Today’s find: Pretzelogic

Darling Granddaughter (DG) may have just earned herself a new nickname: “Pretzel Girl”.

It was bound to happen, I suppose: When visiting our abode of late, DG has taken a shine to setting new records for “number of board games played.” Her target for this most recent sleepover: 25 – up from “19” on her last stay with us…and “17” the time before that.

While our inventory of such games is prodigious, it’s not limitless. So sooner or later, “Twister” must rise to the top as a necessary option – even though technically speaking, it’s not much of a “board” game at all. Indeed, watching DG carry out her contortions on the colorful floormat, I was deeply grateful that she agreed to play it “solo”…matching her moves to the spinner commands I called out.

Oh, to be young and flexible!

It does a Gramps good, I decided, to see his DG advance in age and grace to the point where she can credibly compete in a round of Twister. While she’s still a kid, DG is not a “little kid” any more. She can croon Taylor Swift lyrics with the best of ‘em. And name all 50 states. And chart her own course at Mini-Golf, no Adult Assistance Required, thank-you-very-much. A game like Twister, too, now pretty much comes natural to her (never mind that she winds up tied into something of a gangly-girl-knot.)

Still, watching this whole process unfold, I couldn’t help but notice a tinge of regret in my heart. With each step forward into adulthood, DG runs the danger of latching onto the uniquely American myth of self-sufficiency. “I can do this on my own,” we’re taught to think from our youth. It’s never true, of course. And if we’re blessed, there’s always a safety net of family and friends to rescue us from our inevitable failures. But I’d just as soon see DG (and all of my loved ones) be spared the pain that comes with buying into the myth in the first place.

I wonder if this is along the lines of what Jesus has in mind when he extends an invitation to us in this week’s gospel passage:

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Yoking – teaming up in tandem – it’s just not the American way, is it? And it becomes even less appealing when we consider the type of Messiah Jesus intends to be. He has no interest in power games. He won’t come charging in on a warrior’s steed or chariot. Rather, the prophet Zechariah says, we should be looking for an entirely different kind of king:

…a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.

That’s not how the world really works, we’re tempted to think. It’s all backwards thinking, twisted like a pretzel.

But what if this is precisely the point of discipleship? That we stop trying to sort things out by ourselves…for ourselves…and that we yoke our energies to Christ and to the building of his kingdom instead? After all, as Jesus points out, there’s something to be said for thinking like a kid:

“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.”

Mission accomplished: 25 games played…

…and that “25” doesn’t even count the round of Mini-Golf we played under a gorgeous evening sky!

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS