs, the lows,
the in-betweens of frollicking
with the Lord of the Dance.
Marlene, the fourth section wraps around itself on most lines, the last word on the line is the beginning of the next line and it wraps. I don't know that I have ever seen that and it is somehow stunning to me. I love the form - its like a fancy dance step- but I'm sure you meant that in the context of the prose! Very very nice! (I like the rest but that sections is stunning)
Delete“Wherever she was, there was Eden”
ReplyDeleteThis line is quoted from Mark Twain’s Diary of Adam and Eve. It is a loosely-Biblical imagining of what life might have been like for Adam and Eve – from their points of view in their diaries. Adam was so resistant to Eve and sort of grudgingly accepted that they were stuck together forever (no choice in the matter) until they got older and then finally, after she died, he wrote the line above. Even though they had been expelled from Eden long ago, she carried his Eden with her wherever she was.
I think that the story of Eden and leaving it is about trust. Adam and Eve didn’t trust God that their lives would be fulfilled just by frolicking, without eating the fruit from the tree of life. Then after eating it they didn’t trust that they were complete without clothes to cover themselves. They were banished from the garden and then things got even more complicated.
To me, Eden is trusting your partner enough to frolic with them with no agenda. The daily grudges, insecurities, martyrdom, habits, etc. are suspended. It’s also about trusting that making time for this is worthwhile and important. It is Eden have dinner alone with my husband, chatting quietly (or animatedly) with him, making him laugh and taking a walk, holding hands and watching the world together. Much like Mark Twain’s Adam and Eve, my husband and I have such different interests, but I always learn so much from him. And I know that he learns a lot from me. Sometimes we are like aliens to each other– our thinking processes are so foreign to each other. In Mark Twain’s “account”, Adam and Eve watch each other from a distance for quite a while in Eden at first – Adam, is a curmudgeon, resistant to change in the garden – and Eve is a scientist, studying Adam like Jane Goodall studied the gorillas. I can’t imagine that God would make them with similar tastes and temperaments. They were less like brother and sister and more like a match.com coupling error that somehow worked out amazingly.
Writing this prompt has made me think more about the importance of this Eden-ish commission from our Wednesday Lenten worship services. Go forth and frolic.
And you two do, too. :)
ReplyDeletes.h.