Good Cheer
Weekly Reading Topic for June 29, 2019: Good Cheer
Well, good morning, love!
I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:
What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?
The answer was: “good cheer.”
This one feels like a real love letter. What follows is your Weekly Reading.
Weekly Reading │ Good Cheer
Q: What do you mean, “good cheer?”
A: Well, for one thing, it doesn’t mean “Stay Positive … or ELSE!” So don’t worry, this isn’t some glass-half-full BS. [It may be some other kind of BS, but I leave that judgment to you.]
So, here’s the thing: it’s OK to have a good time, even when everything/one around you seems to be telling you to be miserable.
Sometimes we think, mistakenly, that in order to Be Taken Seriously or Take Something Seriously we must Be Serious Ourselves. And it’s just not true.
It’s OK to find something totally hilarious, ridiculously tender, or savagely sweet even when you’re dealing with a terrible, no good, very bad, awful day/week/month/year/life.
It’s OK to let yourself have a moment of relief from the tedium of brokenheartedness.
It’s OK to be a little smiley in the face of great tragedy.
Tragedy and Humor are twinned mirrors of each other, inextricably linked, married for all eternity until death do all of us part. The drama/comedy masks are always connected to each other, two sides of the same face, two sides of the same head.
We should never, ever, beat ourselves up for finding joy in the midst of sadness.
This is a tough sell for some of us. Some of us think that if we are waiting for a business problem to resolve, or for a loved one to heal from an injury, or cash flow to increase, we should maintain a tight, stern focus on the issue at hand. We should spend our time Worrying or Thinking About or Praying, depending upon our proclivities.
We think that noticing a beautiful bird song while we’re wheeling our grandmother out to the hospital courtyard is an insult to her.
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We think that taking a moment to hug our spouse when they haven’t yet Done the Thing They Should Do is giving in.
We think that reading the book we REALLY want to read when we haven’t yet written the important email is delinquency.
We think that taking a five-minute nap with our pup in a puddle of sunlight is a sneaky, underhanded act of laziness.
We think that laughing hysterically while we’re still grieving the death of a sibling is an affront.
We think that admiring the wainscoting instead of the drone of the sermon is a sacrilege.
Not true. We are humans with human brains, and human brains are wired to Notice Things. And the Things We Notice are the things that shape our world.
So if you’re in a tough spot, and you’re suffering, or your loved ones are suffering, and all you do is focus on the suffering, and don’t allow your brain to notice anything else, well, you’re sort of handcuffing yourself. You’re telling that big, beautiful brain to limit itself, and therefore, to limit you, and therefore, to limit life.
Stop it!
Life is only for the living, people. It really is. Living is not about Getting It All Right. It’s not about Being Perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect way to grieve, or grind at a job, or run a grueling marathon of an illness.
There is only the way you are doing those things, right now. And when the world offers you a little laugh, or a flower, or a bird, or a breeze, it’s doing it to remind you that life is lived each moment, not in great arcs of time, not even in minutes or hours or months or days.
It’s lived second by second. And if you end up at the end of your life with more seconds spent wresting your attention away from the good and happy, well, you might be a little upset with yourself.
Living as if the birds aren’t singing, there are no rainbows or love songs or handholding … that’s not life.
When God/Universe/Unity/Consciousness/Whatever-You-Call-That-Awesome-Huge-Something-Bigger-Than-Us looks at us humans, God doesn’t see us as failing. If we make mistakes, or we endure hardship, God looks at us exactly like we look at little puppies who aren’t housetrained yet, or infants still in diapers.
“Oh, sweetie, you had a little accident? Let’s clean that up and get you dried off.”
No rubbing our noses in the excrement. No scolding. We’re too little, and sweet, and tender, for that. We’re working so hard to be Good Humans, after all. And being human is really, really tough. It’s not easy for any of us. There are big emotions, and big brains that think too much, and clumsy limbs that trip us up, and bodies that betray us all life long, with their need for food and water and light and air.
So this weekend, as you prepare for the long week ahead (and it looks like it will be quite busy), take a moment or three or sixty to notice the many causes for good cheer in your life. Give yourself full permission to enjoy them, even if they are fleeting, even if they seem insignificant.
The raindrops beading on the flower petals. The soft springy grass. The lip of the cup as it rises to your loved one’s lips. The graceful gesture of the five-year-old’s fingers. The cradle of your pillow when you lay down for sleep. The small soft snores of your cat. The way the headlights of passing cars climb your wall and disappear in that one dark corner.
The endless, onrushing velvet night sky, spangled with stars, the wonder of knowing that those pinpricks of light are clouds of mysterious vapors. The way that still, even after all these years on this planet, you have to plaster yourself against the ground while you stare up at the Milky Way, because otherwise, your child mind knows that you will fall, spinning, back to the place where we all started.
Be of good cheer, this weekend, and if you are really struggling with something, allow those small moments of good cheer to prick through, little stars against your gathering night.
Oh, how I love you, and how happy I am to think of all of us, practicing Good Cheer, even if it is awkward and weird and unfamiliar! I am always here to serve in any way I can.
Much Love to You,
Molly
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