‘There is nothing more tragic than activity without insight.
- Benjamin D’Israeli
‘Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.”
- Proverbs 29:18 (NIV)
‘When we are no longer constrained by what we should do, then we are only left with what we can do.’
- Francis Schaeffer
I learned to play monopoly from my Ya-Ya. (Have I told you this story before? Pretend that you haven’t heard it. I love telling it.)
So, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, I learned to play monopoly from my Ya-Ya. She was a wonderful woman, a 4½’ tall stick of dynamite. She worked full time until she was 85. She drove until she was 86. Everyone at work thought she was 10 years younger. (She lied about her age because she said she was afraid that the restaurant wouldn’t let her work.) But at her wake, I discovered that I was one of a handful of people that knew her real age. And get this: she left strict instruction that her date of birth wasn’t on her headstone. (Ya-Ya was a wee bit vain.) The most important thing I can tell you about my Ya-Ya is that I was her favorite. Of all her nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, and grand-children, she thought the sun rose and set with me. (She was obviously a woman of impeccable taste and a great judge of character.)
Truth be known, my Ya-Ya didn’t teach me how to play Monopoly, she taught me how to win at Monopoly.
I learned to play at my house.
My brothers and I were avid players.
And once a year, around Christmas-time, my Dad would play a game with us.
It was a very big deal.
And every year, my Dad would demolish us.
The rest of the year, it was my brother Rod who won.
I played Monopoly all wrong.
I had favorites.
My favorite token was the wheelbarrow.
My favorite properties were the railroads and the red properties: IL, IN, and KY. (Yes, I realize the red properties are different here in the UK.) So, I would take my time to get the properties I liked.
I’d make ridiculous trades to get the railroads, and the reds.
While I was about the business of getting Short Line or Indiana Ave., my Dad or Rod would be about the business of owning the board.
My other problem was that I was entirely too kind-hearted.
If you landed on one of my properties and didn’t have the rent I’d let you slide. After all, we are related.
As a general rule, a good game of Monopoly will last anywhere from 2 ½ to 4 hours. I tended to sit and watch after the first hour or so.
Then one summer, I was up in Chicago working at my Grandpa’s supper club, and late one night, my Ya-Ya and I were playing Monopoly. Suddenly, I had an epiphany. It was like a light shining from heaven (Almost in an out-of-body-experience kind of way, but different.) It was then that I came to the stirring discovery that Monopoly isn’t about being nice. It’s not about getting your favorites. It’s not about having fun.
Monopoly is about acquisition.
It’s about conquest.
It’s about control.
It’s about having other people indebted to you.
It’s about bending people to your will.
That night it happened. I did it.
I decimated my sweet little Ya-Ya.
I brought her to financial ruin.
It was awesome.
It was intoxicating.
I became a man on a mission.
I came home at summer’s end and they started dropping like flies.
I became a veritable real estate steam roller.
First, my younger brother fell.
Then my cousins.
Then kids from the neighborhood.
Then my older brother.
I was becoming a Monopoly legend. (In some parts of Indiana, my name is still spoken in hushed tones with a great deal of reverence.)
Then it happened, the moment for which I was training and preparing.
Christmas came, and the long-awaited question.
Dad said: You boys want to play a little monopoly?
“Sure,” I said all cool and non-chalant, “if you want to.”
Within 3 hours, there were only 2 players left, me and Dad.
He never knew what hit him.
I was unstoppable.
I was unconscious.
I was Master of my Universe.
Ted Turner would have been proud.
Donald Trump would have hired me.
I bought everything in sight.
I mortgaged to buy.
I built houses. I built hotels. I tried to build condo’s. I tried to buy Community Chest, Chance and Free Parking.
Then it happened.
Dad had 3 deeds and a couple hundred bucks left and he landed on one of my properties that had a hotel.
“Rent, that’ll be $1,050.”
He didn’t have it. He wasn’t even close.
He handed me his money and his deeds.
He was bankrupt.
He said: Nice game Son.
I wish you had been there.
I wish you could have seen it.
Heck, I wish it had been televised.
You won’t believe what happened next.
They all went to bed. All of them: Dad, Rod and Tom.
That was it?
No fanfare?
No parade?
No press conference?
They just went to bed.
They left me there with my empire.
