Playing for Keeps

July 18, 2021 • 8th Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Romans 5:1-5
Rev. Dr. Heather Murray Elkins

[You can view the worship video recording, including this message, at: Facebook.com/churchofthevillage/videos.]

Marbles were identity markers for me when I was young.  It could have been because five hills over from the place we called home they made 1 million marbles a day. Paden City, Marble Capital of Almost Heaven. It might have been because marbles wasn’t a game for girls who wore good dresses.  Maybe it was the sheer simplicity: get a stick, draw a circle in the dirt big enough for everybody.  All l it takes is one marble to get into the game.

Then, there are all the colors of the rainbow you can hold in one hand. Don’t forget the names. This called “the majority”. Smaller than the majority: peewee.

Beyond the majority there’s a world of possibility: biggie, boulder, bonker, bowler, bumboozer cosher, crock, hogger, masher, plumper, popper, noogie, shooter, smasher, thumper, and toe breaker.

Glass, by the way, is an amorphous solid material that’s optically transparent. It lets the light pass through, but does not scatter it. Glass is one of the earliest artifacts of human creativity and we’re not finished with it yet, glass was used to coat the capsules of the US billionaire space racers.  

Some of us have been schooled in wearing optical glass for most of our lives.
There’s art glass,  such as this one of the last Fenton handblown cats. There’s bullet-proof glass, windshields, tableware, and marbles.

Maybe the reason marbles mattered was because I was afraid of what might happen if I lost them. Even as a child I sensed that losing your marbles is worse than dying, even though I couldn’t say why. Sad and bad things seem to happen to people who “lose their marbles”. I kept a handful of my favorites under the bed even after I figured out that losing marbles means losing memory, losing control, losing your mind.

I don’t want to lose my marbles.

It’s a kid’s mistake that should make me smile, like the time I discover that the Elgin marbles aren’t marbles at all, but Greek sculptures, stolen by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon, and housed in the British Museum.

The Museum still insists on playing “keepsies”, not a laughing matter to the Greeks.

But the fear lingers when I hear the phrase. It’s what comes to mind the first time I see an image of our planet earth from outer space. I’m filled with wordless wonder at the sight of Earth, our blue green marble lit by the sun. Such blueness, such green life, such vulnerability.  What if we lose this marble?

Ecological anxiety is spreading like a virus. It affects those of us who fear the loss that comes with ageing. But what happens when children begin to fear losing their marbles.

What’s wrong with this picture? Where’s the sense of play or opportunity or celebration or balance? Phyllis, age 8, drew this when I invited the children to pick a hymn and draw a picture. A little girl suspended between earth and sky, her tears reach the ground. What’s wrong? Ecological anxiety. Morning has broken. What if, as a child, who you are has no meaning; you’re losing your marbles before you even get into the game.

We’re losing this great green and blue marble. We don’t need the NY Times to tell you this is a pandemic. Talk to any teacher, any parent, any person who’s paying attention. 

What can be done? Pray and start playing for keeps. Teach 8yr-olds this song of creation. “Morning has broken, like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.”  Show them how to care for this blue/green marble earth.

Be willing to knuckle down, get good and dirty.  You can’t call “quitsies” and take your balls home if you’ve been baptized into the body of Christ.

John Muir, the naturalist, reminds us why must not conform to this age: “Most people are on the world, not in it - have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them – Undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone, like marbles of polished stone - touching, but separate”.[i]

The apostle Paul puts it this way:

Dear members of the household of Christ, beloved friends of Jesus, you are offering your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. For God’s sake don’t conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds.

Keep the promises you’re making to Symphony and to every child of God.
All of us, in union with Christ, must draw the circle wide. we belong to each other.
And if and when the fear of losing comes, remember what he promises his friends at the Table:

“I have not lost one of those You have given Me. “[ii]

You see, God always plays for keeps.

There’s an old country funeral tradition of marbles in Almost Heaven. Once the body’s in the ground, and it’s covered with earth, you draw a circle in the dirt. Form it like a shallow bowl. Fill the circle with hand mixed cement. Spell out your beloved’s name, the date, whatever else you want to say using marbles placed in the cement.  The marbles will catch the sun.  Look, they’ll say, she’s found her marbles.

Love as you’ve been loved
you who are like glass optically transparent,
You will go clear at last, rising with the Sun
and O how you’ll shine.  

(c) 2021 Heather Murray Elkins
All rights reserved.

[i] John Muir, John of the Mountains, the Unpublished Journals of John Muir.

[ii] John 18.9.