Circles Around the Playground

I miss the day when running in circles around the playground screaming at the top of your lungs was doing something.

Looking out the window by my office desk, listening to the laughter and delighting in the pure delight of the children at our church's day school playing on the playground, I cannot help but grieve the day when time well spent began to be defined by something else.

Last week one of my co-workers gifted and entrusted her lovely kids to Ciona and me for a Las Paletas run and time at the park. What a gift! After a long day at the office playing catch-up and seeking to spend every minute there "well", it was fabulous to spend an hour & a half trying to catch drops of Mexican Carmel popsicles before they hit the sidewalk, swinging on swings, drawing aliens on the sidewalk, kicking a soccer ball until our legs were tired, listening to C and EA create their own "sister princess" quarters out of the castle (aka. jungle gym), and bending close to the earth with Daniel in hopes of finding a four leaf clover.

To borrow a phrase for Marva Dawn, it was "a royal waste of time." I loved it! Really, the only tangible product of our time together were 4 used Popsicle sticks. There was no plan or goal to be reached. We just received the time God had granted us with to play, be in community, use our imaginations, laugh and run circles around the playground.

Bliss.