Mirth

Mirth - noun: "gaiety or jolity, especially when accompanied by laughter. Amusement or laughter."  From Middle English circa 900 CE mirthe

Mirth is a word not often heard in modern US English.  I'm claiming it and bringing it back. Having its rise in the medieval period, a time we don't often think of as happy, with Crusades, heresy trials, debt prisons, and lack of sanitation....  Yet sometimes, in the worst of times, a certain social counter-response evolves to aid in coping. This is my proposal: could we adopt mirth as a virtue to counteract the worst of our times?

This week, the sourpus man occupying the office of US President decided to cast his dour aspersions upon the late-night comedians. Steven Colbert had already been handed his termination notice by NBC a couple of weeks ago, and this week, through FCC arm-twisting, ABC/Disney has obediently silenced Jimmy Kimmel. The President suggested that Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers might be next.  Laughter, or mirth, is most definitely not feelings or responses that a would-be dictator, trying to look the part of a serious strongman, wants his subjects to be snickering at.  Overwrought seriousness is a vice that stifles creativity.  It is part of life-squashing domination and the sign of imposed respect expected from us as the power tools of cruelty, political violence, inexplicable arrests, and ripping up of the US Constitution take unmistakable shape and rip lives apart. 

However, we, the People, have a far different goal/perspective for our lives.  It is succinctly expressed in our Declaration of Independence (from another despot 250 years ago): "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Additionally, those are words that I believe God wants for us, the Creator's vision and hope for us.  Let's face it.  Religion is frowned upon, disparaged, and tossed in the fire because certain power-hungry, attention-driven (mostly) men usurped God's place and put themselves in as the definers and arbiters of what they wanted God to say to aid their domination of their subjects.  And Christianity ever since has had the unglorious reputation of being a violent, dour, rule-dominated, threatening, sorry excuse for what is the Beauty of the Universe.  A Beauty that values mirth, as in the dancing sparkle on the surface of a mountain lake or stream.  The majestic palette of color in a sunset/sunrise, or on the trees in the Fall.  The first giggle from a beloved child, or that special way your beloved's face lights up. These are the gifts and delights God desperately wants us to feel and share with each other. For when mirth is present, love (another virtue) blossoms and spreads.

Love, and the mirth I very much expect God expresses to all angelic beings (human and supernatural), is what also magnifies the goodwill and embrace of our shared humanity.  We are not and never were created to be subjects to anyone. We were created as companions to the Most High in the very beginning.  We were granted free will, and in freedom we love with all our powers. Companions, partners, co-conspirators of mirth. So today smile/laugh!  Spread the joy of knowing your true place in a life created for mirth and love, and the dominators be damned.