The Old Fool will not tell every detail of life, but his neighborly-friendly friend invited him to play simple social games for a few hours each Friday afternoon with other friends at Greencroft. Everyone who knows The OId Fool knows that he is not an avid game player. But this afternoon for a few hours he played Mexican Train with others who are truly neighborly-friendly friends and he enjoyed every minute of it.
In general, we played to win according to the rules. Of course, being neighborly-friendly friends we wanted everyone to win. Everyone shared information about the tiles they had, and everyone helped everyone else make the most advantageous moves.
But near the end of one game it was agreed to abandon the rules altogether and, in the opinion of The Old Fool, grace reigned. There were no losers in that game, everyone won. The Old Fool toys with the notion that they had just discovered God’s secret way of saving the world. But then, being human, they returned to the rules.
This evening The Old Fool”s family like many other families around the world watched the opening of the Olympic games in London. The parade of the athletes showed deep economic differences among the nations. A children’s choir sang “Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah.” The goal of the games is to use them to overcome the barriers that exists among the nations.
The Old Fool wearied of the TV displays and turned to his computer for some online entertainment. He noticed the You Tube button, and clicked on it. His mind was attracted to the TED series of lectures, and finally focused on two lectures by Jane McGonigal, designer of TV games. She touted the value of such games and is presently designing games which she believes have the potential to save the world.
The Old Fool is an old fool who believes that sleeping deep within every human being is a desire to save the world. Even the common folk with whom he plays games on Friday afternoons, and suicide bombers, would save the world if they knew how to do it.
The Old Fool thinks he knows how the world could save itself. If it were unleashed, the constructive power of goodwill is greater than the power of an atomic bomb.
