SMILE!

I have been thinking about smiling lately.  I’ve begun to look around and notice if people are smiling or not.  Mostly we are not!  If you look around a bus or a shopping center, a meeting or people walking on the street.  Mostly we are head down, meant for business. 

I have been reading this tiny book “Mindfulness on the Go” by Jan Chozen Bays.  In it she details dozens of little practices one might adopt to live a more mindful life.  We’ve all heard that smiling is good for us.  That it takes more muscles to frown than to smile.  Yet, I find that I catch myself not smiling a lot!  I have begun to notice people in my life who DO smile – who seem to have a default facial expression of a slight smile.  I find that it happens I like all of these people!  I’ve decided I want to smile more! 

There is a piece of me that resists this – that feels like it would be “fake” to smile.  But then it becomes a chicken and egg thing.  Do I smile because I am happy or does smiling help me to feel happy?  You’ll have to answer that for yourself.  There is a lot of research about smiling.  Babies do it inherently.  They don’t have to be taught.  Smiles are more or less contagious.  When I see someone else smiling, I am more inclined to smile myself.  And I ask myself, wouldn’t I rather go through life with a smile, than not? 

In this little book Bays suggests that for one week you “allow yourself to smile”… meaning just be aware of whether or not you are smiling.  (Like, for instance right now – can you let yourself smile while you read this?)  And when your awareness comes around, SMILE.  When you pass a mirror or a store window, check to see if you are smiling.  It doesn’t have to be a Cheshire cat grin – just a softening and a slight smile will count!  Or, you can pick something you do regularly, like switch on your computer, answer the phone, go through a doorway.  Try putting on a soft smile each time you do this – for a week.   Let’s see if we can put some more joy out into the world by this simple practice!!  Simple, yes.  Profound, perhaps!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving brings all sorts of memories in its wake. 

All those meals with beloveds – no matter what. 

Always the turkey (except the one year when we were vegan and decided on Tofurky – but that’s another topic). 

Always Uncle B‘s pumpkin pie, and

Grandma Elaine’s special potatoes.

Always the ‘too much’ of it all and yet,

also the precarious pleasure of that fullness. 

That reliable togetherness where we remember

what it means to be human.  To belong. 

Even when the toddlers throw the food,

and the dog snatches a bite and even when

there are empty chairs, even when

it takes all day to prepare and is eaten in a half hour. 

It is all held in the frame of family. 

And it always ends, as it should,

with that same last sweet bite of pie.

Reminding us that we have come once again to this table

with our imperfect selves ---

yet there is a larger perfection that holds us here together.

            Thanksgiving 2025.

Belief

I recently read a wonderful article by the Irish poet and theologian, Padraig O’Tuama where he talked about belief and how he says he lives in the “room next door” to God.  This got me thinking about my own answer to the question. “Do you believe in God?” 

This is always a tricky question to answer – for any of us.  What does the word “believe” mean?   What does the word “God” mean?  Like O’Tuama, I sort of like living next door to the question.  I want to check in now and then, to remain friendly, yet I don’t place myself easily in the column of “believers”.  I have come to calling myself a non-theist… which sort of conveniently skips around the question.  I once wrote a paper entitled “Circling Around the Dream of a God”.

The fact is that there are many questions that I spend more time pondering than the question of my belief in a God.  How do I live close to the highest vision of my life?  What sustains me when I am experiencing difficulty?  Whose hands are God’s hands?  How can I open my heart more readily?  What matters?  How can I put my feather weight on the scale of justice?  etc.etc.

I have written a couple of poems about this which I offer you.  Would like to hear your comments about where the word God lands in your life.

There are many of us

who live next door

to holiness.  Perhaps

it is more common

than you’d expect.

Rain falls.

The sun comes out.

Disaster befalls.

Cures happen.

Because we live

in this miraculous

natural world

which I do

believe in.

~Penny Hackett-Evans

THE GOD TOO VAST

The God too vast

to be captured

in the cage of a word

interests me.

The God living

beneath words.

Living in the cave

of my own heart

simultaneously

in vastness

beyond knowing.

Silent holiness evident

everywhere

yet impossible to grasp.

To that God

it’s hard to pray.

I need to hold

a smooth stone

a feather, a shell,

or feel my own heartbeat

as a doorway

to that God.

So intimate,

 vast,

silent,

so hard to pin down.

~Penny Hackett-Evans