 IN DEFENSE OF HAPPINESS - ANOTHER CATHOLIC VIEW *posted 02/18/07 |  On my morning walk a few weeks back, I bumped into a former colleague. Tom and I taught at the same high school for more than a decade. At our chance meeting, he asked me the same question he'd asked countless times before: "What are you smiling about?"
This has always been his signature opening line. For years he asked it each time we passed in the hallways at school or rubbed shoulders at the faculty mailboxes. So, when I met him on the street, I was neither surprised nor disappointed when, in a lightly jeering tone, he asked, "What are you smiling about?"
I answered him with the same response I'd always used: an even wider grin and a "And how are you today, Tom?"
Then I thought, the next time I run into Tom, next week, next year, or next decade, I need a better answer.
Why does Tom's question require an answer at all? Why do I feel that I need to excuse my irrepressible happiness?
We, the privileged, may feel some guilt for experiencing pleasure in a world where others struggle and suffer. And, being of good Catholic stock, perhaps my guilt is an ingrained response, not easily unlearned. But somehow, in the last while, I've gotten over some of my guilt and I'm feeling much less inhibited in expressing my joy at living.
So, Tom, here they are - the reasons that I'm smiling.
I'm smiling because this morning I saw a young man in the campus quad picking up litter - cheerfully, without being asked, and with no expectation of thanks.
Other scenes that evoke similar reactions in me include people stooping to help others recover dropped change in the grocery store check-out line, small children who guess my age at 18 (or 75), and harmless, culture-jamming graffiti.
I'm smiling because, despite the 'might makes right' ethic that underscores violent atrocities each day on the television news, I know that there are countless others who walk into the polling booth on election day, heads held high, and vote - sometimes for a sure loser - simply because they cannot in good conscience cast ballots for war, violence, and oppression.
I'm smiling because I have a grilled tofu, avocado and pimiento sandwich in my lunch. It's delicious, and practically no one will want a bite, even if I offer.
I'm smiling in wonder because it seems that the universe gets bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller at the same time. We live in this world of six billion-plus people where some feast while others starve, some celebrate while others mourn, and some sing while others cry out in anguish. I have the privilege of seeing, feeling, and sometimes even touching it all. As often as I weep at inequities and tragedies, I smile in fascination at the abundant life-force which sustains our earth.
I'm smiling because, at age 95, my dear friend and neighbour declared: "I do not want to live to be one hundred. It just sounds ridiculous to tell people that you are one hundred years old!" She's now 97 and still going strong. Here's to ridiculousness.
I'm smiling because I know that the people I love love me back. I am sometimes moody and aloof and opinionated and unforgiving and downright stubborn - and they love me anyway. Go figure.
I'm smiling because I do what I love. I study, I teach, I write, I speak and I am coming to an awareness that, in my own small ways, I can give something back - to God, to the universe, to others. I'm smiling because I know that this, too, is a privilege.
Mostly, I'm smiling because I can. I smile for Tom, and for all those like him, who just might smile back one day.
Catholic New Times, June 19, 2005 by Renee Bondy
Renee Bondy writes from Mitchell's Bay, Ont. and is a doctoral student at the University of Waterloo.
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