Playing to Win or to Lose?
by Elouise
I’ve never been one to volunteer for competitive games. Not because I’m a shy girl, but because I don’t want to look like a fool. Which means I don’t want to lose.
Furthermore, if I win, I want to win with a bang, not a whimper.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been known to step right up and volunteer for many things. For example,
- Serving on and leading committees
- Keeping the minutes
- Helping organize events
- Strategizing for the future
- Showing or telling other people how it’s done
When I was a girl child, I loathed the common childhood practice of choosing competitive teams. Two team leaders got to name their 1st draft choices, 2nd draft choices, etc. until they came to the bottom of the heap and exposed to everyone their last choices (read ‘non-choices’).
As I stood there waiting to be ‘chosen,’ my mind wasn’t on how much fun the game would be, but on how humiliating this method was. I was usually at or near the bottom of the heap, along with other predictable ‘losers.’ For me, the game was over before it began.
I did, nonetheless, offer this small benefit: I was a rule keeper. My team could count on me to keep the rules! Which meant they wouldn’t necessarily lose or win the game because of me.
I was more like a neutral force. I wouldn’t embarrass them and I wouldn’t help them score an upset. Sort of safe. Better than sorry.
Play isn’t easy for me—play that involves significant risk. I might fail, or as I would put it, ‘make a fool of myself.’
There’s something about Sabbath rest that brings this fear up in me. Perhaps it’s fear of making a fool of myself.
- There she goes again, thinking she knows how to do this!
- Did you know she’s been doing this for ____ months already, and I can’t see it’s made her a better person at all. Wasn’t she OK just the way she was?
- You’d think just having a day of rest would be enough. But no, she’s trying to take it to extremes! We don’t need extremes. We need predictability!
- Besides, isn’t it enough to go to church on Sunday and participate in the life of the church? What’s she trying to prove? That she’s better than we are?
Even though my mind can easily call these voices to mind, that isn’t why Sabbath rest or play is difficult. Anyone in competitive sports knows the answer already. We might lose! We came prepared (we thought) to win, and now we’re going home empty-handed and humiliated!
Whatever possessed us to follow that leader? That coach? That mentor? That Savior? There were plenty of signs this couldn’t possibly work out.
Now our leader looks like a fool—after saying all those bold things about announcing the kingdom of God, and release for the captives and all that. And what does he have to show for it? Nothing! Everyone ran off. Deserted him.
Do I want to play his game anymore? Look at that! He’s already way ahead of us, looking more and more like a crazy type. Ignoring us. Ignoring them. Never looking back. And he hasn’t even given us a map!
This doesn’t feel like a game anymore. It feels like a gamble at best; a lost cause at worst. What good could possibly come of this Sabbath keeping? This call to let everything else go by the wayside for 24 hours, one day a week.
If you ask me, that’s a really high cost to pay. And for what?
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 June 2015
The rules changed…
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Wonderful response…
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Have you read any of Neale Donald Walsch’s ‘Conversations with God’ series? I’ve just finished book 3, again, and it is fab.
I dislike competitions too, and see no virtue in losers….why add to the hardships of life by causing most of the world to feel like they lost something? Nuts.
But you make up ‘the rules’ to suit yourself, and God loves you for it. You don’t ‘need’ to rest on the Sabbath, but it can be a lovely opportunity. It’s your call. 🙂 xxx
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Hi, Fran. No, I haven’t read any of his series. Thanks for the comment about competitions. It’s a tough issue. As for the Sabbath and rules, I’m not convinced I don’t need this (Sabbath), or that I can make up rules to suit myself (alone). I do, however, believe God doesn’t force me to do anything against my will. At the same time, I don’t believe I can do just anything I please. For me, this is part of being human. Which, on most days, I’m happy to be!
Cheers!
Elouise
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My dear Elouise,
I was never picked first for a team. When I became a teacher I changed the rules and as the teacher I chose “The Losers” to be captains and they chose the teams. Created a lot of fun next lesson .
You know, it is good to have different blog partners. I have atheist partners and green partners and photo partners and evangelical Christian partners and lots more. But I also have you. And that is so good.
In my heart I am an evangelical Christian but I also distil my own whisky and I am very uncomfortable in the company of Pentecostals. And sometimes at night when I have had more than my fair share of
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Got it…will keep reading! Elouise
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I haven’t finished. As I was saying, Sometimes at night when I have tasted too much of my own Moonshine I give God permission to give up on me. And that doesn’t always make me happy. And then I think, “Elouise will understand” And maybe God is so sick of talking to me He has got you to talk to me for Him. Anyway. Thanks for being Elouise.
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Oh John, You bring tears to my eyes! I do treasure our friendship and your willingness to share bits and pieces of your journey. I think God might like to taste your special Moonshine! Like the Gatlin Brothers sing, “Will there be Mogen David (suchledMoonshine) in heaven, sweet Jesus….If there won’t, who the h___ wants to go?!” It is also my personal opinion that God can take more from us than we can take of God. Small doses, please (of God). I don’t know what I would do if God unleashed all God’s love on me. It would probably be as distressing or overwhelming as God’s anger.
I wish I’d been a fly on the wall when you made the “Losers” the captains of the teams! Thanks for sharing that memory. Sounds like a story?
Elouise
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Wasn’t the 70 years of exile connected by the prophets to the lack of Sabbath for the land? I’m not driven like many are, I give myself time to sit and ponder (INTP/INFP that I am), and while I don’t think of it as Sabbath, it is.
My world of PCUSA and mainline / US church decline has many of us tearing our clothes and looking for ashes, but perhaps even the Church needs Sabbath and the 20th century business/industrial model of church just drove us into the ground.
Thinking out loud… thank you for the prodding!
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You’re welcome! And thanks for your comments. I’m intrigued by your idea about the Church needing Sabbath, and how the 20th century bs/ind model may have driven us into the ground. From an educator’s point of view (watching weary seminarians and pastors trying to put just one more piece of work on overfilled plates) I think you’re onto something. It might even preach!
Elouise
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