Worship and Play in a secular world.

                    The village Church viewed from the playground near the village green.

                                Nearby Church of Saxelby, where I attended a village feast.

In a service led by Eric Lott in a nearby Church, he explored the meaning of the text "Allow the Children to come to me"--which has been a theme that seems to appear often in the context of a society where play in the form of sports seems to have an even more important role in cultural life than prayer. Religion is often thought of as something essentially joyless, a duty that has to be performed, out of fear of a God who seems to often forbid the very things that give us pleasure. This could be the legacy of a very puritanical understanding of religion, which seems not to celebrate the body, and all that the senses enjoy. The child in all of us is essentially playful. This has certainly been an important aspect of Hindu thought, where Creation is understood as arising out of the Divine playfulness. As an artist I feel that this is something we need to re-discover.