A Garth Brooks fan since day one, I’m enjoying his new album, Man Against Machine. A line from the song “Send ‘Em On Down the Road” lassoed my imagination today. The line is “And when that girl broke my heart, we just threw that baseball back and forth ’til dark.” The song is about how parents want to shield their children but they have to practice letting go at each stage of the children’s lives for their children to thrive.

The thing that caught my attention, though, was the scene of tossing a baseball in the front yard until dark. Playing until dark. It’s something that we did as children from the first warm spring days until autumn cooled off. And if there was something interesting enough outdoors in the winter, like playing in snow, we had that till dark. And if we were just having a blast, my dad would let us extend the time ’til “dark-thirty.”

Coming in at dark, smelling of child-at-play sweat and grass, was always bittersweet. It meant outdoor play was over and time was short till bath and bedtime when the day absolutely had to come to an end. I’ve never wanted to give up the day. The hours between supper and sleep are the shortest of all. But playing ’til dark teaches children discipline. It teaches us that there are cycles to each day and each season. It teaches us to tolerate disappointment as well as tolerance for the inability to control nature. And it gives us the gift of anticipating a new day. In fact, nothing quite grounds a soul like playing outdoors till the sun goes down.

As is perhaps true of most of us, these days a lot of my “play time” happens on devices. I’m especially fond of Instagram. There I can load up a photo from my phone and then scroll through the posts of those I follow till I reach the last picture I posted. Where Facebook and Twitter are agitating, Instagram is calming. All three plus email are such an easy way to check out. But checking out isn’t the real goal of play or recreation. Play and recreation, whether invigorating or relaxing, are meant to connect us to ourselves and others  in ways that refresh, restore, and renew. Honestly, nothing I can do on my phone, pad, or computer refreshes, restores, or renews (not even writing!).

“Playing” on devices doesn’t need dark-thirty to bring it to an end. If anything, playing (or working) on devices can keep us up ’til all hours of the night, disturbing our circadian rhythm, thereby damaging ourselves at the cellular level. It’s dangerous fun this innocuous cyber connecting.

Turning my attention away from my devices, even getting my nose out of a book, and turning instead to life going on around me has become a spiritual discipline for the level of opening, deepening, and grounding it provides. It also creates opportunities to connect with others. I think I’ll add to it creative ways of playing ’til dark that ground me in my humanity and my relationship to nature…

For years now on snow days the days begin and end out there in it – hunting down photographs. It’s fun, it’s sweaty, it’s work and play. I love it!

Before we have a generation of adults for whom playing till dark seems archaic, let’s reintroduce ourselves, our children and grandchildren to the past time of outdoor fun that we hate to see come to an end at the close of day. It will ground, connect, enliven, restore, refresh, and renew us and them.