“Thank you for your keynote. I sooo needed that. It was lighthearted. I laughed so hard. It was like a weight was lifted.”
Last week I finished two days at a conference with over 2000 attendees at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in the shadow of the Silicon Valley techno-leviathans. Here’s what I know: in a convention center bustling is a prerequisite. We were congregated to learn (to gather information and resources) — anything to improve our capacity and effectiveness in work or ministry (whether it be parish or school or para-church).
I’m all in favor of education. Of learning–new insights, and aha moments. However. . .if this educational / motivational meal only comes served on the platter of the pressure to achieve (and compare ourselves to those around us), then I wonder what we are really “learning.” Plato reminded us, “Whatever is honored will be cultivated.” Not what is taught or believed or learned. What is honored.
“We live like ill-taught piano students. So inculcated with the flub that gets us in dutch, we no longer hear the music,
we only play the right notes.” Robert Capon
Speaking of plates (and it’s very rare that I stick with the same metaphor in one column, let alone in two paragraphs), all of these attendees have come with plates full. Our lives are full. . .with obligations, expectations, job requirements (many obliged to attend for “in service” credit), and tasks left undone.
And, delivering a “keynote” comes with the inherent expectation that the “content” will be “meaningful”–consequential and noteworthy. . .
So. I spoke about dancing. And I spoke about light. And the need to take ourselves a little less seriously. . .
Mirth is God’s medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Henry Ward Beecher
Inside of each of us is a dancer. But we’ve lost track of him or her, somewhere along the way. . .
“You are the light of the world,” Jesus said. Notice that he didn’t say, “You need to manufacture this light. You need to create this light.”
No.
Let, or allow. In other words, the light is already inside of you. Meaning? “Light shining” is about getting out of the way. And laughter is not a bad place to begin. . .
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion.
I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. Kurt Vonnegut
One Comment
I found myself writing that I would “try” to do more dancing and laughing, as if it was an assignment. Let me pause a moment. Instead, I will give myself permission to: sing out loud, laugh raucously, and even dance a two-step around the kitchen with my old man. Thanks, Terry.