Lifeletter # 163: The Laughing Jesus

Every little moment has something to give, if I can just listen.

I am sitting in my kitchen, trying to mend my cat’s favourite toy, which has been mangled to death. I am fiercely intent on threading a needle, and it’s proving to be very difficult. How come I can talk to Siri, and send voice texts, and reach people all across the globe with skype and zoom, and I cannot thread a needle?  My ancestors knew how to thread a needle, but I don’t seem to have this very basic capacity.  And I don’t think youtube can help me out here.

One more time, I’m holding the needle up to the light, breathing steadily, moving the thread towards this tiny little hole, praying that the black thread will enter the magic silver gateway. Why does this moment remind me of so many others, when something very basic and simple  is not so easy after all?

Jesus talked about this didn’t he? He said that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It turns out that the needle he was talking about was a very narrow gate in the wall at Jerusalem, where camels, heavily loaded with baggage, could not pass through.

Am I the rich man, the rich woman, loaded down like a camel? What am I so full of, that I can’t even thread a needle? What is the state of poverty that lets me pass through the gateway? What do I have to lay down here, to enter into this tiny hole? What do I need to let go of, to enter into the kingdom?

What am I holding onto, that needs to be laid down?

I try again, as I contemplate this riddle, this infuriating koan, letting it drop into my body, into my breath. What can I let go of, right now?

I keep listening, breathing, waiting. The moment whispers softly to me, “Relax…how much does this really matter?”

Something starts to light up, inside me. I realize I can lay my efforting down at the door of this little gate, this tiny hole I am trying to enter. I am trying too hard. My seriousness is what needs to be offered up.

So I call up my ‘what the hell’ energy. I call on the playful one, the carefree one, the gay one,  the innocent one. She who has nothing to prove. Remember her? She gets lost so easily, pushed into the background, marginalized. She’s like a refugee, wandering lost, without a home.

I call on her, I whistle for her the way I call for my cat, when she is out prowling in the windy night. And she comes, like a soft breeze, into the room, into my body and into my heart.

I feel my body and mind relax, and give up the struggle.

I pick up the needle, bring the thread towards that tiny sliver of a hole, and it goes right through. I don’t know how I did it. No idea.

What I do know is that sometimes, playfulness rules the day, rules the moment. It’s a  resource that our left brain, our striving mind, will never ever get a handle on. Going from A to B feels so logical, so obvious, so serious. And it traps us in a narrow place, where joy does not live.

Most churches do not offer us images of Jesus cutting loose, enjoying himself fully. But we know he did. He was profoundly human; that was the glory of his incarnation. He was willing to show up for the whole human experience. Why do we not know and love the wild Jesus, or the Mary full of laughter and exuberance? Let’s spend some time this Christmas celebrating the Jesus who danced with everyone, who laughed freely and loved deeply; who sat down and ate at huge tables, and drank wine and loved life.

When Moses came down from the mountain with those ten commandments, I wish one of them had been, “Please my children, don’t take yourselves too seriously. Learn how to laugh at yourselves. This is one of the doorways to heaven.”

 

with love,

Shayla

 

Credit: Picture of ‘Jesus Christ, Liberator’ by Willis Wheatley