What Fooled the Grand Master.

If you go back far enough, it was my father’s fault. It was a balmy summer day up in the north of New Zealand and we were spending the day with our cousins. Someone got out the chess board and a long, arduous battle was drawing to a close when my father, board by the lengthy proceeding, (he was also losing), invented Take Me.

Take Me was simplicity its self. Although it retained all the moves and pieces of chess, the aim was entirely different.

The goal was to compromise all your pieces, one by one and shout, “take me!” at your opponent. The first person to clear their board won.

It was ignoble.

It was slaughter.

It was very, very popular.

A few weeks later, it was announced that a real, live European grand chess master was skulking out in the Far North of New Zealand. Apparently, the Far North is bursting with talent that is tired of being talent and wants to hide.I wish I’d paid more attention to the names of some of the people coaxed down to talk to our home-schooling group. But I never did.

There was often a slap up tea at these events and my focus was on eating as much cake as possible. This was not easy with a mother as diligent as mine.

But this day, the event was held at a hall within easy walking distance from our home.

“Of course you can go!” said Mum. “You can get yourselves there without my help.”

Which meant of course, that she was glad to be rid of my sister and I for a few hours.

We arrived at the hall. Everyone of the junior population was there. Only a few mothers hung around the back of the hall.

The grand master ascended the stage and beamed down at a hall of children sitting around a motley collection of chess boards.

He had long, delicate fingers which he waved expressively. He had an interesting accent and an earnest air.

“Und I ‘av spent my entire life in ze pursuit of zis noble game!” he informed us passionately. “Und I thank your mothers for taking zis noble game so seriously as to entrust you to my tutelage for zis afternoon!”

He was deluded, of course. Our mothers didn’t care two pins about ‘the noble game of chess’. Our mothers all had huge families and laboured under the conviction that it was their sacred duty to raise us in the fear of the Lord. They took Deuteronomy 6:7’s command to constantly instruct their children regarding God’s law very, very seriously. No school bus swept in at 8.30 to rescue them from their offspring. They would have signed us up for a python handling lesson if it was free and let them have an afternoon to themselves.“As I look around your bright young faces,” continued the grand master, (deeply moved), “my heart is bursting with joy to see that zis noble game has such a glorious future in New Zealand! You will now proceed to play chess und I will move around za room und observe for a little while. Zen I will give you a nice little lesson with a few pointers to refine your game.”

Heads bent over boards and silent play began.

But it was not chess. It was Take Me.

There was no longer any need to aggressively shriek, “Take me!” to complete the carnage.

Take Me had taken off and the room had fallen beneath it’s spell.

The grand master moved around the chess boards.

The grand master did not know about Take Me. He stopped at the first board and turned pale.

He stopped at the second board and his eyes boggled.

He stopped at the third board and clutched at his throat.

He stopped at the forth board, winced and raised his eyes to survey the entire hall. All about him the room was a silent, churning sea of children playing Take Me. The grand master gave a little groan and staggered back to his place on the platform. He clearly wanted to return to the Far North. He did not give us a ‘nice little lesson with pointers to refine your game.’ He left as soon as he could, wearing a lugubrious and broken face. As a matter of fact, he had in one afternoon of our company acquired exactly the sort of face that our mothers wore permanently.

To this day, I play a very poor game of chess. So poor in fact, a nine year old opponent recently raised furious eyes at me across the board and snapped, “you needn’t play down to me, I can beat my grandfather, you know!”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, shamed and honest. “This is actually my best level. I’m just not very good.”

“It’s true,” agreed my sister. “She stinks.”

But despite my utter ineptitude at chess, I still think of the day the grand master came to teach us fondly.

I think of his dismay as he surveyed what looked like a complete lack of talent and strategy. He thought he was coaching chess players. Because of this frame of reference, he became disheartened. He probably counted it a wasted afternoon. He probably thought he’d travelled down to our town for no reason at all.

But he was wrong.

Because he came, exhausted mums got a well needed rest.

Because he came, I and my friends spent a glorious afternoon in each others company.

But the greatest gift that the grand chess master gave me was that he taught me a lesson about God. I return to this lesson again and again as I stumble through life.

I return to it when I read about injustice. When I read about famine. When I read about exploitation and can do nothing to help it.

All the times I can’t understand this awful world I find myself in and I pound against the gates of heaven, screaming at God, “why?! Why!? Why!?” Then I wonder, is my master confounding me as effectively as I and my friends confounded that chess master in years long gone?

Is he playing a game on the board of time with human lives that only he can understand?

Is there a kindness and a wisdom in his ways that my puny mind can not grasp?

I don’t know the answers to these questions.

I am not sure I ever will.

But I am finding continuously with God not to rely on my eyes. I am learning to suspect that everything under his fingers somehow turns out right.

And while I do not have an answer for these questions, sometimes I catch glimpses of the strategy that I think I must employ as I move across the chequered squares of life.

Understanding may not come in this life time. But reliance and surrender can.

Which leaves me suspecting that the greatest victory of human existence may well be to look the Great Master in the eye and say, “I trust you, I’m yours. Take me.”

Illustrations and writing copyright R.M. Hamilton. Photos courtesy of Pixabay.