Thursday, June 21, 2012

Just for Fun

Everybody has something...maybe several somethings...they do just for fun.  I'd be surprised if that's not a true statement.

Just for fun, I watch old-time TV shows: WKRP in Cincinnati.  Bob Newhart.  Barney Miller.  Mission: Impossible.

Just for fun, on Tuesday's at noon (in the summer) I go down on Kirkwood Avenue to listen to local musicians play at Peoples' Park.

Just for fun, my wife tells me, folks might sit in a screened-in porch and talk with a friend while sharing a bottle of wine.  (I suspect she speaks from experience.)

What do you suppose some of the great figures of history did just for fun?  How about Abraham Lincoln...or, Gandhi...or, Albert Einstein...or Pablo Picasso?  Or, Jesus?  What do you suppose Jesus did just for fun?


Wouldn't that have been a great scene for the writers of the New Testament to have reported to us.  Jesus and the disciples sitting around the fire one night performing shadow puppets, just for fun...we won't ever know if it really did happen, of course, but wouldn't it be cool, if it did?

I have trouble believing Jesus was serious, and profound, and life-lesson-teaching 24/7.  Some of the stories he is reported to have told, some of the things he is supposed to have done, certainly point to his having had a sense of humor, a sense of playfulness.  Just like everybody else.

So, I'm guessing he had some things he did just for fun.  Just like everybody else.  Maybe shadow puppets.  Maybe some game we know nothing about that kids and adults played back in the day.  Back in the day when BCE was transitioning into CE.

Just for fun, try to imagine that and see what you come up with.