Keep Your Humor

Well, friends, here it is Thursday morning so I guess I will attempt a post in order to stay in practice. This week, looking and listening for the signs, it seems I need to deal with anger. I was fixing dinner and had the TV on in the background for "white noise". It was a replay of Oprah's interview with David Arquette, and for some reason a quote he offered in discussing his own problems really jumped out at me. He couldn't offer a source, and despite a search I couldn't find a definitive source, but will offer it anyway. "Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

I know very few people who have never been angry with someone. And holding a grudge is just destructive to the holder, it doesn't touch the grudge-ee. Feeling angry all the time is a miserable way to live. I do agree with that quote - in terms of human relationships. But what about being angry with God? If I am angry with God do I really expect God to die? We don't talk much about dealing with anger toward God, almost making it unacceptable. But there are plenty of examples in the Bible of people who get angry, who question, and God is big enough to take it. In my opinion, dealing with not getting the answer you want is a bigger problem than actually being angry with God. It is hard to be thankful and in relationship with God when God's answer is not the one you want.

Seems I keep getting the message over and over to be thankful, anyway. This week brought more bad news, horrific news actually. A friend of my daughter, 22 years old, brilliant, sweet, talented, generous, is fighting one of the most deadly forms of brain cancer. (I ask that you add Kim and her family to your prayers today, as she bravely faces this opponent down.) I am going to be honest, at first I was really, really sad. But then I got really, really angry. At God. Why do these things keep happening?

News like that just points out how blatantly good my life is, how very grateful I should be. Sure, my kids are far away (having the time of their lives), my work and day-to-day activities aren't the dream life society tells me I "should" have, but I have it good. For now we have a comfortable home, transportation, food, health care, family, church, community, safety,...health. What is there to be angry about? Really?

In my own defense, I am going to lay some of this at the feet of the media. We are constantly inundated with all the bad news, all the things going wrong, making it easy to fall into a mind set of scarcity and fear. In a culture of negativity it is difficult to be positive. In a culture that focuses on me-me-me, it is difficult to remember that we are each fighting our own battles. For instance, the person who just cut me off on "Manslaughter Road" may be rushing to the hospital to see to a loved one, not just trying to make me really, really angry. The volunteer who failed to show up may have just learned that they are very, very sick. Gosh, I can think up generous, "forgivable" reasons for the things that make me angry instead of always going to the negative and looking at how it impacts me.

One of my favorite Bette Midler songs, "Laughing Matters", sums it up for me. I offer those lyrics here as a reminder to myself - keep it in perspective, and keep your humor. And be thankful, I really do have it pretty good.

Live at Five and CNN
Keep us all abreast
of breaking stories that can tend
to make us anxious and depressed.
Problems with no answers hang on like some chronic cough
And every day, some brand new issue,
Rears it's head to piss you off.

Bad guys win.
Optimism's wearing thin.
Things are spinning out of control.
Cynicism's all the fad.
World events can make us mad as hatters.
Almost every day,
Some underpinning slips away.
Friends, these aren't laughing matters.

Time bombs tick.
People keep on getting sick.
And a nickel's not worth a cent.
Wickedness and greed abound.
Just as peace is gaining ground it's shattered.
Hate is here to stay,
And justice goes to those who pay.
Friends, these aren't laughing matters.

The truth is scarier by far
Than anything that Stephen King could write.
The stories in the paper are
The daily small decline and fall
Spelled out in black and white.

Oh what to do, what to do?
How to take a brighter view
When your noodle's totally fried?
Human spirits need to be
Leavened with a little levity.
So take those blues and bounce them off the wall.
Keep your humor, please,
'Cause don't you know it's times like these when
Laughing matters most of all.