Holy Play

Beloved in Christ,

I spent more time than I am proud to admit on my vacation last week preparing for the draft in my fantasy baseball league. For many years, I have been part of a league with some serious baseball fanatics, a few of whom are former sports writers. Playing this game takes a real commitment of time over the summer, and it is just so much fun. I have only ever met one of the other players in person, and yet we have formed a real community of joy and care. We’ve celebrated life’s milestones together, a few have reached out to me about their faith, and we even collectively mourned the unexpected death of one of our members a few years ago. I complain about the effort it requires, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. 

Play is critical to our spiritual lives. Thomas Aquinas once famously wrote, "Unmitigated seriousness betokens a lack of virtue because it wholly despises play, which is as necessary for a good human life as rest is.”

I’m often not very good at creating space and giving myself permission to play. I love my job, and I believe that what we are engaged in together really matters, but that passion and commitment can become a liability if it isn’t mitigated by play. My fantasy baseball league is a real spiritual discipline in that way. 

These past years have been so full of the need to be serious. I wonder if, in these late days of Lent, part of what we are invited to repent of is our unmitigated seriousness. Holy play is not a denial of the world’s pain and injustice; it is a reminder that our hope ultimately does not lie in our own abilities and powers, but in the God who delights in the very fact of creation, and in each one of us—the God who made Leviathan simply for the sport of it (Psalm 104:26). Far from being a naive escape, holy play is a way of keeping ourselves in right relationship with God and one another, and keeping our faith and hope where they really belong. I pray you’ll carve some space for holy play in these days as we await the resurrection of the one in whom all hope belongs. 

Grace and peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop
Episcopal Church in Minnesota