The Rule of St. Benedict October 8
This instruction about laughter is a difficult one to take seriously. Since when is laughter an enemy of the soul? But the tenth degree of humility is not simply "to not laugh." It is to "be not ready or quick to laugh." I have the image of a spring-loaded toy, compressed and waiting for the button to be pushed that releases a burst of energy. The instruction here is to keep the load off the spring. The tenth degree seems to follow from the ninth in that the loaded spring of ready and quick laughter can be another way we impose ourselves upon silence and compromise our hospitality to Spirit.
It is helpful for me to take a step back and think of this instruction as a part of the series of steps in Chapter 7. The intention of the steps, the rungs, is to cultivate a posture of humility in the soul. Humility is of central importance to our Father Benedict because it is the condition of the human soul through which God can speak and act in the world. Each rung on the ladder of humility, it seems to me, dismantles some egoic barrier to this flow of Divine action into and through our lives.
Furthermore, laughter is often put to uses other than a pure expression of delight. Habitual laughter can serve to guard our conversations from ever going beyond the polite. Such laughter can belittle or trivialize, which enables us to avoid honest, vulnerable engagement with a person. And without honesty and vulnerability there is no opening to Spirit.
Br. Chad 2012
I was thinking how I have used laughter to quell discomfort within my self and to change the focus of a conversation to another that wasn't, as I was supposing, singling me out with boney finger pointed.
ReplyDeleteI see this reason, at least for today, why I should not "be ready or quick to laugh."
This response for me is a conditioning of survival that I learned as a child, when an incident happened to me in which I had no experience of how to deal with it emotionally. So I probably copied the actions of another person in my life and just laughed. I felt better and more in control of the situation and a conditioning was born at that moment, that I have used since that time.
It is a trap of making fun of that which I do not understand, today. It is a finding of cute quips and one liners that help to shift the focus from what I am truly feeling to what, in my fearful self, I want others to think that I am feeling and thinking. The spoken phrase that often goes with this type of feeling or joking when another person inquires "How are you doing?," is "I'm Fine", with an attached bit of comedic banter, accompanied by a burst of laughter.
I learned that this worked in many other situations. I was living in the conditioning and not in being authentic. And this escape laughter being based on something I learned to lean on as a 5 or 6 year old.
Paul spoke of that when he was a child he acted as a child, did childish things, ate the food of a child. But when he became a man, he began to act as a mature adult, ate food of an adult nature.
For me, The Rule of St. Benedict is calling me to be a mature adult.
Laughter, hearty laughter is part of a full, whole life. This is the laughter of joy, love of family and friends, of surprise, exciting, and heart filled with the joy of doing the work of God. This is not the laughter of hiding from or not being honest about what I am authentically thinking or feeling at that moment. Each day God helps me to reveal my authentic self.
I learn this everyday.
You all are my Teachers,
Thanks,
Br. Rawleigh