TOURISTS SPOTTED OTTERS in the Potomac River this spring. Not unheard of, but rare.
North American river otters are the only otter species in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. For millennia they were an apex species that served as “doctors” for healthy ecosystems by maintaining population levels of fish, frogs, and insects. The Colonial-era transnational fur trade, and its modern-era descendants of land destruction and water pollution, brought otters to the brink of decimation.
Now the otters are returning, a signal that decades of reparatory work to protect the Chesapeake watershed is having modest success.
The word most associated with these agile water weasels is “play.” Play is a fundamental way of interacting in the world; it’s how creatures “practice into being” what we can only imagine at first. Play develops communal trust, agility, resilience, strength, and strategy—and situates the soul firmly in the individual and social body.
For most adult humans, play must be relearned from children and animals. Otters, for example, or 2-year-olds encountering mud puddles. Play involves ingenuity, surprise, paradox. In play, we shift social norms and test others. In communal play, we decenter ourselves.
Western Christianity, however, has developed a theology antagonistic to play and games. And perhaps for good reasons related to the persona of the “game master.”
Many early Christians quite rightly rejected the Roman Circus games. The Roman amphitheater embodied the imperial, enslaving mindset. The circus was the center of Roman worship and governance. The state and crowds punished Christians for treason, illegal gatherings, and apostasy by throwing them into rings with trained gladiators and wild animals (reinforcing Caesar as ruler of humans and nature, life and death).
When Constantine aligned Rome’s temporal power with Christianity’s charismatic power—perhaps to secure the support of the masses where the new religion was spreading—such “games” were no longer useful. By the fifth century, the gladiatorial games in the Roman Circus were banned and the training schools abandoned. Of course, as imperial Christendom grew in power, anti-gaming attitudes became problematic because they did not imbue warfare with a holy purpose. Knight training schools in medieval Europe, accompanied by jousts and other martial games, restored the religious fervor needed to fuel the Crusades. When empire is the “game master,” Jesus-followers rightly interrogate the purpose of the “play.”
On the other hand, the biblical narrative is full of political satire using word play, parody, and irony that often serve as tools of class conflict to disarm empire, scatter concentrated power, and dismantle technological “improvements.”
In the Bible, play is also shown as a way of deepening relationships and caring for others. The parables of Jesus and the playful retelling of his ministry (a boy whose lunch of two fish feeds thousands, a wedding saved when jars of water are turned into wine, post-resurrection “disappearing acts”) point to the role of playfulness in creativity, learning, and problem-solving.
Theologian Jürgen Moltmann wrote, “Play as world symbol goes beyond the categories of doing, having, and achieving and leads us to categories of being, of authentic human existence and demonstrative rejoicing in it.”
Let’s look again at the otters in the Potomac. Our modern ziggurats of skyscrapers, sports stadiums, and other “great buildings” (Mark 13:2) cast their reflections on the river. But for a shining moment their mirrored influence is disrupted. A chittering whistle pierces the air. Flashes of fur spin, roll, and dive, splashing water wildly in delight. The otters have returned. The powerful may flock to imperial games, but the otters play for life.
Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is senior editor of Sojourners magazine. She is author ofBending the Arch: Poems.
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