Cabinet, the board game.
So it appears I have set off a fury. From Nashville to Savannah, the people called Methodists are searching for Cabinet. I discovered it when a friend shared this picture on his Facebook timeline. I thought it was outrageous, and decided I would write about it.
Clearly my entrepreneurial skills are lacking. I should have done the work of finding this precious artifact first, then written the blog post. There seems to be a growing demand across the connection, and I probably could have cashed in. Oh well, lesson learned.
The stacks at MTSO’s library (I think).
Upon not being able to find the game through normal outlets, i.e. Amazon, Cokesbury, Ebay, I was afraid it was lost somewhere in a warehouse in Nashville. In my research though, I found a copy of the game at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio’s library. Through the magic of Facebook, this picture was shared with me yesterday. I’m pretty sure that the game was guarded by the ghost of Francis Asbury. She had to prove that her heart was pure, or at least moving onward toward purity (or some-such thing).
April Casperson, Director of Enrollment Management and Scholarship Development at Methodist School of Theology in Ohio.
As you can see, her face is a perfect mix of bemusement and mild disgust. I can only assume the she is afraid of opening the box, lest her face get melted. That would be a shame. She seems to be a perfectly pleasant person, and I would hate for her to end up like this.
In the meantime, there seems to be a groundswell of Methonerd support to find copies of this game. My friend Melissa Meyers has promised to bring the game to the attention of someone at United Methodist Publishing. If it gets re-published, I only have one request: Please let me be a part of the group having a grand ol’ time playing it on the box cover art.
I’m having fun with this. I have chosen to laugh when I see this game, but there is another reaction that I could have. I have dedicated myself to a system that all-too-often feels like a game. The only way I can remain sane in the itinerant system is to believe that the members of my conference’s cabinet understand that they are not playing with Pokemon cards, but with peoples’ actual lives. I believe this is the case. I do. Every year in appointment season I reaffirm in my own heart and mind the covenant I made with the United Methodist Church, and I submit to the will of my Bishop. I submit my family to the whim of a few people in an a room a few hundred miles away, and trust that they are guided by the Holy Spirit. That is a huge amount of trust, and the fact that someone that was once given that kind of trust decided to turn that process into a game makes me boil over with rage. Then I take a deep breath, realize I’m probably taking it all too seriously, and realize it probably is a good teaching tool. Appointments are a wildly complicated thing to figure out, and this could help people realize how difficult it is. So I make a joke.
So keep searching, Methodists. If anyone finds and plays this game, please share your experiences here.
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