Winning Games, a Hasbro subsidiary, has this week announced that they’ll be releasing a Canberra version of Monopoly. They are presently open to suggestions about what goes on there.

I imagine they’ll go the boring route and major on the institutions (the War Memorial, Questacon, the NGA, etc.) but all of that is too obvious for locals. The figurines should be a Kingsley’s chip, a parked car with two wheels on the curb, an APS lanyard, a bus stop, and a hailstone.

When I think of Monopoly, I think of “house rules” and the Canberra board should include provision for overtaking on a central roundabout, which lets you whip through the board before you have to LANE ONE FORM back on the other side.

The stations should be bus interchanges, the utilities could include Icon water (pay 10% for a new poo recycling centre), and in the top right hand corner it could say “Go to Queanbeyan.”

Here’s what’s a shame though – in many ways Canberra is a perfect fit for a monopoly board. Monopoly, when you step back and look at it, takes life and reduces it down to consumption and exploitation of other’s weakness; what looks like success if more often just luck of the dice; it’s individualistic, it’s cyclical and it’s soulless.

In all kinds of ways, Canberra’s work environment is built to make it easy for you to understand your rank against other players. It gives you the sense that you ought to be going round and round getting more and crafting your reputation and that you should think about nothing else – every other consideration is an externality until it’s time to pop everything back up the box and put it away.

Being a follower of Jesus frees you from that game. He makes it possible to love this place while resisting its narratives. He makes us not just consumers but builders and gardeners of this city. And above all else, he has declared us winners already, which means we are liberated from being scramblers, or cheaters, or tantrum board flippers. You can take that to the bank.

grace and peace,

Steve