positivity points
Darting forward to plant a four of hearts and score another point, Riley’s hand hits mine with enough force to toss my hand aside and send my own card flying. The impact stings, but even more the grim fact that she doesn’t even notice. In the moment, Riley cares more about that point–and the next and the next and the next—than any effect her recklessness has on me.
I glance up hotly, frustration blinding me temporarily to any personal application. I can’t see past the game to the number of occasions when my own focus on achieving more has distracted me from the way of love. In this one round, I’ve sustained three minor beatings, two of which came from Riley’s hands. I know no one meant to hurt me, only to slide their own cards in quickly before I could take the points; it’s part of the game. Well, the strategy belongs to the game, I’m thinking. Apathy doesn’t.
“I think that if we keep hitting each other’s hands while we’re playing, we’re being too aggressive.” Seething with indignation, I spit the words slowly. They’re the wrong words–not really the ones I mean, but I say them anyway. Everyone pauses to look at me, fingers gripping playing cards, arms suspended in motion over the table.
“How can you tell?” Kevin asks, because having been absorbed in his own cards, he has no idea what has happened.
Feeling too bruised to decipher his question, I narrate instead. “Riley hit my hand. Again. I’m so tired of getting my hands smacked while we play this game,” I say. But really it’s more than the fact that Riley hit my hand. I’m reacting to a change in her attitude and gameplay that has begun to bother me, particularly because it’s so out of character for her.
I watch as Riley’s face, flushed with the desire to win, intense with what for her has most recently become cutthroat determination, softens with realization. “Oh, I did?” She says, suddenly returning to herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit your hand, Mom.” She looks helplessly from the cards in her hand to me. I see the change in her the moment she recognizes, uncomfortably, that she’d lost all attention, all awareness of the rest of us, to the game. I watch as she begins to count the costs of winning at any cost. Her eyes flood with tears; it’s not really who she is, definitely not who she wants to be. She puts down her cards and gets up, rounds the table, bends low to kiss my hand. “It’s all better now, right?” She asks, hopefully.
And it is better, better for her intentional steps toward me, better for the humble posture she takes to love me whole. But the air around the table still feels dense with our mutual frustration, heavy with a maturing cloud of bitterness. Although Riley is not normally an angry person, she has lately become so focused on winning this game that she gets irritated over every loss, every hint of potential loss. The game has begun to make her a different person. This is just a game, but I can’t help thinking about how living to win changes all of us, and how starkly that approach opposes the way of the cross.
“OH COME ON,” has become Riley’s version of an expletive, something she says sneering, pounding her fist against the table every night as we play. She groans. She sighs. She throws herself back against the chair.
At first, we thought it good that Riley could articulate her feelings. It’s challenging for someone with autism to do that, and we counted it as a step in the direction of personal advocacy. We celebrated the progress, though with some surprise over the strength and negativity of her feelings. But, as is often the case in Riley’s life, one step forward quickly turned into a full formless dive off an emotional cliff. “I really want to win,” turned into I’m not happy unless I win and I’m going to make sure you know it. Riley’s unchecked complaints had begun to erode the game and infect us all with hostility.
So a little later, having settled my own feelings and having arrived–with Kevin’s help–at the true source of my heartache, I apologize to Riley for overreacting to what I knew to be an accidental slight. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” I tell her. “You would never hurt anyone on purpose.” I tell her that I understand that she wants to win. I acknowledge that competition is good and that she has become a much better player. “But winning isn’t everything,” I say, noticing that as I say this, the softness in Riley’s expression hardens with a glint of stubborness. “The most important thing is to enjoy each other. We should care more about each other than we care about winning. You don’t need to say something negative every time someone else does well.”
The mouth speaks what fills the heart (Luke 6:45), and we must learn to take our thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5), to think on what is lovely, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8), but sometimes the healing of the heart begins when God sets a guard over our mouths (Psalm 141:3). When we smile, we begin to feel happy, and when we use positive words, we develop more positive perspectives. The tongue is like a rudder, capable of steering the whole body; it’s like a spark that sets the whole forest on fire (James 3).
“But I just want to win so bad,” Riley says, flushing and close to tears. I can see that she feels overwhelmed with the odds against her and, as a result, justified in spewing invective. But angry words only feel strong, and we miss the light all that anger threatens to snuff out of her.
“I know. So, what if,” I say, reaching for a deck of cards and beginning to shuffle, “we make it possible for everyone at the table who chooses to stay positive—even when someone else wins or when someone else gets a point—to win five extra points at the end of the round? What do you think?” The right words build (Ephesians 4:29), I’m thinking, so why not find a way to build her up instead of making her feel further behind?
Slowly Riley nods as she considers this, brightening over the added potential for success. “I really like this idea,” she says. “Yes.”
And so, having arrived at a potentially productive path, we resolve to play another round and try it out. Gameplay passes with the usual amount of competition–darting hands and flat smacked cards and vocal triumphs—but quite noticeably without the hurling of disgusted comments, and the impact of this change is immediate, real, and shining; it feels as though the air itself has lightened. Laughter returns to the table, and Riley’s radiant peace, and most of all, joy.
And at least this first round, everyone earns five extra points for positivity.
