There is a church on a hill, about five minutes from my childhood home. If I stand at the front gate, I can see the madonna who gazes down from under the eaves, watching over the neighbourhood. This church sits on a sizeable piece of land, and behind the main building, there used to be an absolutely enormous playground. My grandfather took me there pretty much every day when I was little, carrying me up the hill on his shoulders; he's been gone for 19 years now, and I still miss seeing certain places from that 6'2" elevation.
That playground was amazing. Half of it was in a giant sandpit, and the other half was cushioned by a lush, velvety carpet of emerald grass dotted with baby's breath and some tiny purple flowers whose name I don't know. There were ladders and slides, a rope-plank bridge, swings, turreted towers and even a drawbridge. I was a bit of a tomboy and a bit of a princess and in that playground, I could be both. Or I could be Tarzan, a knight on a quest, the queen of the pirates and a princess strolling along the battlements - all in the same day. When we'd been going to the playground for a while, my grandfather started serving at mass - which meant that now I could play up on the altar as well! Those patient priests didn't seem to mind a 3-year-old crawling under the table while they were preparing communion and told the altar boys to take care not to knock me out with the incense burner.
My playground was demolished a few years ago, to make room for more parking, but there's still a prayer garden in one corner. I was sitting there for the first time in years one day when Father A came and sat on the bench next to me. I hadn't seen him since my grandfather's memorial service, a year after his death, when I was still a child. But Father A had seen me from the vicarage window and somehow recognised me.
All those years ago, Father A would come play a game or two with me in my playground, then sit and talk with Papa for what felt like ages. Now, he told me what they had spoken about - God, mainly. Then, Papa wasn't Christian. My grandmother would take me to church every Sunday, but he wasn't interested. He'd been married in church, and he'd come to my baptism, but that was it. Suddenly, he found himself talking to a Catholic priest every day. Then he was baptised and confirmed, started serving in church, and became a man of stronger faith than anyone else in the house, all of whom had lived in the church from the cradle. Just before he died, Papa told me that his faith had saved his life.
Father A told me he didn't think Papa would have been open to those conversations about God in any other context. He came to that playground because of me, he kept going for my sake, and he liked trusted Father A first of all because I did. Finally, Father A said, "He believed because he could see Christ in you."
That is a huge thing to hear, and I made a decision not to analyse it and talk myself out of believing it, only because I know that whatever I think or feel about myself, God's love for me is perfect. The point is, I didn't have to do anything to bring someone to God. All I had to do was be. And if that was my entire purpose, if that is all I ever "achieve", maybe that's ok.
A very wise friend of mine, Zainab A, puts it this way: Everything counts. Just be, because you never know what small act you do is pleasing to God. As another wise friend, Emma C, reminded me: God knows what He is doing!
And that is the point of the church playground. God really does know what He is doing. The thing is, we don't always see it, even if we are a part of something wonderful. This life we have been given is so beautiful, intricate and complex; we are always a part of something bigger, whether we are conscious of it or not. All we have to do is be whom we were made to be.
