some cybersteps today

When we moved to the States in 2010, I began a long process that I call "taking spiritual inventory". Only recently have I been able to give a different, warmer name to this process--thanks to something I read by Richard Rohr. In his book Falling Upward he refers to "a spirituality for the second half of life."

Yes, I'm that old. Ahem.

At any rate, this search for the second-half-of-life spirituality consisted in part in asking myself, "Over these past 15 or 20 years...when things went well...when I was fruitful...helpful...when I felt most alive...what was it about the experience that made it so life-giving for me and for others?"

Conversely, I asked myself: "When things went awry...when I felt as if the life was drained right out of me...when I made a bad situation take a turn for the worse...what was it about that experience that I do not want to repeat?"

As I thought about that, and put together some pieces from my past, I discovered that whenever I played and helped others play, good fruit was borne. Conversely, whenever I took myself or a situation too "seriously", I made things worse.

The idea first came to me in December 2011, "What if the rest of my life could be spent playing and helping others play?"

"Of course," I said to myself, "that would depend on what you mean by play."

"Yes, yes, of course," I said back to myself. (Yes, I do talk to myself like this!) "But, perhaps that's the question you can give yourself permission to explore. 'What is play?'"

So, the short of it is: I found this such a compelling question that I started a non-profit called PlayFull. Today, we went live online: website, twitter and facebook. In the grand scheme of things, we're just small potatoes right now, but isn't that how play starts, anyway? Fitting, methinks...

Either way, small or not, I'm so pumped I could jump up and shout all night! :) And I invite you to do the same.

Visit our blog here,  Like us on facebook here, and Follow us on twitter here.

We're convinced playfulness is one of the world's greatest untapped resources for personal growth, relational health and, yes, even organizational vitality. Come along for the ride. It'll be anything but boring and you just might find yourself surprised by how powerful joy can be.