It's Been a Long Time

My son and I played chess together for the first time since he was quite young.  Playing chess with him brought back a flood of memories about playing chess and other things in my life.  I can take some things seriously.  When I was in high school I played chess regularly with the son of Russiam immigrants.  He could usually beat me, but he was the only one who could.  I became known as a very good chess player.

I tend to dabble in things like playing pool in college.  Until I got so good at pool no one on campus could beat me.  College was like that for me.  I dabbled in college until my senior year when I got straight A's.  There are things I take very seriously including my Spiritual life.   Chess teaches life lessons.  In order to be good at chess one needs to think ten moves ahead.  I was thinking only of my next move.  I could see maybe a few moves ahead, but not much beyond that.

Chess teaches to see the big pictulre of things and not focus on just one thing.  In chess the objective is to get to checkmate.  In pool, especially in Eight Ball pool, the objective is to sink all balls and the eight ball is last.  Pool requires thinking ahead.  But in my Spirituality I can be too focused on the right now.  

I'm rusty at chess and can hardly play pool any longer.  I've forgotten most of what I learned in college and seminary.  Chess teaches us to think ahead, but we change our plans according to the movements on the chessboard of life.  But the memories came back to me as we played.  We were helping each other as we played, so to say I won both matches might be a bit of a stretch as we were teaching each other.  

But I listened to his instructions and we played "what if" for quite awhile.  It wasn't as much of a match as we were learning from each other.  We broke a number of chess rules, but in a way, it was teaching and learning.  And really, that is what life is about.  Sometimes it's about helping each other win at the chessgame of life.  And this is what I learned when playing chess with him.  He might say I won both games, but I might say I learned from two games.

Given time he'll beat me at chess, but at least some of it I still remember.  I look forward to more chess matches.  We can learn a lot about life by knowing how to play chess.  We even learn to help others with their own chess matches.  And that is how I think of it.  Maybe I spend too much time with my pipe, but chess is about thinking.  It might still be the most thinking game there is.  Life requires thought, but unlike chess life is teamwork.  

I learned a lot from those two chess games and look forward to more of them.  But lately I haven't been smoking a pipe to think, but it's been more about listening.  I can think too much.  Chess can teach us to think, but listening is more important.  Today it is my Boswell pipe with some Haunted Bookshop English tobacco.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave