I am a student of smileology and have been almost all my life. If you can’t smile at something, it’s not worth thinking about.
Of course, certain things in life are serious, but not so many. Too many people take everything seriously and ruin their lives. These are the kind of people I like to be with because they take things very seriously and that’s why the jokes on them.
When I see someone who looks sad, I have an impulse to try to do something to make them laugh. It is that smile on our face that defines who we are.
There are times when I need to be careful with my smile. I find a lot to laugh at and, to be honest, the Gracious Lady of the Parsonage has given me quite a bit to laugh at. I don’t know if she has taught me to laugh or if I have taught her to laugh. The result is the only thing that matters. We laugh together, and that makes a good life.
We must be careful when watching programs that deal with politicians because of the danger of dying of laughter. Every politician has their role model like Charlie Chaplin.
When I told my wife this, she vehemently disagreed.
“Oh no,” he said more forcefully, “his role model is the Three Stooges.”
When he is right, he is right, and with this, he is absolutely right.
We enjoyed a long therapeutic session of laughter.
Then a certain chapter was opened in our life. We were having dinner together and my wife said, “Do you know that my friend couldn’t access Facebook?”
I laughed because I thought it was some kind of joke.
“No,” I laughed, “what kind of foolish thing did he do to deserve that?”
I replied, “Doesn’t she know that her world doesn’t revolve around Facebook? Tell her to go and find a life.”
In the next week, I found out about several of my friends who had been blocked from their Facebook. These friends were good people, and I couldn’t understand why in the world Facebook would block them. They probably did something terrible. Why else would Facebook block them?
It seems like every week I hear of someone being blocked from Facebook, and I could never figure out the reasons for that. I just laughed and thought maybe they did something wrong.
After all, Facebook is always right. (Or do they lean to the left?) I could never figure that out.
Every time I hear that one is blocked, I just smile and laugh and forget about it.
I learned a lesson, don’t laugh at something when you don’t know the whole story.
One day last week, I got up, had my coffee, and went to my chair to do some reading, and then grabbed my iPad to check out my Facebook page.
I guess this is an automatic thing, and I don’t think about it too much.
While I was opening my Facebook page, a message appeared saying that I had been blocked from accessing Facebook. Obviously, according to them, and they are never wrong, things have been put on my Facebook that did not correlate with their standards.
Someone hacked my account and started posting stuff I had no idea about.
When I told my wife about my lockout on Facebook, she laughed.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Well,” he laughed, “you must have done something horrible for Facebook to block you.”
Just to pause here; I wasn’t laughing!
Then it reminded me of all our blocked Facebook friends and how much we laughed and laughed.
“Yes,” I said sadly, “but that has nothing to do with me. I’m blocked!”
He looked at me with one of those looks of his and kept looking at me. He was making me a little nervous by the look on her face. Then he finally he said, “Your world doesn’t revolve around Facebook. Go get yourself a life.”
At that point, I wasn’t laughing, but was beginning to do the opposite of laughing. I can’t tell you what it is now.
The rest of the day I reflected on my situation. She didn’t know how much time she spent on Facebook and how much she depended on it for specific information. I was disturbed by the idea that my world was beginning to revolve around Facebook. What a terrible development.
At this point, I’m still locked out of Facebook. I’m not sure how long I’ll be locked out; could be a month or more. I don’t know how these things work.
Although I thought it was a bad experience, I am beginning to realize that it was a good experience. Sometimes the best part of life comes out of the worst experiences we have. God delights in revealing himself in the dark shadows of our human experience.
I thought of a New Testament verse: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and I say to you again: Rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is near.”
(Philippians 4:4-5).
Each experience gives me a new opportunity to rejoice in the Lord. My joy certainly does not come from Facebook but from Christ.
