Bananagrams

 

My parents and I went to visit my sister on Saturday night. After a lovely dinner of minestrone soup and salad, we all played a few rounds of Bananagrams. I dreadfully lost all rounds of the game except for the last. I actually won the last, beating my sister in a hair-splitting exclamation of “Bananagrams!”

 

In case you don’t know how Bananagrams works, it’s fairly simple: Use your tiles to a make word puzzle, crossword puzzle style. When you have finished making your puzzle, you yell “Peel!” At that point, everyone in the game draws a new tile from the center pot and continues working on their puzzles. If you don’t like a particular tile that you draw, then you can exchange it by yelling “Dump” and placing the tile back in the middle. The penalty is that you have to retrieve three new tiles in its place. You continue this cycle until all tiles are gone and one person successfully uses all of his/her tiles to complete a puzzle. He/she then yells “Bananagrams!” and the round is over.

 

Sometimes the tiles are kind to you. Sometimes they are not. Sometimes a “dump” or “peel” helps you on your quest but sometimes they throw you a major curveball. Sometimes you can continue with the puzzle you are making, but sometimes you have to completely start over.

 

I don’t have to spell out the metaphor here.

 

We set goals for ourselves and set out to accomplish them, only to have them enhanced or challenged by circumstances along the way.

 

May today’s “dumps” and “peels” be kind to you, friend…and when they are not, may you have the strength, stamina, and creativity to rearrange until you find a way to make things fit.

 

Amen.