a different pursuit

yesterday evening
while waiting for the delicious dinner to be done

we all played a board game

even grandma

a children's version of trivial pursuit

playing in the regular manor
taking turns from youngest to oldest
bea first pam last

the game proceeded
i won

but the lovely thing that happened
was another rule or way of doing came about
all on it's own

instead of being the sole answerer
you could 'defer' to someone who knows the answer
and if that person was willing to offer the help
you could take their better more confident answer

sort of like the life line idea of
'who wants to be a millionaire'

this game could be called
'who wants to be a community'

lately i have been thinking
about how people create their own hell

i see it often,
surely am a part of my own hell's creation

and keep going back to a story that i have heard
in various traditions
christian
jewish
buddhist

about the starving people
at the table

with long necks and short arms
that will starve
amist the gorgeous feast
unless they learn to feed each other

in our game,
in which we changed the rules
organically

the phrase
' i defer'
came to be one of the options


and it was a really good game