Imagine a house. You know the place – the one where all the neighborhood kids, plus you, hung out.
It was never immaculate. Sure, you were not to touch the china closet, or go in the adults’ bedroom, but those were pretty much the only off-limits areas. Who wanted to mess with either of those anyway? They were boring. Nothing to play with.
It’s late afternoon/early evening. Dinner may or may not have been served yet, but you really don’t care anyway, because you’re a kid and more focused on playing and what you’re doing.
It’s a Saturday. Or maybe a weekday in the summer. But all the kids are here from the neighborhood, and you’re playing a game.
Separated in pockets of 3-4 in separate rooms, you’re playing this game.
The objective? As individuals but conversing as a team, you’re coming up with 3 things. See, playing “house” has long bored you at this point. Who wants to be a boring adult, anyway? How much fun do we see them have as they grunt and grumble out of bed in the morning to go downstairs and make their coffee and (maybe) a quick breakfast before their usual and perpetual routine of getting ready and leaving for work. No. We want to play.
And so the game was born.
We’re hopeful for the future but completely enjoying the present, living in the moment.
We’re not watching Saturday morning cartoons. We’re living. We play. We interact. We’re active. Learning. Growing. Experiencing.
This game is different. The adults helped us create this one. And the adults are the judges.
We can use whatever props we find in the house. Our objective? To communicate 3 things:
- Something/someone to love
- Something to think about
- Something to do
Today’s Dare: Play the game with me. Play it with your kids. You can be as deep or as shallow as you desire to be with your answers. However, allow me to encourage you to truly take the time to think about and be 100% intentional with your answers.
You see, these adults in particular were not judging us to approve or disapprove our responses – they were simply there to bring focus and order to the activity and to encourage our own individual creativity and desires and thinking.
Are there “wrong” answers? I believe the “wrong” answers are only the ones we don’t truly think about. You know, the “pat” answers, like when someone asks us how we are doing today, and we respond with the same old, “pretty good.”
To truly benefit from the game, let us reason – what is something or someone you want to love? What is something you like to think about, a problem you’d like to understand the solution to, perhaps? And, finally, what is something you’d like to do? Not just a job title or occupation .. What would you like to do with your time in this world?
Life on earth is finite, but eternity is real ..
in love, a
aubreyeicher 