Day 11 Laugh Often

I come from a long line of laughers. We love stories, jokes, and seeing the funny thing within a situation. We can be snarky, bawdy, and completely inappropriate. We’ll be in the middle of a funeral and someone usually my brother Chuck will notice something awry and whisper it in my ear and I’ll almost pee my pants laughing - the whole pew will be rocking. Mom will look at us with that look that mom’s can use but not so seriously that we think we’re in trouble because we value humor.

I listen to many comedians on Netflix, so much so that during pandemic I had to remind myself that watching streaming video is not my job. I make time to expose myself to comedies and funny movies because the day seems better when I do so!

Part of my research this past year has been to consider what there is about humor and its importance to the soul. According to Peter Berger, a sociologist, humor is part of our everyday life and is a universal phenomenon.

“The experience of the comic is universal. While its expression differs greatly from one culture to another, there is no human culture without it.”

— Peter L. Berger in Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience

Mom used to say, “laughter is the best medicine.” I certainly feel better after listening to a comedian or hearing something funny. Well according to Mayo Clinic, laughter serves several beneficial functions including (a) stimulating organs by increasing our intake of oxygen and releasing endorphins, (b) activating and relieving stress, and (c) soothing tension.

So here I am today reminding myself to laugh often….and encouraging you to do likewise!

Quote source: Link to Amazon

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Day 5 Breathing a New Dawn

Day 5 Breathing a New Dawn represents our daily opportunity to anticipate newness. Transitioning from night to day presents this momentary liminal space wherein we stand in what was and not yet. An invitation if you will to imagine possibility and express gratitude.

Liminality is a term coined by Arnold van Gennep, expanded upon by Victor Turner, to represent transitional periods in a person or group’s life. Liminal states can be experienced as fluidity, ambiguty, and like you’re there and here where there is the former and the here represents the not yet. A person traveling through a liminal state can feel disoriented in the both/and way one might when things are in flux. This sort of flux is not necessarily negative or bad - just an aspect of transition. Fascinating was reading about Christine Valters Paintner’s dawn descriptively characterized as a liminal space.

“Dawn is one of the sacred hinges of the day, a threshold moment when we move from darkness to light, and that shift to light can become a portal to a new beginning. Each morning when we awaken, we might open to the possibilities it offers us.”

— Christine Valters Paintner in breath prayer

I hadn’t considered awaking in terms of night/day, rest/awake, what was/what will be. It’s this future possibility that is intriguing. And isn’t it the idea of a future which motivates someone to embark upon a change? This possibility of a future state propels us toward action. So it is with starting a workout plan, not solely for the sake of working out but for the spiritual journey, my intuitive awareness that the process is about possibility. The breath prayer presented by Christine Valters Paintner: “I breathe in possibility, I breathe out gratitude” is an invitation “to dwell for a little while longer in that in-between space where dreams and rest can still inform your way of being present to the moment.”

Quote source: link to amazon.com: