"Taking Fun Seriously"

READING

Writer and performance artist Spalding Gray is best known for his monologues, inimitable narratives of his life and adventures. "Swimming to Cambodia" tells about his experiences in Southeast Asia, where he traveled to play a role in the film "The Killing Fields." One of his experiences was his quest for what he called the Perfect Moment. He couldn't leave Thailand until he had one. He wrote, "You see, I hadn't had a Perfect Moment yet, and I always liked to have one before I leave an exotic place. They're a good way of bringing things to an end. But you can never plan for one. You never know when they're coming. It's sort of like falling in love . . . with yourself."

Later, on a bus with some friends from the film crew, Gray wrote, "I was finally catching up with Beethoven's String Quartets . . . . And looking out the window, monsoon pouring down, all of a sudden - in some timeless moment in the middle of the trip - we rounded this corner and there it was, this incredible vista of the Indian Ocean. I was totally not expecting it, I didn't expect it so soon or so late or so . . . I just didn't expect it.

"It was like an oriental Hudson River School painting. The ocean was crashing in, this great white surf, the largest waves I had ever seen, under great, black monsoon skies, white birds blowing sideways, rainbows arching, palm trees ripping, Oh My God! - almost. About a number nine on my scale of ten for Perfect Moments. Had I been out there in my ocean briefs, I would have had to go home that afternoon."

This week we learned that Spalding Gray had died at age 62, victim of a severe depression that brought him to suicide. I am sad that he is gone. But I will always remember that in his quest for the Perfect Moment, he did finally have one - not a nine, but a ten - swimming in the Indian Ocean. "Suddenly, there was no time and there was no fear," he wrote. "There were no longer any outlines. It was just one big ocean. My body had blended with the ocean. And there was just this round, smiling-ear-to-ear pumpkin-head perceiver on top, bobbing up and down. And up the perceiver would go with the waves, then down it would go, and the waves would come up around the perceiver, and it could have been in the middle of the Indian Ocean, because it could see no land. . . . I don't know how long this went on. It was all very out of time until it was brought back into time by [my friend's] voice calling, 'Spalding! Spalding, come back, man! I haven't tested those waters yet.'"

SERMON

The small gallery on Main Street that shows the work of designers Charles and Ray Eames does not overtly lend itself to spiritual reflection. The reverence there is for design – the furniture, textiles, photography and films that comprise the life work of these two talented artists. There’s a sense of quiet industry going on in the back room behind the display; but they welcome you even if you just want to look.

I’ve been in there several times. Each time I’ve noticed that inscribed on the wall over the front door are the words “We don’t take fun seriously enough.” That exhortation, combined with the cheerful fabrics, and quirky, iconic chairs, always gives me pause.

Perhaps Charles and Ray Eames want us to know that good design is fun and that fun is too important in life not to take seriously. Beauty gives pleasure. We create it to enjoy ourselves.

Creation and enjoyment are also linked in subtle, revealing hints we find in ancient scripture, among other places. “This is the day which the Lord has made,” wrote the psalmist. What to do with the day? Not work – not war – not striving of any kind; just “rejoice and be glad.”

The contemporary, earth-centered vision of Annie Dillard makes a similar point: “We are here to abet creation and to witness to it,” she writes, “so that creation need not play to an empty house.” To be alive is to enjoy the day and the specific and personal ways in which the world reveals itself to us. In one sense, it is all we are asked to do with our lives.

Yet most of us find it difficult. The experience of pleasure for its own sake does not come naturally. And we don’t take it seriously enough, though life without it is cheerless and dull.

All my adult life I have associated happiness with productivity. I say, find work you enjoy, do it conscientiously, and you will be fulfilled. Even though ministry is one of the least quantifiable activities imaginable, and progress in churches happens about as quickly as plate tectonic shifts, I do make myself happy toiling away, measuring my output by standards that are difficult to describe.

Recreation is a lot like work for many of us. We prefer fun to be productive too, instead of something to do simply because it gives us pleasure. If it is good for you – if it produces an ancillary benefit – it is somehow more valuable than fun just for its own sake. We all rejoice when something we love, like red wine or chocolate, turns out to be good for our health. We are uneasy, even guilty, about pleasure. Think about it. When was the last time you had fun? If it’s been a while, it’s time to take it more seriously.

