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So, were you a “finder’s keeper’s” kind of kid growing up?  If not then you most assuredly knew the type.  Can’t you just remember the days when you or “a friend” would find something that once belonged to someone else and would exclaim, “Finder’s Keeper’s?”  Sometimes I wonder if this was just a foreshadowing of the more likely adult version of this…“possession is nine-tenths of the law.”  Heck, maybe these early years were just fertile ground for sowing the seeds of a self-preserving spirit.  Can you say, “It’s mine and you can’t have it?”  It’s so fascinating to me to look back and see how our formative years of adolescence were so instrumental in shaping the underlying tone of our character as adults, both the good and the bad.  I’m particularly intrigued when I think of those character traits that we typically reserve for “our eyes only” and we veil to the outside world.  You know the ones that we find at the “magma level” of life where we wrestle with not being the person we project ourselves to be.  For example, the place that tends to act as the repository of our sins of omission, those things we know we should do but don’t do.  Or the place where we clearly see the person we see in the mirror but others don’t see.

So, I’ve been thinking about how our lives might look different if those “formative” traits were repurposed through the crucible of the “transformative.”  For example, what would it take for us move from a world constrained by the inward focus of self-preservation to a world unrestrained by an outward focus of sharing.  Perhaps a return to the childhood playground may hold a critical clue to how we might move towards this kind of life.  Remember back with me for a moment and put yourself at the scene.  You and a number of your boy or gal buddies wanted to play a pick-up game of some type but to do so you had to pick teams.  Though you might have wanted to insure you got the best players on your team there was typically a reasonable approach arrived at to divide up the players.  In the end, all parties were ultimately motivated to be fair because above all else you wanted to “play ball.”  Either way you wanted to enjoy the fellowship of being together not to mention the friendly competition.  But like then the element of sharing had to be in play in order for the game to go on.

So what does this look like to us today?  What does it mean for us to live in such a way that our giving is seen through the lens of sharing?  Could it be we might just experience the joy of giving more often if this were the case?  What if we once again recognized the essential need for sharing our lives in the context of community and fellowship?  It’s here that we are more apt to both find and be the very persons we have been designed to be.  The truth is we were designed as relational beings with an innate longing to belong.  Could this be one of those keys that unlock the doorway to living life out from behind the curtain?  Could it be the very place where we allow ourselves to be loved for who we are and not the façade of who we’re not?  That place where self-preservation gives way to selflessness.  Maybe it’s time where our conformity to the ways of the world gives way to the transformative effects of living a life marked by authenticity.   For sure it will require some sacrifice on our part.  After all to be transformed and not conformed will require the sacrifice of putting others before ourselves.  But can’t you just imagine how great and freeing it would be to simply come out and play on the playground of a life well lived.  Peace.

Jon Thurman

https://jonthurman.com/2012/02/10/returning-to-the-playground/