Today’s Life-line is:

Joy, laughter, and delight are so powerful because,
like all mysticism,
they abolish conventional divisions,
in this case the division between
secular and sacred.

~ Dorothee Soelle

I have long appreciated what I call “the second stringers” in the spiritual life. They are the qualities, values, virtues, attitudes, and actions whose commitment, worth, importance, and contributions are underappreciated, given less attention and credit, bask infrequently in the lime-light but commonly sit in the shadow of the first string stars. Even among what traditionally are called the Three Theological Virtues—Faith, Hope, and Charity—like the proverbial middle child, Hope knows it didn’t get the raucous celebration the first child got and doesn’t get the feigning fuss that the baby and the last of the litter received. So, Hope knows what it’s like to have siblings like Faith and Love who get all the headlines, and drag tin cans behind them wherever they go.

Like Jesus—or maybe because of Jesus—I have a soft spot in my heart for those who sit on the bench, for the second strings in the orchestra who don’t get any solos, for all those who contribute to the overall performance even if they are deemed less valuable. I rather like the team that Jesus put together and announced in the Beatitudes, the back of whose jerseys bore names like: poor in spirit, mourners, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, pure heart, peacemaker, persecuted for doing right, reviled. Not the kind of team King Herod would have assembled.

Because of my soft spot, when it comes to teaching Christian spirituality or spiritual formation, in addition to the beatitudes, I’m drawn to topics like humility, yearning, kindness, silence, beholding, deep sympathy, nature, weeping, dance, creativity, stillness, hospitality, wonder, friendship, and—as Dorothee Soelle draws our attention to—joy, laughter, and delight.

The main reason I like to teach about these is because they are less susceptible to be contorted to fit a particular tradition’s doctrine or dogma. There is no such thing as Presbyterian mercy or Buddhist tears or Moslem silence or Catholic radical amazement or Jewish creativity. Each tradition may have its particular emphases or expressions of these aspects of being human, but no one owns laughter. No one owns justice. No one owns compassion. No one owns joy. No one owns passion. Though we are all responsible for their incarnations.

Would it not be wiser, would the earth community not be better, if we came together with all our differences and were united by these common human experiences, qualities, and ways of being? Even within the full spectrum of Christianity where there is, at best, so much diversity, at worst, so much divisiveness, would we not be better and do better for the world if we stopped imposing our doctrines or dogmatic views on one another and instead met around the table united by what makes us human as well as better people connected by things like listening, acceptance, reverence, sadness, meal-sharing, longing, awe, music, generosity, pathos, concern (let alone beer and ice cream)?

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