6
April 2001
Subject:
Call Me Crazy
Dear
Ones,
As we take another marble out of the jar this Saturday, we can thank our Maker for making us all a little crazy. Personally, I love it and wouldn't want it any other way! Think about it yourself and may all your Saturday's be delightfully crazy.
Don
CALL
ME CRAZY
Bangkok television used to air the American situational comedy "LaVerne and Shirley." For whatever reason, officials there believed that a disclaimer was necessary for the Thailand audience, so this subtitle was added to each episode: "The two women depicted in the following episode are from an insane asylum."
Personally, I'm thankful there is a little craziness in the world! And I don't mind not acting like everybody else. Like the irrepressible Leo Buscaglia once said: "I don't mind if people think I'm crazy. In fact, I think it's great! It gives me tremendous latitude for behavior."
It may seem like craziness to most people, but I try to be JOYFUL whenever possible. I believe that a joyful response is, more than anything, a habit, just as fear and worry are life-long habits. And maybe I can't be happy or rejoice FOR all things, but more and more, I'd like to learn to rejoice IN all things.
Like pleasure. There are too few opportunities for hearty laughter, so none should be passed up! I don't want to take the good that happens for granted.
And, if possible, I want to feel genuine happiness about those ordinary things and events which make up most of our days. The happier I am with everyday duties and responsibilities, the more grateful I am just to be alive.
But finally, I want to learn to be happy even in those difficult and trying times. I won't be happy FOR them (who likes problems?), just IN them. I need the soothing medicine of laughter when it hurts. I also know that at the other end of my problem is a lesson -- I'll emerge wiser, or maybe stronger, or perhaps a better person in any number of ways for having faced it successfully.
So call me crazy, but I want to learn to rejoice in all things. And I am just crazy enough to think it's possible!
-- Steve Goodier