Elvis and the Benedictines
​
and Holy Play

Singing Elvis at a senior citizen center in Arkansas: Holy Play

Singing Elvis at a senior citizen center in Arkansas: Holy Play

The sisters at St. Scholastica, April, 2021

The sisters offering a blessing for me at the end of the workshop

If Elvis is looking down from heaven, it must seem ridiculous to him, or at least funny.  A grown man with gray hair singing All Shook Up at senior citizen centers.  And to me it's kind of funny, too, because, well, it is funny.  We have fun.

For me, singing Elvis songs is also a religious activity, Benedictine style.  When I think of the kind of Christian I'd like to be, I often think of the Benedictines with their vow to live simply not extravagantly; to receive all people, including 'enemies,' as Christ; and to live a life of prayer, service to the world, and holy leisure.  That's why I am an oblate (lay associate) at St. Scholastica Benedictine Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Sometimes I go on retreat at their monastery, which now is home to about twenty-nine sisters.  Occasionally I offer workshops for them.  Recently I offered a workshop for the sister on prayer as ministry. I have so much more to learn from them than they do from me. But all is jazz-like and improvisational; we learn by exploring together.  The photos above are from the workshop. The images of them extending their hands toward me are at the end of the workshop, where they offered a beautiful, sung blessing. 

When I worship with the sisters, their liturgy is by all means traditional and Catholic.  If I wished for a more "open and relational" liturgy where God is named "Mother" or "the Deep Listening" rather than "Almighty King," and where scriptural images of God as a Holy Warrior are avoided - I'd need to go to liberal Protestant church.  But I really don't wish for that, although I suspect that, sometimes, the sisters do.  I think there is a real difference between devotional language and spiritual sensibilities, and that the Benedictines share many "open and relational" or "process" sensibilities even as their language is different. 

One thing for sure: I love them and learn from them, and I'm so glad they provide such a rich alternative to materialistic culture.  I try to join them in living in the Benedictine way, as best I can, sharing in their commitment to service to the world and daily prayer, balanced by moments or holy leisure, or play.  Oftentimes leisure and service to the world flow into one another.  Which takes me back to Elvis.

As I said, I am also a singalong musician at several assisted living centers, assisted living centers, and memory care centers.  Often, I am singing with people who have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia and, together, we enjoy the familiar sounds of music they grew up with, Elvis, for example.  Is it service?  Is it playfulness?  It's both.  And, truth be told, prayer, too.  They come together in the fun of being silly, crazy if you will, singing and dancing to All Shook Up.

Such singing, such praying, participates in the playful side of God.  It's that side of God, which is nourished by moments of playfulness and joy, particularly when those moment help people feel more alive.  Even the Holy One, even God, is moved, and dare I say shaken, by the pulsations of All Shook Up. 

Whose soul is blessed when we sing the first lines of the song: "Well bless my soul what's wrong with me?"  I know our souls are blessed, but I think God's soul is blessed, too.  Nothing a good Benedictine wouldn't fully understand.  Holy leisure is our way of participating in the playful side of God.  It's the flip side of service to the world and prayer.

​- Jay McDaniel, April 2021

​Balancing Life with Holy Leisure:
​A Catholic Approach

A Trappist monk once gave a presentation on the need for balance in our life. The classic phrase from the Rule of Benedict is ora et labora, prayer and work. The monk challenged us all to add one more vital activity to the balance: leisure. At the time, I was spending a year in a Benedictine monastery discerning religious life. I was already grumbling that my days were filled with ora et labora ... et labora ... et labora ... and more-a labora. Here was this Trappist brother encouraging us all to make time for leisure. God bless him!...

Friends around the world have shown me how diverse we are in embracing leisure. Many North Americans admit they are workaholics and take few holidays, especially if they are self-employed. A friend in Paris who grew up in the United States speaks of the cultural adjustment she had to make to the lengthy and frequent vacations taken in France, though it wasn't a hard struggle. Having experienced the holiday mentality from both sides of the pond, she thinks we can learn a lot from our French friends.

When I attend an international gathering, the different approaches to work and leisure are apparent. We North Americans tend to be more focused on agendas, goals, documents and accomplishments. We're there to work, and will do so into the wee hours if we need to. Friends from Latin America, Europe and Africa know when the workday should end and the evening festivities should begin. Lively singing, dancing and story-telling emphasizes the importance of balancing work with fun. And it's usually in the fun times that relationships and friendships are formed and cemented.

Maybe it's this relational aspect of leisure that makes it truly holy. Work and doing is good. But we also need time to just be. It is in being that relationships are built, nurtured and strengthened -- our relationship with ourselves, with others and with God.
​
So get together with family and friends and head out into the sunshine. Set up the lawn chairs. Crack open a cold one, and raise a toast to holy leisure. Cheers!

