February 7, 2026
Today’s news is full of impending competition – (even outside Washington 😂). Who will prevail, be the best, break the record, win the trophy?
But the opening of the Olympic Games and the start of Super Bowl weekend have me thinking about other kinds of games – the ones we play for fun, not to gain advantage.
Long ago, an older friend complained to me, “I have forgotten how to have fun!” The declaration startled me and left me speechless. If there was a formula, “young me” didn’t have it. However, over the decades of my own aging, I have pondered that remark, often examining my own life for signs of “fun diminishment”.
Those signs do seem to increase as responsibility grows or as energy wanes. What came naturally to us as children requires a little attention as we mature. As kids, we simply ran outside into the sunshine or rain, found somebody or something that absolutely entranced us, and magic happened.
I remember sitting on the front step with my friend Harry. We were both nine years old. I had just gotten a plastic camera in the mail with a quarter and a coupon from a cereal box. For an hour or so, we took pictures of pigeons perched on the telephone wires and garbage cans. We imagined ourselves expert artists creating a legacy for generations. It was easy then to forget that we were serious fourth-graders with unfinished homework, impending report cards, and a few chores before bedtime. It was also easy to forget that there was no film in the camera!
Later in life, that kind of beneficial forgetting is not so easy. We must unleash ourselves from a chain of “to dos” and “be carefuls”. We know better now. We don’t go out in the sun without screening, nor into the rain without an umbrella. We mostly try to avoid pigeons and garbage cans. Our potential “playgrounds” become much more constrained, sometimes inhibited by a false requirement of excessive money, planning, or chemical relaxation.
Examining my fun levels today, I realize how blessed I am.
My nieces, nephews, and grands live hundreds of miles away from me. Yet they provide me with invaluable links to pure fun. Every morning, a few of us play Wordl, Connections, or Crossplay together. I know they may be checking to see if I’m still alive, but the main purpose is fun – and the precious assurance of mutual care.
The younger kids delight me with photos of themselves doing modern imitations of Harry and me with the pigeons.
In our convent community rooms, I may find a game of pinochle, Hand and Foot, chess, bingo, or gin rummy. Even more precious, there always awaits a conversation with memories of good times, funny stories, and the generous abandon of enjoying one another.
So, if I came up with a fun formula today, it would include these essentials:
- Fun is any “playground” where we find and give joy.
- To have real fun, we don’t focus on the score.
- We need time to have fun, just like we need time to eat, sleep, work, and pray.
- We need to know what fun is – that it makes us laugh, appreciate the other, relax, and surrender self-importance
- Fun is essentially spontaneous, but we can expose ourselves to its influence by not taking ourselves too seriously.
- Fun always requires getting “outside” – even if it means only from our self-centeredness.
- We can have fun alone with a game or movie, but it helps to have someone to have fun with, (and as Pope Leo said, someone not created by AI.)
Music: We All Stand Together – Paul McCartney
Let yourself be delighted by the thought of FUN!
Suggested Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:9-13
For Your Reflection:
- What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
- Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ?
- What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?
Lavish Mercy 