Day 5: A Tea Meditation Moment

A cup of tea on this typically frenetic Monday morning.

I was in such need of this cup of tea, I couldn't even wait to take the photo.
The Rooster, even cracked, he laughs at me

Someone has a "case of the Mondays," and it's me. And so, I reach for my old standby - Kaiser from Mariages Freres. It's kind of funny that the one black tea blend that I often find the most comfort in is one I can't easily find myself. I have to rely on my good friends who visit family in France annually to smuggle the goods back to me, or my dear A.H. in Germany, who has been known to send me a surprise ounce when I've been particularly out of sorts.

There's that saying, "Man plans, God laughs." While I tend to focus more on the absurdity of my need to plan things to the nth degree and invariably get derailed with one or several monkey wrenches, the part I am wanting to focus on is the second part: God laughs. It's easy to get huffy that God would laugh at us, but what I need to learn is that God is not laughing at us. He's laughing because he has a sense of humor at it all. Something I am well aware I do not have enough of.

When my husband talk about his mom (who has 10 children), he often mentions how nothing rattles her, how she just laughs at everything. And it's true. She cares very deeply about each of her children and their families, and her regular letters and phone calls are testament to that, but she has learned to keep absolutely everything in perspective and see the humor in it all.

I, however, do not. As demonstrated over the weekend when Edward the dog escaped through the front door as my arms were occupied with the baby. He shot out joyfully - free at last! free at last! - as I tried to decide how to contain baby and 4-yr-old. Husband has stitches, so he couldn't run after the dog. It was all on me. At one point, I took a dive for his collar, and wiped out on the grass, and have the grass-stained knee to prove it. Instead of laughing at the ridiculousness of the entire situation (as my entire family looked on), I fumed throughout most of the morning, as we had our "family time." Does this mom know how to create a fun family weekend or what? Any attempt on my family's part to laugh at mom's superhero dive was met with icy silence.

Sigh.

We were created for happiness. One needs only to look at a platypus or proboscis monkey to realize our Creator has a very good sense of humor. Our bodies are predispositioned for happiness, as we need only force ourselves to put a smile on our face and our chemistry changes toward the positive.

Billy Graham, said, "A keen sense of humor helps us to overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerate the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected, and outlast the unbearable.”

I shake my head at my own hypocrisy, as I chide my 4-year-old for getting upset over little things. I encourage her to laugh about it, to see how funny it is. And yet the examples she sees...

I like the story that came out about Pope Francis as he completed his first meal with the cardinals who chose him, he toasted the group by saying, "May God forgive you for what you've done."

Today, I intend to look for the humor in the humiliating or unexpected, and allow myself the luxury of not taking myself (or others) too seriously.

Here's an example for me on keeping light what could be so terribly formal and serious.