Remember playing Capture the Flag as a kid? The objective was pretty simple: get the other team’s flag back to your base before getting caught.  It was great.  

As kids growing up the country, we played a lot on summer evenings.  Each place we played had house rules: avoid the creek and the cow patties, the motion sensor and the tomatoes. 

Mostly though, Capture the Flag was a big game of night-time tag.  Then someone’s mom would put out generic Oreos and kool-aid the church dropped off.  Magic.  

We never really got creative with the actual flags.  Usually, it was an old t-shirt from the garage stabbed through a stick or maybe a bandana if someone was thoughtful.  I guess when the prize is cases of knock-off cookies, the stakes are low. Even still, we knew the flag was ours to defend.  Inherent in a flag are the keys to the kingdom: get the flag, get the kingdom.  

Like much of play, Capture the Flag is a pretend version of real life.  In this case, battle: defend, capture, don’t get caught.  So, I’d take my role as Attacker on the left flank.  I’d wait for a diversion — often my kid brother — to run straight up the middle of the field while I tried to sneak around the side only to be seen last minute and slink back into the bushes to do this dance again and again until someone hollers ‘victory!’  Or ‘cookies!'

As a kid, I imagined my place on the throne of my kingdom, ruling a land as noble as Narnia and as full of adventure as Middle Earth. I sketched Coat of Arms during history class, stealing design ideas from the Richard the Lionhearted and Capt. Jack Sparrow.  My mind saw my sketched flag standing in defense atop the castle protecting those under its watch and waving on horseback across some imagined land, met with honor from kingdom to kingdom.  Such are the childhood dreams of boys.   

I’m older now and don’t play Capture the Flag anymore.  Instead, I go out into the world to fight traffic and the electoral process.  I defend my home against the Homeowner’s Association and the shifting applications of morality under which I must raise my children.  More days than not, I return home each night to fight another day.  But some battles are really hard.  My ego takes a hit.  Relationships die.  Loved ones leave.  Evil creeps into the camp.  

And so I return home, weary from the day’s battles.  Drinks mixed with a spatula and a served in a paper cup have been replaced with drinks mixed in shakers, served over a single ice cube.  Occasionally, we take a hit behind the lines.  The enemy sneaks one in.  

Perhaps it comes with the graying hair, but my flag is no longer one of conquest.  My flag stands for safety and security and peace.  I go out into the world every day to toil against the challenges of the day, to return in the evening and plant my flag back in its stand at the front door: 'the king is home. We are safe', I imagine the anthems echo in the halls.  

Perhaps it comes with an aging body, but the flag can be heavy.  Perhaps it’s always been this way and my youth kept me from its weight.  Perhaps I’m not as strong as I once was.  Perhaps the flag is getting heavier.  Perhaps the battles are harder.  Life is no game.  Evil doesn’t share kool-aid before pick-up time.  

So I come home and plant my flag, assuring my bride that I have returned. I assure the world that our kingdom is once again under my protection.  I set the banner under which my children are raised. 

And I fall into the arms of my queen.  Even with all her strength, she cannot hold both me and my conquest at the same time, so I must choose.  She made her choice years ago.  So I plant my flag at the front door of our home.  Because in our home, my bride protects me from myself.  My bride reminds me why I fight.  My bride heals wounds I didn’t know I had. My bride prepares me to fight another day.   

The flag I fly today honors the place it is planted in the hopes of reminding us all of the strength of all under its watch.