Skip to main content

The Game of Life?

"I'm playing Snakes and Ladders with Jesus, because I haven't got anyone else to play with."

Lest you think I have a super-spiritual four-year-old, I should inform you that we have a plastic Jesus figure that a friend gave Graham as a joke.  If Jesus is not around to play games, the toy penguin or dog get roped in.  Toby's pretty much board game crazy right now.


But usually it's Mum or Dad who gets to sit down and play endless rounds of Ludo, Three Little Pigs, or the current favourite, Snakes and Ladders.  None of these are exactly challenging (although Toby is surprisingly good at winning), so you get plenty of time to ponder the deeper questions of life.  Such as, what sadist designed the Snakes and Ladders board?


Oh yes, it's a very cunning design.  At the bottom you have lots of lovely ladders to go bouncing up, so you get halfway up the board in no time at all and think you'll win super easily.  But if you miss the mega-ladder up to 84, you then find yourself plodding through the upper middle section, with no major ups or downs.  Just keep on rollin' that dice.  Finally you're within sight of your goal... and there are four snakes on the top row.  Believe me, you can keep looping around those top three rows for approximately two hours.  With the additional threat, every time you drop down, of landing on the super-snake and slithering right back to the bottom again.

And finally, just as you really are losing the will to live, someone lands on space 80 and pops up that nifty little ladder to 100.  Result!

Another game?


I made a few New Year's resolutions this year, and I was thinking that trying to keep them is a little like that Snakes and Ladders game.  You start off really well.  You read the whole of Genesis this week and exercised every day and tidied the spare room and this is wonderful and you've just gone up fifteen ladders and it's brilliant!

Then a couple of snakes bring you back to earth and you realise it's still a long way up the board.  You're managing to keep the new habits going, but it's a bit harder fitting them in and you've had to scale back to sustainable levels.  Just keep rolling that dice.

And unfortunately, just as you think you've pretty much cracked it, you often do have to face a bunch of challenges.  That last bit of weight just won't shift.  You still find yourself yelling at the kids.  Those stupid snakes keep you circling around and around.

But finally - hopefully - the perseverance pays off.  Suddenly there you are on the 100 square, thinking, "Hey!  I did it!"  Result!

Another game?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Models of Contextual Theology: Spiritual Formation Book 7

"A theology that neither issues forth in action nor takes account of the way one lives one's life can hardly be theology that is worth very much." Models of Contextual Theology looks like the most boring book in the world. Dry academic title, weird geometric cover design - you'd definitely only pick this up if you were required to write an essay on it, wouldn't you? Well, I wish the outside did it justice, because the contents are much more exciting than the cover. It asks some very interesting and important questions about how our faith relates to the world around us. Is culture mostly good or bad? Is there such a thing as the "naked gospel", free of context? Do you have to be a trained academic to theologize, or can anyone do it? How much does theology from one culture transfer to a different culture? Bevans describes six models of theology which offer different answers to these questions. All are valid, he says, but they all understand the gospel an

A birthday weekend in York

We were surprised to discover that York is only a 90 minute drive from our house. It's somewhere we'd been thinking of going for a few years, but I'd assumed it was much further away. So when we wanted to go away for the weekend to celebrate my birthday in January, York was the obvious choice. The city did not disappoint us. I'd been to York years ago, and my only clear memory was of a tower on top of a grassy mound. That was Clifford's Tower, owned by English Heritage, and recently updated with a rather snazzy series of platforms and staircases inside. We saw a 13th century toilet which had been inaccessible for 400 years (I think I was more excited about this than the boys) and got a great view of York from the rooftop viewing platform. View from the top of Clifford's Tower Most people's memories of York probably involve the Shambles - an ancient street of shops - and York Minster. Apparently there isn't a clear difference between a minster and a cathe

Unto us a son is given...

Did I mention something about life getting back to normal in October? Oh yes, I was just finishing work and looking forward to at least two weeks off to organise the house, stock up the freezer and buy baby stuff. Then little Toby threw a spanner in the works by turning up five weeks early! Which would put his birthday in... let's see... October. So much for normal! For those who would like the gory details, here goes. If you are a mother who had a long and protracted labour, I advise you to skip the next bit - or if you don't, please don't start sending me hate mail. You have been warned. You see, we'd been to all the childbirth classes (yes, just about managed to finish them) and learned all about the different stages of labour, and how many hours each lasted. We learned some relaxation techniques and various things Graham could do to help coach me through long periods of contractions. And then we turned out not to need any of them, because the entire thing