Cribbage

Meetings often feel like a waste to me. I'm not a big group person so unless a gathering builds relationships, establishes vision, or determines specific steps of actions, I tune out. I'm glad there are folks who love agendas, ideas and voting, but I'm too aware of my mortality to let a sunny day pass.

I have two great coping skills for surviving meetings: cribbage and hiking. I embrace these not as avoidance tactics, but so something feels real in an environment where I tend to numb. I learn more about people and what is truly going on in the church during a walk in the woods than I ever have sitting around a fluorescent lit room in a circle.

As fabulous as hiking is, I want to hold up cribbage as a great gift to large group gatherings. We only got thirteen games of cribbage in during this last assembly. I know our games seem exclusive since Keith and I often only play each other, but two introverts playing cribbage provide a safe place for others to be who they need to be.

Two people playing cribbage in a corner, cry room, or sunny deck provide a space for relationship that's hard to find in big groups.  Bars and coffee shops are too loud for vibrant conversation. Silence is too intimidating, but cribbage provides a lovely space for sharing.

The sharing doesn't happen between Keith and I - we normally only talk smack with each other - but those who come alongside. The spotlight doesn't shine on them, the environment has neither the sacredness of silence nor the distraction of noise, and folks begin to relax and talk.

So I consider my obsessive cribbage playing a gift to the community. It is the gift of making space in business for life to happen. We were good kids and kept the window cracked so we could vote if need be. I probably could have fit my arm and green card through the crack so I didn't even have to get up. But sitting on the deck in the sunshine was in many ways an act of grace and making space.

I'm also an ornery turd so I'm sure some defiance is mixed in there. The fact that recalcitrant* was my word of the day on Saturday was foreshadowing, but I do appreciate order and guidelines.  Without them there couldn't be any defiance; there wouldn't be little escapes where people could let down their guard and
be the messes we often are.

*Recalcitrant is having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority or discipline.