Non-competitive or cooperative relational space is difficult to conceptualize in our individualist and consumerist North American culture, yet I find myself drawn to understand what it might mean and look like. I think some of this fascination with mutual relational spaces comes from my background as a musician. Ensemble playing (orchestral, choral, chamber music) is like a second language that reorients how I experience and understand the world around me. It is a strange and wondrous hermeneutic that provokes curiosity.
Every once in awhile I stumble across an example that captures my imagination, causing me to wonder once more what a lived out and cooperative love really looks like in the world at large. I sometimes feel naive, because we are taught from a young age to win or that our value in the world is tied to winning. Just think about how many coming of age movies are about competitions, whether in love, sports, or music (e.g., The Karate Kid, Bend it Like Beckham, The Bad News Bears, The Chorus, Pretty in Pink). But I believe that the Christian life demand a more mutual and non-competitive way of living and loving. I also believe that one of the secrets to loving in this manner is the art of play.
Below you will find a video of a public art instillation in Montreal: 21 Swings. What is most fun about this instillation are the new melodies and sounds that come about when friends and strangers work together. Cooperation and play are rewarded when people figure out how to swing in tandem or at different moments. It is not often that we practice these cooperative relational space, yet that is exactly what Paul calls us to in 1 Cor 12. Our diversity creates a very dynamic unity. Again I ask, where do (should) we practice this strange and wondrous biblical call in our lives?
Want to swing?
21 Balançoires (21 Swings) from Daily Tous Les Jours on Vimeo.
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