What do you find to laugh about? I’ve been asked. How can you find the world funny? What are you hiding from? Or why do you refuse to see the world more seriously? If I had a nickel for every time somebody had asked me that question, I’d not be wondering how I’m going to afford my next mortgage payment.
Is it faith, then? Is your spiritual belief so strong? They disavow themselves of that notion upon hearing me describe myself as a straddling Catholic, one foot in the door, the other out.
But perhaps we need to re-evaluate that which I call faith first. In a long-standing battle I have harbored the notion that faith is a belief, not a belief system. On one of my many “discussions” with the Lord I’ve told him that the notions of the current faith systems being utilized today are sadly lacking. Of course the Lord laughs and asks, “since when did you become an expert?” It was then brought to my attention that faith systems are designed to unite people into communities. I know a few fundamentalists see church as being in the presence of God and therefore it is a perception of you and God. These are the ones who usually want to go back to having Latin said at the masses and doing ritual services verbatim as they had been done since the Vatican was established. But I digress. Faith then for me is believing that God does exist and He/She has a bizarre sense of humor.
This does not mean that I laugh in the face of suffering. By no means would I express ill will towards those who are battling the disappointment and disillusionment of life bringing pain. There is much that life endures that causes unhappiness. But in that unhappiness can also be joy.
When you look at a life and all you know of it is the misery and suffering, you ask where is the joy? Where is the light? How can this life endure in such pitying darkness? There lies the crux of the problem; there must be a struggle for the light.
I remember being in a state of anger and disappointment, I don’t remember the exact reason why, and being on the verge of tears and just feeling like I was clinging to a profound hatred. I was tired of the anger, I was tired of the disappointment and I most certainly didn’t want to cling to the hatred anymore. I was at a traffic signal, at an intersection and I remembering saying, “Lord, I don’t think this hatred thing is right. I know you preach love and forgiveness, and I don’t feel very loving or forgiving, but I certainly don’t like the feeling of anger and hatred. It’s not a very comfortable companion!” Not the chatty type, I got the impression (because voices of thunder in the clouds just don’t happen on city streets during lunch hour) that the Lord said, “So give them up?” “Well, I responded, if I don’t worry about them, they’ll do it again! I have to hold on to them so that they won’t” Then the reminder was made “the choice is yours always, hang onto the hate or let go and love.”
That battle is a daily one and applies to everything in life.
