a course in spiritual play
Spiritual practice, putting the principles behind our beliefs into day to day action, is not a subject that gets a lot of attention. Throughout most of humanity's history we have focused on worship as a duty, rather than a source of wisdom and information on how best to live and change our lives. Unlike many practitioners, who are often very private people, Hugh Prather chose the path of ministry and teaching, hoping to help others while he helped himself.Unlike many of Prather's works, which are often notebooks and musings, "A Book of Games" is a series of practices, couched as games, that are intended to help us mine the potential for happiness in each of our lives. The first game, for example, is called 'The Secret Agent.' It has us imagine that we are agents of a foreign king. Our assignment is to bring a sense of harmlessness and gentle caring into play between ourselves and others and let go of expectations of agreement or disagreement. It we succeed we are to send a coded message back to the king. The code is 'thank you.'All the games are of this nature, often very simply put, but not always easy to carry out. We are cautioned not to expect to 'win' the game every time we play. Indeed, it is the playing, not the winning, that is importa.
