balance

Humor: #1

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Calming Humor

An article on the traits of calming people listed humor as a way to “lighten the mood”. Since one goal of my spiritual life is tranquility I read the piece, though my chest tightened thinking how “humor” has hurt me. Ridicule, sarcasm, put downs, racial or religious humor don’t feel funny. Bury the blond jokes, the Polish jokes, the Jewish jokes, and all the others. Joking at one person’s expense to make someone else feel better is sick. For years I was abused by those forms of “humor”. I even used them to entertain others. Once I realized humor was painful I avoided it. Only in the last decade has a healthy (strange) humor entered to my conversational repertoire.

 

 

My humor derives of noticing incongruities: the four year old wearing a packer sweatshirt over a pink fluffy tutu. I laugh at animal behavior such as the incident where a robin sat on top of the suet feeder, bent over to peck at the food. A red-bellied woodpecker landed on the opposite side of the feeder and looked up. Seeing the robin’s butt, the woodpecker used his long bill to poke the robin in the rear, thus taking control of the feeder. An additional source of humor is ME. So many times I plan for one outcome only to have to deal with another. Reminds me of the quote, “The best laid plans of mice and men”. Laughing at myself relieves many a difficult situation.

 

Healthy humor and the ability to laugh at life is a gift. What about you? How does humor enhance your life? Can you share it?

Silence

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The Sound of Silence

The space between my presence and the twitter of birds

The cradle of my night

A bubble racing over black tar

The cat crossing the laminate floor

Eighty-eight ivories following the New Year’s party

Conversations with God

Time that’s stopped

The laughter that isn’t mine

Blinking eyes

Watercolor poppies on canvas

Silence envelops my body

Oh, that it would enter my brain.

 

The Past Returns

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The clashes in Charlottesville and Boston disturb me. My breath is shallow; my muscles tense. Memories of growing up in Atlanta with segregated buses, lunch counters, and restrooms flow into my day, and join memories of living in Chicago during the race riots and the 1968 Democratic Convention. I was a driver on the Dan Ryan Expressway when warnings were posted that rocks and bricks were being thrown off the overhead bridges. Protests over Vietnam broke out and shooting of Kent State students occurred. I moved to Madison, WI in time for the explosion of the math building, National Guard staking out university and state buildings, and the teargasing of students. This list is overwhelming without mentioning the atmosphere of the Cold War, Space flight, Cuban Crisis, Watergate and more.

What happened to my spiritual website? The above events don’t fit. Or do they?

Pause. Breathe. On my left, a floor-to-ceiling window at McDonald’s lets in sunshine, a large diet coke leaves rings on the table close to my pen and paper. I am safe. I take time to examine the past hoping for personal peace with the present.

I lived through those events physically unharmed. Shaking my head in disbelief, I recall one afternoon as I drove down University Ave. in Madison. The four-lane was deserted. The total emptiness was uncomfortable. At home I turned on the news. That afternoon the National Guard had tear-gassed students only a block from my path. Yet I was safe. This type of occurrence affirms the presence of God in my life.

Seeing the recent angry crowds, my brain froze. I forgot how often God has protected me. I need to pause and breathe. I need to say a pray, maybe just “Help”. Muscles relax. Calmness covers me. “Thanks, God.” I trust my answers will come.

Two Halves of Life

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“…there are at least two major tasks to human life. The first task is to build a strong ‘container’ or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.” (Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, p.xiii)

          I image my life in the form of a basket. This basket exhibits the goals of my life: identity, accomplishments, status, and separateness from others. For many decades I’ve woven my actions and beliefs into it. The base is my birth potential (intelligence, coloring, athletic ability, etc.). The sides, made up of staves, represent the influences in my life (parents and relatives, education, religion or culture, hobbies, jobs, mates, and environment). In and out, around the staves, I wove my choices. Over time these staves have become twisted, bent, broken, squeezed, or pushed out of alignment. The pattern of my basket is irregular.

         That weaving now nears the top. As I gaze at my basket, I realize it is empty. How will I fill it? My stomach clutches. The center has nothing to hold on to. I will no longer have the support of the staves. Will I adventure into this openness or cling to the staves, leaving the center empty until I die? Working on the weaving and repairing the staves would be much easier than free floating in the emptiness. Despair announces its presence in thoughts of death. Where was my life going? I have a home. My career is over; I’m retired. I’m finished?

         Reading Rohr’s book, I realize my life isn’t over. Though frightening, I am releasing my grip on basket sides, one finger at a time and venturing into open space, where the second half of my life begins. There I’ll find true spirituality.