Creative play?

How is that creative?

How is that productive? Don’t we have books to write, art to produce, ideas to bring into the world? A livelihood to work at?

We were all kids, were we not? I used to sit for hours outside in a sandpile—building roads, driving pretend or real toy cars, planting trees, creating buildings and houses.

Colored Pencils

Or stack wooden blocks into a bridge for our pretend characters to cross. Making a car out of a cardboard box, complete with cut-out windows and an engine.

Creative play.

As an adult?

That’s tough. What’s play? What would get us lost in the doing like we did as children? Like when we played with toy horses and a barn. We literally got lost in that world—romping and chasing. Or when we played outside, and we were the soldiers who saved the family, saved the country. We built a new world out of wooden blocks or plastic ones.

So what is play as an adult?

Stirring our fingers through old buttons, picking some and lining them up to create a necklace or bracelet. Or positioning them in wet cement to let it harden around them. Buttons. Marbles. Play as we make new stitches appear to follow the fabric. Play notes that harmonize with notes in a yet unknown pattern. Play with different ingredients in a favorite cookie recipe.

Play? More than playing cards. More than play with those marbles. More than playing games.

Play until the beauty can be seen. Play until the idea springs forth. Play until the pain lessons or leaves.

Play until you see His hand, His plan.