Volume 32

In the earliest version of the game, players strategically threw stones up a hill while hoping that — on the way down — the well-aimed rocks would fall into holes dug in the dirt. The French later invented an indoor variation called bagatelle in which players used cue sticks to shoot ivory balls up a slanted, felt table. But to make the game more challenging, brass pins surrounded each hole, hence the name pinball.

When Montegue Redgrave started making bagatelle tables in Cincinnati in 1871, he replaced the cue with a spring loaded plunger. The game remained much the same for 50 years, then Chicago game maker David Gottlieb began producing glass-covered tables that gave players five balls for a penny. Since these Baffle Ball games sold for only $17.50, most bars and drugstores had one. Demand was so great, Gottlieb’s biggest distributor, Ray Moloney, made his own game called Ballyhoo. It was such a hit he started a separate company called Bally, now famous for slot machines.

In the early days, there were no lights, bells, bumpers or flippers but players often shook and thumped the machines to get a ball into a high-scoring hole. This upset pinball pioneer Barry Williams who added a new feature to the game: a small ball balanced on a pedestal. If the machine was struck or jiggled, the ball fell off and hit a metal ring that immediately shut down the game. Originally known as “the stool pigeon”, this device later became known as “the tilt.”

With the first electric game in 1933, pinball became a feast for the eyes and ears. Flippers to keep the ball moving longer were added after World War Two and pinball enjoyed 30 years of prosperity, interrupted only by controversy over whether the game was really just a form of gambling. Despite bans in places like Manhattan — and Chicago, which was home to most pinball manufacturing companies — pinball thrived, until video games like Pac Man gobbled up the market in the 1980s. Today, traditional machines are only a niche market but the game itself is undergoing a huge resurgence in another format — computer pinball.

All of this reminds me of prayer and how we approach it. Too often, we don’t send up our requests to God until we plot out how things should play out, in every detail. Especially when we’re in steep, deep trouble, we lob our petitions heavenward, angling our prayers in such a way that God will let things fall precisely where we want them. We predetermine what should happen, precisely how and exactly when.

Obstacles to what we want are seen as pins put in place by others, Satan, or even God himself so — while we pray — we keep our hands firmly on the controls, doing everything we can to determine the outcome. Instead of patiently relying on the wisdom and timing of our Father, we’re not above trying to manipulate the situation with a nudge or a jolt when it looks like things are going wrong.

That’s when the tilt is activated. As you pray, says the Bible, “be sure you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should never expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6,7) In other words, if God really is there and involved in our lives, we can trust him to do what’s best. If we don’t believe that, we turn prayer into a glorified gamble — a cheap, cosmic game of chance with merely random results.

What’s important in prayer is faith, not flashiness, formula or format. Those things come and go but the steadfast love and power of God last forever. Today, prayer’s undergoing a wonderful resurgence as people embrace the promise of Jesus who said, “Your Father knows exactly what you need, even before you ask him.” (Matt. 6:8) Everybody knows that being a pinball wizard is not a how thing, it’s a Who thing.

By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to Rick at sgamble@bfree.on.ca