Saturday, September 29, 2007

Imagining that I Won the Nobel Peace Prize!

I won the Nobel Peace prize last night! Okay, I was just playing the game of Life with friends, and that is how I won the prize. But don’t you think it is great that in the past I have imagined myself winning the Nobel Peace Prize for helping neighborhoods everywhere become thriving, self-reliant communities, and now I can say it actually happened? I mean, it did—it is a fact. Just because it was a little piece of paper and a seemingly random pick doesn’t matter! I won it! No one can deny it. I had witnesses.

This is the really funny thing. I don’t like playing games. But I wanted to join my daughter and my friends at a game-playing gathering. I have been choosing to get out more (partly because I am getting offered rides—I don’t have a car) and partly because I want to connect with friends, and party because I want to get a feel for other community gatherings that were taking place. You see, I have noticed over the past 45 years or so of my life that people love to get together to share meal and have fellowship. That is why I am so drawn to the idea of a community gathering as a way of encouraging people to cooperate to work together to create the neighborhoods and communities they envision.

So after a nice potluck meal and some wonderful visiting, it is time to play the game of Life. I try to wiggle out of it. I don’t really want to play. Games seem so contrived and often useless. And you have to sit and wait for others to take your turn. I just hate sitting and waiting (I got allergic to that in so many years of school!) I had brought my computer. I want to be writing—doing something “useful!” But my daughter, Mahriyanna, who is eleven, urges me to play. I want to nurture her. I want to be with her. So I stay and play.

Actually, it was quite fun. It was different way to relate to people. That’s a good thing-get out of the usual mind set. I can imagine being at a Community Gathering where one part of the large room is set up for gamers. Lots of card tables are available. Many different games are going on. I get to know all my neighbors in a fun way. I imagine some of us even develop a neighborhood board game that is just the opposite of the game of Life. No taxes. You aren’t forced to do anything! Creativity abounds because of the lack of controls by the government. People cooperate a lot more, and at the end, the person who wins is the one who contributed to the well being of others while joyfully sharing his or her own talents and gifts. And everyone wins because we got to laugh and play and get to know each other.

One of the saddest things in the world is how people have so little time to play any more--with their kids and with each other. How about if we who are neighbors and lovers of liberty take a bit of time to create a Community Gathering in our neighborhood? We can have a chance to play with each other—don’t you think that would be fun?

And in the new game of Life where thriving and self-reliant neighborhoods are the norm, I can still win the Nobel Peace Prize! That would stay the same!

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