-  'This summer, make time for holy leisure,' Jul 19, 2012, Isabella R. Moyer in the National Catholic Reporter

Quotes on Holy Play 
from Spirituality and Practice
​

• It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe, do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu-lila, lila meaning "play."  And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt.
• 
  — Alan Watts in Zen and the Beat Way​​

• Play exists for its own sake. Play is for the moment; it is not hurried, even when the pace is fast and timing seems important. When we play, we also celebrate holy uselessness. Like the calf frolicking in the meadow, we need no pretense or excuses. Work is productive; play, in its disinterestedness and self-forgetting, can be fruitful.
• 
  — Margaret Guenther in Toward Holy Ground

​Laughter is a holy thing. It is as sacred as music and silence and solemnity, maybe more sacred. Laughter is like a prayer, like a bridge over which creatures tiptoe to meet each other. Laughter is like mercy; it heals. When you can laugh at yourself, you are free.
​
— Ted Loder

​
The Spiritual Practice of Play

from Spirituality and Practice
​

​The Basic Practice:

'Coyote. Nasrudin. St. Francis and his order of Jesters of the Lord. Zen masters. Taoist sages. Hasidic storytellers. Clowns and performance artists. Such prophets — and all the spiritual traditions have them — encourage us not to take ourselves too seriously. They say that what we know is not worth knowing, and what's worth knowing cannot be known through our ways. To our sensible selves, their actions seem silly, shameless, even shocking. But they have an important role in the spiritual life. They carry the banner for the spiritual practice of play.

Play is the exuberant expression of our being. It is at the heart of our creativity, our sexuality, and our most carefree moments of devotion. It helps us live with absurdity, paradox, and mystery. It feeds our joy and wonder. It keeps our search for meaning down to earth.
​
Practice play by doing things on the spur of the moment. Take time out to experiment, to try on different parts, to relax. Laugh heartily at jokes, situations, and yourself. Remember, laughter heals body, mind, and soul, and by extension, communities."

- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
​

image from Remembering Krishna: https://rememberkrishna.com/

The Playful Side of God
​

What are spiritual virtues?  They are qualities of heart and mind, and forms of relationship, which touch God, nourish the soul, and nurture healthy community.  Once basic needs are met, they are ways that human beings can "be" more and not simply "have more."  Spirituality and Practice lists thirty seven of them: one and sometimes two for each letter in the spiritual alphabet.

attention  -  beauty  -  being present  -  compassion   -  connections  -  devotion  -  enthusiasm  -  faith
forgiveness - grace -  gratitude  - hope - hospitality - imagination  - joy -  justice - kindness - listening
love  -  meaning  -  nurturing  -  openness  -  peace - play  -  questing  -  reverence - shadow - silence
​teachers   -  transformation   -  unity  -  vision   -   wonder  -  x, the mystery  -  yearning  -  you  -  zeal

Laughter as a Form of Spirituality

Some of them are what Gottlieb would call spiritual virtues: kindness and a sense of interconnectedness, for example. Others are kinds of experience which, in certain circumstances, can nourish the virtues: appreciating local community and discovering new ideas, for example.   

For those of us in the process tradition, there is a side of reality which is playful and exploratory, creative and open-ended, light-hearted and sometimes just plain silly.  Call it the playfulness of God.  Or if we are not sure what we think about God, just call it the playfulness of the universe.  The point is that the part of the universe and the divine Eros within it is exploratory and improvisational, forever trying out new things in an ongoing experiment that has no pre-defined end.  It is just waiting to see what happens because it delights in surprise.

There is something simply delightful about sharing in the silliness.  Amid laughter, the ego drops away.  This does not mean that all laughter is good. Laughter can be mean-spirited and cruel, in which case it is out of sync with the love of God and a healthy sense of connectedness.  It is laughter at the expense of the well-being of others.  It has intensity but lacks harmony.

Still, it is true that moments of laughter, like moments of crying, entail a dropping away of the ego, and that such moments are occasions for sharing in the playful side of a silly universe.  These moments emerge not from struggle. but from spontaneity.  In a sense they are moments of grace: that is, moments in which we receive a free gift, not requested, that lightens the load of life, helping it become, at least for a moment, easy.  It is the gift of surprise and novelty, the gift of being able to look at situations that may be difficult in alternative ways, some of which are humorous.

Make no mistake.  The humor can have an edge.  It can contain a protest against life's injustices or, for that matter, against the humorlessness of overly-ethical people who are so principled they can never relax and have fun.  But there is something simply sacred in the fun itself.  A participation in divine playfulness.

Krishna, the puckish god of Hinduism, is known for playfulness.  And perhaps even Jesus knew a bit of it, too.  He went to weddings and changed water into wine.  It is he who said: "For my yoke is easy and my burden light."(Matthew 11:30) Sometimes the lightness comes through struggle, through true grit in the face of hardship.  There are crosses to bear.  But sometimes the lightness comes through silliness.  Playfulness is too sacred a subject to be left to philosophers and theologians.  Sometimes we need comedians.  They help us laugh even when we are crying.  There's a love in the silliness, as deep as the sea.

-- Jay McDaniel