Laughter...

Yesterday I dealt with sadness, today I am ready to lighten up!  I mentioned positives and negatives, Yin and Yang, opposite ends of the spectrum that hopefully have a balance point.

Think about laughter and it's counter emotional eruption, crying...fascinating things we humans do, and there is quite a bit of evidence that other animals do as well.  But think about it, what makes us move over the line from smiling to gutteral utterances of joy?  I'll bet our laughter types are all as unique as our fingerprints. 

Check this baby out!  Happy to be born, doesn't know about all that is about to happen, right?

I want that utter bliss and the loss of control that goes with it! Just like this sweet child!

 Of course Clooney laughs all the time, all the way to the bank, all the way to the next beautiful girlfriend. However he doesn't always laugh. He doesn't laugh at the other side. He seeks to help.  Oops, I'm slipping...laugh it up George!

Ah hahahahhahahaha, cackle, cough, oh oh oh, har, har, Ah hahahahaha!

Are you laughing yet? I hope so, if not think of one of the dumbest yet funniest things you have ever done, and let it go.  You deserve to laugh, you are created to laugh (and to cry) but today we are on laughter, so go for it.  Laugh it up!

LOOK, even forced laughter helps! In some cases it might be a matter of life or death!

Even Mona Lisa cracked up, during one setting! 

Are you laughing yet? Please do, let it go, hopefully in public, then watch those around you. You know it's contagious.  We could use an epidemic of laughter. It's therapy, and it will help us face the serious with more aplumb. After all there is sadness in need of repair. Think I will start with myself.  Ah, ha, ha......


Have a fun weekend, friends.

Positives?

I was just about to post a little thought about the balance of things, the positives and the negatives, the pros and cons, the yin-yangs of life, you know. Just before I began, I paused to read Larry James' Urban Daily Blog, which is always poignant, and often painful...today, particularly heart wrenching for me. 

Please take just a moment and read Larry's comments, regarding "Sadness, Deep Sadness", and pay special attention to the final call and question: 

Poverty creates a foreboding culture defined largely by deep, thick sadness.

Good news to the poor always involves driving the sadness out of life--a mission that can be accomplished only in a community that embraces sadness.  To deliver hope a community must live out of a commitment to understanding, honest self-evaluation, and radical dependence on those who know this sadness best, those who live it out every day. 

I wonder if we're up to it?

To answer Larry's question, we have to be up to it!  I know Larry and the fine folks of CitySquare face it everyday, while most of the rest of us choose to turn our mind's eye away. I am very grateful to CitySquare, who try desperately, yet methodically to help our neighbors. I also know that Larry and his team have a foundational belief that "the light shall overcome the darkness".  However, it is so hard to envision a necessary quorum of us, being up to facing sadness, bred of poverty and dealing with it, but we simply must be up to it.  

Larry, you have shown us a way, and the message lives vibrantly. In growing numbers we must open our eyes to the sadness, embrace it indeed and expand the solutions you have initiated.

******

In maturity one begins to see repeatable patterns in life. Yes, with good comes bad, and even negative events usher in new opportunities. Positive and negative charges make the world work elementally   Our decisions rarely yield perfect results, but rather the sets of good things and the not so good. Often, what seems a positive move, yields unexpected negative consequences. Pendulums swing from left to right, dark to light, and offer the possibility of balance, sustainability.

But the weight of sadness, profound sadness, seems not to have a counter balance...or does it? Is there hope? Is there even minuscule possibility for joy, true happiness? I think yes, if we are up to facing the sadness of our neighbors and believing in the potential for light.  If we can learn from the sadness, find hope, and participate in solutions, perhaps some sadness can be made to change directions.  Perhaps, just perhaps...