THE WHOOPS FACTOR

              I worked for a while for a company that had several buildings, and I was often given the job of delivering documents and papers from one building to another. It was a menial job, but as they say, somebody had to do it. One day I was sent to a particular building that had almost all glass outside walls.

          As a young man, I really wanted to appear to have my act together— smooth, and confident. After all, at that time, I wasn’t sure where my life was heading, and I wanted to make a good impression on people who might possibly have a role in it. I suppose this is as good of a time as any to confess “act together… smooth and confident” has never been an accurate way of describing me as a young man or even as an old man, for that matter.

          I entered the building with a smile and was greeted by a friendly receptionist whose desk was in this very large receiving area, with sofas and chairs with several people sitting in them apparently waiting for their important appointments with someone. She made me feel quite welcome and a normal part of the company we both served. I walked over to her desk and handed her an envelope containing some “important papers” for one of the executives in that building, and then I said my “have a nice day” and turned to leave, and proceeded to walk right into the glass wall, completely missing the door through which I entered only a moment ago..

          Chuckles all around—I had given an otherwise perhaps tense, serious-minded group of people a good laugh as the blood rushed to my face. Rather sheepishly, I turned to my audience and said, “I meant to do that,” which gave them a second round of laughter. Of course I didn’t mean to do it and I knew that they knew that I was joking. I didn’t work for that company for very long and all’s well that ends well.

          Embarrassing moments are only one of many kinds of life experiences for which a good laugh is just the right medicine to help us recover. There have been many articles and books written on that subject, but sometimes we are so caught up with intense emotions that we can’t see the door out of them that leads to the fresh air of joy and relief.

          I wouldn’t want you to think for a minute that I am not aware of the seriousness of pain, suffering, heartache, and sorrow. I am quite aware of life situations that are not humorous in any way, shape, or form. As a minister, I have sat with many families in my career who were going though extremely painful times, and I myself have had some of those as well. I would never want to trivialize the power of difficult circumstances.

          However I would want to say that we also need to be able to laugh from time to time, sometimes at ourselves and sometimes at our predicaments.  You know the old saying, “we’ll laugh about this later,” which is often true, but there is also laughter or relilef that is readily available if we choose to look for it.

          Those of you who know me well, know that humor, in addition to music, is one of my favorite things. In my preaching days, I was fond of using humor in my sermons. In general conversation, I often interject a comment or two with a humorous slant to it (which, by the way, not everyone finds all that funny). It’s just who I am. And in my own personal life, I love to watch stand-up comedy, read humorous books, watch light-hearted movies, etc. YouTube has become a good friend of mine as a wonderland of entertainment.

          As we’re going through this very difficult time of converging of crises, we are all experiencing different emotions, sometimes from day to day. Often there doesn’t seem to be a logical explanation as to why one day we’re up and the next we’re down. One thing is for sure, at least to me: in the midst of this, self-care is extremely important, health-wise and spirit-wise.      If I can offer any advice to anyone, I would say that from time to time, we should and/or need to be intentional about stepping aside from all that harasses us in the way of news and responsibilities, and allow ourselves moments to pursue some form of joy and relief for the sake of ourselves as well as for our contribution of good energy to the world around us.