Tag Archives: Laughing

The Mouth Knows

Are we spiritual people?  I don’t even know what that means.  Perhaps you do.  It might point to communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It might be to walk in the steps of the Dalai Lama.  To be in prayer as you kneel by the bed and as you walk down Main Street.  To be loving and compassionate.  To have equanimity in your heart, undisturbed by the events of the day.  To lead a solitary life, cloistered away from the teeming masses and the volatile emotions.  Or to hug every person you meet.

I have a theory that there’s one experience essential for the open heart, the open hands, the Spirit.  I won’t share my opinion just now.  I trust you’ll feel it at the end of the story which follows.

A couple from snowy Minnesota decided to take a winter vacation back in the simple Florida resort where they had stayed for a honeymoon twenty-five years before.  Because of his wife’s delayed work schedule, the husband went first, and then when he got there he received a message that she would meet him soon.  So he sent her this e-mail in reply.  But because he typed one letter wrong in the e-mail address, it went by mistake to an old woman in Oklahoma, whose minister husband had died the day before.  Here is what she read:

“Dearest,

Well the journey is over and I have finally arrived.  I was surprised to find they have e-mail here now.  They tell me you’ll be coming soon.  It will be good to be together again.  

Love as always.

P.S.  Be prepared.  It’s quite hot down here.”

Laughing About It All

In the Evolutionary Collective, we have the opportunity to meet online several times a week. During part of our hour together, each of us is paired with another participant to do the mutual awakening practice. Today I was listening to a fellow from Florida who’s fairly new to the EC.

“Maury” kept saying all these very cool, outside-of-the-box things. My eyes continually widened, and I started laughing, over and over again. I knew I was supposed to keep silent as he spoke but I was too enthralled to keep my mouth closed. I was swept up into the celebration of his words, and my joy kept exploding with his. Deep belly laughs burst out of me. Lovely.

Right now, I’m trying to think of the stuff he said and I can’t remember a darned thing! And guess what? I’m laughing again. Oh, this is strange … and delightful. Why am I so happy with the forgetting of today’s moments?

Tonight I’m going to a meeting in London that probably will last till 11:00. Up until five minutes ago, my understanding was that freezing rain will start around 10:00, leaving me with a wild ride back to Belmont. Now AccuWeather says the downflow will begin in the wee hours. Still, when I thought that I’d be slip-sliding away on my return home, I began laughing again. I imagined my new friend Ruby floating into the ditch and getting banged up some … and still guffaws poured out. What kind of insanity is this? I can’t just laugh my way through all the trials and tribulations of life (can I?)

I’m reminded of “Dustin”, a Buddhist meditation teacher of mine from years ago. He told us yogis about a teacher of his. The very old guy had developed a terminal illness. Time was short. He gathered his students around him, including Dustin, and proceeded to tell them that he had maybe a week left. Sadness poured down over the group. And then the esteemed one began laughing uproariously … “Yes! Only a few more days!” Dustin was stunned, dumbfounded, and any other incredulous word you can think of. Woh … so am I.

***

So, my friends, shall we just chuckle our way through the journey?
Shall we be totally outrageous here?
Shall we drink deep of the mysterious elixir?
What do you say?

Ha! Ha! Ha!

That’s the sound of me laughing at myself.  I’m so not good at mechanical things, electrical things … lots of things.

Exhibit A: lawn tractor and air compressor

It was time to cut the lawn for the first time this season.  I’ve fantasized about my dear neighbours working on placards in their basements, with nifty slogans such as “Move your ass on the grass” and “Kerr forest growing daily”.  So I started the lawn tractor in our backyard shed and drove it past the house to our driveway.  At which point the front right tire came off its rim.

The tire was looking squished under the weight of the tractor so I took the jack out of Scarlet, our Toyota Corolla, and got the tire into the air.  There!  See, I’m mechanical.

Jody and I bought an air compressor a few years ago and happily I remembered where I had stored it.  Not so happily, the machine’s manual has flown the coop.  Jody was really organized and had alphabetical files for each of our outdoor apparatuses.  (Is that a word?)  But “compressor” or “air” were nowhere to be found.  Oh, Bruce, where did you leave that thing?  And then … “Ha! Ha! Ha!”  It’s so comforting to laugh at my foibles.  Too bad it’s taken me six decades to get to this point.  Oh well.  Perhaps an averagely handy guy would know how to operate the compressor, but that’s not me.  I was especially put off by the warning labels: danger this and danger that.  I phoned the 1-800 number for Rona – the store where we’d bought the beast.  “We don’t have manuals.  But your compressor was made by Black and Decker.  Try them.”  I did but nobody was at home at 6:05 pm.  Mañana.

I now sit reflecting on my lack of male skills, smiling as I do so.  I have many good qualities.  They just don’t happen to include household maintenance.

Exhibit B: TV audio

Jody and I had owned an XM radio for years, and sometimes listened to it in Hugo (our Honda CRV).  But not much recently.  So a month ago I cancelled the subscription and had an audio store remove the hardware.  Just before I went to Belleville, I decided to get the family room in order, so I got rid of the XM radio docking station that was connected to our TV and sound system.  Simple really … all you have to do is pull some cables out and voilà – no XM.  Also no sound from the TV, Playstation 3 or sound system.  (Sigh)  I looked at the ports – audio in, audio out, serial data, IR emitter …  Gosh.  What came from where?  I had no clue then nor now.  A week without TV hasn’t killed me but there were a few shows I had wanted to watch.

And now it’s time once again, ladies and gentlemen, for “Ha! Ha! Ha!”  I just don’t have a clue.  Humbling life is, wouldn’t you say?  May I ever smile at all the “not knowing” in my life.