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To Hell for Fun?
If asked, “What do Catholic families do for fun?” you might not be tempted to answer, “Play ‘Going to Hell’”, but I had my reasons. You see, there was a huge model of Dante’s Inferno sitting on my front porch. Another education-minded family had designed a complex game based on following Virgil down through the successively more awful rings of the netherworld and passed it on to reclaim their living room. With dozens of clever little baked-clay game pieces, even the gates of Hell don’t prevail against die-hard game enthusiasts. Really, families do have all the fun!
One does things with children that one might never do as an Independent Adult. In the absence of kids I doubt I would have, after reading Treasure Island, watched four different versions of the movie, or had any opinion about who was the best Jim Hawkins. I’m quite sure there would never have been a mummified chicken named King Kluk desiccating on my kitchen counter. Life would have been poorer indeed without the Belly Button Song and the Song That Never Ends. If not for my little girl’s Tippy Toes class, how would I have learned to ‘shake my sillies out’ and ‘wiggle my wobbles away’? (And believe me, these are very effective stress busting skills!) Can you imagine singles getting together to romp around a room as raging elephants and runaway rhinos? How they must long for a pint-sized excuse for eating banana splits for dinner! I suppose couples with no kids could entertain each other with koosh balls and puppet shows, but would morning snuggles really be as fun without several children chasing each other around the bed, under the covers?
Without kids, would we remember to celebrate? Mightn’t the childless be tempted to ignore Mozart’s birthday, much less National Bubble Bath Day, Kazoo Day, or Elephant Appreciation Day? Would they throw parties each time they read ten books, or take happy gangs out for pizza to celebrate potty training accomplishments? I think not. I imagine they take these things entirely for granted and miss all the fun we families have come to expect from life. They might not even participate in a Fourth of July marching homemade-instrument band and decorated bike parade. What a pity.
I suppose adult roommates might drop everything and come running if someone shouted, “Come see the (snake, spider web, praying mantis, rainbow, bird nest, dead mouse, etc…)!” But would they have the enthusiasm of a mother encouraging budding naturalists? Would non-artists attempt to draw without the encouragement of an easily-wowed audience of little people? Would the tone deaf sing rousing choruses of Old MacDonald and I Know an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly? The unathletic play catch? The less literary recite Jabberwocky with glee?
Those of you who haven’t played hide-and-seek or tag lately may be thinking a Vocation shouldn’t be filled with so much tomfoolery. After all, raising kids is serious business, or oughta be. But I have it on good authority – no less a notable than St. Thomas Aquinas – that playfulness is akin to the contemplative spirit! Speaking as one who has become rather too fond of letting the kids play while I do Important Things, I am reminded that all the fun they’re having is supposed to teach my own old soul to kick up its heels a bit. I forget that my children are preparing me for heaven as much as I am preparing them – for an eternity free of the things that seemed so important in this world.
Call me crazy, but I’m looking forward to romping around New Heavens and a New Earth with a new body (amen!), a big fun family, playful animals, and a Father with arms strong enough to toss me up and catch me after an aerial flip. Borrow kids, if you need to, to practice for the Eternal Party. Really, families do have all the fun!
(This article first appeared in Canticle Magazine. I’m not having nearly so much fun now that the kids have almost grown up. I can’t wait till the grandkids get here!!)
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