Fun doesn’t have to be dangerous, take us far from home, or require us to step out of character. But if we don’t take it seriously enough, we won’t have much fun, and that is truly sad. There is something about the things we do for no other reason than pure enjoyment – whether listening to music, or looking at a beautiful painting, or exploring a part of the world we have never seen, or growing things in the garden – the list could go on and on; there is something about such activity that is essential and spiritual and connected to the simple fact of being alive.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of my older brother, who stopped on the way to school one day, picked up a piece of pretty blue glass off the street, and immediately sat down on the curb to look through it. I was walking with him, but I got tired of waiting, so I went on ahead. Later I heard that the school had to send someone out to get him because he sat there for a long time, and was late.

Wonder is fun. It is everywhere. Just think about the new pictures this week that show us almost all the way to the beginning of the universe. If you look up at the night sky, it’s out there past Orion.

While I was getting ready to write my sermon the other day, I went out with my dog and stopped to talk to a neighbor. She told me she once had a dog who liked to be vacuumed. Though most dogs I know would not find that enjoyable, I smile to think of one creature’s sensual preference. Physical pleasure is fun. Movement is fun. Cooking is fun. Music is fun. Once you think about it, the list can grow quite long.

And if fun doesn’t come easily, we should work at it. The little mouse in the Arnold Lobel fable sets forth on a trip to the seashore. He overcomes fear and danger along the way; even loses his tail. But when he arrives at his destination, the beauty of the ocean and the colors of the sunset fill him with deep peace and contentment.

Spalding Gray worked hard to find his Perfect Moment. He postponed his return home from a trip to Thailand, just so that he could have one. Such experiences can only become more elusive as we grow more desperate, but he was lucky. As he bobbed up and down in the Indian Ocean, drifting dangerously out to sea, oblivious to the depths, the sharks, and the friends calling to him from shore, he too found himself at peace. And his Perfect Moment came to him.

But it doesn’t always. When I planned this sermon, I expected to be refreshed from our trip to Madrid, full of stories about how to have fun in Spain. As it turned out, our vacation was not all that much fun. The weather was horrible: cold and rainy; David was sick for a couple of days; my brother left me a cryptic phone message midweek, saying, “Don’t worry, but Mom’s in the hospital.” The trip began to feel like something to survive, rather than the carefree sunny holiday we had anticipated. Of course, there are many wonderful things to do in Madrid even when the weather is bad, and we bucked ourselves up, stopped complaining, and did them all. In the end, there were even a few close to Perfect Moments.

Now the bombings in Madrid have cast a pall over everything. Our disappointment about our vacation seems terribly selfish, compared to the anguish of the people there. In a world that has gone so violently awry, the quest for fun becomes trivial and off the mark. It’s another sign that we don’t take fun seriously enough, that we have let the world become so scary.

Creation has become an arena for humankind’s deadly conflicts, not a garden to enjoy. We do little to subdue our destructive bent, even less to nurture our yearning for peace. Bombed-out grieving cities are not places where people have fun. To have fun, people must be at peace. We don’t take fun seriously enough. If we did, the world would be a very different place.

We all know that it is good to take care of ourselves, to change pace and relax, to enjoy simple, healthy pleasures. But fun is not something we do simply for ourselves. To take fun seriously is to take the whole of creation into account, and to think about our place in it.

To enjoy life – to witness and abet creation, as Annie Dillard put it, is the human vocation on this earth. Our role is to appreciate the beautiful world that touches every one of our senses with delight. Our work is to help it flourish. Our days are the time we are given to nurture this place in which we live, and if we are so inclined, to make something beautiful for it.

It’s paradoxical, but taking fun seriously can make us feel a little sad. We haven’t lived up to our promise as humans, nor do we enjoy life as much as we could. Yes, life can be challenging, even tragic, and no one is left untouched by its rigors. The Perfect Moments are few and far between. Sometimes they elude us completely. Even so, there is so much more we could have, if only we could take in this great gift of each and every day; if only we could rejoice and be glad. And we can, if we let ourselves have fun, and hurting no one, live in contentment and peace.

The story about Spalding Gray’s search for the Perfect Moment can be found in "Swimming To Cambodia" (New York: Theater Communications Group, 1985) or in the film by the same name. The Eames Gallery is at 2665 Main Street, Santa Monica.