Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Good morning.  Recently, as my children moved from half-term holidays to the start of school, and from Divali festivities to some Halloween fun, I watched them switch from one style of outfit, uniform, costume or cultural attire to another.

And isn’t grown-up life also made up of different worlds at play?  Be it the office, keep-fit class or local restaurant, we enter in and learn what to expect, what things mean and what will be valued there.   As we play along we all become social actors and ‘All the world’s a stage’, that well-worn line from Shakespeare, could not ring more true.   Likewise, in Sikh daily prayer, the closing lines zoom us out to view the globe from a distance: khelay sagal jagat – the whole world is engaged in play, in one kind of game or another.  And so we’re invited to think what it takes to win the game – and golden chance – of human life.

This November marks 120 years since the birth of the Jewish-born Russian theorist, Lev Vygotsky.  He observed how children use everyday objects as props to create imaginary play worlds, where a stick might stand for a horse, for example.  In the same way we are always signalling meaning as we interact in daily life.  So in my world as a Sikh, the turban signals the value of honouring wisdom and to cultivate it one of the aims of the game.

Universal Creator, wherever we come from or stand in the world, may we learn from every word, gesture, sign and symbol that directs us to live in an enlightened and worthy way.