We didn’t even bronze the board.
I sat for a while and looked at my empire, and then do you know what happened?
I put my empire in the box and I went to bed.
Seems to me that I've learned a couple of things from playing Monopoly.
Games of acquisition tend to be long and tiring.
When the game is over, it all goes back in the box.
In the Bible there’s this fellow named Jonah and he learned a really important lesson the hard way. In the midst of learning that lesson he wrote: ‘Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.’
A couple thousand years ago there lived a man named Jesus. And you need to know that Jesus is the Son of God.
He told this story once about a man who was into Monopoly in a big way. The fellow was self-employed. He worked in Agriculture.
He was a real shaker and mover.
He was out to build an empire.
He was going to prove to the world that he was a success,
that he was somebody.
And everyone knows that winners and losers are determined by the scoreboard.
Everybody also knows that to get to the top,
to be a success,
to be comfortable,
to grab the brass ring,
requires sacrifice.
So this guys goes at his work with a vengance.
12 hours a day, 6 and 7 days a week.
He has to neglect his wife,
his children,
his friends.
but he tells himself that there will be time enough for all that later once he’s made it.
He feels the long hours and the stress taking its toll.
After all, he’s not as young as he used to be.
He shrugs it off.
He shrugs off the tightness in his chest, the shortness of breath, as just him being a little overweight and out of shape.
So, he keeps working. He keeps pushing.
One night, he does some evaluation and analysis and realizes that this year will be a bumper crop. He’s hit the mother-load.
He comes home to tell his wife.
“Great news honey. This is it. One more expansion project and we’re there. I’ll slow down.
We’ll be on easy street.
We’ll take the vacations we’ve always dreamed of.
We’ll eat at the restaurants that we want to.
You’ll shop for clothes without looking at the price tag.
The kids can go to the best schools in the nation.
I’ll build you your dream-house.
Life is going to be great. You’ll see.
I know the market.
I’ve planned for every contingency. We’re set.”
She goes to bed.
She’s heard it all before.
She’s not impressed.
He goes to work in his study. Just a couple more hours tonight he thinks.
2:30 AM, she wakes. He’s still not in bed.
“This is ridiculous!” She mutters as she throws back the blankets and goes down to get him.
He’s fallen asleep in his study again.
She goes to wake him, but he’s cold to the touch.
She calls 911, but it’s too late.
He’s gone.
There’s a funeral.
It’s well attended.
A lot of people say nice things about him.
They try to tell his kids who their Father was.
They even erect a monument.
Then they go home.
That night, the Angel of the Lord comes to the cemetery, stands over his headstone and says just two words:
“You fool.”
Now, I know what somebody is thinking. “Man, that’s kind of cold. Man’s just died and God calls him a fool.”
John Ortberg observed that before you think that God is into name-calling, just ask yourself a question:
What other term would you use to describe this man?
How else would you describe such irrational behavior?
So busy making a living that he never builds a life.
So busy building an empire, that he never thinks to ask: What’s next?
So busy building a kingdom, that he never bothers to wonder who is king.
So busy preparing for when life slows down,
so busy covering the bases,
That he never plans for the one eventuality that we all will face.
The one certainty that we are guaranteed from the time we are born.
We will die.
We will all stop breathing, our hearts will stop pumping blood and we will die.
Then, they’ll put our bodies in a box.
And put the box in the ground.
And guess what?
They don’t even bronze the board.
Listen to what one of the wisest men in history wrote:
‘I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.’ Ecclesiastes 3:10 – 11 (NIV)
Now, I’m not smart enough to know all of what Solomon was saying, but I caught part of it.
He said: We’re not human beings who from time to time have spiritual experiences. He said that we are spiritual beings who happen to be having a human experience.
The farmer thought that physical acquisition was the most important thing in life, the measuring stick, the raison d’etre. It never occurred to him that spiritual acquisition is the most important pursuit.
When you realize that. Then you realize that most of us tend to ask the wrong questions.
How am I doing?
Am I accomplishing what I should for my age?
Do I own what I should own for this point in my life?
Have I acquired a relative level of success by this stage in the game?
Those are not the most pressing questions.
The most pressing question seems to be: Who am I becoming?
Seems to me this is the question worth asking during this Christmas season.
Thanks for reading.
Peace.
