Article 1 - "NOT SUCH A BAD PATH TO WHOLENESS" January 2007 edition of First Church of The Streets

    Has anyone ever told you to "think positive", as though it would be a magic panacea that will make all your ills go away? Most people have probably had this kind of experience. Perhaps the idea of the aphorism is that a cheerful heart can overcome a magnitude of conflicts, and create deeper peace. It seems like a logical thing to say to someone who seems down and out. But maybe the comment may only be a "nice way" to be dismissive of the sufferer, effectively telling the sufferer that his thinking is the real problem and doesn't deserve attention until his focus perks up.

    Of course, it would seem like nonsense to suggest that so-called "negative thinking" would ever be a solution to any problem. But it is also possible that the perennial optimism that believes a smile will cure everything and is always the healthy option has its own extremes. For example, it could be an excuse to not be compassionate to another person. If a person is hungry, is afraid for his/her life because he/she is trying to escape a physically abusive partner, is a political refugee, or is suffering from a terminal illness, a pat on the back and an admonishment to put on a happy face won't change the practical problems the person has. And a person who thinks they have done their duty by saying "think positive" is living a happy delusion that somehow a positive attitude automatically yields explicit results. It is like smile, and abracadabra, all of your problems are all better. Sometimes the happy-wisher is really like the person that James refers to in his letter who wishes the hungry man well but does nothing to feed him (James 2: 15-16).

    But even though it may seem to some that the most common sense thing is to put on a happy face so that the mind is tricked into happiness, this mental game may not really be doing anything but acting as a block to one's soul. The pursuit for happiness at the expense of excluding all other so-called "negative" emotions acts as a roadblock that one dances around. In the meantime, the real destination lies miles ahead past the crevasses, peaks, and ice that is buried in the depths of the path. In this way, happiness and mirth has a way of bouncing off a person. It is a means of slipping into a gaiety that celebrates a great thrill, but is so shallow that one may even forget what the source of all this mirth is, much like a party where everyone was laughing but no one remembers the next day. Acting happy and frilly and silly becomes exactly what it is, a superficial expression that doesn't even come to the core of who one is, and the more it is used as means to get through life, the less one knows of what lies beneath the surface, be it peace or suffering.

    In the book of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher says: "The heart of the wise is the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth" (Eccl 7:3-4). What does he mean by this? Maybe it isn't so much peace and contentment that the Preacher disdains here, but rather, the kind of superficial happiness that tends to laugh it up at every gesture without any thought to what the consequences are. Or perhaps it is criticism of a philosophy centered upon an ego-driven desire to force happiness and gaiety at every gesture, no matter what the circumstance.

    What is more necessary is the joy that comes from living life in its fullest, which is more than a cavalier eat, drink and be merry mentality and telling someone to "snap out of it". When one goes through a dark spot and doesn't run from it, whether it is an external experience such as illness, or an internal experience such as doubt, one has the opportunity to realize what the whole of life is. By truncating one's dark side and "always looking at the positive side", one threatens to cut himself or herself from a part of the soul, excising the part of one's spirit that doesn't fit the happy mold like a tumor. In doing so, a person lessens one's soul and makes oneself smaller. For in a way, this person has rejected the part of the soul that doesn't put on a happy face, not stopping to see if that side of the soul had any lessons to present to him or her.

    One doesn't have to have a perennial long face in order to get this kind of benefit. Rather, like anything, it is more the art of balance. One can look to be grateful, looking at the bright side while going through a trauma like illness or divorce. But concurrently, reality dictates that the illness or divorce will bring some kind of loss and change to a person. In the midst of the gratitude list, it makes sense to see how this loss affects one spirit, and deal what is really there in the mind and spirit, whether it is happiness or suffering. Thus, in the end, one can accept and embrace what is there. Perhaps one could learn to be grateful for the trauma as a learning experience, rather than brushing it away to sniff the flowers

    Finally, when a person goes "to the house of mourning" rather than the "house of mirth", one becomes more empathetic to the suffering outside of the individual sphere. When a person is willing to embrace himself in compassion for his own suffering, he will be more likely to compassionately reach out to another who suffers, because he has acknowledged in himself what another goes through. If one is callous to her own pain, chirping admonishments to "think positive", then she will more likely be annoyed at those who are still "stuck" in suffering. After all, if she isn't allowed to feel pain, why should anyone else? Putting on a happy face becomes a mockery of the human spirit within in its wholeness. It reduces a person to a cutout that is forced to act the part rather than live the spirit. However, when one sees God through her own pain, she can see the spirit of God in all others, no matter what the face says.