Losing at Monopoly

          I love playing Monopoly—when I’m not losing abjectly.  Last night was such a fiasco.  My brother-in-law Rick and I were pretty evenly matched, trading small rents back and forth.  Nancy was holding her own with a few properties.  I had a little property, but it was David who was the “slum landlord” of the evening.  He acquired Park Place and Boardwalk and immediately started “improving” them.  Soon the rent for one was $500 and for the other $600. 

          The whole evening, I would pass Go and immediately land on the Income Tax spot.  I did this at least 4 times.  I felt my emotions sinking lower and lower, and several times I reminded myself, “This is only a game!  And someone has to lose.  ‘Tag!  I’m it!’”  Still, it was a relief when I landed yet again on Boardwalk, and with a grin, David informed me that the rent was “Only” $600.  I mortgaged three properties, and paid him, losing not only my cash reserve, but most of my earning potential.  Though not smiling, I refrained from saying the harsh things that were right behind my teeth.  After all, in truth this was “only a game.”

          The torture was over when I landed on one of Nancy’s railroads and couldn’t pay the rent.  I simply pushed all my belongings over to her and ceded the table.  I believe my last statement to her was to “destroy David!”  Then I went into the living room and watched YouTube on my computer.  I truly was not pouting, only relieved to be out of misery.

          I’ve never had a real-life disaster like that.  I realize that just as luck was making me roll terrible situations in Monopoly, luck or chance can create or destroy people’s lives.  David has written about the horrible car wreck that we passed while driving to California.  That person (or family?) was driving along, minding their own business, when like a lightening bolt, their lives were either ended or horribly changed.  And the truck driver will live the rest of his life tethered to that moment when his truck became the guillotine that destroyed another life.  (I hope that crash truly was an “accident” with no one really “at fault.”)

          This morning David and I called Sally and read Psalm 103 together.  One of the things we noted was that this psalm recognizes two things that appear to be at odds.  With one breath the writer says that God preserves and protects: 

⁴who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
⁵who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

And with another, says:

¹⁵As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.

How can the writer have it both ways?  How can God both preserve and protect us, and allow us to be swept away the same way that dry grass burns up before the wind.

          This seeming paradox is unraveled by an understanding that we not only live in the physical, but also in the spirit world.  Let’s listen to a little more of what the psalmist writes, starting again with where we last left off:

¹⁵As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
¹⁹The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.

          What does it mean to say that God’s throne is “in the heavens”?  Because we have sent space vehicles beyond the limits of our own solar system and haven’t run across a large throne up there, we have to think that God’s realm is of a different nature.  In fact, it is spiritual.  This doesn’t mean that it is unreal, any more than electricity or gravity are unreal even though we are only beginning to “quantify” them.

          When I lose at Monopoly I’m done.  But when life hands me a few bad rolls of the dice, I can look “up” to the throne of God’s grace and remember that nothing that life here and now can throw at me has the final vote, because “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.”