By Rev. Janet Stobie
Love, Laughter, Humility and Justice Can Grow a Garden of Peace.
When I listen to the news today, I feel like the darkness that covered the earth before creation is creeping back. What gifts can we give our children and grandchildren to strengthen their ability to turn back this tide of fear and destruction? Can we enable them to carry the light of love until that light floods the entire earth?
Madeline L’Engle suggests the best gift we can give them is “laughter, a gift for fun.” Walter Farquharson and Ron Klusmeier offer the same message in their hymn, “Give to Us Laughter,” number 624 in “Voices United,” the United Church Hymnbook.
I believe God has given each one of us that gift of laughter. We just need to learn how to let go and use it. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Aristotle said laughter is one of the defining aspects of our humanity.
For the first two years of his life, every time I rocked our great-grandson, Riley to sleep, I prayed that he would use his gift of laughter. I have a recording of him, laughing his deep belly laugh when he was just 18 months old. Now age five, his laugh comes easily as he delights in so many things. Riley brings joy to all he meets. Such laughter gives us strength and peace.
To Madeline L’Engle’s gift of laughter, I would add the gift of knowing we are loved so we can love others. That is the goal of all my writing. I believe we are all loved by God. We are God’s precious children. Regardless of race, creed, economic status, nationality or gender identification, we are all loved by God. Once we know in the depths of our hearts that we are loved no matter what, the freedom to love others grows within us.
The third learning, sometimes the hardest, is humility. Living gratitude for being alive, realizing that we, or I, or those like us are not the centre of the universe, makes a huge difference in our acceptance of others. The Bible says it so very well: Loving God,
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is humankind that you are mindful of us, human beings that you care for us?” (Psalm 8:3,4 NIV)
That confidence in loving and being loved, that humility, brings with it the desire for justice for all people. Desire for justice by itself can foster hatred. Justice is not defined by one person’s idea of fairness. We see that in the gruesome dark war between Israel and Palestine. Both sides desire justice for their people, but the leaders lack love and laughter and humility to temper their actions. Vengeance reigns. It takes humility to recognize that justice is not achieved at another’s expense. The darkness in this world is a spawning ground for frustration, pain and cruelty. The more we open ourselves to love and laughter, the more passionate we become about justice for all people, all God’s precious children.
Love, laughter, humility and justice, these four together bring light in abundance to our world.
What better teaching can we offer our children and grandchildren? If they experience and learn love, laughter, humility and Justice in their homes, they will be prepared to live well in a world-garden of peace.