From the second to the fifth of January the theme of the Daily Laws is all about seeking out and connecting with whatever it was that fascinated you as a child and to be newly inpired by it as you rediscover your calling.
Second Sunday After Christmas
This week, 2nd of January was also the Second Sunday after Christmas. Rather oddly, there is no collect for this Sunday in Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, but one was added to the 1928 version and goes like this:
"ALMIGHTY God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
We find embedded in the collect the thought that that which is "enkindled in our hearts" is also that which should "shine forth in our lives," for it is the "incarnate Word," that is, the Divine Logos of which John writes in the opening lines of his gospel, which in turn is also an echo of the opening line of Genesis, "In the beginning, God..."
We must go back to the beginning to find our end. This is also what Robert Greene would have us do in the first week of January.
So let's do it!
January 2nd: Reconnect with your childhood obsession
If I think of my childhood obsession, the first thing I think of is toy soldiers, swiftly followed by battles, the heroes of the past, historical buildings, ancient places, also reading about such things whether in comic form or in children's history books, or novels, such as those by Henry Treece with exciting titles along the lines of "Man with a Sword," or "Swords from the North." It was most likely my reading of "Swords from the North" that sparked an interest in Harald Hardraada and the Vikings (more of which later)...
January 3rd: Do something that you used to love doing as a kid
I remember my seventh Christmas, when I received the best present ever, the 1/32nd scale Timpo Wild West Fort, or my ninth Christmas when I received the 1/72nd scale Airfix Pontoon Bridge Assault Set.
A few years later, I began to collect 1/32nd scale World War Two soldier sets by Airfix and I still have some of those soldiers in a cloth bag somewhere in my storage cupboard. So I took Robert Greene at his word, and dug them out and tipped them onto the floor to have a look at them...
Quite a few have gone missing, but the remnant includes German Infantry, Afrika Korps, British Commandos, British Paratroopers, Eighth Army Infantry, and a Vickers machine gun crew (missing its water-cooler) from a much depleted "British Support Group" set, Australian Infantry, Japanese Infantry, Russian Infantry, and a lone American Marine officer waving his non-existant troops forward into the attack!
January 4th: This is what I must do
Playing with the 7th Cavalry and Red Indian figures that came with the Wild West Fort, I remember thinking to myself, "I'll never stop playing games."
Life is a game, a game of war. Wargame Life. Love it and create out of it a "merry war" and make much ado about nothing. Perhaps it is this approach to being #alive that also enables us to be #aliveandthriving durng our brief sojourn in this world.
Today, I make no distinction in my life between work and play. I am playful in class as a teacher, and I am industrious when I play games. Play is my work is my play.
January 5th: Know what you are drawn to and immerse yourself in it
Being drawn to play and to games, as well as to the potential of the Hive blockchain, it has become obvious to me that I should throw myself into games, battles, and Viking mythology by getting involved with the Ragnarok project, starting from this week.
I have not got involved with any of the other Hive-based games as they did not quite resonate with me in the way that Ragnarok does. I guess it is the combination of chess, poker, and norse mythology, along with the potential of "play to earn" - which seems like an ideal combination of "work and play".
To that end, I have just launched a Wordpress blog, https://goragnarok.com as a training platform to pull people into the Hive community via that game.
Blogging. There's another game for you!
I cannot say whether running with Ragnarok is really a case of having "the same light enkindled in our hearts" "shine forth in our lives" or not, but for now that seems to be the direction in which my star is leading as we approach Epiphany...
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus