A friend at the YMCA where I work has some struggles with his hip. Even so, he is regularly in the gym building muscle, the pain notwithstanding. He smiles on the way into the gym even though he is hurting.
He shared an observation with us at the front desk the other day. “You know,” he said, “it doesn’t take much to put a smile on your face!”
He noticed on this day how younger folks were all about the workout and focused more on what their earbuds were broadcasting than the people around them.
Tony Tench
“Some of them are a bit grumpy for having to get up and get here,” he said, “but have you noticed that gentleman who just came in? He’s like 92 years old and pushing a walker but he smiles at, and speaks to, everyone — just a pleasant guy!”
He went on to say, “For those of us over 50, we know we are in the last half of this life and one more day is a great gift. That 92-year-old is showing us how it ought to be done.”
While my friend called out younger people, the truth is folks of all ages get so wrapped up in their own worlds of ideas, politics, podcasts, anxieties and decisions that we often fail to acknowledge others around us.
His point is well taken. The older we get, the more we embrace the gift of a single day. And, with that embrace, we come to better appreciate the people with whom we interact each day.
“Election years make for good years to remember that we, each one of us, are still in charge of how we respond to people around us.”
Election years with their divisive, dismissive and disrespectful tones make for good years to remember that we, each one of us, are still in charge of how we respond to people around us. It may be hard to smile on some of these days, but it still doesn’t take much to put a smile on our faces. When we notice passersby, we are respectful of the image of God in every person and we love our neighbors as ourselves.
Theological debates can be equally frustrating, for sure. Some days there seems to be an increasing distance separating us from one another within the church. While Jesus prays for us to be “one,” there are days we cannot figure out how to be the answer to Jesus’ prayer.
Sarah McCammon’s word in Marv Knox’s recent article deserves more weight than American society and American Christianity wants to give it: “How do you live in a democracy without talking to each other? In some Christian spaces, there (is) a confined way to look at things. I craved the opportunity to participate in that (larger) dialogue.”
She points us toward dialogue with each other even on days when it has become harder and harder to put a smile on our faces and engage our brothers and sisters in conversation.
As my friend at the YMCA said, it doesn’t take much to create personal, caring, thoughtful interactions with our neighbors.
Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher who challenged the church of his day, suggested a “re-set” when he described how we often relate to one another. He posited that we often see others through the lens of our preferences. We relate to people because they meet our preference in some way — same theology, same politics, same choices. But when we do that, we are really loving ourselves since our preferences filter our community.
“When we engage people because of God’s love, then politics, values, beliefs are not what bring us together, or drive us apart.”
Instead, Kierkegaard argued, we should see others through the lens of God’s presence and love. When we engage people because of God’s love then politics, values, beliefs — as important as these are to us all — are not what bring us together, or drive us apart.
Further back in time than Kierkegaard’s day, African cultures described the “re-set” with this bit of wisdom: Munthu ndi munthu chifukwa cha anzake — “a person is a person because of his neighbor.” We are not meant to go it alone in life as individuals, as parties, as groups of various kinds. Rather, we are here for each other.
We are, by our common humanity, compelled to find a smile that might just redirect the tone of our conversations.
For disciples of Jesus, the “re-set” challenge goes back even further to the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ call to live as salt and light in the world. Salt on popcorn, and the sunrise of a new day, will bring a smile to your face. How much more will relationships savor and shine with a smile because of “Christ in us, the hope of glory.”
The early church kept this “re-set” call resounding. Paul’s “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” is all about intentional engagement. The writer of Hebrews wants us to be sure to “make every effort to live in peace with everyone and …. see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.”
Maybe that first century word is easier said than done, but if it is ever going to be accomplished it should be by Jesus’ disciples.
On every new day it is our challenge, as Paul put it to the Corinthian church, to “show mercy cheerfully.”
Paul’s Greek word choice we translate as “cheerfully” is the basis of the word “hilarity.” The mercy with which the Spirit leads us to meet the day, and the people we encounter therein, is mercy underlined by the smile on our faces.
One more day is a gift to share.
One more smile is the key to opening the gift.
It does not take much to put a smile on our faces and that smile could even make a space for one more conversation in view of God’s kingdom.
Tony Tench works with the Lakelands Region YMCA of South Carolina and is former pastor of First Baptist Church of Shelby, N.C., and interim pastor of Poplar Springs Baptist Church in Shelby. He and his wife, Janet, enjoy living near their daughter’s family and serving with them at NewSpring Church in Greenwood, S.C.