CowPi Journal

I was asked by my principal to do the prayer for the first of our teacher meetings this week. She requested that it be connected to the theme for the school year, which happens to be an emphasis on the school’s mission statement. Fortunately we have a very good mission statement. In fact, the mission statement can easily be made a prayer with a slight rewording. I borrowed most of it for the third sentence in the second paragraph after the poem. Thank you Holy Spirit for helping me to write this.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man,

Help us this morning to pray like You, out of a sense of abundance, these words of your servant, St. John of the Cross, that seem so fitting for why we are here as a school community:

The flame of love
Grows as it is divided
It increases by being shared
From one, then two, then three
And darkness is transformed into glory
And the walls reflect its light
Share your flame!
Share the flame!

The Sisters of Mercy named this school after your mother to honor You. She was the first to say “yes” to sharing the Flame, to sharing You with the world.

The most important people in the world walk through our classroom doors. Help us to share the Flame, to share You, with them. Make us a deep faith community so that we may serve our students and their families with mercy and compassion.

We are in the learning business. Open us up to grace, the divine stimulus plan, so that we may create a profit for You.

It is all about You, Jesus.

We pray in Your most holy name. Amen.

In further reflection on the song “Laughing With” (see lyrics and this post), the word transcendence has popped into my head.

Paradox points to transcendence, to something more. To transcend means to rise above, to see more. It does not deny what is, it just gives a wider vision of what is, depth, a larger point of view.

Grace also perfects. It does not deny what is. It makes it perfect, makes real, transforms into reality. God’s point of view is reality, not ours. Our point view contains parts of what is real, but also contains much of our own projections, wants, and desires. (We see things how we want to see them, not always as they are.)

So, it makes me wonder. If God is love and a loving God lets people suffer, than maybe my definition of love and suffering are not completely right (real). After all, Jesus was/is God, and He loved/loves. He also suffered and died. He did not avoid what that song described. Do I expect better than what Jesus experienced in life?

There must be more to the meaning of love.

(Reminds me of this post.)

The song “Laughing With” is haunting me in a good way. When I searched for the lyrics yesterday, one of the first sites that came up was one of those song meaning sites. I read through some of the comments. Some were debating if the song was really about God or if it was a jab at atheists or a jab at a certain style of believer. Even the religion of the singer was discussed. Some comments went deeper in wondering about how and when their own attitude of God changes.

These levels need to be examined, but I left a somewhat different, and hopefully a much deeper comment:

I think the key [to understanding the song] is the title and its last line. Why would God laugh?

Figure that out and you will know why we are laughing with God.

I should have added, “…despite all that is referenced in the song.”

“Figure that out” may be a poor choice of words because it is not a problem to solve. It is a question and a mystery to live with, to grow deeper in understanding.

Obviously, God would not laugh at anyone, especially at the people who laugh at Him like those in the chorus. And God would not be laughing at or about the other situations concerning war, illness, poverty, etc. I can see a skeptic with a twisted image of a revengeful god laughing smugly at people when they prayed to Him in need, “Ha ha, now you call me! I knew you would.” This god is too small. It is not the image of Jesus.

Why God would laugh? The only insight I have to this question is joy. That’s all I got, and yet it seems to be more than enough. God would laugh because of joy.

And yet, the strength and shock of the song in my opinion is that joy is never mentioned or implied in the lyrics. (Laughing at cocktail jokes or put-downs is not real joy.) The contrast is so striking that it is paradoxical. This leads to another question with no earthly answer. Where is joy in all those desolate situations described in the song? It must be there. The song ends in a note of joy, “We’re all laughing with God”.

(For further thought, every saint recognized or sensed joy in all situations. That does not mean they were happy in times of desolation, but they never lost a sense of underlying joy in God’s presence. This must be true of every saint, or else they would not be a saint. This is often easier seen in the stories of martyrs.)

I have an answer, but to a skeptic it might appear as circular reasoning. What, or rather who, is the source of all joy? It is God. This now puts a heavy emphasis on the preposition with. (See previous parenthetical paragraph.)

Maybe that is another way to say what separates hell from heaven—those who choose to laugh with God and those who won’t?