Smile in Your Liver

I haven't written all summer much to my chragine. In part it is because summer is the busiest time to be a hospital chaplain, because it is the time when people spend the most time outside, riding bikes and motorcycles, climbing trees, and, yes, being violent toward each other. But summer is also the time when I slow down in other ways. This summer, I indulged in reading a number of books.

One of books that I liked the best was Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love." In this book, the writer goes to Italy to experience pleasure, India to experience prayer, and Indonesia to experience balance. In Indonesia, a wise man says that she must try meditating with a smile. In fact, he said to smile all through her body, even to "smile in her liver," that way "good energy will come to you and clean away the dirty energy."

The idea of smiling while praying struck me as a wonderful idea. I usually smile when I talk with other people, so why not smile when I talk to God. Somehow it seems silly, but it also has a kind of delight and carries the notion of smiling for no reason other than we are alive.

I think that living with a smile on your face is one of the best ways to find the fullness that we all want to find before we die. We all want find ways to "stop and smell the roses," or "whistle a happy tune" or sit in a sunbeam. We all want to find ways to let go of grief and sorrow and pain of the past. We all want to release the feelings of revenge and regret and remorse. I can think of no better way than to practice smiling all the way down to our liver.

Be blessed, Rev. Dori